the blades leaping out in a level Returns and Correspondence, wave of steel was marred for on the other hand, deal with an instant. The Sergeant In- the matter in considerable destructor said nothing. There tail. They particularise the was a pause while he eyed the width of margins, and give delinquent in utter silence, his explicit directions as to how face expressionless, and they papers are to be fastened towent on to the next movement. gether-together with a wealth The spectators' blood ran cold. of minutiæ connected with what So with the chapter on Royal is called "paper work." There Marines. is an elaborate meticulousness about the whole chapter not equalled even in the orders about magazines and shellrooms. The officers and non-commissioned officers shall exercise command agreeably to their respective ranks," we read, and look in vain for the prohibitions and admonitions with which the rest of the Regulations resound. It is all very "agreeable," like the voice of that Sergeant Instructor; very brief-so brief that it seems out of all proportion to the great tradition of the Corps and the part they play in Naval Organisation. It is significant of the former that the first force despatched to China during the recent crisis was composed of Royal Marines, of the latter that when serving afloat they are still invariably messed between the officers and the seamen. One presumes that even Royal Marines, being human, err sometimes. When they do their officers and non-commissioned officers just look at them in silence-as long as they are in the public eye. What happens afterwards is their own affair. That is why the chapter which the Royal Marines have contributed to the K.R. & A.I., which any one read, is quite a short one. can Now paper work in the Navy is a dire and terrible thingmore terrible, in fact, than the spoken word, and, dear knows, that can be frightful enough, more potentially devastating even than the magazine. We will suppose that one Snooks, a perfectly harmless, athletically inclined young officer, invents something. Possibly he stumbles upon his discovery while taking the engine of his motor-bicycle to pieces. Or it may be that he thinks of it in his bath, and calls down upon his head the wrath of his messmates by buying up one of the only two available baths beyond his allotted time. Very well. He ruminates over his idea for a while, and finally approaches his captain with a rather garbled story and a lot of little bits of metal or wire or squared paper or whatever is the basis of the invention, and proceeds to elaborate verbally. The Captain, having promised to take his daughter to The instructions relating to pick bluebells, it being her 66 Ay, ay, sir," assents the inventor doubtfully, and sets off to the ship's office, where he borrows a dozen sheets of foolscap, and retires to his cabin. Some hours later he emerges, but not quite the same Snooks. There is a slightly mysterious air about him, tinged with selfimportance. He approaches the Captain's Secretary and offers him a cocktail, which the latter accepts warily, with an eye on the scroll of foolscap clutched in Snooks' hand. "There's a little thing here," begins Snooks presently. "The Captain told me to write it. I'm not much of an expert at spelling and commas and that sort of rot. You might look through it some time and dot the i's. I don't know if the Captain wants it typed. . . ." Space forbids us to follow that letter through the offices of the Flagship, where it was plastered with Staff Minutes, exalted to the dignity of a separate pack labelled The Snooksophone-SECRET," finally despatched to the Admiralty in an imposing docket with a wealth of covering re and marks. Its progress through the Admiralty, albeit a measured one (during which Snooks forgot he had ever invented anything, and was intriguing to get appointed to China), resembled that of a snowball. By the time the dossier was a foot thick, and had been retrieved from a Department whose Head, being a little man, used it to augment his height by sitting on it, a sub-committee discovered that there was something in Snooks' invention. It was decided to issue a Handbook on Snooksophones, and as the man to write it was obviously Snooks, his appointment to command a gunboat in China was cancelled, and he was summoned to the Admiralty. gave him an office, a pot of ink and a pen, an abundance of crested foolscap, and a lady typist. Here they Snooks tried the pen and found the nib didn't suit him. Looked at the typist, and decided she did. He coughed nervously. "Do you mind if I dictate to you?" he inquired. "Not in the least," said she, speaking the truth, and drew her chair nearer to his desk. Er," said Snooks. 66 let's "Now, see. 'Handbook on Got that Snooksophones.' down? Right. Chapter one. Er-full stop. Er-just read out what you've written, will you?" But this is a digression from what I originally started to demonstrate, which was the catastrophic effects of putting dum to the Handbook, altering the title to Snooxophone, and that Snooks should go back that his typist should be a male. pen to paper in the Navy. Snooks, of course, got engaged to the typist; he even eventually finished the Handbook, to the Admiralty to write it. and having tasted blood-or He went, on the stipulation rather ink and lost all taste for seafaring in consequence, applied to go to the Staff College. He afterwards broke off his engagement to the typist because she insisted on his learning the Flat Charleston, and was sued for breach of promise. So much for Snooks. But the Handbook became a Secret Publication, and every ship in the Navy had a Snooksophone on trial, with orders to report on it monthly, and the correspondence on the subject multiplied as the sand grains on the sea-shore. Then it occurred to Snooks that calling his invention a Snooksophone sounded rather like self-advertisement, which he was all against. So he wrote another letter suggesting that it should be called a Snooxophone. This was approved by the Admiralty, who decreed that there should be an Adden Finally, some unfortunate Marine Officer in charge of the Confidential Books of a cruiser lost a copy of the Handbook and Addendum, and was tried by Court - martial under the Official Secrets Act. A bell rings seven times somewhere on deck, and the rattle of cups and saucers in the wardroom pantry suggests that it is time for tea. Let us retrieve the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, Volume I., from the deck, where it slipped while we dozed, and put it back on the shelf, which is the proper place for Regulations. Some day I think I would like to write some more about Snooks, who was beginning to interest me when I went to sleep. PROMOTION. BY SIR HUGH CLIFFORD, G.C.M.G. That "sun-dried bureaucrat," Sir Philip CHUCK that slain file on the scrap-heap; light my thrice-lit cigarette. So the last hand-stroke I'll do here's done at last! But to-night my heart is ravaged, and I'm “wild with all regret," As the minutes tick the "present" into "past.” Ah, the years by locusts eaten-years that never come again! How we clutch at them, like children chasing bubbles! But to-night their joys come back to me-forgotten all their pain, And our labours and our toils and strife and troubles. For behold, grim Death has come to me-me, quick with life and vigour ! Death as sure and harsh and cruel as Fate's self! And when the real thing happens, shall I find it any bigger? Ten words of cypher Offer YX post in Far Cathay. Yet now the thing is on me-now the hour to go has struck(And my fellows mark my soaring with kind eyes, Swearing loudly I've deserved it-not a word about my luck!) Why, there's not a torn root in me now but cries And bleeds and throbs and quivers, till I'm one big bag of woeI, who've cherished my ambitions with the rest, And wrought for them and fought for them, and pray'd the gods would know That my work was rather decent-at its best. But I didn't know "Promotion " was another name for Death, And that all the griefs our stricken death-beds hold For the dazed and panting wretches that lie struggling hard for breath, 'Spite their agonies and travails manifold, Are pale shadows of the grief by which to-night my heart is torn, That men can't feel like this with bodies utterly outworn Our Service is a strange one. You can't match it in the world, For it harnesses and holds you like a vice. Then suddenly you're taken and across the earth are hurled . . And watch your whole world vanish in a trice. All the work on which for years you've spent the best you have to give; All the knowledge you've been down to hell to get; All the schemes you've had the vanity to dream would wear and live: Every Minute that you rather hoped had met Some need and, if thereafter set on record for a while, Every thrust of spade, with elbow-grease, you've dug into a file Every friendship . . . there's the heart-break! All the folk you know and love The shipmates who with you have toiled and play'dAll, all are riven from you by the Powers up Above, Yet the order's just a thing to be obeyed. It's Death in Life, I tell you-this sudden tearing out And a thousand odds and trifles that I've hardly thought about A haunted man! From every side ghosts troop in from the night Of fights I've won and battles long ago; 66 Of the times I've made some bloomer and the times when I was right; But the faces hurt the worst that, to and fro, |