248 ALONGSHORE iv 



Admiralty notice or a new regulation ends each 

 hot discussion. They seem to grow to their 

 uniform so that they cannot wear civilian clothes 

 well. Even a service dialect is superimposed on 

 each man's native own, and so persistent a speech 

 as that of Devon becomes clipped instead of 

 lingered over. To go into the Navy is to leave 

 home in more senses than one. It is to become 

 In part a stranger in their own land, among their 

 own people. 



For well-grown youths the service is a bank to 

 which they can mortgage the best portion of their 

 lives in return for the means of life — shelter and 

 rations. It is a standby and a trap. It seduces 

 them young, and returns them smarter than they 

 were, but worse off than they might have been. 

 For the hardships of the Navy are not the hard- 

 ships of the longshore. It Is difficult to make the 

 change from one to the other; to turn from 

 disciplined work aboard ship to the haphazard 

 labour, the perseverance through Ill-luck, of 

 fishing. And the routine life of the Navy does 

 not teach men to put by during good seasons 

 against bad. They live as they go. When the 

 fish fail they cannot say, 'Us have see'd It afore, 

 an't us? An' will again. Just you hold on a 



