250 ALONGSHORE iv 



as Sea Life in Nelson's Day. The discipline of 

 to-day, probably, with its multitude of careful 

 regulations, is more irksome, if less terrible, than 

 the happy-go-lucky violence of the past, when 

 men were put to death for small offences — and 

 then they couldn't grumble any more. Changes 

 in the service, however great and beneficial in the 

 long run, are changes from what men are at home 

 in to what they do not know; soft jobs have 

 tended of late years to become harder. Sea pay 

 has increased less than that of the other services; 

 for ordinary seamen it has not increased at all. 

 Nothing can remove the fundamental cause of 

 grumbling, that neither one and sevenpence a day 

 nor any other sum is sufficient for being killed in 

 an infernal floating machine by devilish explosives, 

 should that happen. It is all very well to die for 

 one's country, but if one is to be paid for 

 the same, the pay should be adequate; and that 

 cannot be. In the end, one begins to think that 

 a good deal of the grumbling is not so much at the 

 Navy as at life itself with the Navy as scapegoat. 

 And yet. In spite of all they say. If I had my 

 time over again, I think It Is In the Navy I would 

 be (I doubtless should soon regret It) ; not for 

 wanting to do their routine work, not for wishing 



