CHAPTER IV 

 ON THE OCEAN WAVE 



IN these days of competitive examinations, super- 

 Dreadnoughts, and submarines, it is difficult to realize 

 what the Navy was like in the early part of last 

 century. For this reason a description of a midship - 

 man's entrance examination in the early fifties, with 

 a few details of his life at sea, is well worth reproducing. 

 Captain Gambier, in his reminiscences, 1 says: 'There 

 was no Britannia, or other training ship, in those days, 

 and immediately we passed we were pitchforked into 

 our ships. If the medical examination had not been 

 a farce, of course I should never have got into the 

 Service, for I was so short-sighted that I knew no 

 one across a dinner-table. But the examining doctor, 

 a beetle-browed, frousy old Scotchman, satisfied him- 

 self in respect of our sight by spreading out his fingers 

 within about ten inches of our nose. Then he jammed 

 a finger alternately into each ear, and, roaring in the 

 other, asked if we could hear. I said I could 

 hear quite plainly. After this he banged each boy 

 separately in the back, and then, producing from a 

 cupboard a thing like a foghorn, listened to our 

 breathing. Finally he started us all racing round the 

 room and skipping over the backs of chairs an 

 1 See Bibliography, 9. 



