But now in September the fear of ihe submarine actually coming into the harbours and attacking the sleeping ships laid its pressure on every responsible mind.
At this time, therefore, while me: sures of netting the northern har hours with anti-submarine obstructions were being pressed forward with feverish activity, the Grand Fleet was encouraged to change its anchorages at frequent and uncertain intervals.
The. solitary condition of their safety was that not one single enemy should know where they were and that they should not remain in any one place long enough for anyone to find out, We were, therefore, passing sion. through a period of exceptional ten-
I had occasion to visit the Fleet in order to discuss personally with the Commander-in-Chief these and other urgent problems, and one evening in the middle of that trying September, I travelled from London in a special train -with several high officers and technical authorities from the Admiralty.
Our train pulled up at daybreak at a; wayside station somewhere in the Highlands, and from here a motor trip of 50 or 60 miles would take us to the bay on the West Coast in which the Grand Fleet was at that moment sheltering—one cannot refuse to say "hiding"—from a danger which. though exaggerated by our imaginations, was also terribly real, and potentially fatal.
We started off by motor in a clear, delicious autumn morning, myself, my naval secretary, the Director of Intelligence, and a Flotilla Commodore.
At last the road went winding downwards round a purple hill, and before us far below there gleamed bay of blue water in which rode at anchor, outlined in miniature as in a plan, the 20 dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts on which the command of the seas depended.
The "vessels were painted for the first. time in the queer mottled fashion which marked the early beginnings of the science of camouflage. The whole scene bursting thus suddenly upon the eye and with all its immense significance filling the mind, was one which I shall never forget.
Gathered together in this solitude and narrow compass was the floating steel city with its 30 or 40,000 inhabit ants upon whose strength, loyalty, courage, and devotion our lives and freedom, and as we may perhaps assert still, the freedom of the world, from minute to minute depended.
Last night not a vessel had been there; tomorrow morning perhaps the bay would again be empty; but today the vital and all-powerful instrument of the world v posing on its bosom.
"What would the German Emperor give," I said to my companions, "to see this?
"He would have to get the news back," said the Commodore, "if he w to do any. good with it."
"And then," added the Admiral, "it would tal about 48 hours before anything could get at us."
"But," I persisted, drawn on by the sombre current of reflection. "suppose a submarine flotilla were lurking about behind some of the islands, and suppose a Zeppelin r and saw the Fleet, could em and lay them on at once "By day," was the reply, "she would fe seen and we should put to by night she would probably not see The whole coast is full
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.