Lots of things he will change about automatically. At his age I had
small love for fire-crackers or explosives of any kind, but in two or
three years, and without any prompting, I became really expert in guns
and gunpowder. Try to get him to realize that the very highest form of
courage is to be afraid to do a thing--and do it!


AUGUST 3.

[Sidenote: U-boat score against destroyers is zero.]

Once in a while some one of us gets a torpedo fired at him, and only
luck or quick seamanship saves him from destruction. Some day the
torpedo will hit, and then the Navy Department will "regret to report."
But the laws of probability and chance cannot lie, and as the total
U-boat score against our destroyers so far is zero, you can figure for
yourself that they will have to improve somewhat before the Kaiser can
hand out many iron crosses at our expense.

[Sidenote: Picking up survivors.]

We had a new experience the other day when we picked up two boatloads of
survivors from the ----, torpedoed without warning. I will say they were
pretty glad to see us when we bore down on them. As we neared, they
began to paddle frantically, as though fearful we should be snatched
away from them at the last moment. The crew were mostly Arabs and
Lascars, and the first mate, a typical comic-magazine Irishman,
delivered himself of the following: "Sure, toward the last, some o' thim
haythen gits down on their knees and starts calling on Allah; but I sez,
sez I, 'Git up afore I swat ye wid the axe-handle, ye benighted haythen;