they will run into _a² + b² + c_ cruisers. At this point, the equation
generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the
whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may
call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the
comparisons: the Grand Fleet is the "strong left" ready to give the
knock-out blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up.
The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar
plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the
"blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn
as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive
at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.

The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he
sees a chance, and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with
intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a
fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it
is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of
draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship
of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man
observed thoughtfully: "You can't look at any water now without seeing
'Lusitania' sprawlin' all across it. And just think of those words,
'North-German Lloyd,' 'Hamburg-Amerika' and such things, in the time
to come. They simply mustn't be."

He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after
many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. "I never
thought I'd like killin' men," he reflected. "Never seemed to be any
o' my dooty. But it is--and I do!"

A great deal of the East Coast work concerns mine-fields--ours and the