The two things responsible for such perversion in the navy are: first,
the herding of the male sex together and for long periods; second, the
mode of dress in which little boys begin their sea life. These are the
problems before which all others sink into utter insignificance. The
army and navy of Great Britain, is recruited very largely from the
slums of great cities. The most ignorant, the most brutal and most
immoral of mankind are drafted by the incentive of a better life than
they have ever known; but they are only changed outwardly. Their
nature, their habits of life, their mental make-up, does not change;
or, if it changes to the automatic action by which they become part
of a war machine they lose that individual freedom that is the boast
of the Anglo-Saxon race.

On the other hand, I must say that in all my contact with life, I have
never met nor been associated with a group of men more gentlemanly,
better educated, or whose total sum of right thinking and right living
was higher than that group of officers on that ship. I certainly
attribute a great deal of my quickening of mind to contact with them.




CHAPTER V

THE GORDON RELIEF EXPEDITION


The incarceration of Gordon in Khartoum was a matter of deep concern
to every soldier and sailor in the British Empire, particularly to