the Service with the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, but owing to an unexpected decision on the part of the First Lord to cut down that part of the Service his offer had been declined.  

Just then Sinclair, the duty-sub for the First Dog Watch, came on deck, and Dacres, freed from his responsible duty of doing nothing in particular, made his way below to the gun-room.  

There the conversation was mainly upon the bumptiousness of the flagship. Dacres said little, but thought the more. After a while he went to the half-deck and knocked at the Gunnery Lieutenant's cabin door. He was there for nearly an hour, at the end of which time he applied for leave till eight bells (noon) on the following day. This he obtained without difficulty, then changing into mufti he went ashore.    

CHAPTER II.

THE FRENCH INSTRUCTOR.

  SINGAPORE in the year 1919 was a very important naval station. During the last six or seven years it had undergone great changes. The practical abandonment of a powerful war-squadron on the China Station, owing to the understanding with Japan, had led to a decline in the greatness of Hong-Kong as a base. And what Hong-Kong had lost Singapore had gained—with compound interest. Henceforth that little island at the extreme south of the Malay Peninsula was to be the greatest British naval station on the portals of the Pacific.  

Additional docks, capable of taking the largest battleships afloat, had been constructed, with smaller basins for submarines, of which twelve of the "C" class and six of the "D" type were stationed there. Bomb-proof sheds for seaplanes had been built, and the whole defended by modern forts armed with the most up-to-date and powerful guns.  

At half-past eight on the morning following the event recorded in the first chapter a signal was made from the dockyard to the flagship of Rear-Admiral Maynebrace. It read: "Commander-in-Chief to 'Repulse': French instructor will proceed on board at four bells. Please send boat to meet him at Kelang Steps."  

The receipt of this message was duly acknowledged and then communicated through the manifold yet proper channels to the gun-room, where the midshipmen received it with ill-concealed disgust.  

They had planned a picnic along the well-kept country road that, fringed on either side by unbroken avenues of fruit-trees and luxuriant palms, led to the 

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