THE NAVY ETERNAL

 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 The Navy Eternal

The Navy Eternal

 WHICH IS THE NAVY-THAT-FLOATS THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES AND THE NAVY-UNDER-THE-SEA BY “BARTIMEUS”  Drawings by DOUGLAS SWALE HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. DEDICATED TO Captain GORDON CAMPBELL, V.C., D.S.O., Royal Navy. 

Drawings by

Captain

Royal Navy

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

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PROLOGUE

Anyone familiar with the River Dart knows the Mill Creek. The hills on either side slope steeply down to the edge of the water, oak and beech and elm clustering thick on the one hand, red plough, green shoots, and golden corn-fields alternating on the other through all the changing seasons.

Anyone

The creek is tidal, transformed at half-flood into a fair expanse of shimmering water; at low tide, however, it dwindles to a score of meagre channels winding tortuously through whale-backed mudbanks, the haunt of scurrying crabs and meditative heron.

Here, one afternoon in midsummer some dozen years ago, came a gig (or, in local parlance, a “blue-boat”) manned by seven flannel-clad cadets from the Naval College. Six sat on the thwarts pulling lazily against the last of the ebb. The seventh sat in the stern, with the yoke-lines over his shoulders, refreshing himself with cherries out of a bag.

As 

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