Number 3 was lying on his back on the thwart, his head resting on the gunwale. “They’ll never come to anything,” he said. “The submarine’s a failure.” His eyes{20} followed the flight of a white-winged gull that circled with outstretched wings far above their heads. “No. It’s going to be in the air, when we have a war. I’m all for flying machines....” He was silent awhile meditating, then turned his head quickly. “Bombs!” he said. “Fancy being able to drop bombs all over an enemy’s country.”
{20}
“You couldn’t do it,” said Number 2. “You’d go killing women and civilians. They’d never let you.”
“Who?” demanded the prospective aviator, his enthusiasm rather damped. “Who’d stop me?”
“International Law,” cut in the coxswain quickly. “Conventions and all that.... Why, there’d be no limit to anything if it weren’t for international law. An enemy could go off in his beastly submarine and paralyse the trade routes.”
“Paralyse ’em—how?” inquired the bow man.
“Just torpedoing ’em, of course, you ass.”
“What, merchant ships?”
The jurist nodded.
“But no one could do that. I mean you’d never get a naval officer to do that, international law or no international law. That ’ud be piracy—like those fellows at Algiers. ’Member the lecture last week?{21}”
{21}
“I don’t mean we’d do it,” conceded the coxswain. “But some nations might.”
The idealist shook his head. “No naval officer would,” he repeated stoutly, “whatever his nationality.”
“The surface of the sea’s good enough for me,” chipped in No. 2. “I don’t want to bomb women or torpedo merchant ships. I’m going to be captain of a destroyer.” He raised his head. “Thirty knots at night, my boy!... Upper-deck torpedo tubes and all that....”
“I’d blow you out of the water with a 12-inch gun,” said Number 5, speaking for the first time, and laying aside a magazine. “Gunnery is going to save this country if ever we have a war. That’s why gunnery lieutenants get promoted quickly—my governor told me so.”
“Did he?” said the stroke oar. “He’s wrong. You can only fire big guns from big
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