there is surely high inspiration in the thought that of all the mighty civilizations that have emerged in these latter days, there is none that dare claim the comprehensive title given to this paper without fear of contradiction, save ourselves. for the function of the watchman is to keep the peace, to restrain lawlessness, to bring evil-doers to justice, and to hold himself unspotted from even the tiniest speck of injustice. at least these should be his functions, and if they seem to be counsels of perfection, the aiming thereat with persistent courage is continually bringing them nearer a perfect realization. and if this be so with individual watchmen, it is infinitely more so with those typical watchers of the empire, of whom i would now speak, the splendid, ubiquitous, and ever-ready british navy. it would be an uplifting exercise for some of us, widening our outlook upon life, and enlightening us as to the majestic part our country has been called upon to play at this wonderful period of the world’s history, if we were to get a terrestrial globe, a number of tiny white flags, and a list of positions of all our men-o’-war. then by sticking in a flag for every ship wherever she was stationed, or on passage at the time, we should have a bird’s-eye290 view as it were of the “beats” which our empire watchmen patrol unceasingly.
from end to end of the great middle sea wherein we hold but those dots upon the map, gibraltar and malta and cyprus, whose shores bristle with hostile populations, our stately squadrons parade, not on sufferance, but as a right, none daring to say them nay. their business is peaceful, although they have enormous force ready to use if need be, the duty of keeping britain’s trade routes clear, that the shuttles weaving the vast web of world-wide trade that we have built up may glide to and fro in security even though envious nations gnash upon us with their teeth, and vainly endeavour by every species of chicane and underhand meanness to rob us of the fruits of centuries of industry. in two mediterranean countries alone are our ships of war heartily welcome. italy and greece remember gratefully our constant friendship. italians of all classes are acquainted with the practical good-will of great britain, and so man-o’-war jack is sure of warm reception throughout that lovely country. not that the manner of his reception troubles the worthy tar at all. oh no. the keynote of the chorus that is perpetually being chanted in the british navy is duty. the word is seldom mentioned, but better than that, it is lived. it enables the sailor to spend unmurmuringly long periods of absolute torture under the blazing furnace of the persian gulf, an oven that while it burns does not dry; where the soaking dews of the night lie thickly upon the decks throughout the scorching day, and are not dispersed because the291 molten air is overloaded with moisture, and life is lived in a vapour-bath. here you will find the young men of gentle birth who govern in our fighting ships, forgetting their own physical miseries, in the brave effort to make the severe conditions more tolerable to the crews they command. do their dimmed eyes often in the steaming night turn wistfully westward to the cool green english country-side, where the old home lies embowered amid the ancestral oaks? why, certainly, but that does not make the young officer’s zeal any weaker, does not damp his ardour to sustain the great traditions which are the pride and glory of the service to which it is his greatest delight to belong.
or creep down the coast of east africa, throbbing, palpitating under that fervent heat glare, and see the st. george’s cross proudly waving over the sterns of the gun-boats set by britain to quell the bloodthirsty arab’s lust for slavery. here is manifest such devotion to an ideal, albeit that ideal is never formulated in so many words, as should stir the most prosaic, matter-of-fact minds among us. i well remember—could i ever forget?—a visit i once paid to h.m.s. london, sometime depôt ship at zanzibar. it was a privilege that i valued highly, not knowing then that with a high courtesy our country’s men-o’-war are always accessible at reasonable times to any citizen who would see with his own eyes how his home is defended and by whom. i was then mate of a trading vessel that had brought supplies from home for the use of the east indian fleet, and consequently my business took me on board the depôt ship often. first of all i was292 shown the hospital, a long airy apartment on the upper deck, kept as cool as science could devise in that burning climate, and fitted with all the alleviations for sickness that wise skill and forethought could compass. here they lay, the heroes of the long, long fight, the never-ending battle of freedom against slavery, the men who had left their pleasant land for service under the flag of england against a foreign foe; yes, and far more than that. for we know that they who fight in the deadliest combat with lethal weapons are upheld and swept onward by the fierce joy of strife; so that death when it comes is no terror, and fear vanishes under the pressure of primitive instincts. but here there is no glitter, no glamour of battle. forgotten by the world, unknown to the immense majority of their countrymen, these britons suffer and die that the fair fame of their country may live. there, in that miniature hospital, on board h.m.s. london, i saw rows of pale, patient figures, their faces drawn and parchment-like with fever, the deadly malaria of that poisonous coast, while amongst them passed silently doctors and sick-bay attendants, each doing his part in the universal warfare. passing thence on to the main deck, i came across a bronzed, busy group hoisting up a steam pinnace that had just returned from a cruise among the slimy creeks and backwaters of the mainland and adjacent islands, busily seeking for hunters of human flesh. a dozen men formed her crew, men who had once been white anglo-saxons, but were now, after a week’s cruise under such conditions as that, so disguised by ingrained dirt, so scorched and dried by exposure293 to that terrible sun, that they were indistinguishable save by their clothing from the arabs they had been set to watch. they were not happy, because having chased a dhow, which they were sure was packed with slaves, throughout a day and a night, they had been baffled upon coming up with her, by her hoisting the tricolour of france, the flag of liberty, equality and fraternity, sold for a few paltry dollars, to cover a traffic which the french nation had covenanted to assist in putting down. more than that, a deep gloom pervaded the whole ship on account of their recent loss; a loss which to them seemed irreparable. their captain, idolized by them all, had been killed while engaged in an act of gallantry, typical of the service. he had gone off like any sub-lieutenant with all his honours to win, in a chase after a dhow, with only a weak boat’s crew. the villainous arabs in the dhow, seeing their advantage, turned and fought desperately. outnumbered by five to one, and being moreover the attacking party, the britons were beaten off, while a shot from one of the antiquated guns carried by an arab slaver slew captain brownlow on the spot. and all his men mourned him most deeply and sincerely.
but cross over the indian ocean, and thread the tortuous ways of the east indian archipelago, and you shall find the beautiful white flag with its red cross flying in the most out-of-the-way nooks among that tremendous maze. here with never-ceasing labours the highly trained officers of our navy work with loving care to make perfect our geographical knowledge of those intricate current-scoured channels. by294 reason of this long-drawn-out toil our merchant ships are enabled to pursue their peaceful way with perfectly trustworthy charts to guide them. not only so, but, owing to the dauntless courage, energy, and perseverance of these nameless seafarers, those tortuous waters have been cleansed of the human tigers that had for so long infested them, swooping down upon hapless merchantmen of all nations, pitiless and insatiable as death itself. within the lifetime of men of middle age those seas were like a hornet’s nest. in every creek, estuary, and channel lurked portuguese, malay, and chinese pirates, the terror of the eastern seas. now, solely through the exertions of our countrymen, or by their good example putting heart into the chinese sailors, those waters are as safe as the english channel. so, too, have the coasts of china itself been purged of pirates, although there, since every chinese, of whatever grade, is a potential pirate or brigand given the opportunity, immunity from piratical raids is only purchased at the price of incessant vigilance. in the far eastern seas, however, our stalwart fighting sailors are more than mere keepers of the peace of britain, they stand between the crumbling celestial empire and the greed of the world.b ever ready in diplomacy as in war, and with a force always sufficient to command respect as well as breed envy, they make the might of our island nation felt in all the affairs of the far east.
b this sentence was written before the recent outbreak of hostilities in china.
cross the pacific, and on the western sea-board of295 our vast american possessions find a naval station fully equipped for the maintenance of a fleet so far from home. from thence the peace-keepers sally forth all over the length and breadth of northern oceania and all down the western littoral of the great american continent, a mobile body of peace-keepers, whose business it is to keep widely opened eyes upon all the doings of other people, no matter how great or how small they may be. hailed with delight by dusky populations, who hate impartially the germans and the french, and look upon the war-canoes of the great white queen of belitani as the adjusters of disputes and the even-handed dispensers of justice between them, dreaded by the rascaldom of the pacific; the robbers of men’s bodies as well as the robbers of their produce, truly the lads under the white ensign have a wide field in the “peaceful” ocean for their beneficent labours. guarding that greater england in the southern seas, where men of every nation under heaven find the same security, the same opportunities to grow rich that men of our own race enjoy, clustering closely around that storm-centre (in a double sense), the cape colony, patrolling western africa, as well as eastern, and ready at a word to send off a compact little army into the interior, mobile and manageable as no shore troops can ever be; among west indian islands, as warm and fruitful as the most northerly american station is cold and arid, the great patrol goes on.
one does not need to be a rabid imperialist or a raving jingo to feel in every fibre of his frame the debt296 that we britons owe to our navy. these brave, stalwart men, the very pick and flower of the british race, stand continually on sentry on all the shores of all the world—stand to guard our freedom, and, so far as one nation may do, strive to secure freedom for all other peoples. we see but little of them, for their parades are not held amid shouting crowds, but on the lonely waters, under an admiral’s eye, keen to discover defects where all seems to an untrained observer perfection of power and movement; their greatest deeds, done by steady presentation of an unmistakable object-lesson to our enemies—that is to say, to a full half of the world, bursting with envy at our comfort and prosperity—are hidden from most of us.
in god’s name, then, let us see that we do not forget, amid the security and plenty that we enjoy, the labours of those who are watching, far out of our sight, to see that these blessings are not filched from us. let the officers and men of the royal navy see that they are ever in our thoughts, that out of sight out of mind is not true in their case, but that stay-at-home britons are fully conscious that the outposts of our empire, the piquets of our power, are in very truth to be found on board the ships of the royal navy, the watchmen of the world.
