26 OCTOBER 1918, Page 22

H.M.S. —. By Klaxon. (W. Blaokwood and Sons. 6s. net.)

—Many readers of Blackwood will be glad to know that " Klaxon's " very clever sketches of life in the Navy in war time have been collected into a volume, and those who have not read them in the magazine will do well to read them now. " Klaxon " shows great ingenuity and neatness in his handling of a short story. The first item, for example, describes the trip of a professor in a sea- plane over the North Sea five years hence, when, by a geological convulsion, it has become once more a muddy plain bestrewn with the wrecks of torpedoed ships and sunken submarines. But we like the book mainly for its fresh and lively reflections of the

mind of the Navy, which is set on a clean victory. Klaxon's " sketches are interspersed with verses, some of which are very good.