SEA-HOUNDS.*
" DoN'T try a frontal attack on him. Just saunter along and start talking about anything else on earth than Jutland and the ' Killarney' and then lead him round by degrees." By following this sound advice the author of Sea-Hounds has gleaned a number of first-rate yarns of submarine-hunting all the world over during the Great War. To him the fighting seaman, always a shy bird, unburdened his soul in the stokehold of a destroyer skirting the rocky coast of Cassandra, or seated under • Sea-Hounds. By Lewis B. Freeman, Lieutenant, B.N.V.It. London : Cassel, [es.]
the lee of a funnel in the inky blackness of a North Sea night. The way in which Mr. Freeman extracted from Melton A.B." an account of his share in the magnificent exploits of Fire- brand,' in the dog-fight which concluded the battle of Jutland, by means of heavy bribes of American candy, is delightfully told. Several of the stories deal with adventures of American destroyers, and in the chapter entitled " Q " there is an en- thralling account of the first experiment in submarine-catching by means of the great ruse of " the baby," given in the words of its American originator. Incidentally the author has some shrewd comments to make on the points of difference and of
resemblance between the personnel of the two Navies, American and British, and on the British-American Entente generally.
Though the book is very good stuff and quite worth reading from cover to cover, we cannot forbear quoting in this connexion the following pleasant and naive advice offered by a young American sailor who had been entertained in an English country house to another of his countrymen whom he had recommended to the same hospitality :—
" You'll find," he said, " that they don't seem to have any great grudge 'gainst us for licking them and going on our own in '76 ; but go easy on rubbing it in just the same, 'cause you're a guest in the house. Best forget the Revolution while you're Over here. That scrap was more'n a hundred years ago, and we've got another on now. Half the people you meet here never heard of it, anyhow, and when you mention it to them they think you refer to another Revolution in France which came off about the same time."
There is more in this advice, however, than mere naivete,
and the wisdom of the policy of " forgetting the Revolution " is already abundantly visible in the good fruit of a better
under standing.
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