1 MARCH 1940, Page 15

* * I experienced a Susan volunteer on Friday last

when from the Temple Gardens I watched the sailors swing along the Embankment, ' Ajax ' and `Exeter' flashed upon their caps. The crowds cheered, the steamers hooted, the children waved flags, and in my own throat (already raw with laryngitis) a large lump formed. My emotion was appropriate. These men had endured distant perils, had achieved echoing success, and had thereby conferred great benefits upon our difficult cause. They marched in triumph together by the great grey Thames, exchanging from time to time little side- glances of acute embarrassment, grinning sheepishly at some burst of renewed cheering, and in their simple minds still hung the memory of the blood, the thunder and the sun- shine of the Rio Plate.