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GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

block slid back into place, and I walked forth humbly into the outer air.

Here I took leave of my Midshipmite, who stood among a crowd of his fellows to watch me down the gangplank, and I followed whither I was led very full of thought, as well I might be, until rousing, I found myself on the deck of that famous Warspite, which our foes are so comfortably certain lies a shattered wreck off Jutland. Here I presently fell into discourse with a tall lieutenant, with whom I went alow and aloft; he showed me cockpit, infirmary and engine-room; he showed me the wonder of her steering apparatus, and pointed to the small hand-wheel in the bowels of this huge ship whereby she had been steered limping into port. He directed my gaze also to divers vast shell holes and rents in her steel sides, now very neatly mended by steel plates held in place by many large bolts. Wherever we went were sailors, by the hundred it seemed, and yet I was struck by the size and airy spaciousness between decks.

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