"
"That must have been a sight," I said.
"One didn't notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don't like to
concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
Continent jumpy. Otherwise," said Kyd, "I believe we could get two hundred
thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide."
"What d'you want with so many?" I asked.
"_We_ don't want one of 'em; but the Continent used to point out, every
time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years some
genius discovered that it cut both ways, an' there was no reason why we,
who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should not
organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
Volunteers--they were getting rather sick of manoeuvres on dry land--and
since then we haven't heard so much about raids from the Continent," said
Bayley.
"It's the offensive-defensive," said Verschoyle, "that they talk so much
about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent--bless 'em! They insisted on
it so."
"No, we learned it from the Fleet," said Devine. "The Mediterranean Fleet
landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty minutes once
at manoeuvres.
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