Arthur Machen

“ An drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.
Sir Henry Newbolt. We wake sometimes from dreams uttering strange phrases, murmuring incredible things. At the moment of waking, for some ineffable instant of time, the words we speak, or perhaps think we speak, seem to us full of illumination. To every one who speculates at all as to the heights and depths of the soul, there comes at very rare moments—there are not, perhaps, more than half-a-dozen such experiences given to any man's lifetime—the sense of the true world which lies beyond this dark place of images and shadows ”

“ Sailors are generous men to all, but more especially to other sailors. There is a brotherhood of the deep, which surpasses the bounds of nations, and our navy could not believe that the German sailors would give up their ships without fighting; even though the fight might be a hopeless one for them. Consequently, on the morning of November 21st, 1918, the British Navy awaited the enemy in a state of mind that is hard to describe. The surrender of the German fleet, they all knew, had been demanded and granted ”

“ All the while the British fleet was closing round the German fleet, coming to anchor in a square about it so that the German ships were hemmed in. And all the while that this was being done, the noise of the drum was heard at intervals, beating in rolls. All who heard it are convinced that it was no sound of flapping stays or any such accident. The ear of the naval officer is attuned to all the noises of his ship in fair weather and in foul; it makes no mistakes. All who heard knew that they heard the rolling of a drum. ”