Battles With The Sea

CHAPTER ONE.

HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND ROCKET.

SKIRMISHES WITH THE SUBJECT GENERALLY.

It ought to be known to all English boys that there is a terrible and
costly war in which the British nation is at all times engaged. No
intervals of peace mark the course of this war. Cessations of
hostilities there are for brief periods, but no treaties of peace. "War
to the knife" is its character. Quarter is neither given nor sought.
Our foe is unfeeling, unrelenting. He wastes no time in diplomatic
preliminaries; he scorns the courtesies of national life. No
ambassadors are recalled, no declarations of war made. Like the Red
Savage he steals upon us unawares, and, with a roar of wrathful fury,
settles down to his deadly work.

How does this war progress? It is needful to put and reiterate this
question from time to time, because new generations of boys are always
growing up, who, so far from being familiar with the stirring episodes
of this war, and the daring deeds of valour performed, scarcely realise
the fact that such a war is being carried on at all, much less that it
costs hundreds of lives and millions of money every year.

It may be styled a naval war, being waged chiefly in boats upon the sea.
It is a war which will never cease, because our foe is invincible, and
we will never give in; a war which, unlike much ordinary warfare, is
never unjust or unnecessary; which cannot be avoided, which is conducted
on the most barbarous principles of deathless enmity, but which,
nevertheless, brings true glory and honour to those heroes who are ever
ready, night and day, to take their lives in their hands and rush into
the thick of the furious fray.

Although this great war began--at least in a systematic manner--only
little more than fifty years ago, it will not end until the hearts of
brave and generous Britons cease to beat, and the wild winds cease to
blow, for the undying and unconquerable enemy of whom we write is--the
Storm!

"Death or victory!" the old familiar warwhoop, is not the final war-cry
here. Death is, indeed, always faced--sometimes met--and victory is
often gained; but, final conquests being impossible, and the "piping
times of peace" being out of the question, the signal for the onset has
been altered, and the world's old battle-cry has been exchanged for the
soul-stirring shout of "Rescue the perishing!"

Though our foe cannot be slain, he can, like the genii of Eastern story,
be baffled.

In the days of old, the Storm had it nearly all his own way. Hearts,
indeed, were not less brave, but munitions of war were wanting. In this
matter, as in everything else, the world is better off now than it was
then. Our weapons are more perfect, our engines more formidable. We
can now dash at our enemy in the very heart of his own terrible
strongholds; fight him where even the boldest of the ancient Vikings did
not dare to venture, and rescue the prey from the very jaws of death
amid the scenes of its wildest revelry.

Battles With The Sea