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54 'The poop's good enough for me,' says Twenty-Four (that is his station). 'Fine, light airy place, and we can get our ammunition handier than you can forward.'

'What's the use of that?' says he in charge of the bow guns. 'You've got those beastly deck torpedo-tubes just under you. Fancy a Whitehead smitten on the nose by one little shell. You'd go up.'

"So'd [sic] you. She'd blow the middle out of herself. If they took those tubes away we could have a couple more four-inchers there. There'd be heaps of room for their ammunition in the torpedo magazine.'

We are blessed with a pair of deck torpedo-tubes, which weigh about ten tons, and are the bane of our lives. Our class is a compromise, and the contractors have generously put in a little bit of everything. But public opinion (except the Gunner) is unanimous in condemning those dangerous and hampering tubes.

'Torpedoes are all rot on this class unless they're submerged. Two more four-inchers 'ud be a lot better. They're as handy as duck-guns. I say, did you see that last shrapnel of mine burst over the target? I laid it myself.' Twenty-Three looks round for applause, but the other guns deride.

'That's all luck,' says Twenty-One, irreverently. 'Mine burst just beyond. It would have been dead right for an end-on shot. It would have snifted her