Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/56

40 division of the fleet was trying to do to the other. Unfortunately none of these learned dissertations on naval strategy ever seemed to agree, and the eager questioners went back to  their watching rather more puzzled than before.

Two young naval officers were actually quartered at the Appledore Hotel, but they spent all their time observing the ships’ movements from the highest point of the island, or  signalling from one of the headlands. When they could be stopped and questioned they seemed to display such pitiful ignorance  alongside of the fluent knowledge of the lecturers on the wharf that it hardly seemed  worth while to ask them anything.

The first three days had been dull and foggy, making the manœuvres even more confusing than usual to the uninstructed mind;  so Billy, who had done his best to have no interest in the matter, finally proclaimed loudly  that the whole business was a great bore and  that he would waste no more time, in watching  it. But on the fourth day, a clear cloudless one, with brisk winds and a sea so bright that  it fairly hurt your eyes to look at it, he went  down to see his friend Captain Saulsby and