And Joss, which is luck, fortune, destiny, the irony of Fate or
Nemesis, is the greatest of all the Battle-gods that move on the
waters. As I will show you later, knowledge of gunnery and a delicate
instinct for what is in the enemy's minds may enable a destroyer to
thread her way, slowing, speeding, and twisting between the heavy
salvoes of opposing fleets. As the dank-smelling waterspouts rise and
break, she judges where the next grove of them will sprout. If her
judgment is correct, she may enter it in her report as a little
feather in her cap. But it is Joss when the stray 12-inch shell,
hurled by a giant at some giant ten miles away, falls on her from
Heaven and wipes out her and her profound calculations. This was seen
to happen to a Hun destroyer in mid-attack. While she was being
laboriously dealt with by a 4-inch gun something immense took her,
and--she was not.
Joss it is, too, when the cruiser's 8-inch shot, that should have
raked out your innards from the forward boiler to the ward-room stove,
deflects miraculously, like a twig dragged through deep water, and,
almost returning on its track, skips off unbursten and leaves you
reprieved by the breadth of a nail from three deaths in one. Later, a
single splinter, no more, may cut your oil-supply pipes as dreadfully
and completely as a broken wind-screen in a collision cuts the
surprised motorist's throat. Then you must lie useless, fighting
oil-fires while the precious fuel gutters away till you have to ask
leave to escape while there are yet a few tons left. One ship who was
once bled white by such a piece of Joss, suggested it would be better
that oil-pipes should be led along certain lines which she sketched.
As if that would make any difference to Joss when he wants to show
what he can do!
Our sea-people, who have worked with him for a thousand wettish years,
have acquired something of Joss's large toleration and humour. He
causes ships in thick weather, or under strain, to mistake friends for
enemies. At such times, if your heart is full of highly organised
hate, you strafe frightfully and efficiently till one of you perishes,
and the survivor reports wonders which are duly wirelessed all over
the world. But if you worship Joss, you reflect, you put two and two
together in a casual insular way, and arrive--sometimes both parties
arrive--at instinctive conclusions which avoid trouble.