Some thirty of her Majesty's men-of-war were involved in this matter; say a dozen battleships of the most recent, and seventeen or eighteen cruisers; but my concern was limited to one of a new type commanded by an old friend. I had some dim knowledge of the interior of a warship, but none of the new world into which I stepped from a Portsmouth wherry one wonderful summer evening in '97. With the exception of the Captain, the Chief Engineer, and maybe a few petty officers, nobody was more than twenty-eight years old. They ranged in the ward-room from this resourceful age to twenty-six or seven clear-cut, clean-shaved young faces with all manner of varied experience behind them. When one comes to think, it is only just that a light 20-knot cruiser should be handled, under guidance of an older head, by affable young gentlemen prepared, even sinfully delighted, to take chances not set down in books.
Bombay, (1865-1936). Rudyard Kipling escribió novelas, poemas y relatos ambientados principalmente en la India y Birmania durante la época de gobierno británico. Kipling fue un escritor prolífico y popular, y su literatura gira siempre en torno a tres ejes: el patriotismo, el deber de los ingleses de llevar una vida de intensa actividad y el destino de Inglaterra, llamada a ser un gran imperio. Su insistencia en este último aspecto era sin duda un eco del pasado victoriano, y perjudicó gravemente su reputación como escritor, a pesar de que fue el primer autor británico galardonado con el Nobel de Literatura.
