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"Diplomatic type he is, too. They spin a yarn about the time he was goin' down to Chequers to visit Winnie Churchill. He'd just been made a full admiral and he was standin' in a railway station wearin' his brand-new uniform. Bein' on the smallish side, the gold braid on his sleeve reached near up to his elbows. A soldier come up to him and says: 'Excuse me, could you tell me what time the train for So-and-so leaves?' Old Splash Guts drew himself up and looked at him. 'Excuse me,' he says, 'but do you happen to think I'm a bloody station master?'
"Fond of sweets, too, he is. What you call candy over here. Keeps a bottle of sweets on the bridge. Well, we're fond of sweets ourselves and every now and then we manage to pinch one or two. It's a matter of keepin' one eye on the bottle of sweets and one on the Admiral like. There'd been some complaints about it, and I heard the flag officer say: 'Shall I take your bottle of sweets down to the cabin, sir, and put 'em away?' And old Splash Guts answers back, very weary: 'Oh, what does it matter where you put 'em? Them bloody scroungers'll find 'em anyway.' "
*For a further splash made by the Warspite see P. 45.