A Fleet in Being

Non-fiction account, first published in 1898.  The book begins: " Some thirty of her Majestyís 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 í97."  According to Wikipedia: "Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 ñ 18 January 1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He wrote tales and poems of British soldiers in India and stories for children."