Sea Warfare | Page 5

scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little mutter of gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever the trouble is, slips through the harbour mouth, all wreathed with signals, is received by two motherly lighters, and, to all appearance, goes to sleep between them. The Office does not even look up; for that is not in their department. They have found a trawler to replace the boilerless one. Her name is slid into the rack. The immoral torpedo-boat flounces back to her moorings. Evidently what _Elizabeth Huggins_ said was not evidence. The messages and replies begin again as the day closes.
THE NIGHT PATROL
Return now to the inner harbour. At twilight there was a stir among the packed craft like the separation of dried tea-leaves in water. The swing-bridge across the basin shut against us. A boat shot out of the jam, took the narrow exit at a fair seven knots and rounded in the outer harbour with all the pomp of a flagship, which was exactly what she was. Others followed, breaking away from every quarter in silence. Boat after boat fell into line--gear stowed away, spars and buoys in order on their clean decks, guns cast loose and ready, wheel-house windows darkened, and everything in order for a day or a week or a month out. There was no word anywhere. The interrupted foot-traffic stared at them as they slid past below. A woman beside me waved her hand to a man on one of them, and I saw his face light as he waved back. The boat where they had demonstrated for me with matches was the last. Her skipper hadn't thought it worth while to tell me that he was going that evening. Then the line straightened up and stood out to sea.
"You never said this was going to happen," I said reproachfully to my A.B.
"No more I did," said he. "It's the night-patrol going out. Fact is, I'm so used to the bloomin' evolution that it never struck me to mention it as you might say."
Next morning I was at service in a man-of-war, and even as we came to the prayer that the Navy might "be a safeguard to such as pass upon the sea on their lawful occasions," I saw the long procession of traffic resuming up and down the Channel--six ships to the hour. It has been hung up for a bit, they said.
Farewell and adieu to you, Greenwich ladies, Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore! For we've received orders to work to the eastward Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles, We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas, Until we strike something that doesn't expect us, From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!
The first thing we did was to dock in a mine-field, Which isn't a place where repairs should be done; And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.
The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin, With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky. But what in the--Heavens can you do with six-pounders? So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.

SUBMARINES
I
The chief business of the Trawler Fleet is to attend to the traffic. The submarine in her sphere attends to the enemy. Like the destroyer, the submarine has created its own type of officer and man--with language and traditions apart from the rest of the Service, and yet at heart unchangingly of the Service. Their business is to run monstrous risks from earth, air, and water, in what, to be of any use, must be the coldest of cold blood.
The commander's is more a one-man job, as the crew's is more team-work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play hourly for each other's lives with Death the Umpire always at their elbow on tiptoe to give them "out."
There is a stretch of water, once dear to amateur yachtsmen, now given over to scouts, submarines, destroyers, and, of course, contingents of trawlers. We were waiting the return of some boats which were due to report. A couple surged up the still harbour in the afternoon light and tied up beside their sisters. There climbed out of them three or four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates clad in sweaters, under jackets that a stoker of the last generation would have disowned. This was their first chance to compare notes at close hand. Together they lamented the loss of a Zeppelin--"a perfect mug of a Zepp," who