had already sized him up sufficiently to know that he was not the type of man who would unbosom himself before his mates. With him, I knew, I should have to watch my chances, and endeavour to have a yarn alone. Number Two’s parting injunction was to “try and have a go at Jock Campbell, ‘the human proj.’ Jock’s the guy at the after gun that looks like he was rigged out for deep-sea diving,” he said.

“Most likely he’ll only growl at you at first, but if he won’t warm up any other way, try him with a yarn about a skirt. He’s ‘verra fond o’ a braw lass,’ is Jock Campbell.”

Our alteration of course, the captain told me, was the consequence of an order received by wireless directing him to cross over and hunt down a strip along the western shore of the gulf which was not being covered by the present formation of the division. “I’ve had a signal stating that they’re on the track of one U-boat, and there may be something to make them think another has slipped further along and is lying in ambush for the convoy about off Volo. They’re evidently keeping the rest of the division heading in to meet the convoy itself.”

The Spark stood on to the north-west until the Vardar marshes showed as an olive-green rim around the bend of the gulf, before turning southward again to skirt the steep shingle-strewn beach along the alluvial “fans” spreading down to the sea from the base of Olympus. The wild-looking Thessalian shepherds were just driving their motley flocks down to the open foreshore to freshen up in the rising midday sea breeze, and it was when I assured Jock Campbell (where I found him leaning on the breech of the after gun and staring landwards with his bushy brows puckered in the incredulous scowl of a man who can’t credit the evidence

of his own eyes) that it was an actual fact that the fuzzy black sheep were wading in and drinking—if sparingly—of the salt water, that a basis of conversation was finally established. Up to that moment he had given no sign that any of my carelessly thrown out tentatives had penetrated to his ears through the “telepad” rig-out which established his connection with the gunnery control. But when, bringing my lips close to his nearest “ear-muff,” I shouted that I had come up along that coast from Lharissa but a few weeks previously by motor and pack-train, and that, in lieu of any fresh water for many miles in either direction, I had actually seen the sheep and goats drinking in flocks from the sea, the look of hostile suspicion in his eyes was replaced by one of friendly interest.

“Weel, weel, y’u dinna say so?” he ejaculated, easing away the edge of the helmet over one ear; “the puir wee beasties!” Then he volunteered that he had once kept from freezing to death in a snowstorm on Ben Nevis by curling up among his sheep, and I told how I had once sheared sheep (not mentioning it was for only half a day, and that my “clip” was composed of about equal parts mutton and wool) on a back blocks station in Queensland. Then he described how he had seen a big merino ram butt a Ford car off the road up Thurso way, and I—with more finesse than veracity—capped that with a yarn of how I had

seen a flock of Macedonian sheep blown up by a Bulgarian air-bomb, and how one of them had landed unhurt upon a passing motor lorry load of forage—and gone right on grazing! I reckoned that might be calculated to remind Jock of something of the same character which had befallen him on a certain memorable occasion, and I was not disappointed.

“‘Twas verra like wha’ cam ma way on the nicht the Bow rammed the Seagull at the fecht aff Jutland,” he commented instantly, with no trace of suspicion in his voice. “Wad ye care to hear aboot it? Ye wud? Weel, then——.” As brief, as direct and to the point was the plain unvarnished tale Jock Campbell told me the while a noon-day storm awoke reverberant echoes of the Jovian thunders in the snow-caverns of Olympus and the Spark hunted down through the jade green waters of the Thessalian coast for a U-boat that was supposed to be lurking in their lucent depths “somewhere off Volo.”

“Ah was at ma action station at the port foremost gun,” he began, wiping his perspiring brow with a wad of greasy waste, which left an undulant trail of oil from the recoil cylinder in its wake, “when we gaed bang into a line o’ big Hun cru’sers, and we lat blaze at them and them at us. The range was short, and wi’ their serchlichts lichten us up oor position wasna that Ah wad ca’ verra pleasant. Up gaed a Hun cru’ser in a spoort

o’ flame and reek, hit, Ah thocht, by a mouldie launched by oor next astern. Ah was fair jumpin’ wi’ joy at the sicht, when a hale salvo o’ screechin’ projes cam bang inta the fo’c’sl. Ah minded the licht o’ them mair than the soun’, which was na great.

“The Huns had switched aff their serchlichts when they opened fire, so that noo the projes was bursting in inky mirk. I doubtna oor midships and after guns was firing, but na the foremost, for Ah dinna mind being blinded by their licht afore the Hun projes gan bursting. My ain gun wudna bear on the Huns, so Ah was just standing by for the time, ready to train if we turned.

“Twa salvos cam—maybe frae twa different cru’sers—ane after the ither, wi’ aboot half a meenit atween. Ye ken that the licht o’ a shell-burst is ower afore ye can even think, and a’ the furst ane showed me was just the gun crews, standin’, and bracin’ themsel’s like when a big sea braks inboard. It was ower like a flash o’ lichtnin, and the licht had gone oot afore Ah saw anybody blown up or knocked oot. But Ah felt a michty blast o’ air and an awfu’ shaikin o’ the deck, and then the bang o’ lumps o’ projes dingin’ ’gainst the bridge and smackin’ through bodies.

“The flash o’ the burst o’ the second salvo tellt me what havoc the first had wrocht, but by noo ma een was licht-blind and Ah cudna see weel. The sta’bo’d gun was twisht oot o’ shape, and a’ the

crew but ane were strechit on the deck. To a’ appearance that lad had been laid oot wi’ the ithers, but noo he was puin himsel’ to his feet and crawlin’ up the wreck o’ the gun when a proj frae the second salvo burst richt alow him. By the flash Ah saw him flyin’ inta the air, and—by the licht o’ anither flash a bittie efter—then his corp, wi’ twa or three ithers, gang ower the side. A lump o’ that last proj carried awa’ the Number Wan o’ ma ain gun, and, onlike some o’ the ithers, not a bit o’ him was left ahint. Ah mesel’ was knockit flat, but wasna much the worse for a’ that.

“That was the hinmost Ah saw o’ the Huns for that nicht, and the last I mind o’ the Bow was the dead and deein’ wha covert the fo’c’sl’, wi’ the licht o’ the fires burnin’ aft flickerin’ ower them. Then cam’ a cry frae the bridge that a ’stroyer was closin’ us to port, and then Ah mind hearin’ the captain shoutin’ an order ower and ower, like he wasna bein’ answered frae the ither end o’ the voice-pipe. ‘Hard-a-port!’ he roared, but weel micht he shout for ay, for the qua’termaster, wi’ a’ on the signal bridge, was dead by noo, and the helm was left jammed hard-a-sta’bo’d.

“Then Ah felt her shudder as the engines went full speed astern, and Ah got to ma feet in time to see she was headin’ straicht for the fo’c’sl’ o’ a T.B.D. that was steerin’ cross her bows. And richt after that she must ha’ struck wi’ a michty crash. The next thing Ah mindit—weel, Ah didna