murmured enthusiastically. "It's worth a night in the train. I've seen the Peak of Teneriffe at sunrise, but our country takes a lot of beating."

A swirling cloud of steam beat against the window pane, momentarily obscuring the outlook. Before it cleared Alec was astonished to hear his name shouted in boisterous tones.

"Alec Seton, by all the powers! What, in the name of all that's wonderful, brings you here?"

Seton's "mouldy messmate" was sitting up and rubbing his eyes—a bronzed, shock-headed youth, who looked, despite his uniform, little more than a schoolboy. His features expanded into a broad grin of whole-hearted delight as he extended a large, horny hand.

For a brief instant Alec was at a loss to recognize his fellow-traveller, then—

"Branscombe, my festive buccaneer."

Guy Branscombe, Sub-lieutenant, R.N.V.R., was one of those war-time productions whose existence, as members of the "band of brothers" under the White Ensign, has been amply justified. He had been a candidate for Osborne, but had failed to satisfy the examiners. Now, taking advantage of his undoubted skill as an amateur yachtsman, he was doing good service both in deep-sea and coastal navigation. These two branches are widely distinct. Generally speaking, officers of the "pukka" navy are indifferent navigators in coastal waters. Inside the "five fathom line" they often lack the confidence that the skilled amateur possesses. Thus the Admiralty soon found the need to accept the offers of British yachtsmen to take command of the shoal of "M.-L.'s"—otherwise Coastal Motor-Launches—the war record of which showed that official confidence had not been misplaced.

In the early days of the war the newly-constituted Motor-Boat Reserve was frequently a subject for ridicule. "Harry Tate's Navy", as it was called, figured in cheap comic papers, and was spoken of jestingly by misinformed critics. True, there were incompetents, who managed to obtain temporary commissions on the strength of baneful influence; but these were soon weeded out, and the zealous, hard-working men remained to "carry on". For the first three years of war the M.-L.'s were rarely if ever in the limelight. Not that they wanted to be; they were content to work whole-heartedly as units of the Great Silent Navy, until even official reticence and the muzzle of the Press Censor failed to hide from public notice the stirring deeds of the officers and men of the puny but doughty M.-L.'s.

"I'm taking over M.-L. 4452," explained Branscombe, when the two men had settled down to the contents of a Thermos and biscuits—for the R.N.V.R. man had taken the precaution to fortify himself amply against the discomforts of long railway journeys. "She's a brand-new hooker, just handed over at Dumbarton by the contractors. We're bound south for——" He hesitated. Alec looked at him inquiringly and raised his eyebrows.

"Dover?" asked the R.N. sub.

"Yes—Dover," replied Guy.

"Lucky blighter," rejoined Seton "Wish I had the chance. There's always something doing in the 'Wet Triangle'. Up here with the Grand Fleet it's the usual out-and-in stunt, with no chance of tumbling across anything more than a Fritz or a mine. Absolute boredom, and all because the Huns won't come out. Now at Dover—any stunt on?"

"Can't say, old man," replied Branscombe with perfect truth. As a matter of fact the R.N.V.R. officer was "in the know". Great operations, as to which all concerned were bound to secrecy, were impending; the risk was great, and the chance of honour correspondingly so; and since success depended upon a sphinx-like silence the secret was being well kept. Branscombe even knew of a case in which two life-long chums were shipmates for three weeks, and although each was detailed off for duty in the forthcoming operations neither hinted to the other that it was his luck to be chosen for the stunt.

The conversation turned into other channels, talking "shop" being tabooed as far as possible, and punctually to time the two chums found themselves on Waverley Station platform with ten minutes to wait for the train that was to take them to their destination—Inverkeithing and Rosyth.

CHAPTER II

Strafed

"Mornin', Seton," was Lieutenant-Commander Dick Trevannion's greeting as Alec reported himself on board H.M.T.B.D. Bolero. "Had a long journey, eh? Sorry, old bird; but there's one consolation: We're bound south. Evidently the Admiral thinks we are in need of recuperation in a warmer climate. No, don't look so infernally joyful. We're not off up the Straits, if that's what you think. It's a convoying job."

Seton looked glum. He couldn't help it. Of all the tasks that fall to the lot of the ubiquitous navy convoying is one of the worst. The speed of the escorting destroyer or destroyers must perforce be limited to that of the slowest old tramp in the convoy, and in the days of shortage of shipping there were plenty of old hookers that in other circumstances would be being broken up in a shipbreaker's yards. Mule-headed skippers, ignoring peremptory signals, would haul out of line; superannuated engines would break down at particularly inopportune moments—when night was falling and a heavy sea running. Then the faces of the officers commanding H.M. ships comprising the escort would turn an apoplectic purple, and white anger would surge under their great-coats; but to little purpose. Acting on the precepts embodied in the song, "Sailors Don't Care". the horny-handed mercantile marine would just carry on in its own sweet way, contemptuously indifferent to naval orders, mines, U-boats, and other disquieting incidents on the High Seas in the Year of Grace 1918.

"What sort of a circus have we, sir?" asked Seton.

"Usual lot," replied Trevannion as he offered his subordinate a cigarette. "Coastwise tramps an' a couple of hookers for the 'Beef Trip'. We're to escort the latter to the North Hinder, and then put into Harwich to await instructions."

The suggestion of the Beef Trip made the outlook a little more promising. The term is applied to boats running between Great Britain and Holland and carrying live cattle for the ultimate sustenance of a hungry population. Many and many a time the Huns tried to intercept the Anglo-Dutch traffic. Raids from Borkum and Zeebrugge by swift German torpedo-boats made the trip a fairly exciting one, and the chances of out-escorting destroyers bringing the Huns to close action were always both possible and probable. It was a change from spending months of comparative inactivity at Scapa Flow, where in the piercing cold of the Northern climes the mammoth fleet of Britain lay waiting in vain for another opportunity of Der Tag. Only once before had the chance offered, and then night and mist had robbed the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet of his opportunity of annihilating von Scheer's Command.

At eight bells the Bolero cast off from the buoy and proceeded down the Forth, her ensign floating proudly from her diminutive mizzen mast. Past the giant hush-ships lying off Rosyth she glided, threading her way through a multitudinous assortment of craft that the Royal Navy has taken as its own: brand-new light cruisers, monitors with huge 17-inch guns, hogged-backed P-boats, mine-layers, coastal M.-B's, X-barges, and other weird types of naval architecture. Under the northern span of the Forth Bridge the Bolero passed, exchanging signals with the little station on the rock that supports the central pier; then, settling down to a modest twenty-five knots, she shaped a course towards the cluster of vessels awaiting her off Leith and Portobello Roads.

The convoy was, as the Lieutenant-Commander anticipated, a motley crowd. There were rusty-sided tramps, tramps fantastically decorated with dazzle; tramps large and small, wall-sided and with high and low freeboards. Nevertheless, with all their shortcomings, they formed part of the arteries of Empire,