resembled the shallows near the nesting-ground of white-winged gulls as the remaining gigs, whalers, and cutters zigzagged tentatively to and fro, and a couple of belated 25-feet whalers, caught napping, went tearing down among them.

The launches and pinnaces do not start for another hour, and are for the most part still at the booms of their respective ships. There are three more classes before us, and it only remains to keep out of the way and an eye on the stop-watch. The breeze is freshening, and it looks like a "Galley's day." A 32-feet cutter (handiest and sweetest of all Service boats to sail) goes skimming past on a trial run. Her gilded badge gleams in the spray, and there is a sheen of brasswork and enamel about her that proclaims the pampered darling of a ship. The Midshipman at the helm—to show a mere galley what he can do—chooses a squall in which he put her about; she spins round like a top, and is off on her new tack in the twinkling of an eye.

Casey, Petty Officer and Captain's Coxswain, is busy forward with the awning and an additional halliard rove through a block at the foremast head. This, steadied by the boat-hook, will serve us as a spinnaker during the three-mile run down-wind; and, in a Service rig race, is the only additional fitting allowed beyond what is defined as "the rig the boat uses on service, made of service canvas by service labour."

Only half a minute now.... Check away the sheets. Spinnaker halliards in hand.

Boom! We are off! Hoist spinnaker!

As we cross the line the 32-ft. cutter and a couple of gigs slip over abreast of us; astern a host of white sails come bellying in our wake; up to windward the pinnaces and launches are manoeuvring for positions. The cutter has "goose-winged" her dipping-lug and is running dead before the wind. In a narrow boat like a galley this is dangerous and does not pay. Luffing a little, we get the wind on our quarter, and the gigs follow suit. Presently the cutter gybes and loses ground; the gigs, too, have dropped astern a little.

Our galley's crew settle down in the bottom of the boat, and producing pipes and cigarettes from inside their caps, speculate on the chances of the day. Far ahead the smaller fry are negotiating the mark-buoy. Imperceptibly the breeze freshens, till the wind is whipping a wet smoke off the tops of the waves. Casey, tending the main-sheet, removes his pipe and spits overside. "I reckons we'll want our weather-boards before we'm done, sir," he prophesies. We have shown the rest of our class a clean pair of heels by now, and are fast overhauling the whalers. At last the mark-buoy.

"Down spinnaker!" and round we go, close hauled. Now the work starts. A white squall tearing down the bay blinds us with spray and fine desert sand. The water pours over the gunwale as we luff and luff again. There's nothing for it: we must reef, and while we do so, round come the remainder, some reefed and labouring, others lying up in the wind with flapping sails. A nasty short sea has set in, and at the snub of each wave, the galley, for all the careful nursing she receives, quivers like a sensitive being.

"She can't abear that reef in her foresail," says Casey; "it do make her that sluggish." As he spoke, our rival, the 32-ft. cutter, went thrashing past under full sail, her crew crouched to windward. It was going to be neck or nothing with them. Then, by James—

"Got anything to bail with, forward there?"

"Yessir!" replied seven voices as one.

"Stand-by to shake out that reef!" We luffed for a second while two gigs and a pinnace crept up on our quarter, and then off we went in the seething wake of the cutter. Even Casey's big toe curled convulsively as he braced himself against the thwart and spat on his hands to get a fresh grip on the main-sheet. The spray hissed over us like rain, and, under cover of his oilskin, I believe No. 5, perched on the weather gunwale, was sorrowfully unlacing his boots.

"If it don't get no worse," says Casey, "we'll do all right." With his bull-dog chin above the gunwale he commenced a running commentary on the proceedings. "... 'Strewth! There's 'is foremast gorn!" He gazed astern enraptured. "Commander's weather-shroud carried away, sir, an' 'im a-drifting 'elpless.... Them whalers is bailin' like loo-natics—" he gave a hoarse chuckle, "like proper loo-natics, sir.... That there launch precious near fouled the mark-buoy.... 'E'll run down that gig if 'e don't watch it. Their owner sailing 'er too."

Then the squalls died away and the breeze steadied. I could hear the surge of a launch as she came crashing along on our quarter, but once round the second mark-buoy and on the port tack no one could touch us—at least so Casey vowed.

Suddenly, the half-drowned bowman gave the first sign of animation that he had displayed since the green seas began to break over him. "She's missed stays," he announced with gruff relish, peering under the lip of the foresail.

"'Oo? Not that cutter...?" Casey so far forgot himself as to squirt tobacco juice into the sacred bottom of his own boat. "Yessir, an' so help me," he added in confirmation, "she's in Hirons!"[#]

[#] A boat is said to be "in irons" when she lies dead head-to-wind and cannot pay off on either tack.

The next minute we passed to windward of our rival, as with flapping sheets and reversed helm she drifted slowly astern. Her Midshipman avoided our eyes as we passed, but his expression of incredulous exasperation I have seen matched only on the face of one whose loved and trusted hunter has refused a familiar jump. Above the noise of the wind and waves I heard his angry wail—

"O-o-oh! Isn't she a cow!"

The wind held fair and true, and, as Casey prophesied, it proved a Galley's day after all. A launch and two pinnaces raced us for the Flagship's ram, and our rudder missed the cable by inches as we wore to bring us on to the finishing line. Even then the launch nearly had it; but I think that the observations exchanged, as we slipped round side by side (sotto voce and perfectly audible to every one in both boats), between Casey and the launch's Coxswain, did much to spoil the nerve of the First Lieutenant who was sailing her.

Much of that day I have forgotten. But the sheen of white sails sprinkled along the triangular nine-mile course, the grey hulls of the Fleet against the blue of sea and sky, the tremor of the boat's frame as the water raced hissing past her clinker-built sides, the bucket and shrug, the lurch and reel and plunge as she fought her way to windward,—all these things have combined to make a blur of infinitely pleasant memories.

*      *      *      *      *

Casey gave a sigh of contentment and handed back an empty glass through the pantry door.

"Well, sir," he said, "I reckon that was a proper caper!" Then, as if realising that his summing up of the race required adequate embellishment, and less formal surroundings in which to do the occasion justice, he wiped his mouth on the back of a huge paw and moved forward out of sight along the mess-deck.