lied. "You never can tell when we might have a chance
to put a shot into Fritz's periscope or ram him--Fritz is our name for
submarines."

Were all the commanders of destroyers up to his mark? How many
more had the British navy caught young and trained to such
quickness of decision and in the art of imparting it to his men?

Three hundred revolutions! The destroyer changed speed. Five
hundred! She changed speed again. Out of the mist in the distance
flashed a white ribbon knot that seemed to be tied to a destroyer's
bow and behind it another destroyer, and still others, lean, catlike, but
running as if legless, with greased bodies sliding over the sea. We
snapped out a message to them and they answered like passing
birds on the wing, before they swept out of sight behind a headland
with uncanny ease of speed. Literal swarms of destroyers England
had running to and fro in the North Sea, keen for the chase and too
quick at dodging and too fast to be in any danger of the under-water
dagger thrust of the assassins whom they sought. There cannot be
too many. They are the eyes of the navy; they gather information and
carry a sting in their torpedo tubes.

It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not
to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness
with thick, short coats of llama wool.

"Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it
patrolling," the commander explained. "You'll not get cold in that!"

"And yourself?" was suggested to the commander.

"Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We're hardened to it.
You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all
the time," he replied, He was without a great-coat; and the ease with
which he held his footing made landlubbers feel their awkwardness.

A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer slipped
over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them
seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them in the confident
power of her softly purring vitals.

"Look out!" which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a
"funk pit." We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy
canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. "There won't
be any more!" said the commander. He was right. He knew that
passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in
the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods.

S