de, and the mains were laid, and the hydrants set in
place, and the trained firemen were made ready to take up the task.

And, now that I had come to Folkestone, now that I was seeing the
results of all the labor that had been performed, the effect of all
the prodigies of organization, I began to know what Lord Kitchener
and those who had worked with him had done. System ruled everything
at Folkestone. Nothing, it seemed to me, as officers explained as
much as they properly could, had been left to chance. Here was order
indeed.

In the air above us airplanes flew to and fro. They circled about
like great, watchful hawks. They looped and whirled around, cutting
this way and that, circling always. And I knew that, as they flew
about outside the harbor the men in them were never off their guard;
that they were peering down, watching every moment for the first
trace of a submarine that might have crept through the more remote
defenses of the Channel. Let a submarine appear--its shrift would be
short indeed!

There, above, waited the airplanes. And on the surface of the sea
sinister destroyers darted about as watchful as the flyers above,
ready for any emergency that might arise. I have no doubt that
submarines of our own lurked below, waiting, too, to do their part.
But those, if any there were, I did not see. And one asks no
questions at a place like Folkestone. I was glad of any information
an officer might voluntarily give me. But it was not for me or any
other loyal Briton to put him in the position of having to refuse to
answer.

Soon a great transport was pointed out to me, lying beside the jetty.
Gangplanks were down, and up them streams of men in khaki moved
endlessly. Up they went, in an endless brown river, to disappear into
the ship. The whole ship was a very hive of activity. Not only men
were going aboard, but supplies of every sort; boxes of ammunition,
stores, food. And I understood, and was presently to see, that beyond
her sides there was the same ordered scene as prevailed on shore.
Every man knew his task; the stowing away of everything that was
being carried aboard was being carried out systematically and with
the utmost possible economy of time and effort.

"That's the ship you will cross the Channel on," I was told. And I
regarded her with a new interest. I do not know what part she had
been wont to play in time of peace; what useful, pleasant journeys it
had been her part to complete, I only kn