Italy under
special convoy in the summer of 1918, and only one was lost.

"Q" ships, those ships of mystery and such strange romance as former
navies never dreamt of, were meant to lure the German devils to their
doom. One Q ship was a dirty old collier so well disguised as a common
tramp (steamer belonging to no regular line) that she completely took
in a British cruiser, whose boarding officer was intensely surprised to
find her skipper was one of his own former shipmates. After five
months of thrashing to and fro in the wintry North Atlantic a torpedo
sped across her bows and she knew her chance had come. Instantly her
alarm signals, quietly given, brought all hands to action stations,
some in deck-houses, others in hen-coops, but each with his finger on
the trigger or his hand on a ready spare shell. Presently the
submarine broke surface and fired a shot across the Q ship's bow. On
this the well-trained crew ran about in panic, while the captain
screeched at them and waved his arms about like mad. Then the
submarine came up within three cables (ten to the nautical mile of 2000
yards); whereupon the captain blew his whistle, just as Drake did long
ago, the Navy's White Ensign fluttered up to the masthead, the
hen-coops and deck-houses fell flat, and a hurricane of shells and
Maxim bullets knocked the "sub" out in three minutes' firing.

But, as the war went on, still better Q dodges had to be invented. One
day an old Q tramp, loaded chock-a-block with light-weight lumber,
quietly let herself be torpedoed, just giving the wheel a knowing touch
to take the torpedo well abaft the engine-room, where it would do least
harm. The "panic-party" then left the ship quite crewless so far as
anybody outside of her could see. But the "sub" was taking no risks
that day. She circled the Q, almost grazing her, but keeping fifteen
feet under. The Q captain, only ten yards off, was sorely tempted to
fire. But shells striking water play queer tricks. So he held his
fire; though the quarterdeck was awash instead of nearly twenty feet
clear, and the ship's lucky black cat, blown overboard by the
explosion, swam straight on to it out of the sea. Then the sub came
up, little more than a cable's length away; and the Q captain at last
sent a wireless call for help in case he should sink too soon. When
the conning tower rose clear the German commander opened the hatch and
smiled at his work. He was still cautious; for his gu