ine'; all hands are frequently mustered to meet the sudden and
unheralded demands of an inward-bound convoy, or the limited
accommodation of the cutter is taxed and overloaded by the release of
pilots from an outward mass sailing.

There are grades of pilotage--from that of the rivers and protected
waters to the more hazardous voyages between coastal ports. It is,
perhaps, to the sea-pilots of Trinity we are most intimately drawn.
While the river pilot is with us for the short term of the tide, the
Trinity man is of our ship's company for a day or days. His valued local
knowledge is at our service to set and steer fair courses in the
perplexing tangents of unfamiliar tideways; operations of the
minesweepers and patrols--that alter and multiply beyond counting in the
course of a voyage abroad--are a plain book to him. If we meet disaster
in the channels, we have a prompter at our elbow to advise a favourable
beaching. We have a peer to confide in throughout our difficulties.
After days of anxious watchkeeping on the bridge we are well served by a
competent relief.

Ship movements in the western waters are controlled by the naval
authorities in a manner that allows of independent sailings, but the
Trinity pilots' duties lie in the Channel and the North Sea, where a
more exacting regime is in force. From the Downs to the north, measures
adopted for protection of the ships call for a time-table of sailings
and arrivals that can only be adhered to by the pilot's aid. A 'War
Channel' is established, a sea-lane of some two hundred and eighty miles
that has constantly to be swept and cleared in advance of the traffic.
Navigation in the channel obstructs an efficient search for mines;
sweeping operations interfere with the passage of the ships. No small
amount of control and management is necessary to reconcile conflicting
actions and expedite the safe conduct of the shipping. Latterly,
sailings were restricted to the hours of daylight; a system of sectional
passages is enforced, by which all vessels are scheduled to make a
protected anchorage before nightfall. An effect of this is to group the
vessels in large scattered convoys, forming a pageant of shipping that
even the busiest days of peace-time could not rival.

In all the story of the Downs, the great roadstead can rarely have
presented such a scene as when, on a chill winter morning, we lay at
anchor awaiting passage. Overnight, we had come in under convoy from the
wes