my persists though he
does not now seem to be closing the range. Our seventh shot pitches
close to him, and ricochets. There is a burst of flame on his
deck--whether from his gun or the impact of our shell we shall never
know; when the spume and spray fall away he has dived.

Suddenly, it is recalled to us that we have been, for over half an hour,
steering into the radius of the Cunarder's _allo_. The patrol sloop has
turned to close us and is rapidly approaching. A decision has quickly to
be made. If we stand on to keep outside torpedo range of our late
antagonist, we may blunder into the sights of number two. North and east
and west are equally dangerous: we may turn south-east, but our course
is for the open sea. The sloop sheers round our stern and thunders up
alongside. Receiving our information, her helm goes over and she swings
out to investigate the area we have come from. We decide to steer to the
north-west as the shortest way to the open sea.

We have the luck of the cast. As we ease helm to our new course, the
ship jars and vibrates--a thundering explosive report comes to our ears.
The Leyland liner close on our starboard quarter has taken a torpedo and
lies over under a cloud of spume and debris.

XI

ON SIGNALS AND WIRELESS

FOR war conditions our methods and practice of signalling were woefully
deficient. In sailing-ship days the code was good enough; we had no need
for Morse and semaphore. We had time to pick and choose our signals and
send them to the masthead in a gaudy show of reds and blues and yellows.
Our communications, in the main, were brief and stereotyped. "What ship?
Where from? How many days out? Where bound? Good-bye--a pleasant
passage!" Occasionally there was a reference to a coil of rope or a
tierce of beef, but these were garrulous fellows. The ensign was dipped.
We had 'spoken'; we would be reported 'all well!'

Good enough! There were winches to clean and paint, bulwarks to be
chipped and scaled, that new poop 'dodger' to be cut and sewn. "Hurry
up, there, you sodgerin' young idlers! Put the damned flags in the
locker, and get on with the _work_!"

With steam and speed and dispatch increasing, we found need for a
quicker and more instant form of signal correspondence. New queries and
subjects for report grew on us, and we had to clip and abbreviate and
shorthand our methods to meet the lessening flag-sight of a passing
ship. We altered the Code of Signals, adding vowel