ey have a
menace that cannot so readily be evaded. Many have fallen victims to
this danger, but the ready succour of the patrols has prevented heavy
loss of life. Though armed for defence, they have not had many
opportunities for gun action. Their keen stems are weapon enough, as
Captain Keith considered when he drove _Queen Alexandra_ at full speed
into an enemy submarine, sinking him, and nipping a piece of his shorn
hull for trophy.

Southampton is the principal base for the smaller transports. Large
vessels--the _Olympic_ and her sisters--come and go from the port, but
it is by the quick turns of the smaller vessels that the huge traffic of
the base is cleared. Tramping through the streets of the ancient town to
turn in at the dock gates, company after company of troops file down the
quayside to embark on the great adventure. The small craft are berthed
at the seaward end of the docks, and the drifting white feathers at
their funnel-tips marks steam up in readiness for departure. The
drab-grey of their hulls and decks is quickly lined by ochre tint of
khaki uniforms. There is no halt to the long lines of marching men, save
on the turn of the stream to another gangway. By long practice, the
Naval Transport Staff and the embarkation officers have brought their
duties to a finished routine. There is not here the muster, the
enumeration, the interminable long-drawn march and counter-march on the
wharf-side, that is the case with the larger ocean transports. Crossing
the gangway, carrying pack and equipment, the troops settle down on the
decks in a closely packed mass.

Anon, with no undue advertisement, the transports unmoor from the quay
and steam down Southampton Water. Off St. Helens, the night covers them
and they steal out swiftly on the Channel crossing.

INTERLUDE

BUT for the flat-topped dwellings, the domes and minarets, of the town
that stands in the alluvial valley, Suda Bay is not unlike a Highland
loch in its loneliness and rugged grandeur. The high surrounding
mountains, the lofty snow-capped summit of Psiloriti standing up in the
east, the bare hill-side sloping to the water with no wooded country to
break the expanse of rock and heath, the lone roadway by the fringe of
the sea that leads to the wilds, are all in likeness to the prospect of
a remote Sutherland landscape. The darkling shadows on the water, the
play of sun and cloud on the distant uplands, completes the picture;
sheep on the hill-sid