e progress to and
fro on the calm water of the Bay.

With the boats away full-loaded, we take stock of the numbers still
mustered on the deck. Considerably reduced, they are still a host. The
boat deck, the forecastle head, the poop--are all lined over by the
waiting men: the empty boat-chocks and the dangling falls inspire a mood
of disquiet. Standing at ease, they seem to be facing towards the
bridge. Doubtless they are wondering what we think of it all. The
submarine's commander has been with us at our station during the muster.
We look at one another--thoughtfully.

'THE MAN-O'-WAR 'S 'ER 'USBAND'

A SENSE of security is difficult of definition. Largely, it is founded
upon habit and association. It is induced and maintained by familiar
surroundings. On board ship, in a small world of our own, we seem to be
contained by the boundaries of the bulwarks, to be sailing beyond the
influences of the land and of other ships. The sea is the same we have
known for so long. Every item of our ship fitment--the trim arrangement
of the decks, the set and rake of mast and funnel, even the furnishings
of our cabins--has the power of impressing a stable feeling of custom,
normal ship life, safety. It requires an effort of thought to recall
that in their homely presence we are endangered. Relating his
experiences after having been mined and his ship sunk, a master confided
that the point that impressed him most deeply was when he went to his
room for the confidential papers and saw the cabin exactly in everyday
aspect--his longshore clothes suspended from the hooks, his umbrella
standing in a corner as he had placed it on coming aboard.

Soldiers on service are denied this aid to assurance. Unlike us, they
cannot carry their home with them to the battlefield. All their scenes
and surroundings are novel; they may only draw a reliance and comfort
from the familiar presence of their comrades. At sea in a ship there is
a yet greater incitement to their disquiet. The movement, the limitless
sea, the distance from the land, cannot be ignored. The atmosphere that
is so familiar and comforting to us, is to many of them an environment
of dread possibilities.

[Illustration: THE _LEVIATHAN_ DOCKING AT LIVERPOOL]

It is with some small measure of this sense of security--tempered by our
knowledge of enemy activity in these waters--we pace the bridge. Anxiety
is not wholly absent. Some hours past, we saw small flotsam that may
have come