th a shipping that must remind the coastguard and lightkeepers of
old and palmy days when square sail was standard at sea. The Westmark
Shoal lies some distance from the normal peace-time track of direct
steaming courses. It lies in the bight of a bay, where rarely steamers
closed the land. Sailing ships, close-hauled and working a tack inshore,
or fisher craft on their grounds, had long been the only keels to sheer
water in the deeps, but war practice has renewed our acquaintance with
many old sea-routes and by-paths, and we are back now to charts and
courses that have long been out of our reckoning.

The tide is at low-water slack, and whirls and eddies mark the run over
shallows. At easy speed and handing the lead, we approach the wreck. Her
weathered hull, gilt and red-rusted by exposure to sun and wind and sea,
stands high and bold against the deep blue of a summer sky. Masts and
rigging and cordage are bleached white, like tracery of a phantom ship.
The green sea-growth on her underbody fans and waves in the tide,
showing long voyaging in the crust and stage of it. She lies well and
steadily, with only a slight list to seaward that marks the gradient on
which she rests. Through fracture on the stern and counter, the twisted
and shattered frames and beams and angles can be seen plainly. Sunlight,
in slanting rays, shines through the rents and fissures of the upper
deck, and plays on the free flood that washes in and out of the exposed
after hold; seaweed and flotsam surges on the tide, clinging to the
jagged, shattered edges of the plating, and breaking away to lap in the
dark recesses. To eyes that only know the lines and mould of sightly,
seaworthy vessels, she seems a hopeless and distorted mass of standing
iron--a sheer hulk, indeed, fit only for a lone sea-perch to gull and
gannet and cormorant. It appears idle for the salvors to plan and strive
and wrestle for such a prize, but their keen eyes are focused to values
not readily apparent. "A fine ship," says the commander, now happily
assured that his 'soft job' has suffered no worse than a weathering on
the ledge that his skill has secured her. "A job o' work for the
repairers, certainly . . . but they will set her up as good as new in a
third of the time it would take to build a substitute!"

[Illustration: A TORPEDOED MERCHANTMAN ON THE SHOALS: SALVAGE OFFICERS
MAKING A SURVEY]

We anchor at a length or two to seaward. There is not yet water
alongside for