jar or surge the wreck becomes a floating ship; she
lists a little, as the towing hawser creaks and strains, and we draw off
gently to seaward.

THE DRY DOCK

A DOWNPOUR of steady, insistent rain makes quagmire of the paths on the
dockside, and the half-light of a cheerless early morning gives little
guidance to progress among the raffle of discarded ship-gear that lies
about the yard. Stumbling over shores and stagings, skirting gaunt
mounds of damaged plates and angles, we reach the sea-gate where the
ship victims of mine and torpedo are moored in readiness for treatment
in the great sea-hospital. In the uncertain light and under wet lowering
skies, they make a dismal picture. The symmetry of conventional
docking--ships moored in line and heading in the same direction--that is
an orderly feature of the harbours, is not possible in the overcrowded
basin. There is need to pack the vessels closely. They lie at awkward
angles, the stern of one overhanging the bows of another. Masts and
funnels and deck erections, upstanding at varied rakes, emphasize the
confused berthing and draw the eye to the condition of the mass of
damaged shipping. Not all of the vessels are shattered hulks. A number
are here for hull-cleaning or overhaul, but their high sides with the
rust and barnacles and weedy green scum, make as drab a feature in the
combination as the listed hulls of the cripples.

[Illustration: A TORPEDOED SHIP IN DRY DOCK]

Though nominally daylight, the arc-lamps of the pier-head still splutter
in wet contacts and spread a sickly glow over the oilskin-clad group of
dockmen and officials gathered to enter the ships. A chill breeze from
the sea blows in and carries reek and cinder of north-country coal to
thicken the lash of the rain. The waft comes from heeling dock tugs
that strain at their hawsers, spurring the muddy tide to froth in their
task of moving the helpless vessels in the basin. The long expanse of
flooded dock, brimming to the uppermost ledge, lies open for their
entry; the bruised and shattered stern of a large ship is pointed over
the sill at an awkward angle that marks an absence of steam-power aboard
to control her wayward sheer. The dockmaster, in ill mood with her
cantrips, roars admonition and appeal to the smoking tugs to "lie over
t' s'uth'ard and right her!" By check, and the powerful heave of a shore
capstan, she warps in and straightens to the line of the docks. As she
draws on to her berth th