e high bows of a second cripple swing over from
the tiers, and the tugs back out to fasten on and drag her to the gate.

With entry of the ships, the glistening pier-head becomes thronged by
tidesmen and their gear; like a drill-yard, with the lusty stamp of the
marching lines of dockmen trailing heavy hawsers and handing check and
hauling ropes. In an hour or so the gangs of the ship-repair section
will be ready to 'turn to' at the new jobs, and the ships must be
settled and ready against the wail of the starting 'buzzer.' Shrill
whistle signals, orders and hails add to the stir of the labourers, and
clatter of the warping capstan joins in with ready chorus. Not least of
the medley is the bull roar of the harassed dockmaster, who finds a need
in the press for more than one pair of hands at the reins to guide and
halt his tandem charges.

The ships are marked in company, to settle bow to stern, with no room to
spare, in the length of the dock. Conduct must be ruled in duplicate to
exact the full measure of utility from every foot of space. On the last
tide a pair of sound ships were floated out to service, braced and bound
and refitted for further duty as stout obverse to the 'Sure Shield.'
Keel-blocks and beds for the new patients have been set up and
rearranged in the brief interval of occupancy, and now, quick on the
wash of the outgoers, are new cases for the shearing plate-cutters and
the swing of hammers.

Mindful to conserve their precious dry-dock space to the limit of good
service, the repair section select the vessels with rare judgment. It is
no haphazard turn of the wheel that brings an American freighter,
shattered in stern section, to the same operating-table as an east-coast
tramp (having her engines in scrap, boilers fractured, and the frames of
her midships blown to sea-bottom). The combined measure of their length
and the similarity of extent in hull damage has brought them to the one
line of blocks. Odd cases, and regular ship-cleaning and minor repairs
may be allotted to single-ship dry docks, but here, in sea-hospital with
a twin-berth, there is a need for parallel treatment. The two ships must
be considered as one, and all efforts be promoted towards refloating
them, when hull repairs are completed, on one opening of the sea-gate.

In this, strangely, they are assisted by the enemy. True, his
accommodation could well be spared, but it does have an influence on
repair procedure. The exact and uni