orsted jersey! Names that he would shout out in the
market-place! Names that the enemy would read as monuments to his
infamy! Names of ships that we knew and loved and stood by to the bitter
end.

XV

FLAGS AND BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEA

UNLIKE the marches of the land, with guard and counterguard, we had no
frontiers on the sea. There were no bounds to the nations and their
continents outside of seven or ten fathoms of blue water. We all
travelled on the one highway that had few by-paths on which trespassers
might be prosecuted. And our highway was no primrose path, swept and
garnished and safeguarded; it had perils enough in gale and tempest,
fog, ice, blinding snow, dark moonless nights, rock and shoal and
sandbar. Remote from ordered assistance in our necessity, we relied on
favour of a chance passer-by, on a fallible sea-wanderer like ourselves.
So, for our needs, we formed a sea-bond, an International Alliance
against our common hazards of wind and sea and fire, an assurance of
succour and support in emergency and distress. Out of our hunger for
sea-companionship grew a union that had few rules or written compacts,
and no bounds to action other than the simply humane traditions and
customs of the sea. There were no statutory penalties for infringement
of the rules unwritten; we could not, as true seamen, conceive so black
a case. We had no Articles of our Association, no charters, no
covenants; our only documents were the International Code of Signals and
the Rule of the Road at Sea. With these we were content; we understood
faith and a blood-bond as brother seamen, and we put out on our
adventures, stoutly warranted against what might come.

In the Code of Signals we had a language of our own, more immediate and
attractive than Volapuek or Esperanto. The dire fate of the builders of
the Tower held no terror for us, for our intercourse was that of sight
and recognition, not of speech. Our code was one of bright colours and
bold striking design--flags and pendants fluttering pleasantly in the
wind or, in calmer weather, drooping at the halyards with a lift for
closer recognition. The symbol of our masonry was a bold red pendant
with two vertical bars of white upon it. We had fine hoists for hail and
farewell; tragic turn of the colours for a serious emergency, hurried
two-flag sets for urgent calls, leisurely symbols of three for finished
periods.

'_Can you_' required three flags to itself; _me_ or _I_ o