many new duties to the sum of our activities when at
sea. Signals have assumed an importance in the navigation. The flutter
of a single flag may set us off on a new course at any minute of the
day. Failure to read a hoist correctly may result in instant collision
with a sister ship. We have need of all eyes on the bridge to keep apace
with the orders of the commodore. In station-keeping we are brought to
the practice of a branch of seamanship with which not many of us were
familiar. Steaming independently, we had only one order for the engineer
when we had dropped the pilot. 'Full speed ahead,' we said, and rang a
triple jangle of the telegraph to let the engineer on watch know that
there would be no more 'backing and filling'--and that he could now nip
into the stokehold to see to the state of the fires. Gone--our easy
ways! We have now to keep close watch on the guide-ship and fret the
engineer to adjustments of the speed that keep him permanently at the
levers. The fires may clag and grey down through unskilful stoking--the
steam go 'back' without warning: ever and on, he has to jump to the
gaping mouth of the voice-tube: "Whit? Two revolutions? Ach! Ah cannae
gi' her ony mair!"--but he does. Slowly perhaps, but surely, as he
coaxes steam from the errant stokers, we draw ahead and regain our place
in the line. No small measure of the success of convoy is built up in
the engine-rooms of our mercantile fleets.

Steaming in formation at night without lights adds to our 'grey heires.'
The menace of collision is ever present. Frequently, in the darkness, we
have no guide-ship in plain sight to regulate our progress. The
adjustments of speed, that in the daytime kept us moderately well in
station, cannot be made. It is best to turn steadily to the average
revolutions of a former period, and keep a good look-out for the broken
water of a sister ship. On occasion there is the exciting medley of
encountering a convoy bound the opposite way. In the confusion of wide
dispersal and independent alterations of course to avert collision,
there is latitude for the most extraordinary situations. An incident in
the Mediterranean deserves imperishable record: "We left Malta, going
east, and that night it was inky dark and we ran clean through a
west-bound convoy. How there wasn't an accident, God only knows. We had
to go full astern to clear one ship. She afterwards sidled up alongside
of us and steamed east for an hour and a half. The