yeoman of
signals and his mates at work, recording and replying, taking mark and
tally of the ships as they arrive. Up and down goes the
red-and-white-barred answering pendant to say that it is duly
noted--"_War Trident_, _Marmion_, and _Pearl Shell_ report arrival"--or
the semaphore arms, swinging smartly, tell H.M.S. _03xyz_ that
permission to enter harbour (she having safely escorted the trio to
port) is approved.

Out near the entrance to the bay, where the 'gateships' of the boom
defences show clear water, the patrol steamer of the Examination Service
lays-to, challenging each incoming vessel to state her name and
particulars. These, in turn, are signalled to the shore and the yeoman
writes: "Begins war trident for norfolk va. speed nine knots is ready
for sea stop marmion for Bahia reports steering engine broken down will
require ten hours complete repairs stop pearl shell nine and half
short-handed one fireman two trimmers report agents stop ends."

If room is scanty, the convoy office has at least an atmosphere in
keeping with its mission. Nestling close under the steep brow of the
harbour-master's look-out, it was, in happier days, the life-boat
coxswain's dwelling, and a constant reminder of sea-menace and emergency
almost blocks the door--the long boat-house and launch-ways of the
life-boat. Four square and solid, the little house only has windows
overlooking the bay, as if attending strictly to affairs at sea and
having no eyes for landward doings; the peering eaves face straight out
towards the 'gateships' as though even the stone and lime were intent on
the sailing of the convoys, whose order and formation are arranged
within their walls. The upper room has a desk or two, a telephone, a
chart table, and a typewriter, and here the port convoy officer and his
assistants trim and index and arrange the ships in order of their
sailing. At the window a seaman-writer is typing out 'pictures' for the
next sailing--signal tables, formation and dispersal diagrams, call
signs, zigzags, constantly impressing that Greenwich Mean Time is the
thing (no Summer Time at sea), and that courses are True, _not_
Magnetic. The clack and release of his machine seem quite a part of
conversation between the convoy officer and his lieutenant; the whole is
so apparently disjointed in references to this ship and that, to repairs
and tides, and shortage of 'hands' and water-supply and turns in the
hawse, and even Spanish influenza! T