yer is recalled to him--the things undone crowd round, and
there is nothing in the bare hull to serve as a makeshift. The engines
and _auxiliaries_ (that, with a builder's man at every bearing, worked
well on trials) now develop tricks and turns to keep the chief engineer
and his fledgling juniors on the run; the mate cries "Kamerad" to all
suggestions, pointing to his hopeless watch of one. (Eight deck: four in
a watch, less one helmsman and two look-outs, equals one.) Add to the
sum of difficulties that the captain has probably been ashore since he
lost his last ship, and finds the new tactics and signals and zigzags
unfamiliar; through it all the want of familiar little trifles and
fixings (that go so far to help a ready action), sustains a feeling of
irritation.

It is little wonder that the convoy lieutenant goes warily, and, indeed,
but for the brilliant inspiration of using the 'last ship,' it seems
probable that the convoy will have to proceed at _Trident's_ modest
nine knots. Bluntly, the captain is in undisguised ill-humour. He has
been on deck practically since leaving the builder's yard, and his weary
eyes suggest a need for prompt sleep. His room, still reeking of new
paint and varnish, is in some disorder, and shows traces of an anxious
passage along the coast. 'Notices to Mariners' lie open at the minefield
sketches, with a half-smoked pipe atop to keep the pages open; chart
upon chart is piled (for want of a rack) on bed and couch; oilskins,
crumpled as when drawn off, hang over the edge of a door--not a peg to
hang them on; an open sextant case, jammed secure by pillows, lies on
the washstand lid; books of sailing directions, a taffrail log, some red
socket-flares, are heaped awry in a corner of the room; the whole an
evidence that lockers and minor ship conveniences are not yet
standardized. Pray goodness he may have a stout honest thief of a chief
mate, able and willing to find a baulk or two of timber, and a few nails
and brass screws and copper tacks and a curtain-rod or two and a bolt of
canvas!

The convoy lieutenant, unheeding a somewhat surly return of his
greeting, produces Convoy Form No. AX, and starts in cheerfully to fill
the vacant columns. "Tonnage, captain?--register will do. Crew? Guns?
Coal?--consumpt. at speeds. Revolutions per half-knot?" The form
completed, he hands it over for signature, thus tactfully drawing the
captain's attention to the secretarial work he has done for him. "W