effect repair_."

'Use utmost dispatch'! With every minute, as the time passes, goes our
chance of regaining our station in the convoy; we are in ill content to
linger! We have a liking for our chief engineer--a respect, an
admiration--but never such a love as when he comes to the bridge-ladder,
grimy, and handling his scrap of waste. "They're coupling up now! A job
we had! Chain jammed and packed under th' quadrant, like it had been set
by a hydraulic ram! If that one landed near Fritz, he'll trouble us no
more!"

[Illustration: EVENING: THE MERSEY FROM THE LANDING-STAGE]

With the engines turning merrily, and helm governance under our hand, we
regain composure. Our task is yet none too easy. Even at our utmost
speed we cannot now rejoin the convoy before nightfall; snaking through
the ships in the dark to take up station offers another harassing night
out! Still, it might be worse--much worse! We think of the torpedoed
ship towing so slowly abeam--of the khaki swarm on our decks, 'the
light on all faces turned on one cant.' Surely our luck is in! The
infection of the measured beat in our progress recalls a job unfinished;
we step into the chart-room and take up pencil and dividers.

[Illustration: THE STEERSMAN]

[Illustration: THE WORK OF A TORPEDO]

XXIII

'DELIVERING THE GOODS'

OCTOBER on the Mersey is properly a month of hazy autumn weather, but
the few clear days seem to gain an added brilliance from their rarity,
and present the wide estuary in a vivid, clear-cut definition. The
distant hills of North Wales draw nearer to the city, and stand over the
slated roofs of the Cheshire shore as though their bases were set in the
peninsula. Seaward the channel buoys and the nearer lightships are
sharply distinct, cutting the distant sea-line like the topmast spars of
ships hull down. Every ripple and swirl of the tide is exaggerated by
the lens of a rare atmosphere; the bow wash of incoming vessels is
thrown upward as by mirage.

[Illustration: TRANSPORTS DISCHARGING IN LIVERPOOL DOCKS]

On such a day a convoy bears in from the sea, rounding the lightships
under columns of drifting smoke. Heading the merchantmen, the destroyers
and sloops of the escort steam quickly between the channel buoys and
pass in by New Brighton at a clip that shows their eagerness to complete
the voyage. A sloop detaches from the flotilla and rounds-to off the
landing-stage. Her decks are crowded by men not of her crew. Merc