rast to the stir and animation with which
we set about unloading and preparing for the return voyage. The few
sullen seamen about her forecastle leant over the bulwarks and noted the
familiar routine that was no longer theirs. Officers on the bridge-deck
eyed our movements with interest, despite their apparent unconcern. We
were respectfully hostile: submarine atrocities had not yet begun. The
same newsboy served special editions to both ships. The German officers
grouped together, reading of the fall of Liege. Doubtless they confided
to one another that they would soon be at sea again. Five days we lay.
At eight o'clock 'flags,' our bugle-call accompanied the raising of the
ensign: the red, white, and black was hoisted defiantly at the same
time. We unloaded, re-loaded, and embarked passengers, and backed out
into the North River on our way to sea again. The _Fuerst_ ranged to the
wash of our sternway as we cleared the piers; her hawsers strained and
creaked, then held her to the bollards of the quay.

Time and again we returned on our regular schedule, to find the German
berthed across the dock, lying as we had left her, with derricks down
and her hatchways closed. . . . We noted the signs of neglect growing on
her; guessed at the indiscipline aboard that inaction would produce. For
a while her men were set to chipping and painting in the way of a good
sea-custom, but the days passed with no release and they relaxed
handwork. Her topsides grew rusty, her once trim and clean paintwork
took on a grimy tint. Our doings were plain to her officers and crew: we
were so near that they could read the tallies on the mailbags we
handled: there were no mails from Germany. Loading operations, that
included the embarkation of war material, went on by night and day: we
were busied as never before. The narrow water space between her hull and
ours was crowded by barges taking and delivering our cargo; the shriek
of steam-tugs and clangour of their engine-bells advertised our stir and
activity. On occasion, the regulations of the port obliged the _Fuerst_
to haul astern, to allow working space for the Merritt-Chapman crane to
swing a huge piece of ordnance to our decks. There were rumours of a
concealed activity on the German. "She was coaling silently at night, in
preparation for a dash to sea.". . . "German spies had their headquarters
in her." The evening papers had a new story of her secret doings
whenever copy ran short. All the w