his trained soldierly intendance could not contemplate a situation in
which the seamen of the country had no foreknowledge of a war service;
it was amazing to him that we were not already drilled for duties that
might, at any moment, be thrust upon us. Pointing across the dock to
where two vessels of the Bremen Hansa Line were working in haste to
catch the tide, he affirmed that they would be better prepared: _their_
place in mobilization would be detailed, their duties and services made
clear.

We knew of no plans for our employment in war service; we had no
position allotted to us in measures for emergency. We were sufficiently
proud of our seafaring to understand a certain merit in this apparent
lack of prevision: we took it as in compliment to the efficiency and
resource with which our sea-trade was credited. Was it not on our
records that the Isle of Man steamers transported 58,000 people in the
daylight hours of an August Bank Holiday. A seventy-mile passage.
Trippers. Less amenable to ordered direction than disciplined troops. A
day's work, indeed. Unequalled, unbeaten by any record to date in the
amazing statistics of the war. There was no need for supervision and
direction: we knew our business, we could pick up the tune as we
marched.

We did. On the outbreak of war we fell into our places in transport of
troops and military material with little more ado than in handling our
peace-time cargoes. The ship on which the Staff students worked their
problems set out on almost the very route they had planned for her, but
with no prison or guard-room or hospital, and sixteen hundred troops
instead of eleven: the time taken to fit her (including discharge of a
cargo) occupied exactly four days. We saw but little of the naval
authority.

[Illustration: THE D.A.M.S. GUNWHARF AT GLASGOW]

Later, in our war work, we made the acquaintance of the naval transport
officer. Generally, he was not intimate with the working of merchant
ships. His duties were largely those of interpretation. Through him
Admiralty passed their orders: it devolved on the mercantile shore staff
of the shipping companies to carry these orders into execution. If, in
transport services, our marine superintendents and ships' husbands did
not share in the honours, it was not for want of merit. They could not
complain of lack of work in the early days of the war when the transport
officer was serving his apprenticeship to the trade. The absence of a