s principal duty is to
plan and set out our oversea route, having regard to his accurate
information of enemy activities. All Admiralty instructions as to our
sea-conduct pass through his hands. He issues our confidential papers
and is, in general, the channel of our communication with the Naval
Service. He may be likened to our signal and interlocking expert. On
receipt of certain advices he orders the arm of the semaphore to be
thrown up against us. The port is closed to the outward-bound. His
offices are quickly crowded by masters seeking information for their
sailings: with post and telephone barred to us in this connection, we
must make an appearance in person to receive our orders. A tide or two
may come and go while we wait for passage. We have opportunity, in the
waiting-room, to meet and become intimate with our fellow-seafarers. It
is good for the captain of a liner to learn how the captain of a North
Wales schooner makes his bread, the difficulties of getting decent yeast
at the salt-ports; how the schooner's boy won't learn ("indeed to
goodness") the proper way his captain shows him to mix the dough!

On telegraphic advice the arm of the semaphore rattles down. The port is
open to traffic again. The waiting-room is emptied and we are off to the
sea, perhaps fortified by the S.I.O.'s confidence that the cause of the
stoppage has been violently removed from the sea-lines.

Under the pressure of ruthless submarine warfare we were armed for
defence. Gunnery experts were added to our war complement. A division
for organization of our ordnance was formed, the Defensively Armed
Merchant Ships Department of the Admiralty. We do not care for long
titles; we know this division as the "Dam Ships." Most of the officers
appointed to this Service are R.N.R. They are perhaps the most familiar
of the war staff detailed to assist us. Their duties bring them
frequently on board our ships, where (on our own ground) relations grow
quickly most intimate and cordial. The many and varied patterns of guns
supplied for our defence made a considerable shore establishment
necessary, not alone for the guns and mountings, but for ammunition of
as many marks as a Geelong wool-bale. In the first stages of our
war-harnessing, the supply of guns was limited to what could be spared
from battlefield and naval armament. The range of patterns varied from
pipe-stems to what was at one time major armament for cruisers; we had
odd weapons--_soixa