hatchway leading to the cabin flat. Officers were rushing past
on their way to their posts, exchanging chaff and conjecture as they
went. Thorogood descended to the cabin flat, jerked back the curtain
of his cabin, and hurriedly entered the familiar apartment. Opening a
drawer he snatched up a gas-mask and a packet containing first-aid
appliances which he thrust into the pocket of his swimming waistcoat,
together with a flask and a small tin of compressed meat lozenges.
Once before, earlier in the war, he had fought for life clinging to a
floating spar. Then succour had come in a comparatively short time,
but the experience had not been without its lesson.

He made for the door again and then paused on the threshold
hesitatingly. "Might as well," he said, and turning back picked up a
small photograph in a folding morocco frame and thrust it
half-shamefacedly into an inside pocket.

As he emerged into the flat again he met Gerrard, the Assistant
Paymaster, struggling into a thick coat outside the door of his cabin.

"Hullo!" laughed the A.P. "Having a last look at the old home, James?"

Thorogood patted his pockets. "Just taking in provisions in case I
have to spend the week-end on a raft. What's your action station?"

"Fore-top," was the reply. "Taking notes of the action. Now, have I
got everything? Thermos flask--watch--note-book--glasses--right! _En
avant, mon brave!_"

Thorogood reached the 6-inch battery breathless, and found the guns'
crews busy tricing up their mess-tables overhead. The Gunner was
passing along the crowded deck ahead of him. He stopped opposite the
after gun:

"They're out, lads!" he said grimly. "Give 'em hell, this time. Clear
away and close up round your guns--smartly then, my hearties!"

From the other side of the deck came the voice of Tweedledee giving
orders to his battery, raised above the clatter of the ammunition
hoists, the thud of projectiles as they were placed in the rear of each
gun, the snap and clang of the breech as the guns were loaded....

Fire and wreckage parties stood in little groups along the main-deck,
and first-aid parties were gathered at the hatchways; two Midshipmen,
pale and bright-eyed with excitement, talked in low voices by the
foremost gun: gradually a tense hush closed down upon the main deck;
the crews stood silent round their guns, waiting in their steel-walled
casemates for the signal that would galvanise them into death-dealing
ac