importance,
it was not an occasion to waste time by waiting or asking for orders. A
swift exchange of signals between ships, a hurried order or two down a
voice-pipe, an advancing of the handle of the engine-room telegraph, a
throwing over of the wheel, and we had spun in the welter of our tossing
wake and were off on a mission that might prove one of either mercy or
destruction, or, quite conceivably, both. The formation in which we had
been cruising when the signal was received gave the _Zip_ something
like a mile lead at the get-away, and this--though one of the others was
a newer and slightly faster ship--she held gallantly to the end of the
race. By a lucky chance, though there was a snoring wind and a lumpy sea
running, the course brought both abaft the beam and permitted us to run
nearly "all out" without imposing a serious strain on the ship. The
difference between running before and bucking into seas of this kind I
was to learn in a day or two. For the moment, conditions were all that
could be asked to favour our getting with all dispatch into whatever
game there was to be played.

Many a so-called express train has travelled slower than any one of
those three destroyers was ploughing its way through solid green water.
For a few seconds after "Full speed!" had been rung down to their
engine-rooms, swift-spinning smoke rings had shot up from their funnels
and gone reeling off down to leeward; then, with perfect synchronisation
of draught and oil, the duskiness above the mouths of the stumpy stacks
had cleared, and only the mirage on the horizon astern betrayed the
up-spouting jets of hot gases. Only the vibrant throb of the speeding
engines--so pervading that it seemed to pulse like heart-beats through
the very steel itself--gave hint of the mightiness of the effort that
speed was costing. With that throb stilled--and the mounting wake
quenched--the progress of that thousand tons or so of steam-driven
steel would have seemed scarcely less effortless than that of an
aeroplane.

An order from the Commander-in-Chief--which was picked up presently--to
go to the assistance of the torpedoed ship and to "hunt submarine" had
been anticipated; but the real name of the steamer--finally transmitted
correctly--brought to me at least a distinct shock. It was H.M.S.
_Marmora_, and the _Marmora_, the former P. & O. Australian liner, was
an old friend. To anyone who loves the sea a ship, no matter of what
kind, has a persona