ort endeavours
to make her speed conform to the best the destroyers can do under the
circumstances; but since an extra knot or two an hour might well make
all the difference in avoiding a submarine attack, the tendency always
is to keep the escorting craft extended to just about their limit of
endurance.

"Just how the mean will be struck between what a fast steamer thinks its
escorting destroyers _ought_ to stand, and what the destroyers really
_can_ stand, depends upon several things. Perhaps the principal factor
is the state of mind of the skipper of the steamer, and that, in turn,
is influenced by the value of his ship--both actual and potential--and
the danger of submarine attack at that particular time in the waters
under traverse. When the destroyers set out to escort a very fast and
valuable ship, steering into heavy head seas in waters where there are
known to be a number of U-boats operating, they've got the whole
combination working against them, and the result is--just what you're
slated to see this trip. Best take a good look at the _Zip_ while you've
got a chance; she may be quite a bit altered by the time we get back to
port again. And you might take a squint at the _Flossie_ over there,
too. She's our latest and swiftest, the Fotilla's pride. But this is
her first experience of taking out an ex-ocean greyhound, and if, in a
burst of fresh enthusiasm, she chances to tap any of these several extra
knots of speed she is supposed to have--well, the _Flossie's_ sky-line
in that case will be modified more than those of all the rest of her
older and wiser sisters put together."

Those were prophetic words.

"The one thing that makes it certain that we'll be put to the limit
to-night," resumed the captain, after he had rung up more speed on our
coming out into opener water, "is the news in this morning's official
announcement of the sinking of the _Justicia_. We seem just to have
struck the peak of the midsummer U-boat campaign. It was scarcely a week
ago that they got the _Carpathian_. Then, a few days later, came the
_Marmora_ (you won't forget for a while the strafe we had at the U-boat
which put her down), and now it's the _Justicia_, the biggest ship
they've sunk in a year or so. That's the thing that must be worrying the
skipper of the _Lymptania_, for it shows they're after the great
troop-carriers. The way they stuck to the _Justicia_ proves they're not
yet beyond taking some risk if the stake is high