the R.N.V.R. Although, as he
naively put it, the sea was no friend of his, it appears that the M.L.
game had proved congenial from the outset: so much so, indeed, that
something like three years of service found him with two decorations and
innumerable mentions to his credit, to say nothing of the reputation of
being one of the most resourceful, energetic and generally useful men in
a service in which all of those qualities are taken more or less as a
matter of course. He had gone in as a Canadian for fear that he might be
turned down as a Yankee, and then, to use his own words: "By the time
the U.S.A. began to take a hand, I had told so many darn lies about
hunting and fishing and farming in Alberta and British Columbia that I
concluded it would be less trouble to go on telling them than to start
in denying them. The boundary between Canada and the U.S.A. is more or
less of an imaginary line, anyhow, and so is that between the average
Yankee and Canuck. I reckon I've made it just as hot for the Hun as the
latter as I would have as the former, and that's really the only thing
that counts at this stage of the game." It was this last observation, I
believe, which started D---- talking of his work.

"Generally speaking," he said, reaching up the match with which he had
just lighted a cigarette to rekindle the tobacco in my expiring pipe,
"the role of the M.L. is very much more defensive than it is offensive.
It is supposed to police certain waters, watch for U-boats, report them
when sighted, and then carry on as best it can till a destroyer, or
sloop, or some craft with a real punch in it, comes up and takes over.
Well, my idea from the first has been to make that 'defensive' just as
'offensive' as possible, and it's really astonishing how obnoxious some
of us have been able to make ourselves to the Hun. Off-hand, since, with
his heavier guns, the average Hun is more than a match for us even on
the surface, there wouldn't seem much that we could do against him
beyond running and telling one of our big brothers. The perfecting of
the depth-charge gave us one very formidable weapon, however, and that
of the lance-bomb another, though the days when Fritz was tame and
gullible enough to allow himself to be enticed sufficiently near to
permit the use of the latter are long gone by. The most satisfying job I
ever did, though, was pulled off with a lance-bomb; and, since there is
not one chance in a thousand of our ever getting