hopeful that the rising wind and sea, both
were about 'Force 6,' might make it impossible for submarines to operate
during the day or so that still must elapse before reaching port, when
trouble began.

"All the morning the _Plato_, which had been a bad straggler throughout,
had been falling astern, and finally the _Smack_ ordered _Whack_ back to
prod her on and do what could be done in the way of screening her. She
still continued to lose distance, however, so that, at noon, we were
nearly out of sight of the main convoy, of which little more than smoke
and topmasts could be seen on the northern horizon.

"At that hour the _Smack_, doubtless because he had received some report
of the presence of U-boats in his vicinity, ordered us to rejoin the
convoy. We left an armed trawler to do what it could for the loitering
_Plato_, and started off at the best rate the weather would allow to
make up the distance lost. It was at this juncture that the amusing
little coincidence I mentioned a while ago occurred.

"A patrol-boat, of course, does not carry a padre, any more than it does
a number of the other comforts and luxuries provided in cruisers and
battleships, and for that reason we hadn't been able to do very much in
the way of a Christmas service. Several of the ship's company were
somewhat religiously inclined, however, and these, in lieu of anything
better, had asked for and received permission to hold a bit of a song
service, in case there was opportunity for it, during the day. As the
morning had been a rather full one, no suitable interval offered until
their rather poor apology for a Christmas dinner was out of the way, and
we were headed back to join the convoy. Then they went to it with a
will, and for the next hour or more fragments of Yuletide songs came
drifting back to my cabin to mingle with a number of other things
conspiring to disturb the forty winks I was trying to snatch while the
going was good. After a while, it appears, having run through their
repertoire of Christmas songs, they started in on Easter ones, 'Bein'
that they was mo' or less on the same subject,' as one of them explained
to me later. They had just boomed the last line of a chorus which
concluded with 'We shall seek our risen Lord,' when a signal was
received stating that a periscope had been sighted by some ship of the
convoy, and, sure enough, off they had to go to seek--well, I wouldn't
take the Hun quite so near his own valuation of