ting, evidently, by the red worsted "mouldie" on his
sleeve--who had just clambered up to the forecastle from the deck of a
hulking "L" moored alongside.

"How do you like submarin-ing?" I had asked him, by way of getting
acquainted.

"Not so bad, sir," he replied with a smile, "though it's a bit stuffy
and rather slow after destroyers. With them there's something doing all
the time. I was in one of the 'M' class before I volunteered for
submarines. P'raps you've heard of her--the _Mary Rose_, sunk a year
this month, in----"

"Wait a moment," I cut in, as the ribbon he was wearing caught my eye;
"you're one of the men I've been looking for for a number of months. Ten
to one you're Able Seaman Bailey, who received the D.S.M. for his part
in the action, and who is specially mentioned in the Admiralty story"
(refreshing my memory from a note-book) "for having, 'despite severe
shrapnel wounds in the leg, persisted in taking his turn at an oar' of
the Norwegian lifeboat which picked up the _Mary Rose_ survivors, and
for his 'invincible light-heartedness throughout.'"

A flush spread under his "submarine pallor" at that broadside, but he
admitted, with an embarrassed grin, that his name was Bailey, and that
his decoration was awarded for something or other in connection with
the last fight of the _Mary Rose_, though for just what he had never
quite been able to figure out. In the hour we leaned over the forecastle
rail and watched the North Sea fog-bank roll up the estuary with the
incoming tide, this is the account he gave me of the things which he
himself saw of what is perhaps the most gallantly tragic of all the
naval actions of the war.

* * * * *

"They hadn't got convoying at that time down to the system it is carried
on under now," he began, by way of explanation, "and the only fighting
ships with this one were the _Mary Rose_ and _Strongbow_. The _Mary_ was
of the same class as the 'M ...' over there, very large and fast and
well armed for a destroyer, but never, of course, built for anything
like a give-and-take fight with any kind of a cruiser.

"There was also an armed trawler somewhere about, but it had no chance
to do anything but pick up survivors. We were an anti-submarine escort,
nothing more, and were not intended to stand off surface raiders. Of
course provision was made against these, too, but--well, when you
consider the size of the North Sea and the length and black