se she was to hold till daybreak, and then
took me down to the Chart House for a bowl of ship's cocoa before
turning in. It was some question I asked about the practice of placing
buoys over possible U-boat graveyards, to make it easy to resume
investigations if desired, that started him on a train of anti-submarine
reminiscence that led back to one of the smartest achievements of its
kind in the whole course of the sea war.

"There are times," he said, leaning back on the narrow couch that served
as his "sea-bed," and bracing with outstretched legs against the
twisting roll, "that a Fritz will do things that would lead a
superficial observer to think that he had a sense of humour. Of course,
we know that he hasn't anything of the kind (any more than he has
honour, sportsmanship, decency, or any other of the attributes of a
normal civilised human being). But the illusion is there just the same,
especially when he tries on such little stunts as the one he incubated a
couple of months ago in connection with a buoy I dropped to mark the
spot where there was a chance that my depth-charges might have sent him
to the bottom.

"It was just about such an 'indeterminate' sort of a strafe as the one
we've just had--no chance for gun-fire, not much to go by for planting
depth-charges, and, in the end, nothing definite to indicate that any
good has been done. So, in case it was decided that my report was of a
nature to justify further looking into, I left a securely moored buoy to
furnish a guide as to where to begin, quite as we have to-night. Well,
it chanced that the S.N.O. at Base reckoned that there was just enough
of a hope to warrant following up. Indeed, you may be sure there isn't
much that isn't followed up these days, now that we've got our whole
comprehensive plan into operation and adequate craft to support it with.
So he sent out quite a little fleet of us--craft fitted to do all the
various little odds and ends of things that help to make sure one way or
the other what has really happened to Fritz. Luckily, _Flash_ was able
to return with them. If she had not--if someone who had not seen the lay
of things after the strafe the night before had not been along to 'draw
comparisons'--Fritz's little joke might have turned out a good deal more
pointed than it did.

"We picked up the buoy without any difficulty, as the day was fine and
the sea fairly smooth--just the weather one wanted for that kind of
work. While we wer