o get crews
who are sea-wise in every detail--the expert signalman among the
officers might have been off watch and having a nap. Anyway, one of our
little fighting fellows went bounding after her. It was like watching a
sheep-dog at work. The war-ship moved up from behind, drew up, and then,
showing her teeth, headed the freighter the other way and held her
headed that way while she put an officer aboard and asked an explanation,
which was probably given and doubtless all right, for the officer came
back and the freighter resumed her regular course. Day in and day out
that was the way of it, every passing ship being viewed as suspect and
our own ships, of varying speeds and tonnage, trying to keep a good
alignment.

The weather generally was fine, but one morning we ran into a fog. A fog
has its virtues; a submarine cannot see you in a fog. But neither can
you see a submarine. And somewhere handy to you is a bunch of your own
ships, and no telling when one of them may come riding out of the mist
and climb aboard by way of your port or starboard quarter!

A whistle by day or a search-light by night would have been a great help
to our naval officer on the bridge during that fog, but he was denied
that. So he made out (as did every other commander on every other bridge
during the fog) with whatever other means he could devise. Nothing
happened to us.

The fog passed on, and then one day came a slaty gray sea and a slaty
sky. Gray seas look hard; white crests moving across gray seas look hard
too. Our naval officer took time to look around on them. Gray hulls were
smashing high bows into them, making boiling white water of the hard
gray sea and throwing it to either side in fine, high-rolling billows as
they pressed on. They were a fine sight then, with the smoke pouring out
and trailing low from some of them. They were not trying to make smoke,
but if a ship must make smoke, it will not be seen so far on a gray day.

Our naval officer held the bridge from early that morning to nine
o'clock that night. He had an idea that he might be able to sneak in a
couple of hours' sleep against the strain of the later night. It was not
bad weather when he left--a good breeze blowing and plenty of white
showing. It was dirty, but not bad weather. He got in one hour in his
bunk, turning in with his clothes on, when he was called to go on the
bridge again. Something had happened. He could feel the increasing wind
before he was fairly