be considerably mitigated by a cargo from
Fleet Street, they were no doubt justified in naming us "damned."

We did litter them up so. The _Dauntless_ is not merely one of the
latest and fastest of the light cruisers, she is also first among the
smartest. To accommodate us they had to give way to a rash of riveters
from the dock-yard who built cabins all over the graceful silhouette.
When our telegrams, and ourselves, and our baggage (including the
_Times'_ hatbox) arrived piece by piece, each was merely an addition to
the awful mess on deck our coming had meant.

Actually we could not help ourselves. Dock strikes, ship shortage and
the holiday season had all conspired to make any attempt to get to
Canada in a legitimate way a hopeless task. Only the Admiralty's idea
to pre-date the carrying of commercial travellers on British
battleships could get us to the West at all. The Admiralty, after
modest hesitation, had agreed to send us in the _Dauntless_, and before
the cruiser sailed we all realized how fortunate we were to have been
unlucky at the outset.

We sailed on August 2 from Devonport, three days before _Renown_ and
_Dragon_ left Portsmouth, and when one of us suggested that this was a
happy idea to get us to St. John's, Newfoundland, in order to be ready
for the Prince, he was told:

"Not at all, we're out looking for icebergs."

We were to act as the pilot ship over the course.

We found icebergs, many of them; even, we nearly rammed an iceberg in
the middle of a foggy night, but we found other things, too.

We found that we had got onto what the Navy calls a "happy ship," and
if anybody wants to taste what real good fellowship is I advise him to
go to sea on what the Navy calls "a happy ship." However much we had
disturbed them, the officers of the _Dauntless_ did not let that make
any difference in the warmth of their hospitality. We were made free
of the ward-room, and that Baltic tobacco. We were initiated into "The
Grand National," a muscular sport in which the daring exponent turns a
series of somersaults over the backs of a line of chairs; and we were
admitted into the raggings and the singing of ragtime.

We were made splendidly at home. Not only in the ward-room that did a
jazz with a disturbing spiral movement when we speeded up from our
casual 18 knots to something like 28 in a rough sea, but from the
bridge down to the boiler room, where we watched the flames of oil fuel
making stea