Sea-Hounds

squall which all but broke them loose from their moorings at sundown, and a signal to raise steam for full speed with all dispatch at midnight, it had been a rather exciting twelve hours for the destr

wall of the paling purple night-mist was uncoveri

ng aboard-but that was off the south peninsula of Greece or up Malta way. Here they haven't more than 'demonstrated' about the mouth of the Gulf for two or three months. They know jolly well that if they once come inside, no matter if they do sink a ship or two, that it's a hundred to one-between sea-planes, 'blimps,' P.B.s, and destroyers-against their ever getting out again. There's just a chance that they may try it this time, though, for they must

he officer commanding the division leader flashed his orders by "visual" to the several units of the flotilla, and presently these were spreading fan-wise to sweep southward toward where, sixty to a hundred miles away, numerous drifters would be dropping mile after mile of light nets across the straits leading out to the open Mediterranean. Northeastward, w

eless T

ting the brush instead of you. And unless we have the luck to do some of the flushing ourselves, I won't promise you that the whole show won't prove no end of a bore; and even if we do scare him up-well, there are a good many more exciting things than dropping 'ash-cans' on a frightened Fritzie. It won't

hree points on port bow," and, with much banging of boots on steel decks and ladders, the ship had gone to "Action Stations

bout two hundred yards on the starboard beam and created an effect so like a finger-periscope with its following "feather" that it drew a shell from the foremost gun which all but blew it out of the water. It was my remarking the smartness with which this gun was served that led the captain, when a floating mine was reported a few minutes later, to order that sinister menace to be destroyed by shell-fire rather than, as usual, by shots from a rifle. All t

wiping its smoky nose, sponging out its mouth, polishing its sleek barrel, and patting its shiny breech, for all the world as

ked together, evidently because they thought their own ship was going down, while two or three men from the Bow were thrown by the force of the collision on to the Seagull. When the two broke loose and drifted apart men from each of them were left on the other, and by a rather interesting coincidence, we have right here in the Spark at this moment representatives of both batches. They, with two or three other Jutland 'veterans' who chance also to be in the Spark, call themselves the 'Black Marias.' Just why, I'm not quite sure, but I believe it has something to do with their all being finally picked up by one destroyer and carried back to harbour like a lot of drunks after a night's spree. And, to hear them talk of it when they get together, that is the spirit in which they affect to regard a phase of the Jutland battle which wiped out some scores of their mates and two or three of the destroyers of their flotilla. Talking with one of t

swell gave ample excuse for turning to the crew of the foremost gun for a possible explanation. It was Leading Seaman Gains, as incisive of speech as he was quick of movement, who replied, and I reco

ank till her poop was awash at high tide-there's only a few feet rise and fall here, as you probably know, sir-but when the bodies of the mules that had been drowned 'tween decks began to swell they blocked up all the holes and finally generated so much gas t

wo" to a bit of embroidery on his own account. He was the one with the muscular forearms and the slight limp. The suggestion of "New World"

that light and jumpy with mule-gas, after the sun's been beating on her poop all day, that she lifts right up in the air and tugs at her moo

with: "She's not the only old wreck 'round here that they could draw on for 'mule-gas' if there's ever need of it, my boy; and as for he

ants-a-Corner' exchange, Jock and me," he said, "for Jock was Number Four or 'Trainer' of the crew of one of the fo'c'sle guns of the Bow, and I was the same in the Seagull. We didn't quite land in each other's place when the wallop came, but it wasn't far from it; and we each finished the scrap in the other guy's ship. You might pike aft and try to get a yarn out of Jock when 'Pack up!' sounds. He's a close

st tell me what happened in his own case, adding that it wasn't every British sailor who

. The Killarney and Firebrand was leading us, with the Wreath and one or two others astern. I was at 'action station' with the crew of the foremost gun, and keeping my eye peeled all round, for some of the ships astern had just been popping away at some Hun destroyers they had reported. All of a sudden I saw the officers on the bridge peering out to starboard, and there,

ING THE WATER AT TH

NIGHT AT THE BA

l must have launched mouldies at the second and third cruisers at near the same moment. Hitting at that range ships running on parallel courses was a cinch, and both slugs slipped home. It was some sight, those two spouts of fire and smoke shooting up together,

nce to do something in 'the Great War.' I lost sight of the Firebrand and took it for granted she had been blown up. It was not till a week afterwards that we learned s

her again, and seemed all in, with fires all over her and only one gun yapping away on her quarter-deck. I didn't know it at the time, but it was my old college friend, Gains, here, who was passing the projes, for that pert little piece. You'd never think it to look at him

over her from the funnels right for'ard. Bow turned sharp to port to try to shake off the searchlights, and Seagull altered at same time to keep from turning in her wake and running into the shells she was side-stepping. All of a sudden I saw another destroyer steering right across our bows, and to keep from ramming her th

pitchy dark, with the flicker of fires on the deck of the Bow making trembly red splotches in the smoke and steam. A sight I saw by the light of one of those fires just before the wallop is my mai

is recital up to this point, suddenly died out, and he was staring into nothingness stra

of them picked itself up and stood on its feet. It was a whole man from the chest up, and from a bit below the waist down, but-for all that I could see-nothing between. Of course, there must have been an unbroken backbone to make a frame that would stand up at all, but all the shot-away part was in shadow, so I saw nothing from the chest to the hips. It was just as if the head and shoulders were floating in the air. I remember 'specially that it

me vision, and when he resumed the corners of a sheepish grin were cutting in

ll the way from the fore bridge. But in the case of most of the twenty-three of us who found ourselves adorning the Bow's fo'c'sl' when the ships broke away, it was the result of a 'flap' started by some ijits yelling that we were cut in two and going down. What was more natural, then, with the Bow looming

I had no chance to welcome him. From where I was when I pulled up to my feet, it looked as if the Bow only lacked a few feet from cutting all the way through us, and as soon as I saw her screws beating up the sea as she tried to go astern, I had the feeling that the whole fo'c'sl' of the Gull must break off and sink as soon as the 'plug' was pulled out. I was still sitting tight, though, when that howl started that we were already breaking off and going down, and

er. We couldn't get aft very well on account of the smashed bridge, and so the bunch of us just huddled up there like a lot of sheep, waiting for some one to tell us what to do. The captain had already left the bridge and was conning her from aft-or possibly the

esult that she went right through it. Her sharp stem slashed through the quarterdeck like it was cutting bully beef, slicing five or ten feet of it clean off, so that it fell clear and sank. The jar of it ran through the whole length of the Seagull, and I felt the quick kick of it

was a fact. The Wreath had followed us out of line when we turned to clear the stopped and burning Killarney, and then, when we messed up with the Bow, not having time to go round, she had to take a short cut thro

I saw the blurred wreck of her begin to gather stern way. But it was a fact. Though her rudder, of course, was smashed or carried away, and though she couldn't go ahead without breaking in two, she was still able to move through the water, and perhaps even to steer a rough sort of course with her screws. As it turned out, it wouldn't have made no difference whether we was in her or no; but just

l the crews of her fo'c'sl' guns-or such of them as were still alive-were in the same fix. So we just bunched up there in the dark and waited. Some of the wounded were in beastly shape, but there wasn't much to be done for them, even in the way of first aid. Some shipmates of other times drifted together in the darkness, and I remember 'specially-it was while I was

for knitted woollen gifts

up in the wreck of a smashed gun, told him that I was another tilicum from the 'Squimalt Base, and asked him what ship he had been there in. I knew there was a good chance that we'd been mates in the old Virago, and there even seemed a familiar sound to his voice. But I wasn't fated ever to find out. He just kept on muttering, slipping u

once for a Hun destroyer switched on searchlights and opened fire. She was about two cables off on our port quarter, heading right for us and blazing away with one or two guns, probably all that would bear on that course. A second destroyer, right a

y men bunched together there for'rard of the wreck of the bridge. When the firing started, the whole kaboodle of us did what you're alway

Hun's projes landed kerplump. It didn't hit me at all, that one, but I can feel yet the kind of heave the whole bunch gave as it ploughed through. Then

and Kingdom Come if it had gone off. The next one found something in the wreck of the bridge hard enough to crack it off though, and it was a ragged scrap of its casing that drove in to the point of my hip and put a kink in my rolli

was right, and were glad to get off with no more'n an exchange of shots in passing. That was the end of the fighting for the Bow, and about time, too. Her bows were stove in, all the fore part of her was full of water, her bridge was smashed and useless, her W.T. and search

inutes there in the darkness. A good many of the worst knocked about were talking a bit wild, but I never heard the guy with the Chinook wa-wa again. He must have died and been pitched over while I was being bandaged up. I did hear the 'wool-mat-maker' yapping

me of the wounded had already been carried aft, and they were mostly dead ones that were lying around. These were being sewed up in canvas to get ready to bury. I thought there was something familiar in the face of one gu

was a sick bay steward-came in, washed my wound out with some dope that smarted like the devil, and tied it up. He worked like a streak of greased lightning, and then went on to some one else. That chap was Pridmore, and, let me tell you, he was the real 'top-liner' of all the heroes of the Bow. The surgeon had been killed at the first salvo the night before, leaving no one but him to carry on through all the hell that followed. And some way-God knows how-he did it; yes, even

ent abode of the gods on the snow-capped summit of Olympus. On Number Two assuring me that his yarn was spun, that there was nothing more to it save an attempt he had made, in spite of his wound, to get into a fight that started when some of the wounded were hissed by a gang of dockyard "mateys"-I clambered back to the bridge to learn the significance of the new move. I still wanted to hear Gains' story of the Killarney, but I had already sized him up sufficiently to know that he was not the type

ulf which was not being covered by the present formation of the division. "I've had a signal stating that they're on the track of one U-boat, and there may be something to make them

him leaning on the breech of the after gun and staring landwards with his bushy brows puckered in the incredulous scowl of a man who can't credit the evidence of his own eyes) that it was an actual fact that the fuzzy black sheep were wading in and drinking-if sparingly-of the salt water, that a basis of conversation was finally established. Up to that moment he had given no sign that any of my carelessly thrown out tentatives had penetrated to his ears through the "tel

half a day, and that my "clip" was composed of about equal parts mutton and wool) on a back blocks station in Queensland. Then he described how he had seen a big merino ram butt a Ford car off the road up Thurso way, and I-with more finesse than veracity-capped that with a yarn of how I had seen a flock of Macedonia

? Ye wud? Weel, then--." As brief, as direct and to the point was the plain unvarnished tale Jock Campbell told me the while a noon-day storm awoke reverberant echoes of the Jovian thunders in th

big Hun cru'sers, and we lat blaze at them and them at us. The range was short, and wi' their serchlichts lichten us up oor position wasna that Ah wad ca' verra pleasant. Up gaed a Hun cru'ser in a spoort o' flame and reek, hit,

na oor midships and after guns was firing, but na the foremost, for Ah dinna mind being blinded by their licht afore the Hun

st ane showed me was just the gun crews, standin', and bracin' themsel's like when a big sea braks inboard. It was ower like a flash o' lichtnin, and the licht had gone oot afore Ah saw any

d had been laid oot wi' the ithers, but noo he was puin himsel' to his feet and crawlin' up the wreck o' the gun when a proj frae the second salvo burst richt alow him. By the flash Ah saw him flyin' inta the air, and-by the licht o' anither flash a bittie eft

hem. Then cam' a cry frae the bridge that a 'stroyer was closin' us to port, and then Ah mind hearin' the captain shoutin' an order ower and ower, like he wasna bein' answered frae the ither en

she must ha' struck wi' a michty crash. The next thing Ah mindit-weel, Ah didna mind much save that I was lyin' on ma back in a sort o' narrow way atween twa high wa's, wi' a turrible pain in ma back and mony

on, and then slid richt awa', leavin' me hingin' ower the brink o' a black hole, wi' water souchin'

he wan she'd hit. Quite natteral, Ah thocht masel' still in the Bow, seem' that Ah cud be nae mair use on the fo'c'sl',

every bit of wreck Ah felt ower, sent me sprawlin'. Whan I fund that there was no so mony funnels as Ah minded afore, and whan Ah cudna find the W.T. hoose, Ah thocht that they ha

n gae a michty shriek a' most at ma lug, and Ah turned to see anither T.B.D., spootin' fire frae her funnels and throwin' a double bow wave higher'n her fo'c'sl', headin' richt int

Ah had come frae. But she keepit turnin' and turnin', so that she hit at last richt abaft the after gun. Ah fell a' in a heap at the shock, and, tho' Ah was a guid ten feet frae whaur her stem cut in, the bulge o' her crunched into the quarterdeck till she passed sae close that suthin' stickin' oot frae her side-it micht hae been the li

Ah hear some ane shoutit that they thocht that last rammin' had done

aid that Ah must have been pitchit ower whan the Bow rammed the Seagull, and that Ah prob'ly hadna shaken doon to ma new surroundin's. Ah tried hard to speir what kind o' a shakin' doon t

k' room for a lad wi' bandages roun' his head and a' drippin' wi' salt water. His ship had gone doon twa hours syne, and maist o' the time he had been in the water or roostin' on a Carley Float. That lad's name was Gains,

jammed hard a-sta'bo'd made sae much drag that the cable partit. Then there was naithing else to do-sin' the Seagull cudna steam-but to sink her wi' gun-fire. The captain askit permission for this by W.T., and when it came they ditched the books and signals, transferred abody to the Sportsman, and then gae her a roun