Sea-Hounds

ewed in slant perspective, to the scaffolding of a scenic railway, or a "Goblin's Castle" in Luna Park. But there in the middle of the channel, the mountainous bulk could only be one thing,

it from astern, and it was only when we had come up well abreast of it that the parts settled down into "ship-shapeliness,"

, to give her the protection of conspicuousness. Now she sought protection in quite the opposite way. Every trick of scientific camouflage had been employed to render her inconspicuous; while, if that failed, there were the destroyers. The protection of these big liners is a considerab

officers at the end of the bridge, and two stewardesses in white uniforms leaning over the rail of one of the upper decks-that was all there was visible of human life on a ship which a few days before had b

d her skipper must know from what has happened the last week, that the Huns are all out to bag her this time, and he can hardly be able to extract any too much comfort out of the fact that it's about a hundred to one that we'll bag the Fritz that tries it-either before or after the event. Yes, it will be an anxious time for him-but," a grimly wry smile coming to his face as he turned his eyes to the opening seaward horizon, "even so, it'll be nothing to the time we're in for in the

need of destroyers. But so long as we've this weather there's a possibility of a torpedo running in, we've got to hang on to the last shiver, and there are two or three things which are going to make 'hanging on' this particular trip just a few degrees worse than anything we've stacked up against before. This is about the way things stand: The Lymptania's best pr

her, or even in rough, where there is only a following or a beam sea; but where the seas come banging down from more than a point or two for'ard of the beam it is quite a different matter. In that event, the speed of the whole procession depends entirely on how much the destroyers can stand without being reduced to scrap-iron. Na

rse. When the destroyers set out to escort a very fast and valuable ship, steering into heavy head seas in waters where there are known to be a number of U-boats operating, they've got the whole combination working against them, and the result is-just what you're slated to see this trip. Best take a good look at the Zip while you've got a chance; she may be quite a bit altered by the time we get back to port again. And you mig

e prophet

arriers. The way they stuck to the Justicia proves they're not yet beyond taking some risk if the stake is high enough. Now and then some Fritz is found desperate enough to commit hari-kari by coming up close (if the chance offers) and making sure of getting his torpedo home. He gets what's coming to him, of course, but there is also a fair chance of his getting the ship he is after; and a fast liner for a U-boat is a poor exchange-from our standpoint. Naturally, these things all make the skipper of the Lymptania anxious to minimise his risks by hitting up just as hot a pace as he can, and that, with her size and her power, will be just about full speed. I can't tell you to a knot how

ht-running seas well abaft the beam, the destroyers cut their zigzags round and about her with many knots in reserve. The big liner, with much experience to her credit, knew precisely what to do and how to do it, and the whole machine of the convoy worked as though pulled by a single string. Her very movements themselves seemed to give the various units of

rpedo-tubes attracted my attention for a moment as I sauntered aft to see what was afoot, and presently the rattle of dice on the deck and an imploring "Come on, you Seven!" told me they were "shooting Craps," with, I shortly discovered, bars of milk choc

ed to be muffed. But here the pitcher had to wind-up with a sort of a corkscrew stoop to keep from hitting his hand against a stay, while the catcher braced himself with one foot against a depth-charge and the other against the mounting of the after-gun. There were four or five things that the ball had to clear by less than a foot in its flight from one to the other, but the only ones of

ball they had lost overboard since the first of the month, but they fell quiet and turned sympathetic ears

prevent all leakage. "Only thing is, the captain might rule it off on the score that it'd catch the 'cans' we was trying to d

it was enough to make the Ward Room untenable, so that dinner had to be wolfed propped up on the transoms, one nicely balanced dish at a time. There would be about an hour more of this comparative comfort, the captain said, before we reached a position where the full force of the seas would be felt, but things w

my head got from the siderail of my bunk that put a period to the nap I did get. The rolling had increased enormously, and though it was apparent we were not yet bucking into it, the swishing of the water on the forecastle overhea

ap-plumed surface of a sea which now stretched unbrokenly to the westward horizon. There was a world of power behind the belligerent bulk of swells which had been gathering force under the urge of a west

formation on the swiftly steaming Lymptania. The latter, apparently as steady a

ly. "It isn't so rough but what a submarine might stage an attack if her skipper had the nerve; and it's a darn sight too rough for des

g the high places for speed, and, while I wouldn't call this exactl

REAT LINER

minutes," he added, turning his glasses to where the great liner, silhouetted for the moment against the sunset clouds, ploughed along on our port beam, "and you'll see the difference. Ah!" thi

t of the Lymptania. Quick as a cat on her helm, the Zip swung swiftly through eight points and plunged ahead

the same tactics with, dampened her ardour-and just about everything and everybody else below the foretop-by detaching a few tons of its bumptious bulk and raking her fore-and-aft with its rumbling green-white flood. The bridge was above the main weight of that blow, but 'midships and aft I saw men bracing themselves against a knee-deep stream. One bareheaded and b

f that little stunt of surmounting waves by biting them in the neck and then trampling their bodies under foot. She was beginning to realise that she had a body of her own

a comber had dealt her in passing, when the skyline ahead was blotted out by the imminent green-black loom of a running wall o

untainous menace tottering above her bows, she made up her mind that she was better off under the sea than on the surface, and deliberately dived. Of course, it was the Parthian kick the last sea had given her stern that was really responsible for her bows starting to go down at the very instant those of every other ship that one had had e

of craft, from a Fijian war canoe to the latest battlecruiser, trying to buck head seas, and invariably the wave that swept it had the decency to announce its coming by a warning knock on the bows. This time there was nothing of the kind

DED WITH THE

crashed with unbroken force against the bridge. We had collided with the "brick wa

ptain, with hunched shoulders and set jaw, throwing over the telegraph to stop the engines. But the clearest picture of all is of the submarine lookout on the port side-a black-eyed, black-haired boy with a profile that might have been copied from an old Roman coin-who was leaning out and gri

ause they were all happening at once, and partly because the self-centred frame of mind I was in at the moment was not favourable for detached observation. The noise and the jar of the crash were stupendous, yet neither of these has left so vivid a mental impression as the uncanny writhing of the two-inches-thick steel stanchion to which I was endeavouring to hold, and the nerve-

both sides the flood poured, to meet and mingle in a whirling maelstrom in the middle of the bridge. There was nothing of blown spindrift to it; it was green and solid and flowed with a heave and a hurl that made no more of slamming a man to the deck than of tossing a life-buoy. I went the whole length of the bridge when I lost my grip on the port stanchion, brought

tle of coloured bunting and crawled back to my moorings at the stanchion. Immediately afterwards I saw him jump on to the after-rail and make some sort of negative signa

of twisted bits of wire in front of one of the paneless windows. "That's the remains of our auxiliary radio," he said, grinning; "and look at the fo'c'sle. Swept clean, pretty near. Thank heaven, the gun's left. But, do you remember that heavy iron bar the muzzle rested on? Gone! It was probably that, with so

n as it was we were driving right up to the limit of endurance all the time, and the sea that did not come rolling up green right over the bows was the exception rather than the rule. From the forecastle right away aft there was never more than a few seconds at a time when the main deck was free of rollicking cascades of boiling brine, and there were moments when only the funnels and

ever, the big liner offered scarcely a better target on the side she was illuminated by the moonlight than on the one from which she was silhouetted against it. From either side a fifth of a mile of steel would "take a lot of missing," and her captain, sensibly enough, would not ease his engines by a revolution more than was necessary to

f a "hydraulic ramming" would disable one of the others temporarily. But, game to the last flake of brine-frosted camouflage, back they came to it again, and again, and yet again. Sunrise of the next day found

the channel as she zig-zagged up it under a jury steering-gear, and the Zap, like a man dazed from a blow, would have sudden "mental hiati" in which she would straggle carelessly out of line with an inconsequential going-to-pick-flowers-by-the-roadside sort of air. The Zim's idiosyncrasies had more of an epileptic suddenness about them, and her hectic coughing plainly indicated some kind of "lung

of speed the captain had spoken of, and all that, and even more than, he had prophesied had come to pass. It was just such a swaggerer of a sea as that first one that Zip had dived into which did the trick, only, as the Flossie was going faster, the impact was somewhat more

a couple of muffled detonations w

e same thing as just happened to us, except that the tautened wire only rang the stand-by bell, the signal for the men to set the depth-charges. First thing I did after we came to the surf

WAS BACK

on, and now she was back at Base. I won't "give comfort to the enemy" by trying to describe her appearance, but some hint of it may be gl

ve limpin' home from Zeebruggy! S'pose they'll f

be, they'll have her, and all the rest of us, right as trivets in three or four days, and quite ready to take the sea again when our turn comes. It's all in the convoy game, anyhow, and