Sea-Hounds

up to the breast of its mothership for a drink of petrol, or whatever other life-giving essence she lived and laboured on, but hardly for the highly diversified assortment that was to

the adaptability of the supposedly stodgy and inflexible Anglo-Saxon race. Her skipper, to use one of his own favourite expressions, is a live wire-always seems to be able to spark when there's trouble in the wind. He came from somewhere in Western Canada, I bel

otor

saw salt water before he crossed the Atlantic to do his bit in the War, and though he never has got and never will get, I'm afraid, his

believe him. Perhaps his most remarkable achievement, however, is that of taking eight or ten men, just as green as he was himself regarding the sea, and making of them a crew that will handle that cranky little lump of a craft pretty nearly as smartly as old trawler-men would on the nautical side, and at the same time having a fund of resource always on tap that is positively uncanny-almost Yankee, in fact," h

wobbly wire rail. A slender but lithely active chap in a greasy overall and jumper, to give it the Yankee name, gave me a finger-crushing grip with his right hand, while with his left he deftly caught and saved from immersion my kit-bag, which had fallen short in the toss that had been given it from below. Just for an instant the absence of visible

-lay that you get at the hotel at this hour of the morning on your stomach. Don't try to bluff me that you had anything more. I know by sad experience. Now I'll give you something that'll stick to your ribs. What do you

to a transom at the end of a table whi

a smile of welcome as we dropped down beside him. "Mac's a Canuck, like myself," he went on, after asking me if I liked my eggs "straight up" or "turned over," and passing the o

Only time I was ever afloat before I became a 'Capt'in in the King's Navee' was on a raft on the old Missouri, in Dakota; and that isn't really bein

for quite a while. And so'll Mac hear the sea a-calling his breakfast, and so'll I, and so'll all the rest of us-every mother's son. It's a fine lot of Jack Tars we are, the whole bunch of us. Did I tell you that one of my quartermasters is an ex-piano-tuner, and that the other was a Salvation Army captain before he entered the Senior Service for the duration? And my Chief-that's him you hear alternating between tinkering and swearing at the

. Two or three times, when the sea has been kicking up a bit, he has managed to tell us that no self-respecting God-fearing sailor would be oot in such weather. Possibly he's been right; but, as none of us are sailors, we don't feel called on to pay much attention to his ravings. Our duty is to harass any Huns that encroach on our beat;

d in less than ten minutes M.L. -- was under way and threading the winding

, by birth, breeding, residence, and probably citizenship, was an American of Americans, and, second, that the chances were he would not admit that fact unless I "surprised him with the goods." An

ng to forget that imperious call o' the sea he had chaffed 'Arry about by showing me round. He had explained the wa

and giving it a gingerly twirl about his head, "is a good deal

It came that afternoon, when I stood beside him on the bridge as he bucked her through ten miles of slashing head-sea, which had to be traversed to gain the shelter of a land-locked bay beyond a jutting point, where we were to lie up for the night. He was telling me U-boat-chasing yarns in the patchy intervals between the

t suggestive of what really happened; but that straight-from-the-shoulder, elbow-flirting, right-off-the-ends-of-the-fingers

ments, do you? Did a bit of pitching, if I do

fron of his sea-sick face. "Yes, I even 'tossed the pill' at college-that is,

a sea which had just broken inboard blow over, "you might just as well 'fess up and tell me which neck of the Mississippi Valley you hail from. Just as one Yankee to another," I presse

-muscles stood out in white lumps on either side; then his mouth softened

all, I'll make a clean breast of it. I was born in Kansas-got a farm there, near a little burg called Stockton, to-day-and was never out of the Middle West in my life till I crossed over into Canada to enlist in the first

ozen fjords of Norway, knocked the bottom out of the thermometer and filled the air with needle-like shafts of congealed moisture that seemed to have been chipped from the glassy steel dome of the now cloudless sky. There was a filigree of frost masking the wheel-house w

are said to have been built in fulfilment of a rush order given one winter on the assumption that the War would be over before the next) there was no refinements and few comforts. Heating is not included among the latter: the only stove in the boat being in the galley, where

ally certain that they do not heat. There is a certain amount of warmth in them, as I discovered the time I scorched my blankets by taking one to bed with m

n early in the afternoon had drenched cushions and curtains, with enough left over to form an inch or two of swashing swirl upon the deck. Poor 'Arry, with the effects of the "call o' the sea" still showing in his hollow eyes and pasty cheeks, was not in shape to do much either in the way of "slicking up" or "snugging down"; while the extent of his culinary effort was limited to a kedgeree of half-boiled rice and pale canne

ng teeth, "I prescribe the only treatment ever found to be efficaciou

et his tongue wagging of his life on the old home farm, and from that to a sketchy but vivid recital of things that he had done, and hoped still to do, as the skipper of a British patrol boat. It is the vision that the memory of that recital conjures up: D--, wi

ive service at once, the intervention of an old college friend-an able young chemical engineer occupying a prominent post in Munitions-secured him a sub-lieutenant's commission in the R.N.V.R. Although, as he na?vely put it, the sea was no friend of his, it appears that the M.L. game had proved congenial from the outset: so much so, indeed, that something like three years of service found him with two decorations and innumerable mentions to his credit, to say nothing of the reputation of being one of the most resourceful, energetic and generally useful men in a service in which all of those qualities are taken more or less as a matter of course. He had gone in as a Canadian for fear that

st has been to make that 'defensive' just as 'offensive' as possible, and it's really astonishing how obnoxious some of us have been able to make ourselves to the Hun. Off-hand, since, with his heavier guns, the average Hun is more than a match for us even on the surface, there wouldn't seem much that we could do against him beyond running and telling one of our big brothers. The perfecting of the depth-charge gave us one very formidable weapon,

hat he did in attacking, or when being attacked by, M.L.s, and ignoring his tactics with sloops, trawlers, and other light craft. It wasn't long before I discovered that his almost invariable practice-when it was a matter of only himself and a M.L.-was to get the latter's range as quickly as possible, endeavour to knock it out, or at least set it afire, by a few hurried shots, and then to submerge and make an approach unde

ly up and finish the good work at leisure, with the addition of any of the inimitable little Hunnisms-such as firing on the boats, or ramming them, or running at full speed

PTH

DESTROY

id the gophers and prairie-dogs when I started to exterminate them on my Kansas farm. I found out when they were most likely to come up, when to stay down; what things attracted them, and what repel

ead him on with an imitation death-agony, and then have a proper surprise waiting for him when he came up to gloat. The first thing I started working on was how to 'burn up' and 'blo

t running the chance of blowing in my own stern. But the bing of a depth-charge detonating well under the water is quite unmistakable, and the first U-boat I tried to lure with one made off forthwith, plainly under the impression that it was the object of an active attack. As for the searchlight, I saw that it wouldn't do the first time I went down and took a peep at a trial

oom. The next move was to be up to Fritz, and it was fairly certain he would do one of two things-submerge and make off, or remain on the surface and begin to shell us. In the latter case we were to start firing in reply, of course; but that was only incidental to the main plan. This was to wait until we were hit, or, preferably, until he fired an 'over,' the fall of which, on account of his low platform, he could not spot accurately, and then to fire the tank of kerosene. A line to a trigger, rigged to explode a percussion-cap, made it possible to do this from the rail. As the flames, besides giving off a lot of smoke, would themselves leap high enoug

trawlers just under the horizon for that of destroyers. It was all due to bad luck and bad judgment-principally the latter, I'm afraid. It was bad luck to the extent that the U-boat was sighted down to leeward, so that there was no alternative but to put over my 'fire-raft' on the windward side. The bad judgment came in through my underestimating the force of the wind and the fierceness

hat I was swinging her through sixteen points to bring the raft to the leeward of her-- Well, I can only chalk that up to the credit of the special Providence that is supposed to intervene especially to save drunks and

ost as though he was one of our own submarines with which I had been rehearsing. His firing at us was about as bad as mine at him; but he finally lobbed one over that was close enough, so I knew he couldn't tell whether it was a hit or not, and on that I touched off the fire-raft, which was soon spouting up a fine pillar of flame and smoke. To discourage his approach on the surface, I kept

thing to belie the impression I had laid myself out to convey-that M.L. -- was an explosion-riven, burning, and even already, probably a sinking ship. Besides the gay gush of flames from the fire-raft, which must have appeared to be roaring amidships, lurid tongues of fire were also spouting out of the forrard and after hatches, and from several of the ports; while a thirty-degree list to starboard might well have indicated that she was about to heel over and go down. I had looked at her that way from a periscope myself, while I was studying the effect of some 'sta

asonable to suppose that he would come up and do his gloating on the side he approached from, and so that was the side I had prepared to receive him on. The heavy list she was under to starboard would have made it possible to bring the gun to bear on him until he was almost under the rail, and then there would be a chance for a lance-bomb. If he came

down, there would probably be a good opening for a depth-charge. I rang up full speed at the same time I was shouting orders to cast off the fire-raft, and to bash in one end of the starboard 'tilting-tank' with an axe. We had considered the possibility of this emergency arising, as much as we hoped it wouldn't, so that no time was lost in meeting it. The fire-raft, boom and all, was cast

nd perhaps loot before she went down, suddenly settle back on an even keel and come charging down on him at twenty-five knots. The 'moony' fat phizes that showed above the rail of the bridge were pop-eyed with

tended to ram him, and that would have meant-well, about the same thing as one airplane charging into another. I should almost certainly have finished him, while at the same operation-but I don't need to tell you that a match-box like this was never made for bull-at-a-gate tactics. I've never heard of one of this class of M.L.s getting home with a good square butt at a U-boat, and I'm very happy to say that it didn't happen on this occasion. I don't think that we even so much as grazed his 'jump-string'; but the wh

eat out of my hand almost exactly as I had been planning for. Now, if that first one had really survived and been able to return to base, it is certain that its skipper would have told what he saw, and that there would have been a general order (such a

wasn't it?" I asked, leaning far out to make my

. Toddy can's empty. Make a tent of the blankets with your knees, and take the ele