To Kiel in the 'Hercules'

l objects more than a few yards ahead were completely cut off. The mist-muffled wails of horns and whistles coughed eerily in the depths of the blank smother to port and starboard, and once the beati

they sharpened out of the fog, appeared the bulging bows of what looked to be a large merchantman. At the same instant, too late by many

ity-had the Viceroy also attempted to avoid collision by turning to port. Realizing this with a sure judgment, the captain fell back on an alternative which would hardly have been open to him with a destroyer less powerfully built and engined than the latest "V's." I have already told how, in the lock at Brunsbüttel, he had stopped his ship dead, just short of the gates, by going astern with the engines at the proper moment. Here, in scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, h

's passing acquaintance with "Q" boats suggested as possibly masking guns), and a folded seaplane housed

g with side-cast eyes the effects of the announcement. "You wil

the channel. I had seen him smile resignedly like that a few days previously off the Elbe estuary when a speeding widgeon, whose line of flight had promised to

lf at the engine-room hatchway, and informed that the ship just sighted was "the famous raider, Moewe, that has been so many times through the English blockade." It was he

fact that he was only a "one-striper," one reckoned that he was a promoted rating of some kind. He was tall, dark, and powerful of build, with hard black eyes glowering from under bushy brows. He talked of his submarine exploits with the greatest gusto, among these being (according to his claim) th

t fighter" air of the former, was a subtle intriguer of the highest order. Just how "subtle" he was may be judged from the fact that within ten minutes of coming aboard that morning he had drawn one of the British officers aside to warn him of the menace to

HO CLAIMED TO HAVE LAUNCHED THE T

e breakwater and turning off to the north-west, and from the word "Armistice" painted on her sides in huge white letters we took it she was engaged in repatriating Allied prisoners by way of Copenhagen. As we closed her, this impression was confirmed by the sight of two men in the unmistakable uniforms of British officers pacing the after-deck arm-in-arm. Surprised that they appeared to be taking no notice of the Viceroy, with the White Ensign at her stern doing its best to flap them a mes

n sailors-one or two of them with white bands on their arms-to whom the Tommies had been talking, kept discreetly in the background, but the latter, grinning with delight and exchanging good-natured chaff with the bluejackets, caught our mooring lines and helped make them fast. They looked in extremely good condition and

yards to the first of a long row of wood and steel hangars. The Commander of the station had received us at the landing; the rest of the officers met us in the roadway in front of the first shed to be inspected. Evidences of the resentment they undoubtedly felt over having to give way in the

limited to the comparatively perfunctory checking over of the machines against a list furnished in advance, seeing that they displayed no evidences of having been used for anything more than experimental flights, and ascertaining that they had been properly di

, and even fabric, has been replaced by the light but tough alloy called "duraluminum." One of the German officers volunteered the information that the principal advantage of the latter over the ordinary machine was the fact that more of it could be salved after a crash. The fact that there was nothing to burn sometimes rendered it possible to save an

whether at Rosyth or Scapa-was never considered entirely free from the menace of an attack by a flotilla of torpedo-carrying seaplanes, and it was a matter of considerable surprise to the sub-commission for naval air stations when it transpired in the course of their visits to the German North Sea and Baltic bases to find a practically negligible strength in these types. The almost prohibitive odds against getting a seaplane carrier within striking distance of

four engines of from 250 to 300 horse-power each-and in wing area they were about equal. The Warnemünde machine-which was a biplane, with two pontoons instead of a "boat"-had a somewhat greater spread of wing, but this must have been compensated for by the vastly greater

ear might be carried off by the visitors, whether they were afraid the secrets of some of their technical instruments might be discovered, or whether they were simply "doing the honours of the occasion," we were never quite sure. At any rate, up swarmed at least a dozen of them, scrambling like a crowd at a ticket tur

myself were left on terra firma. Plainly disturbed by the thought that Germany's supreme achievement in aerial science was passing under the eye of the enemy, h

plied, half angry, half amused

no more zeecrets. Today you see all ve haf. Preddy soon ve come und see all you haf. There i

er C--, the Senior Officer of-the party. He looked at the latter (who was just descending) irresolutely once or twice, and then, doubtless seeing nothing encouraging in the set of Commander C-- 's lean Yankee jaw, shrugged his fat s

ively in the great Zeppelin sheds had been very sparingly employed. As this also proved to be the practice in the two large stations we visited the next day on the island of Rügen, it was assumed that the comparative cheapness of wood in the Baltic had been responsible for the freedom with

her better off than their hosts. The captain said that he had offered passages back to the Hercules to any that cared to go, but they had all declined with thanks, saying that they were helping to distribute food for other prisoners passing through Warnemünde on

n thanked him and replied that he hoped to be able to carry on without resorting to the turning basin, the astonished official warned him that it was highly dangerous to go out backwards, that even the German T.B.D.'s never thought

or another, going heaven knows where. A thousand or more in number, they had overflowed the narrow strip of platform under the train-shed, and as we passed some hundreds of them, huddling together l

pit?n M-- as I passed his perch in the hot-air stream from the engine-room hatc

Russia is the one thing left worse than what they've been through here. P

the deepening dusk. For two or three minutes the strangely moving sound, rising and falling like the roll of a surf on a distant shore, followed us down the canal befor

is voice I had never remarked before. "There is always sadness in their hap

st time I was inclin

per Bay, on the opposite side of the island. This shift, which there was no real necessity for making, involved an alteration of plan, for the shores of Tromper Bay (where we now had to attempt a landing) were four or five miles from Wiek, the second station to be inspected, and entirely cut off from communication with Büg by a long lagoon. Under the circumstances, the only practicable plan seemed to be to w

S AND GERMAN SAI

d already begun to stick to him), however, promptly appointing himself as pilot, in spite of the fact that he knew no more of that particular stretch of coast than any one else in the party, ruled in favour of landing directly upon the beach. Pulling straight in on the course he indicated, the heavily laden whaler grounded

lambered up, however, they found the timbers so slippery with moss that it was a sheer physical impossibility to stand erect and walk along them. The only alternative was to sit astride one of them and slither along shoreward, a few inches at a time. This they did, pushing along a thick roll of filthy slime in front of them as they went, and stopping every now and then t

tand up and walk. Not until we reached the end and jumped off on to the firm sand and began to count noses before striking off inland did any one notice tha

arrying him between them. He would show them, he said, how the German sailors joined hands to make a chair for their officers on such an occasion. Failing in this man?uvre, he had suggested that two of the oars be lashed together with the strip of bunting in the stern sheets and laid along across the tops of the piles to give him a firm footing. T

uarter of an hour he had barely reached the less slippery timbering halfway in, but here, instead of getting up on his hind legs, as the rest of us had done,

etween the ludicrously swaying figure on the pier and the hands of his watch, uttered an impatie

r schedule. It's a cert we won't make it if we have to wait any longer for our tortoise-shaped and tortoise-gaited friend out there. There's a disagreeable duty to be performed, and

him courage, but when Commander C-- withdrew his guiding hand after he had led his fellow tight-rope walker in above the sand, "Hindy's" nerve went with it. Trying to sludder down astride the timber again after tottering drunkenly for a moment, he lost his balance and tried to jump. The drop was not over five feet, and to soft sand at that; but the remains of a riveter I once saw fall to the pavement of Broadway from the fortieth story of t

(except as a wavering blur on the re

tive) was six and four-tenths kilometres distant. "If we can hike that four miles inside of an hour there's a fair chance of cleaning up the whole job today," said Command

-could have had no warning of our coming, as even the station at Wiek was expecting us from the opposite direction, and by launch. Quite uninstructed in the matter of adopting "conciliatory" tactics (as those of so many of the places previously visited had so plainly been), they simply went the

ing in it became so laborious that we finally took to the fields, across the light sandy loam of which we just managed to maintain the four-miles-an-hour stride necessary to keep from falling behind schedule. The several peasants

to come) and had the interesting sequel of bringing us face to face with a sentry wearing a red band on his sleeve, the first of that particular brand of revolutionist we had encountered. Although failing to stand at attention as we approached, he was otherwise quite respectf

ion to hang about the doors, as had occasionally been the case at other stations. They apparently had not even insisted on one of their representatives being present during the inspection. None but the five or six officers receiving the party conducted it around. These we

of a red plush-upholstered divan first suggested the lot was an imported one, and looking closer I discovered a half-obliterated maker's mark, with the letters "Brux-l-s" following it. Diverting one of the inspecting officers in that direction as opportunity offered, I asked him what he though

other officers, who treated him with a good deal of deference, insisted on his having. He was too dead beat to display temper when he had been b

oped down to both strands, so that seaplanes could be launched in either direction. It was an admirably planned and equipped station in every respect. An hour's inspection showed that the provisions of the armistice, here as at all of the other stations vis

f any kind available on the Baltic side. This meant that the Viceroy-she had now come to anchor three or four miles off-shore-would have to send a boat in for us, and that an hour's time had been wasted before making a signal for it. Hastily writing a message requesting that the motor launch or whaler be sent in to the landing, Commander

nalman to send in English," he growled. "You should wri

he turned and left "Hindy" in a heap on the beach by the jelly-fis

aptain, and a passenger of mine made me a signal like the one you suggest, he could wait till-till the Baltic froze over before I'd send a boa

that signal, as we saw it later in the Vice

d arrive. The rest of us were so thoroughly chilled from standing out in the biting Baltic wind that we were only too glad to warm up a bit by "double-banking" the oars with the whaler's crew on the pull back to the destroyer. The sight of American and British officers bending to the sweeps with common bluejackets c

m, at which vicious weapon the German pilot, pressing as far away from it as the restricted space allowed, kept stealing apprehensive sidelong glances with eyes ostensibly s

t don't give it away to the Hun. He seems to think it's for him. It's old B--'s gun.

oyer and circle back to pick up a duck in case y

shot and see. There's no finer duckboat in the world tha

"mad Englander" was going back in his warship to pick up a duck. Compared to that it turned out to have been an event of no more than passing interest which had happened. The pilot (perhaps because his mind was absorbed in the menace of that terrible 8-bore) had merely missed-by three or four miles as it transpired presently-the gate of the anti

like wienerwursts emerging from a sausage machine. Luckily, the cables of the nets were rusted and brittle, so that the propellers readily tore loose from them without injury. Backing o