acking from ship to ship, and making no secret of his disapproval
of a scheme of things that keeps him waiting (tootling, perhaps, an
impatient blast), while leisurely shipmasters give final orders to their
mates at the gangways. ("That damned ship's cat in the chart-room again,
sir!")

More ships have come in since the clearing of the morning mist, and calm
weather and vagaries of the tide have combined to crowd the ships in the
anchorage into uncomfortably close quarters; perhaps, after all, it
would be rather the counter-swing of that River Plate boat, anchoring
close abeam ("Given me a foul berth, damn him!"), than the insanitary
ways of the ship's cat that kept the captain, one leg over the rail, so
long in talk with his mate.

Never, since the days of sailing ships and the leisurely deep-sea
parliaments in the ship-chandler's back room, have we been brought so
much together. The bustle and dispatch of steamer work, in pre-war days,
kept us apart from our sea-fellows; there were few forgatherings where
we could exchange views and experiences and abuse 'square-heads' and
damn the Board of Trade. Now, the run of German torpedoes has banded us
together again, and in convoy and their conferences, we are coming to
know one another as never before. At first we were rather reserved, shy
perhaps, and diffident, one to another. Careless, in a way, of longshore
criticism and opinion, we were somewhat concerned that conduct among our
peers should be dignified and seaworthy; then, the fine shades of
precedence--largely a matter of the relative speeds of our commands--had
to average out before the 'master' of an east-coast tramp and the
'captain' of an R.M.S. found joint and proper equality. In this again,
the enemy torpedo served a turn, and we are not now surprised to learn
that the 'captain' of a modest nine-knot freighter had been (till she
went down with the colours apeak) 'master' of His Majesty's Transport of
16,000 tons.

So we crowd up together in the convoy launch, and introduce ourselves,
and talk a while of our ships and crews till stoppage of the engines and
clatter of hardwood side-ladders mark another recruit, sprawling his way
down the high wall-side of a ballasted ship. The coxswain sighs relief
as he pockets his list--the names all now ticked off in order of their
boarding--and puts his helm over to swing inshore. "A job o' work," he
says. "Like 'unt th' slipper, this 'ere! 'Ow can I tell wot ships they
is,