ng, then subsiding a while until
the syren of a moving tugboat--as if giving time and chorus to the
din--sounds a blast, and sets the look-outs on the anchored ships to
their clangour again. From the open sea distant reedy notes tell that
the minesweeping flotilla is out and at work, clearing the course for
draught of the out-bound convoy, and searching the misty sea-channels
for all the enemy may have moored there. The 'gateships' of the boom
defences rasp out jarring discords to warn mariners of their bobbling
floats and nets. Inshore the one sustained and solemn toll of bell at
the pier-head measures out time to the sum of a dismal dayspring.

By all the sound of it, it is ill weather for the sailing of a convoy.
In time of peace there would not be a keel moving within harbour limits
through such a pall. "Call me when the weather clears," would be the
easy order, and we would turn the more cosily to blanket-bay, while the
anchor-watch would pace athwart overhead, in good content, to await the
raising of the curtain. Still and all, it is yet early to assess the
rigour of the fog. Sound-signals, started late in the coming of it,
became routine and mechanical, and persist--through clearing--till their
need is more than over. The half-light of breaking day has still to
brighten and diffuse; who knows; perhaps, after all, this may be only
that dear and fond premise of hopeful sailormen--the pride o' the
morning!

The elder fishermen (the lads are out after the mines) have no such
optimism. Roused by the habits of half a century, they turn out for a
pipe and, from window and doorway, assure one another that their idle
'stand-by' decreed by harbour-master for outgoing of the convoy, is
little hardship on a morning like this. "'Ark t' them bells," they say,
thumb over shoulder. "All 'ung up. Thick as an 'edge out there, an' no
room t' back an' fill. There won't be no move i' th' Bay till 'arf-ebb,
my oath!"

But they are wrong in that, if right in their estimation of the weather
and congestion in the roads, for we are at war, and the port convoy
officer, hurrying to his launch, is already sniffing for the bearings of
the leader of the line. Prudently he has mapped their berths as they
came in to anchor, and has, at least, a serviceable, if rough, chart to
guide him on his rounds.

[Illustration: CONVOY SAILING FROM PLYMOUTH SOUND]

So far there are no reports from the sea-patrols that would call for an
instant alterati