position proves the
stern a long chase. The fog, at starting, has thrown many of us out of
our proper turn, and we zigzag, unofficially, this way and that, to gain
our stations without reduction of speed. In the confusion to our surface
eyes, there is this consoling thought--that the same perplexing
evolutions (calling for frequent appeals to the high gods for
enlightenment as to the 'capers' of the _other_ fellows) have, at least,
no better meaning in the reflected angles of a periscope.

Now the hum and drone that has puzzled us in the fog reveals itself as
the note of a covey of seaplanes searching the waters ahead. They have
come out at first sign of a clearing, and now fly low, trimming and
banking in their flight like gannets at the fishing. A winking electric
helio on one of them spits out a message to the leader of the
destroyers, and she flashes answer and acknowledgment as readily as
though the seaplane were a sister craft. A huge coastal airship thunders
out across the land to join our forces. She grows to the eye as though
expanding visibly, and noses down to almost masthead height in a sharp
and steady-governed decline; abeam, she turns broad on, manoeuvring
with ease and grace, and the sunlight on her silvered sides glints and
sparkles purely, as though to shame the motley camouflage of the ships
below.

The commodore poises the baton as his ship draws up to her station. Till
now we have steamed and steered 'in execution of previous orders' and,
considering the dense fog and the press of ships at the anchorage and
pilot-grounds, we have not been idle or neglectful. Now we are in sea
order, and, with the ships closing up in formation, we attend our senior
officer's signals as to course and speed. A string of flags goes up,
fluttering to the yard of his ship, and we fret at the clumsy fingers
that cannot get a similar hoist as quickly to ours. Anon, on all the
ships, a gay setting of flags repeats the message, and we stand by to
take measure and sheer of a tricky zigzag, at tap of the baton.

The line of colour droops and fades quickly to the signalman's
gathering; the convoy turns and swings into the silver-foil of the
sun-ray.

[Illustration: INWARD BOUND]

XXI

THE NORTH RIVER

THE broad surface of the Hudson is scored by passage of craft of all
trades and industries. Tugs and barges crowd the waterway in unending
succession, threading their courses in a maze of harbour traffic;
high-si