rey guns;
succour in our distress was their return. Incidents of our co-operation
varied, but an unchanging sea-brotherhood was the constant light that
shone out in small occurrences and deathly events.

Dawn in the Channel, a high south gale and a bitter confused sea. Even
with us, in a powerful deep-sea transport, the measure of the weather
was menacing; green seas shattered on board and wrecked our fittings,
half of the weather boats were gone, others were stove and useless. A
bitter gale! Under our lee the destroyer of our escort staggered through
the hurtling masses that burst and curled and swept her fore and aft.
Her mast and one funnel were gone, the bridge wrecked; a few dangling
planks at her davits were all that was left of her service boats. She
lurched and faltered pitifully, as though she had loose water below,
making through the baulks and canvas that formed a makeshift shield over
her smashed skylights. In the grey of the murky dawn there was yet
darkness to flash a message: "_In view of weather probably worse as wind
has backed, suggest you run for Waterford while chance, leaving us to
carry on at full speed._" An answer was ready and immediate: "_Reply.
Thanks. I am instructed escort you to port._"

The Mediterranean. A bright sea and sky disfigured by a ring of curling
black smoke--a death-screen for the last agonies of a torpedoed
troopship. Amid her littering entrails she settles swiftly, the stern
high upreared, the bows deepening in a wash of wreckage. Boats, charged
to inches of freeboard, lie off, the rowers and their freight still and
open-mouthed awaiting her final plunge. On rafts and spars, the upturned
strakes of a lifeboat, remnants of her manning and company grip
safeguard, but turn eyes on the wreck of their parent hull. Into the
ring, recking nothing of entangling gear or risk of suction, taking the
chances of a standing shot from the lurking submarine, a destroyer
thunders up alongside, brings up, and backs at speed on the sinking
transport. Already her decks are jammed to a limit, by press of a
khaki-clad cargo she was never built to carry. This is final, the last
turn of her engagement. The foundering vessel slips quickly and deeper.
"Come along, Skipper! You've got 'em all off! You can do no more!
_Jump!_"

OUR WAR STAFF

SOME years before the war we were lying at an East Indian port, employed
in our regular trade. The military students of the Quetta Staff College
were in the