ers, but like a herd of steers. The difference between a herd of
steers and a battalion of soldiers, in the face of sudden danger, is
only this:--the steers break blindly for God knows where, and end piled
up over a cut bank; soldiers stand steady listening for the word of
command."

If the O. C. handled the men with a light hand, the sergeant major did
not. His tongue rasped them to the raw. No one knows a soldier as does
his N. C. O., and no N. C. O. is qualified to set forth the soldier's
characteristics with the intimate knowledge and adequate fluency of
the sergeant major. One by one he peeled from their shivering souls the
various layers of their moral cuticle, until they stood, in their own
and in each other's eyes, objects of commiseration.

"There's just one thing more I wad like ta say to ye." The sergeant
major's tendency to Doric was more noticeable in his moments of deeper
feeling, "but it's something for you lads to give heed ta. When ye were
scrammlin' up yonder, like a lot o' mavericks at a brandin', and yowlin'
like a bunch o' coyotes, there was one man in the regiment who could
laugh. There's lots o' animals that the Almighty made can yowl, but
there's only one can laugh, and that's a mon. For God's sake, men, when
ye're in a tight place, try a laugh."

For some weeks after this event the chaplain was known throughout the
battalion as "the man that can laugh," and certain it is that from
that day there existed between the M. O. and the chaplain a new bond of
friendship.

As the ship advanced deeper into the submarine zone, the sole topic of
thought and of conversation came to be the convoy. Where was that convoy
anyway? While the daylight lasted, a thousand pairs of eyes swept the
horizon, and the intervening spaces of tossing, blue-grey water, for the
sight of a sinister periscope, or for the smudge of a friendly cruiser,
and when night fell, a thousand pairs of ears listened with strained
intentness for the impact of the deadly torpedo or for the signal of the
protecting convoy.

While still a day and a night out from land, Barry awoke in the
dim light of a misty morning, and proceeded to the deck for his
constitutional. There he fell in with Captain Neil Fraser and Captain
Hopeton pacing up and down.

"Come along, Pilot!" said Captain Neil, heartily, between whom and the
chaplain during the last few days a cordial friendship had sprung up.
"We're looking for submarines. This is the place and