ed again. Then it worked
free for a few seconds, but only to jam presently, just as before. This
continued during two or three minutes, and just as it was wangled right
and we began to steady again I saw the wake of a torpedo pass across our
bows. Half a minute later another one missed us in the same way, and by
about the same distance. I have always thought that nothing but that
providential jamming of the helm just then saved us from intercepting
both of those mouldies.

"The fires in the fore shell-room and magazine were eventually got under
control by flooding, and we were fairly cushy when we dropped anchor at
base a little before daybreak."

K---- lurched over to the starboard rail and counted the dark blurs that
represented the units of the straggling convoy. He was wiping snow and
spray from his face as he slid back on the roll to our stanchion.

"Fine place, Southern Albania," he muttered. "Plenty of heat and dust
and sunshine and----"

I never did hear what the rest of those Albanian attractions were. At
that juncture dusky figures emerging from the deeper gloom of the ladder
heralded the appearance of the middle watch, and for those relieved,
including myself, the world held just one thing--a long, narrow bunk,
with a high side rail to prevent the occupant from rolling out. You go
at your sleep on a destroyer as a dog dives at a bone, for you never
know how long it may be before you get another chance.

CHAPTER VIII

PATROL

The Senior Naval Officer (or the S.N.O., as they clip it down to) at
X---- had prepared me for finding an interesting human exhibit in the
sharp-nosed, stub-sterned little craft snuggled up to the breast of its
mothership for a drink of petrol, or whatever other life-giving essence
she lived and laboured on, but hardly for the highly diversified
assortment that was to reveal itself to me during those memorable days
we were to rub shoulders and soak up blown brine and grog together as
they threaded the gusty sea lanes of her winter North Sea patrol.

"I am sending you out on M.L.[D] ----," the S.N.O. had said as he gazed
down with an affectionate smile at the object of his remarks, "for
several reasons, but principally on account of the men that are in her.
You'll find them a living, breathing object-lesson in the adaptability
of the supposedly stodgy and inflexible Anglo-Saxon race. Her skipper,
to use one of his own favourite expressions, is a live wire--always
seems to