o each base as the "Senior Naval Officer." Then came
additions to his staff in the persons of executive and engineer
commanders, officers of the Reserve, chaplains, surgeons and paymasters.
With these departmental chiefs came their respective staffs of warrant
officers, petty officers, wireless operators, engine-room artificers,
motor mechanics, shipwrights, carpenters, smiths, naval police,
signalmen, storekeepers, sick berth attendants and parties of seamen.
Finally, a generous supply of printed forms and train-loads of stores.

This then, in brief outline, was the material which went to form the war
bases of the auxiliary, or anti-submarine, fleets. In many cases much
more was required, especially at such important depots as Dover, Granton
and Queenstown. About the permanent dockyards, like Portsmouth,
Devonport and Rosyth, or the Grand Fleet bases, nothing need be said
here, because they do not come within the scope of this book. The same
may also be said of that desolate but wonderful natural anchorage,
_Scapa Flow_, the headquarters of the Grand Fleet in the misty north.
Each of these mammoth naval bases had an auxiliary base for
anti-submarine and minesweeping divisions.

With a knowledge of these essentials a more detailed description of a
typical war base and the work of its staff may prove of interest. Taking
as an example a large depot, supplying all the needs of over a hundred
erstwhile warships, and situated in the centre of the danger zone, we
find a central stone pier on which has been erected a perfect maze of
wood and corrugated iron buildings, with the tall antennae of a wireless
station, a little look-out tower and a gigantic signal mast from which a
line of coloured flags is aflutter in the sea breeze. The shore end of
the pier is shut off from prying eyes by a lofty wooden palisade with
big gates, in one of which is a small wicket. Outside a sentry with
fixed bayonet paces to and fro.

[Illustration: AFTER-DECK OF THE "HYDERABAD"

Showing quick-firing gun on disappearing platform.

_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]

[Illustration: AFTER-DECK OF THE "HYDERABAD"

Showing gun raised to firing position.

_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]

The first person inside the sacred precincts to greet the stranger is a
keen-eyed "Petty Officer of the Guard." When the credentials have been
examined the visitor is sent under the guidance of a bluejacket to the
"Officer of the Day," whose "cabin" is inside the maze of