g
overhauled. On the decks of several, men with little or no resemblance
to the clean "Jacks" of the naval review are fondly polishing, painting
or greasing the long grey barrels, steel breech mechanism, or the yellow
metal training wheels of guns. Others are cleaning rifles, which have
recently been used with special bullets for sinking floating mines. One
ship is washing down decks after coming in late from night patrol;
another is receiving its three-monthly coat of grey paint; while on to
the deck of a whaler--black and ominous-looking--hundredweights of
provisions in boxes and bags are being lowered from the quay.

Astern of these lie two tiers of light grey spick and span motor
launches, their decks spotlessly white, and their small canvas and glass
screened wheel-houses ill concealing polished brass indicators, Morse
signalling key, electric switches, binnacles and other paraphernalia.
Behind these lie the 40-knot coastal motor boats, like miniature
submarines, with torpedoes in cavities in their aft decks, and little
glass-sheltered steering-wells. Further towards the head of the pier is
a line of big flat Scotch motor drifters, built for rough weather with
9-inch timbers, their decks a maze of wire nets, glass floats and
brick-red chemical canisters.

On the opposite side of the pier, in front of the S.N.O.'s cabin, lies a
big grey yacht with four 12-pounder guns and an anti-aircraft weapon
pointing over the sky-reflecting water. Lying out in the basin are big
minesweepers, looking more like pre-war third-class cruisers, two
slim-looking dark grey destroyers, a dredger and a few nondescript
craft.

Inside the first row of iron sheds are stores, with barrels of tar,
drums of paint, immense coils of rope and a naval "William
Whiteley's"--in which anything from a looking-glass to a ball of string,
or a razor to a dish-cloth, can be obtained in exchange for a signed
form from the Naval Store Officer, whose cabin near by is a maze of
similar forms of all colours.

Then a worried-looking man hurries by and the O.O.D. smiles. "He's the
coaling officer, and there's some twenty ships waiting to get alongside
to take the beastly stuff aboard," is the laconic explanation.

A cabin marked I.O. is entered--every room is a cabin in a naval base.
Here the walls are decorated with innumerable charts with mysterious red
lines. A curious device, with the names of all the ships belonging to
the base painted on wooden slides