D JOYS IN A TROOPSHIP

Mac dragged himself regretfully out of his bunk when a mournful
"reveille" had finished echoing along the decks, and went above to see
what might be doing. They were off, or, at least, they soon would be.
Already the cruisers were coming steadily down the harbour, some
transports had weighed, and were awkwardly pulling their heads round to
seaward, others sent clouds of steam rumbling in a deafening roar from
their safety-valves. The cruisers passed, and each transport followed
in her appointed place.

Everyone neglected the work of the moment in that hour of putting to
sea, and Mac, perched high on the roof of the wireless cabin, watched
it with as much pride and rapture as might an emperor reviewing the
grandest of fleets. In single line-ahead, the fourteen great grey
ships, their smoke trailing away over the port quarter before a fresh
wind, passed down the wild rocky gap of the entrance. The grey seas
rolled in a long swell, grey, flying clouds hid the eastern mountain
tops. The passengers of an in-bound steamer had hurried on deck, clad
lightly against the chill wind, sent a faint cheer to each passing ship.

Hundreds of people waved vigorously from the western shore, having come
far to see the last of the adventurers, and the garrisons of the forts
looked like silhouetted maniacs above the fortress mounds. They, too,
faded in the distance, and at length the reefs with their white surge,
and Pencarrow Light high on the cliffs above the poor rusty remnants of
a wreck, were far astern. The leading vessels had lifted their bows
westward through the Strait, and each following ship was in turn
changing course. At sea at last, Mac left his perch, and departed
below to his work, a shower-bath and breakfast.

Later in the morning the weather cleared, the cliffs, the hills and the
snowy mountains were glorious in the sunshine, and the troops basked at
full length on deck while distant points took form far ahead, came on
the beam and passed astern. Once through the Strait, the fleet took up
its regular formation, the ten transports in two lines of five, with
the two large cruisers ahead and the two small ones astern. Late at
night, the Farewell Light passed into the blackness, and when dawn
broke again, grey, chill and wet, no land was visible behind the
reeling stern.

For five or six days--Mac lost count--the transports rolled and creaked
and swayed up the grey, lumpy swell, lurched ov