anary-yellow hull bearing her name in
fifteen-foot letters, and enormous painted tricolours striped
horizontally in red, white, and blue.

Then two Swedes with unpronounceable names who, by their
embellishments, informed the world that they hailed respectively from
Goteborg and Helsingborg. They also sported large rectangles, painted
in vertical stripes of yellow and blue, while close behind them, a
Dane, with an absurdly attenuated funnel and long ventilators sticking
at all angles out of her hull like pins from a pincushion, ambled
stolidly along like a weary cart-horse. She, scorning other
decoration, merely showed the scarlet white-crossed emblem of her
country. Some of the neutrals carried signs bearing their names which
could be illuminated at night, and all seemed equally determined not to
afford any prowling Hun submarine a legitimate excuse for torpedoing
them on sight.

* * * * *

But the craft which outnumbered the others by more than four to one
were the British. They bore no distinctive marks or colouring on their
sides, and their travel-stained and weather-beaten appearance, their
rusty hulls, discoloured funnels, and the generally dingy and
unpretentious look about them showed that they were kept far too busy
to trouble about external appearances. The only token of their
nationality was the wisp of tattered red bunting fluttering at the
stern of each; the gallant old Red Ensign which, war or no war, still
dances triumphantly on practically every sea, except the Baltic.

Many of the passing vessels looked out of date and old-fashioned. Some
veterans of the 'eighties or 'nineties, fit only to sail under a
foreign flag according to pre-war standards, may have been dug out of
their obscurity to play their part in the war. And a very important
part it is. Ships must run, and, at a time when the Admiralty have
levied a heavy toll for war purposes upon all classes of ships
belonging to the Mercantile Marine, every vessel which will float and
can steam can be utilised many times over for the equally important
work of carrying cargo. It is not peaceful work, either, in these days
of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and
torpedoes ready to sink without warning.

The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and
drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes
need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile M