The _Laconia_, for the first two years of the war was also used as an armed cruiser, seeing special service on the German East African Coast, and taking part in the operations which ended in the destruction of the German cruiser _Konigsberg_ in the Rufigi River. She was then taken out of commission, and returned to the Company’s transatlantic service. She was finally sunk by a German submarine on the 25th February, 1917, American lives being lost aboard her. There is no doubt that this was the “overt act” that helped to confirm the decision of America to enter the war on the side of the Allies. It is safe to say that all these vessels maintained in their new naval roles, not only the best traditions of the Cunard Company itself, but those of the Mercantile Marine of which they had once been so distinguished a part, and the British Navy of which they became not the least useful and honourable units. To the _Carmania_, indeed, fell the singular honour of being the only British armed auxiliary cruiser to sink a German war vessel in single armed combat; and the five years war at sea produced few more kindling and romantic stories than that of her duel with the _Cap Trafalgar_ in September, 1914, near Trinidad Island in the South Atlantic. [Illustration: SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY ON BOARD THE “LACONIA”] Leaving the Mersey, as we have seen, on Saturday, August 15th, she first went up the Irish Channel examining merchant vessels, on her way to the Halifax trade route; where she was to carry out her first patrol duties. Having kept this track, however, for twenty-four hours without adventure, she received orders to sail for Bermuda, and on her way there seized the opportunity of dropping a target and carrying out some practice, firing which not only proved that her gun-layers were exceptionally skilful, but which gave all on board considerably greater confidence in the ship as a fighting unit. On the evening of August 22nd, she sighted the searchlights off St. George, Bermuda, and early next morning performed the difficult task of navigating a channel that no vessel of anything like her great size had ever before been through. Here for the next five days she coaled, while officers and men were able to obtain certain articles in the way of tropical clothing, that they had not had time to procure at Liverpool.