The anchor was weighed, the invisible propellers began to eddy the water round the stern, hoists of flags shot from the lockers to the yardarm, said their say, and descended in whirls of colour; yet everywhere was the same scrupulous economy of word and gesture. Officers and men were performing a task--that of getting under weigh--so familiar as to be almost mechanical; yet, conscious that they were carrying it out together for the last time, gave, as it were, a little exhibition of supreme competency, each for his own soul's private satisfaction. The Captain, looking down on it all from the altitude of the bridge, saw that it was good. It was so good that it gave him a sort of lump in the throat. He knew the Chief Yeoman was watching him, awaiting the word that would send their last signal to the anchored remnant of the fleet ahead. Yet now it came to the moment, he hated the words those gaily coloured flags would spell. "Odd numbered ships and even numbered ships"--thus you address a fleet--"Good-bye." He glanced aft and saw the paying-off pendant take the wind of their passage, unfold its sinuous length, and float out into the breeze with the gilded bladder dancing lightly in the smoke above their wake--glanced ahead at their grey "comrades of the mist," lying patiently at anchor awaiting the summons that would bid them also "return in peace to enjoy the blessings of the land"--glanced finally at the Chief Yeoman.... They passed a Battleship at a cable's length, a towering mammoth whose superstructures were alive with men. From somewhere forward a man's voice reached them across the water: "Stand by to give three cheers.... Hip! Hip! Hip!" and a great roar of sound breaking like rollers against the hills of the South Shore, those misty wooded hills whose sameness they had cursed so often through four years of war. Ship after ship cheered them as they passed. The rows of motionless figures standing stiffly at attention warmed to those cheers. They attributed their obvious gusto to the proud patches on funnels and side, the little Cruiser's battle scars. They were conscious of a clean record in the canteen ashore and on the upland playing-fields, for these things weigh in the quick reckoning of men's hearts at parting. But they were being cheered above all for the paying-off pendant they flew. All the world loves a lover, grateful to this ebullition of nature for reminder and promise alike. To the sailor, however, there is no fairer sight than a ship with 600 feet of white bunting floating astern. It may not be his ship, but it reminds him that his turn will come. A semaphore waved a parting message from a brother Captain: a cryptic jest that wrinkled the corners of the recipient's eyes; a great man stepped out on to the spacious grandeur of his quarter-deck, and raised his cap with a dignified, half-affectionate gesture of farewell.... And then they were sliding under the towering girders of the Forth Bridge.