For a while the Navy noted these methods and the little human failings of the enemy in silence. Then it drew a deep breath and made its plans accordingly. It argued that a man-of-war could be disguised as a tramp steamer and carry concealed armament. Such a vessel, by plying on the trade routes, must inevitably meet a submarine in time, and in her character of peaceful merchantman be ordered to abandon ship. The ship might be abandoned to all outward appearances, but still retain sufficient men concealed on board to fight the hidden guns when the moment came for her to cast disguise to the winds and hoist the White Ensign. Certain risks had to be taken for granted, of course; the almost inevitable torpedo sooner or later, the probability of a little indiscriminate shelling while the submarine approached, the possibility of being ultimately sunk before assistance could arrive. Yet the odds were on the submarine being sunk first, and the rest was on the knees of the gods. An old collier of some 2,000 tons was selected from among the shipping at the disposal of the Admiralty and taken to a Dockyard port, where she unostentatiously underwent certain structural alterations. These included disappearing mountings for guns concealed beneath hatchway covers, and masked by deck-houses which collapsed like cards at a jerk of a lever. From the host of volunteers, among whom were retired Admirals, Captains, Commanders, and Lieutenants of the Royal Navy, a young Lieutenant-Commander was selected and appointed in command. His officers were volunteers from the Royal Naval Reserve, ex-merchant seamen, familiar enough with the rôle they were required to play, and in some cases with little mental scores of their own which required adjustment when the time came. The crew was mostly from the West Country, men of Devon with one or two traditions to uphold in the matter of brave adventure. It also included Welshmen and Irish with a pretty taste for a fight, and a few Scots, of the dour type, hard to frighten. They were picked from the Royal Navy, Fleet and Royal Reserves--merchant seamen and fishermen the last, many of whom had formed a nodding acquaintance with Death long before they received this invitation to a closer intimacy. Their ages ranged between 17 and 52. They sailed from Queenstown under the Red Ensign; but before they left some of the crew trudged, as pilgrims to a shrine, and stood awhile among the mounds in that pathetic God's acre where the women and children of the _Lusitania_ rest. They were then but freshly turned, those mounds, in their eloquent diversity of lengths, and men had not begun to forget....