"It's a long, long way to Tipperary...." The voices of the men, singing under their breath as they worked, blended restfully with the throb of the engines and the swish of water past the ship's side. A little breeze sprang up, tearing rifts here and there in the surrounding fog; a few pale gleams of sunlight filtered through, and on the fore-bridge of the Cruiser the Yeoman of Signals raised his glass and steadied it against the topmost rail. Suddenly he stiffened like a pointer. "Trawler right ahead, sir!" His lynx-like eye and almost lifelong training told before the others could see anything. The Captain stepped out of the tiny chart-house, where he had been busy with the chart and a pair of dividers. "There, sir." The Officer of the Watch extended his arm and forefinger. The Navigating Lieutenant joined them, and together they peered through the shifting veil of vapour. "Yes, I see...." The Captain adjusted his glasses the fraction of a degree. "She's flying our colours ... Can you see her number...?" The Officer of the Watch moved to the voice-pipe, as if to give an order to the helmsman. "No; steady as you go!" said the Captain. "She's a mile away yet. I want to see her a bit closer--ah..." He broke off disgustedly as the fog closed down on them again, blotting out the pale sunlight. The distant trawler vanished as a picture vanishes from the screen when a hand withdraws the lantern slide. The Captain blinked as the tiny beads of moisture collected on his eyelashes, and rubbed his glasses impatiently. "Damn this fog! Put a look-out in the eyes of the ship." Going to the voice-pipe, he gave a curt order to the Quartermaster at the helm and came back again to the compass. "I didn't like the look of that fellow, for all his display of bunting. Too many men on deck for one of our trawlers." He looked up into the blindfold drifts overhead. "Oh, for one little minute...!" The Officer of the Watch had stepped to the head of the ladder and beckoned to a messenger: "Jump down and tell the Captain of the Forecastle to tell off a hand as look-out forward in the eyes of the ship. He's to get him there at once!" "Aye, aye, sir!" The boy sped off on his errand and darted off along the upper deck. The petty officer whose official title was "Captain of the Forecastle" was seated with his back against the engine-room casings, playing "crib" with a Chief Stoker. The messenger pulled up panting: "Please--the--Officer--of--the--Watch--sez--tell --off--a--hand--to--look--out--in--the--eyes--of--the--ship!" he gasped. He had run so fast and spoke so quickly, in his fear lest he should forget the message, that to a less trained ear it would have sounded unintelligible.