a "happy ship." I must say the prospect of going out with the fleet and with such a wonderful crowd did not make me keenly miserable. "If they only would come out, ah, if...!" "So we are still on an hour's notice," I said to one of my hosts in the hope of getting some information. "Yes, back again. At two o'clock this morning the time was extended, but after seven we were put back on short time once more." "I suppose the time is always shifting and changing?" "Yes, indeed. You know we are always on an hour's notice. Pretty short, isn't it? You see we don't want the Germans to get away with anything if we can help it. Got to be ready to sail right down and smash them. Nobody knows just why the time changes come. Somebody knows something of course. Perhaps one of the British submarines on outpost duty off the German coast has seen something, and sent it along by wireless. I asked about the German watch on the British bases. "Subs. Everybody's doing it. I suppose that two or three are hanging off this coast all the time trying to get a squint at the fleet. It's what we call keeping a 'periscope watch' ... run by the naval intelligence. Little good anything they pick up about us does the Germans! Safety first is their daring game. What they are itching to do is to pick off one of our patrol squadrons that's gone on a little prospecting toot all by itself. They'd try, I think, if they weren't mighty well aware that not a single ship of the crowd that did the stunt would ever get back to the old home canal." Presently a sailor messenger arrived, stood to attention, saluted snappily, and presented a paper. The officer read and signed. "You're in luck," said he. "We are going out ... due to leave in three hours. Whole fleet together, evidently. Something's on for sure.... Hope they're out." And off he hurried to his quarters. I saw "the exec." going from place to place taking a look at everything. Pretty soon the chaplain of the flagship, an officer to whose friendly welcome and thoughtful courtesy I am in real debt, came looking for me. "Come along," he cried, "you are missing the show. They're beginning to go out already. You ought to be on deck," and seizing me by the arm, he rushed me energetically up a companionway to the world without. There I learned that the departure of the Grand Fleet was no simultaneous movement such as the start of an automobile convoy, but a kind of tremendous process occupying several hours. The scout vessels, were to go first, then the various classes of cruisers and the destroyer flotillas with whom they acted in concert, last of all the squadrons of battleships. Our own sailing time was three hours distant and the outward movement had already begun. [Illustration: Even a super-dreadnought is wet at times]