The motionless black shapes of the colliding tankers could be seen far, far astern. After the crash, they had drifted apart. The wireless was crackling, blinker lights flashed their dots and dashes of violet white, a whistle blew. "Am standing by," came a message. The chief of the convoy sent out a peremptory command. Presently a light appeared on one of the vessels, a little rosy glow like a Chinese lantern. The glow sank, disappeared, and rose again, having gathered strength. One of the tankers was on fire. Soon a second glow appeared close by its stern. A glow of warm, rosy orange. In a few minutes they could see tongues of fire, and two boats rowing away from the vessel. They did not know that the men in the boats were rowing for their lives through a pool of oil which might take fire at any instant. A few minutes passed; the light grew brighter. Suddenly, there was a kind of flaming burst: a great victory of fire. The tanker, well down by the head, floated flaming in an ocean that was itself a flame, floated black, silent, and doomed to find an ironic grave in the waters under the fire. Great masses of smoke rose from the burning pool into the serene sky, and hid the vessel when she sank. Half an hour later, a little, rosy light lay at the horizon's rim. Suddenly, like a lamp blown out, it died. XXXIII THE RAID BY THE RIVER The convoy of merchantmen, after a calm, quite uneventful voyage across the ambushed sea, put into a port on the Channel for the night, and the following morning dispersed to their various harbours. Some sort of coast patrol boat "not much bigger than an Admiral's launch," the words are those of my friend Steve Holzer of the Armed Guard, took the S.S. _Snowdon_ under her metaphorical wing, and brought her up the Thames. This _Snowdon_ was one of a fleet of twelve spry little tramps named for the principal mountains of the kingdom, a smart, well-equipped, well-ordered product of the Tyne. Steve, quick, clever, and alert, had got along capitally with the "limeys." His particular pals were a pair of twin lads about his own age, young, English, blond, and grey-eyed; young, slow to understand a joke, honest, good-tempered, and sincere. I have seen the postcard photograph of themselves which they gave Steve as a parting gift. Steve himself is a Yankee from the word go, a genuine Yankee from somewhere along the coast of Maine. He stands somewhat below medium height, is lean-faced and lean-bodied; his eyes twinkle with a shrewd good humour. A great lad. He tells me that his people have been seafaring folk for generations.