The pilot's departure and boarding are definite and well-marked incidents in the course of a voyage, and have a significance and interest few other ship-happenings claim. He is our last and first connection with the shore. His leaving is attended by a sober emotion, a compound of regret and impatience; regret that his sure support is withdrawn--impatience to go ahead to open sea. He backs over the rail and lurches down the swaying side-ladder to his dinghy to an accompaniment of cordial good-byes. Passengers crowd the bulwarks to watch his small boat go a-bobbing in the stern-wash as we gather way. It hardly occurs to them that their farewell letters, now in his weather-stained bag, may be for days or weeks unposted; to them he is the last post--the link is snapped, the voyage now really begun. There may be masters who affect a fine aloofness when the pilot boards them on incoming, others who preserve a detached air--but there are few who do not feel relief in answering the cheerful hail--'All well aboard, Captain?'--as the pilot puts a cautious testing foot on the side-ladder. Here is the voyage practically at an end with the coming of an expert in local navigation. The anxiety of a landfall is over. The channel buoys, port hand and starboard, stretch out ahead to mark definite limits to shoal and sandbank; familiar landmarks loom up through the drift of distant city haze; the outer lightship curtsies in the swell, beckoning us into port to resume the brief round of longshore life. After a lengthy period of silence and detachment, we are again in touch with the affairs of the beach; the news of the day and of weeks past is told to us in intervals of steering orders--sailor news, edited by a competent understanding of our professional interests. The tension of the voyage is unconsciously relaxed. We are in good hands. The engines turn steadily and we come in from sea. If the pilot was ever a welcome attendant in the peaceful days, his services in the war earn for him an even warmer appreciation. War measures in their operation have rendered our seaports difficult of entry. The buoyage has, perhaps, been reset in the interval of a voyage's absence. Boom defences and examination areas exist, channels are closed or obstructed; certain of the lightships or floating marks may be withdrawn on short warning. Amid all our doubts and uncertainties, we look for the one assured sea-mark on the unfamiliar bars--the red-and-white emblem of a pilot vessel on her boarding station. Undeterred by the risk of mine or torpedo while marking time on their cruising ground, the pilots are constantly on the alert to board the incoming vessels as they approach from seaward. No state of the weather drives the cutter from her station to seek shelter in safer waters. If the seas are too high for boatwork, she steams ahead and offers a lead to a quieter section of the fairway where boarding may be attempted.