CHAPTER XV LIFE ON BOARD A Q-SHIP In history it is frequently the case that what seems to contemporaries merely ordinary and commonplace is to posterity of the utmost value and interest. How little, for example, do we know of the life and routine in the various stages and development of the sailing ship! In a volume entitled ‘Ships and Ways of Other Days,’ published before the war, I endeavoured to collect and present the everyday existence at sea in bygone years. Some day, in the centuries to come, it may be that the historical student will require to know something of the organization and mode of life on board one of the Q-steamships, and because it is just one of those matters, which at the time seemed so obvious, I have now thought it advisable here to set down a rough outline. As time goes on the persons of the drama die, logs and diaries and correspondence fall into unsympathetic hands and become destroyed; therefore, whilst it is yet not too late, let us provide for posterity some facts on which they can base their imagination of Q-ship life. Elsewhere in the pages of this book the reader will find it possible to gather some idea of the types, sizes, and appearances of the ships employed. The following details are chiefly those of one of the most distinguished Q-ships, the famous _Penshurst_, and as such they have especial interest as showing the organization of a tiny little tramp into a valiant and successful man-of-war that sank several powerful enemy submarines; and it is through the courtesy of her gallant late commanding officer, Captain F. H. Grenfell, D.S.O., R.N., that I am able to present these facts. [Illustration: Q-SHIP “DUNRAVEN” Showing the damage done to her poop after the action with submarine. The after-deck is already well awash and presently she foundered. To face p. 214]