As for _Penshurst_, help had come too late. The crew were saved, but the ship herself sank at 8.5 p.m. on December 24, 1917. Lieutenant Cedric Naylor, who already possessed the decorations of D.S.O. and bar and D.S.C., and had for his gallantry been transferred from R.N.R. to the Royal Navy, now received a second bar to his D.S.O., and Lieutenant E. Hutchison, R.N.R., received a D.S.O. Thus after two years of the most strenuous service, full of honours, this _Penshurst_ ended her glorious life as a man-of-war. Wounded, scar-stained, repaired and refitted, her gallant crew, so splendidly trained by Captain Grenfell, had kept taking her to sea along the lanes of enemy activity. Insignificant to look at, when you passed her on patrol you would never have guessed the amount of romance and history contained in her hull. Naval history has no use for hysteria and for the sensational exaggeration of ‘stunt’ journalism, but it is difficult to write calmly of the great deeds performed in these most unheroic-looking ships. To-day some Q-ship officers and men are walking about looking for jobs, and there are not ships in commission to employ them. But yesterday they were breaking the spirit of the U-boat personnel, risking their lives to the uttermost limits in the endeavour to render ineffectual the submarine blockade and the starvation of the nation. Bravery such as we have seen in this and other chapters was greater than even appears: for, having once revealed the identity of your ship as a man-of-war, the wounded submarine would remember you, however much you might disguise yourself; and the next time he returned, as he usually did, to the same station, he would do his best to get you, even if he spent hours and days over the effort. That officers and men willingly, eagerly, went to sea in the same Q-ships, time after time, when they might have obtained, and would certainly have deserved, a less trying appointment afloat or ashore, is surely a positive proof that we rightly pride ourselves on our British seamanhood. Through the centuries we have bred and fostered and even discouraged this spirit. In half-decked boats, in carracks, galleons, wooden walls, fishing boats, lifeboats, pleasure craft; in steam, and steel-hulled motor, cargo ships, in liner and tramp and small coaster, this seamanlike character has been trained, developed, and kept alive, and now in the Q-ship service it reaches its apotheosis. For all that is courageous, enduring, and inspiring among the stories of the sea in any period, can you beat it? Can you even equal it? CHAPTER X FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS