In every port all over the country numerous passenger and tramp steamers and sailing ships were inspected and found unsuitable owing to their peculiar structure or the impossibility of effective disguise combined with a sufficient bearing of the disguised guns. All this meant a great deal of thought and inventive genius, the tonnage as a rule ranging from 200 to 4,000, and the ships being sent to work from Queenstown, Longhope, Peterhead, Granton, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, Milford, Malta, and Gibraltar. And when you ask what was the net result of these Q-ships, the whole answer cannot be given in mere figures. Generally they greatly assisted the merchantman, for it made the U-boat captain very cautious, and there are instances where he desisted from attacking a real merchant ship for the reason that something about her suggested a Q-ship. In over eighty cases Q-ships damaged German submarines and thus sent them home licking their wounds, anxious only to be left alone for a while. This accounts for some of those instances when a merchant ship, on seeing a submarine proceeding on the surface, was surprised to find that the German did not attack. Thus the Q-ship had temporarily put a stop to sinkings by that submarine. But apart from these indirect, yet no less valuable, results, no fewer than eleven submarines were directly sent to their doom of all the 203 German U-craft sunk during the war from various causes, including mines and accidents. But as time went on it became inevitable that the more a Q-ship operated the more likely would she be recognized and the less useful would be her work. By August, 1917, Q-ships were having a most difficult time, and during that month alone six Q-ships were lost. By September their success, broadly speaking, was on the wane. This, however, does not mean that their service had ceased to be productive or that they were no longer deemed worth while. On the contrary, as we shall see presently, they were to perform more wonderful work, and the number of Q-ships was actually increased, especially in respect of sailing ships in home waters; but those which happened to make an unsuccessful attack were at once ordered to return to their base and alter both rig and disguise. Similarly, in the Mediterranean, where the submarines were doing us so much harm, the number of Q-ships was increased, and one was cleverly included in the outward-bound convoys, to drop astern as soon as in the danger zone, after the manner of many a lame-duck merchantman whose engines had caused him to straggle. Then would come the Q-ship’s chance, when she revealed herself as a warship and fooled the submarine from attacking the convoy, which had just disappeared over the horizon in safety.