"It was Christmas Day, as I told you," he said, bracing comfortable against the roll, "and a cold, blustering, windy day it was. Several days previously we had picked up a small slow convoy off a West African port, and were escorting it to a port on the West Coast of England. The escort consisted only of the _Whack_ and the _Smack_, the skipper of the latter, as the senior officer, being in command. None of the ships--they were mostly slow freighters--had had much convoy experience to speak of at the time, and we were having our hands full all the way keeping them in any kind of formation. They seemed to be getting worse rather than better in this respect as we got into the waters where U-boat attacks might be expected, but this may have been largely due to the weather, which was--well, about the usual mid-winter brand in those latitudes. In fact, we were just becoming hopeful that the rising wind and sea, both were about 'Force 6,' might make it impossible for submarines to operate during the day or so that still must elapse before reaching port, when trouble began. "All the morning the _Plato_, which had been a bad straggler throughout, had been falling astern, and finally the _Smack_ ordered _Whack_ back to prod her on and do what could be done in the way of screening her. She still continued to lose distance, however, so that, at noon, we were nearly out of sight of the main convoy, of which little more than smoke and topmasts could be seen on the northern horizon. "At that hour the _Smack_, doubtless because he had received some report of the presence of U-boats in his vicinity, ordered us to rejoin the convoy. We left an armed trawler to do what it could for the loitering _Plato_, and started off at the best rate the weather would allow to make up the distance lost. It was at this juncture that the amusing little coincidence I mentioned a while ago occurred.