The real business of the coast-guards, and that to which they devote themselves in peace or war, is firing rockets over a ship in distress and trying to land the crew. It was ten or twelve miles from that point that I met a chief watcher who had been blown up in a British battleship, and had thus earned a period of shore duty. He was "carrying on" for humanity and country, and only a short time before he had been the means of rescuing the crew of a small neutral sailing ship--a German victim. We sped on farther north, and every three or four miles there was the inevitable watcher, who can telephone, telegraph, and fire rockets when occasion demands. It is all a modernised coast-guard system, the men being first ready for ships in distress, but always on the alert for the enemy. XIII. CROSSING THE CHANNEL IN WAR TIME This is the story of a British naval officer's trip to the Western fighting ground as he told it to me the day he returned to London:-- "'Four days!' said I to myself. 'Not very long in which to get a real taste of the World War on land.' However, the morning after I had received 'leave' I departed from London in an automobile and as we sped through the country there seemed, at first, to be little to remind us that England was at war--except, perhaps, the many busy persons on all farms and fields. Finally, we came across a mobile air-station on which were two aeroplanes with folded wings. It was something which made you think. "In a South Coast port, however, there was military activity everywhere. On the waters, far out from the harbour, which one imagines as denuded of craft, I saw dozens of ships. There were large and small tramps, mine-sweepers, and trawlers, and you were fascinated by the sight. There was a dread lest one of them might disappear through a mine or a torpedo any instant. "Thousands of soldiers were at the dock, waiting to embark on ships for France. A couple of thousand of them belonged to the Scotch Labour Battalion, ready for work with pick and shovel. Their speech was almost like a foreign language as they 'Jock'd' and 'Donal'd,' joked and sang, when they swung aboard the vessel in single file. "There was no waving of handkerchiefs and no shouting good-byes when the black-and-tan craft was ready to leave. The skipper was on the bridge. He looked down at an officer ashore, nodded his head, and the other returned the nod. Hawsers were instantly slipped, and the steamer skipped away from the British port on the minute, and soon met her escort--destroyers, out of sight not long since, now ready for their job. These slender speedsters of the sea never stop; so everything must be done according to schedule. Four of the destroyers surrounded us as we ploughed through the water. "From the bridge came the order for every soul aboard to put on a life-belt, and our friends from Scotland hastened aft to obtain the equipment, scurrying and bustling about the damp cabin for the best belts.