Their losses were heavy, both in ships and men, amounting to about 30 per cent. Many were the lonely sea fights engaged in by these vessels. A few will receive the praise they deserve and the remainder will rest content with the knowledge of duty done. DRIFTERS If numbers or losses were the dominant factors the armed drifters should be high in the list. There were engaged considerably over 1000 of these craft, and the losses amounted to about 20 per cent. It may be necessary to inform some of my readers that a drifter is not necessarily a vessel that is content to start out on a voyage and rely on _drifting_ to its destination, as its name implies. The term is derived from the drift nets used by these vessels for fishing in time of peace. They are, in almost all respects, small editions of the deep-sea trawler--_minus_ the powerful steam-driven winch for hauling in the trawl nets. [Illustration: SOME OF THE 550 MOTOR LAUNCH HULLS BEING CONSTRUCTED ON THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER, CANADA _Yachting Monthly_] For war purposes the holds of these, and many other types of auxiliary warships, were converted into officers' cabins, or gun platforms for masked batteries. A few carried special nets in which to entangle the wily "Fritz." Others had aboard special types of submarine mines, and one, commanded by the author, was used for the transport of wounded from Admiral Sir David Beatty's flag-ship, H.M.S. _Lion_, after the Jutland fight. These were, as might be expected, good sea boats, and carried out duties of great danger and value. Several hundred were fitted with wireless. Their zone of operations was far flung, extending from the Arctic Circle to the Equator. It was, however, in the unequal fights with German destroyers in the Straits of Dover and with Austrian torpedo boat destroyers in the Adriatic that they made a name for valour. In two of these engagements no less than six and fourteen drifters were sunk in a few minutes. MOTOR LAUNCHES About the now famous motor launches, or "movies," as they are called in the Service, much will be said in later pages. They numbered over 500, and, with but few exceptions, were a homogeneous flotilla of fast sea-going patrol boats, heavily armed for their size. Some idea of their appearance under varying conditions will be gained from a study of the illustrations. They were all commanded by R.N.V.R. officers, whose training on H.M.S. _Hermione_ and elsewhere has been described in an earlier chapter. They carried a crew of nine men and two officers, and their zones of operations extended from the icy seas which wash the Orkneys and Shetlands to the West Indies and the Suez Canal.