Again comes an apologetic examination of credentials, possibly followed by a few minutes with the admiral commanding, and then the grand tour commences. First come the ships lying alongside the stone pier, with their short funnels belching black and very sooty smoke. These are the "stand-off" units, whose crews are enjoying a brief few hours ashore after days or weeks out on the dangerous seas beyond. Big drums of oil are being lowered by ropes on to their decks. The sound of hammering comes from more than one engine-room, where machinery is being overhauled. On the decks of several, men with little or no resemblance to the clean "Jacks" of the naval review are fondly polishing, painting or greasing the long grey barrels, steel breech mechanism, or the yellow metal training wheels of guns. Others are cleaning rifles, which have recently been used with special bullets for sinking floating mines. One ship is washing down decks after coming in late from night patrol; another is receiving its three-monthly coat of grey paint; while on to the deck of a whaler--black and ominous-looking--hundredweights of provisions in boxes and bags are being lowered from the quay. Astern of these lie two tiers of light grey spick and span motor launches, their decks spotlessly white, and their small canvas and glass screened wheel-houses ill concealing polished brass indicators, Morse signalling key, electric switches, binnacles and other paraphernalia. Behind these lie the 40-knot coastal motor boats, like miniature submarines, with torpedoes in cavities in their aft decks, and little glass-sheltered steering-wells. Further towards the head of the pier is a line of big flat Scotch motor drifters, built for rough weather with 9-inch timbers, their decks a maze of wire nets, glass floats and brick-red chemical canisters. On the opposite side of the pier, in front of the S.N.O.'s cabin, lies a big grey yacht with four 12-pounder guns and an anti-aircraft weapon pointing over the sky-reflecting water. Lying out in the basin are big minesweepers, looking more like pre-war third-class cruisers, two slim-looking dark grey destroyers, a dredger and a few nondescript craft. Inside the first row of iron sheds are stores, with barrels of tar, drums of paint, immense coils of rope and a naval "William Whiteley's"--in which anything from a looking-glass to a ball of string, or a razor to a dish-cloth, can be obtained in exchange for a signed form from the Naval Store Officer, whose cabin near by is a maze of similar forms of all colours. Then a worried-looking man hurries by and the O.O.D. smiles. "He's the coaling officer, and there's some twenty ships waiting to get alongside to take the beastly stuff aboard," is the laconic explanation.