Of the three figures in the meagre shelter of the wheel-house there was little to distinguish who or what they were, except, perhaps, a cleaner and more yellowish duffel coat and a big white muffler in which the lieutenant-in-command tried, without success, to keep his teeth from chattering and the icy draught from finding its way into the seemingly endless openings of his woollen clothing. What he had been before the Great War and the North Sea claimed him was a mystery to those on board, but the people of more than one capital knew his name. Near by stood a younger man--a boy before the war--who, although pale and dark-eyed, did not appear to feel the intense cold so much, although the dampness of the long-past summer fogs had chilled him to the bone. He was the sub-lieutenant, and hailed from the Great North-West, where Canadian winters had hardened his skin to the stinging dry cold. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--Duffel or Arctic clothing.] The immense bundle of nondescript clothing at the wheel was "Mac," the coxswain, whose voyages in Arctic seas with the Iceland fishing fleet numbered more than his years of life, and whose deep-voiced Gaelic roar could bring the "watch below" on to the cold, wet deck to their action stations in less time than it would take a new recruit to tumble out of his hammock. Although the silence of the sea seems to settle on its watchers in those northern marches, there was an unduly long absence of comment on the nature of the weather and the prospects of "something exciting" turning up out of the icy mist. The reason lay in the subconscious mind of all on deck, for it was Christmas morning, 1916, and the thoughts of all were dwelling on past years in the cheery surroundings of English and Colonial homes--in vivid contrast to the dismal grey of the North Sea. To break the spell of memory both officers felt would be blasphemy, and yet a feeble attempt at conversation was made every now and then for the sake of appearances.