“What is it? I’ll bite.” “When and where is the meal pennant flown?” CHAPTER VII SMASHED BY A HURRICANE On the last day of November the _Corsair_ got under way from Brest to find and escort seven American store-ships which were bringing cargoes to France. A division of Queenstown destroyers had picked them up at fifteen degrees West and was guiding them to the rendezvous. With the _Corsair_ went the _Reid_ and _Preston_, also three French patrol craft, the _Glaive_, _Claymore_, and _Marne_. As the senior officer, Commander Seiss, in the _Glaive_, was in charge of the Allied escort group. The voyage was without notable incident, but the difficulty of working together in different languages and with a mixed British and American convoy was indicated by Commander Kittinger in his official comment: The senior officer of our escort was in a ship lacking efficient radio communication. As it is not to be expected that an eight knot convoy from New York will ever arrive at a rendezvous on a predetermined course at a predetermined time, the Chief of Escort should be in the vessel having the best communication. This is especially necessary during the winter when the daylight periods are short. I do not believe that the ships of our convoy knew their destination. With ships on their first trip, as most of these ships were, the masters of the vessels are not prepared to have another escorting force join them and proceed to give them orders. This is especially true in the case of the British ship _Anglo-Saxon_, the master of which could not understand why an American patrol vessel should tell him to quit a British convoy. It would facilitate matters if the masters of all vessels, were informed of their destination and the probable time and place of their detachment from the New York convoy. The Chief of Escort did not require the ships to zigzag nor to assemble in line formation as per doctrine. I do not believe it is advisable for the Chief of Escort to be a French officer acting with large convoys of American and English ships. After this cruise the _Corsair_ was placed in dry-dock at Brest, where a week was occupied in scraping, painting, and such overhauling as was necessary. The ship was in surprisingly good condition after six months of far more severe and punishing activity than she could have been reasonably expected to perform. Chief Engineer Hutchison and Assistant Engineers Mason and Hawthorn had kept things running down below without a serious mishap or delay, although the yacht’s engines had shoved her through 19,427 miles of sea during this half-year period. The fires had not died under the boilers for a stretch of five months. It seemed no longer quite fair to the _Corsair_ to think of her as a pleasure craft. The words were incongruous. She had proved herself to be a brawny toiler of the sea.