Such was the task performed by the transport officers, every kind of vessel being assembled for the purpose, from the cross-channel packet boat accommodating not more than three hundred at a time to the giant Atlantic liner carrying as many thousands. Chiefly from _Southampton_, but also from Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, Avonmouth, and many other ports, that constant stream of men, horses, provisions, and equipment poured ceaselessly for nearly a fortnight, screened by destroyer-escorts, and with aeroplanes and seaplanes keeping watch over them from the sky. Without a single casualty as the result of enemy action, they were mustered and marched into line of the French left flank; and that this great achievement should have been possible within so short a period from the declaration of war is perhaps the completest tribute that could be paid to the consummate skill of our naval dispositions. Scarcely realized by those splendid battalions, whistling "Tipperary" on the way to Mons, and even now, perhaps, hardly appreciated by the bulk of their countrymen at home, it was the navy and the navy {27} alone that made that glorious epic possible. With their eyes on Europe and the impending clash of the armies; hearing in imagination, under the unsuspected force of the heavy German artillery, the crumpling up of those iron-clad cupolas of the Brialmont forts at Liège--few would have thought twice, perhaps, even if they had known what they were doing, of those tiny submarines _E6_ and _E8_ creeping, the first of their kind, into the Bight of Heligoland. Yet but for them and their gallant crews and officers, Lieutenant-Commanders Talbot and Goodhart; but for the presiding destroyers, _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_ and the submarines of the Eighth Flotilla--the passage of the Expeditionary Force might well have been impossible and the first battle of the Marne fought with another issue. Within three hours of the first outbreak of the war, _E6_ and _E8_ stole out on their perilous errands; and it was upon the information brought back by them from those mined and fortified waters that the later dispositions were made. From August 7th onward, until the Expeditionary Force had been safely landed, the submarines kept their watch. In the lee of islands, at the mouths of channels, in hourly danger of detection and death, day and night, without relief, those cautious periscopes maintained their vigil. Farther to the south, guarding the approaches to the Channel, between the North Goodwins and the Ruytingen, were the two destroyers _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_, with the main covering submarine flotilla; while to the northeast of these, the _Amethyst_ and _Fearless_, each with a flotilla of destroyers, took {28} turns about on patrol duty during the passage of the army.