The Destroyers were not sorry to see the dawn. The night was their task-master: in darkness they worked and in the Shadow of Death. They passed within hailing distance of the Sloops, and on board the reeling Destroyers here and there a figure in streaming oilskins raised his arm and waved a salutation to the squat grey craft setting forth in the comfortless dawn to holystone Death's doorstep. The Mine-sweepers refrained from any such amenity. Anon the darkness would come again, when no man may sweep for mines. Then would be their turn for grins and the waving of arms. In the meanwhile, they preferred to remain grim and restless as their work. Presently the Destroyers, obedient to a knotted tangle of flags at the yardarm of their leader, altered course a little; they were making for an opening in the wall of rock, on either side of which gaunt promontories thrust their naked shoulders into the surf. The long black, viperish hulls passed through under the ever-watchful eyes of the shore batteries, and the hooded figures on the Destroyer bridges threw back their duffle cowls and wiped the night's accumulation of dried spray and cinders out of the puckers round their tired eyes. The Commanding Officer of the leading Destroyer leaned across the bridge-rails and stared round at the ring of barren islands encircling the great expanse of water into which they had passed, the naked, snow-powdered hills in the background: at the greyness and desolation of earth and sky and sea. "Home again!" he said in an undertone to the Lieutenant beside him. "It ain't much of a place to look at, but I'm never sorry to see it again after a dusting like we got last night." The Lieutenant raised the glasses slung round his neck by a strap and levelled them at a semi-globular object that had appeared on the surface some distance away. "There's old Tirpitz waiting to say good morning as usual." The Commander laughed. "Rum old devil he is. That's where the Hun has the pull over us. He's got something better than a seal to welcome him back to harbour--when he _does_ get back!" "When he does, yes." The other chuckled. "Gretchens an' iron crosses an' joy bells. Lord, I'd love to see 'em, wouldn't you? Just for five minutes!" The Commander moved across to the tiny binnacle. "I'd rather see my own wife for five minutes," he replied. Then, raising his voice, "Starboard ten!" "Starboard ten, sir," repeated the voice of the helmsman. The Commander stood with watchful eye on the swinging compass card. "Midships ... steady!" "Steady, sir!" sang the echo at the wheel. The Commander glanced aft through the trail of smoke at the next astern swinging round in the smother of his wake. "Well, we shan't be long now before we tie up to the buoy--curse these fellows! Here come all the drifters with mails and ratings for the Fleet.... Port five!"