No. 4452 was rolling slightly, her large coir fenders grunting and groaning as they ground against the massive timbers of the pier, the deck of which towered thirty feet above the little craft. Beyond and above, looming ghostly in the cold moonlight, were the rugged chalk cliffs crowning the venerable Dover Castle. Sub-lieutenant Guy Branscombe, deep in a novel, merely shrugged his shoulders. His skipper's words had as yet failed to penetrate his understanding. Farnborough knew the Sub's peculiarity. In his spells of off-duty Branscombe was a regular book-worm. Farnborough, on the other hand, was prone to conversation, but he had an unsatisfactory victim in his sub, who was able to defend himself against inopportune interruption by entire absorption in the book of the moment. Presently, after a lapse of a minute or more, Branscombe removed his pipe. "What's that about the _Bolero_?" he asked. "Torpedoed," replied the Lieutenant. "Lost off the Nord Hinder last Friday week." "By Jove!" exclaimed Branscombe. "I know a fellow on that destroyer. Any casualties?" "'Fraid so," answered Farnborough. "Night, rough sea, and all that sort of thing, you know. An officer and seventeen men missing--presumed drowned. Here you are, my boy!" He handed Branscombe a copy of an Admiralty confidential circular giving details of the disaster. A month later the casualty list would be communicated to the Press together with a bald statement that "one of H.M. destroyers was torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea on the night of so and so". It would have to be left to one's imagination, and perhaps the simple narrative of a survivor, to picture the end of a gallant vessel, for "the Navy doesn't advertise", especially in war-time. "Good Heavens!" ejaculated Branscombe; "I knew Seton awfully well. Old school chum of mine. His people lived close to my home. An' I came up in the train with him to Rosyth just before we commissioned; he envied me my stunt because of the extra excitement and risks," he added reminiscently. "Poor old Seton!" The news hit Branscombe badly. In the senior service men get to know each other more than in the army. The camaraderie of the sea is a real thing. Friendships made afloat are generally of a lasting order, especially during a two years' commission, by the end of which time there is hardly a secret between "chummy" officers. And into the midst of the big band of brothers stalked Death--far too frequently during the Great War. Men went singly, in dozens, and in hundreds, nobly doing their duty to King and Country. Some died in the knowledge that their passing was witnessed by their comrades; others went unheard and unseen, with none able to tell with any degree of accuracy of the manner of their going. "Rough luck," murmured Farnborough sympathetically. "Did I ever come across him?" "Not to my knowledge," replied the Sub, "and to my belief you never will."