"Lucky blighter," rejoined Seton "Wish I had the chance. There's always something doing in the 'Wet Triangle'. Up here with the Grand Fleet it's the usual out-and-in stunt, with no chance of tumbling across anything more than a Fritz or a mine. Absolute boredom, and all because the Huns won't come out. Now at Dover--any stunt on?" "Can't say, old man," replied Branscombe with perfect truth. As a matter of fact the R.N.V.R. officer was "in the know". Great operations, as to which all concerned were bound to secrecy, were impending; the risk was great, and the chance of honour correspondingly so; and since success depended upon a sphinx-like silence the secret was being well kept. Branscombe even knew of a case in which two life-long chums were shipmates for three weeks, and although each was detailed off for duty in the forthcoming operations neither hinted to the other that it was his luck to be chosen for the stunt. The conversation turned into other channels, talking "shop" being tabooed as far as possible, and punctually to time the two chums found themselves on Waverley Station platform with ten minutes to wait for the train that was to take them to their destination--Inverkeithing and Rosyth. CHAPTER II Strafed "Mornin', Seton," was Lieutenant-Commander Dick Trevannion's greeting as Alec reported himself on board H.M.T.B.D. _Bolero_. "Had a long journey, eh? Sorry, old bird; but there's one consolation: We're bound south. Evidently the Admiral thinks we are in need of recuperation in a warmer climate. No, don't look so infernally joyful. We're not off up the Straits, if that's what you think. It's a convoying job." Seton looked glum. He couldn't help it. Of all the tasks that fall to the lot of the ubiquitous navy convoying is one of the worst. The speed of the escorting destroyer or destroyers must perforce be limited to that of the slowest old tramp in the convoy, and in the days of shortage of shipping there were plenty of old hookers that in other circumstances would be being broken up in a shipbreaker's yards. Mule-headed skippers, ignoring peremptory signals, would haul out of line; superannuated engines would break down at particularly inopportune moments--when night was falling and a heavy sea running. Then the faces of the officers commanding H.M. ships comprising the escort would turn an apoplectic purple, and white anger would surge under their great-coats; but to little purpose. Acting on the precepts embodied in the song, "Sailors Don't Care". the horny-handed mercantile marine would just carry on in its own sweet way, contemptuously indifferent to naval orders, mines, U-boats, and other disquieting incidents on the High Seas in the Year of Grace 1918. "What sort of a circus have we, sir?" asked Seton.