Officers who have business with it will tell you that the naval organization of the British is pretty complete. Our young skipper found everything ready for him now. Men ashore made fast his lines, connected up his pipes, filled his tanks--all in good order. Sister destroyers were oiling up with him, and with tanks filled they all bumped their way back to moorings, again without sinking anything along the way. It was then daylight, and right after breakfast they all had to report to the admiralty, so no use trying to sleep any more. Arrived at the admiralty, the officer in command complimented them on their safe run across, and then went on to say that of course they had had a trying passage, and naturally their ships, especially engines and boilers, would have to be overhauled--all very natural and proper--and of course the needful time for overhauling, and for officers and crew--two, three, four days, whatever it was--would be granted; but (they knew the need) the question was: How long before they would be ready to go to sea? The young destroyer commanders had discussed that and other possibilities in the reception-room outside, so when the senior of the group looked from one to the other of his colleagues they had only to nod, for him to turn to the admiral and say: "We are ready now, sir." Which remark should become one of the historic remarks of this war. At this time--at the gates to the North Sea, the English Channel, the Irish coast--the U-boats were collecting frightful toll. In the Mediterranean they were running wild. Five ships from one convoy in one day--three of them big P. & O. liners--was one of their records in the Eastern Mediterranean. To the natural question, Why haven't you checked them? almost any young British naval officer felt like saying: "Check 'em? Try it yourself and check 'em! You go out there and keep your ship zigzagging full speed night and day for three years and see how you like it! Go out there in rough weather and fog with not a minute's let-up, and see if you get to where the fall of a bucket of a dark night will make you jump three feet in the air or not! Our ships were not built, and our chaps were not trained, to beat their rotten game." So things were when our fellows took hold, and hearing no word from them for a long time and then but a meagre one, it may be that many a citizen on this side was saying to himself: "Well, they're gone, that little flotilla, swallowed up in the mists of the Atlantic, and that is all we know about them. And now I wonder what they're doing over there? Are they doing great work or are they tied up to a dock at the naval base, and their officers and crews roistering ashore?"