clutching at the folds of flannel shirt beneath his arm-pit. His face, turned from Gerhardt and the rest, stared blankly straight in front of him and toward the marsh brush. The men, arrested in the act of rushing to him, as if held by some potent spell, followed his gaze to the water's edge and a clump of brush now quivering and bending in an agony of motion. A last violent spasm, and from out the tangle, long neck stretched forward, legs raised high in awkward haste, half stepped, half fell, a pink crane. As it stood there an instant at amazed and shocked attention, like an old gentleman suddenly aroused from an afternoon nap, a stray shaft of sunlight from the lowering sun turned the lagoon to silver and deepened the bird's pink feathers to a roseate glow. It showed against the water's light as pink as an apple blossom on a baby's cheek.

A sudden movement from Gerhardt, and his gun dropped to the ground, the barrel nosing deeply in the sand. The startled crane lurched forward, its heavy body rising slowly to indignant beat of broad, pink wings; and neck stretched forward, legs back, like the rudder of a ship, it sailed away, gaining headway as it flew until it disappeared a small pink speck against low-lying

marsh brush.

Robertson, still on his knees, crumpled slowly to the ground and lay quite motionless. Later, struggling back to consciousness, he felt the supporting arms of " Babe" and heard the voice of Brooks, the transit-man.

"Lost a lot of blood while we were mooning over that pink crane; but, thank God! it's only a flesh wound."

A sound, half cry, half sob, followed these words of Brooks, and Robertson, raising heavy lids, saw Gerhardt a few paces distant sink upon a boulder and bury his face in his hands. Hastily he looked away across the lagoon, now grey again in the rapidly fading light.

The men shifted their positions, stirred uneasily. Babe " alone broke the silence.

"My sister had a pink crane wing once on a hat."

mused reminiscently.

He Her beau sent it to her from Florida.

They say they're awfully scarce."

KATE E. HORTON

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE

SUBMARINE

THERE was a period of the Great War during which-so we may prefigure the judicial observation of the future historian-during which (he writes) the British nation was forced to contemplate the possibility of being starved to concede an ignominious surrender or, at best, to conclude a humiliating compromise. Once (he continues) the proud mistress of the seas, and still imposing her will upon the formidable fleet of her adversary, Britain found her sea-power (a favourite phrase of that epoch) challenged and nullified at every turn by that recent and deadly invention, the submarine torpedo vessel. In one week, no less than forty merchant ships were sunk with their cargoes; the weekly toll of piracy varied from five or six to eighteen or twenty vessels; and although it cannot be said that there was actual want, it is undoubtedly the case that a general scarcity of food began to prevail. But the spirit of the people never wavered. . . . Here the historian, who with a quaint simplicity affects the tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles of the Georgian era, takes off his glasses and stares out of the window at the smokeless blue. "I wonder, did it waver?" he says dubiously.

How, indeed, should he know? The movements of the spirit of man are elusive and swiftly transitory. But in fact the English are hard to move, extremely reluctant to entertain disagreeable impressions, and almost incapable of believing that any other power on earth or sea or under the sea could defeat the British Navy.

Whether or not the Englishman knew from week to week the actual state of the case would have made but little difference to his feelings. He did in fact know very little, and that little was all on the wrong side of the account. But the Admiralty said at intervals that the submarine would not decide the war. That was enough. And the moment has come to say that the Admiralty were right. They made themselves right. Only the

Admiralty and the fighting men at sea and in the air know exactly how it was done. The historian of the future may learn in detail how it was done; but it is odds that after the war-if there is an after the war-people will be too tired to read his monumental disquisition. So it is well to learn what we can while we can.

The air and the sea round these islands have become full of eyes, like the beast in the Apocalypse. Eyes in aeroplanes, seaplanes, airships; eyes in submarines and surface craft. Floating between the grey cope of heaven and the wrinkled plain of the sea hangs an airship. She wears an aspect of brooding over the waters. Her eyes are scanning the moving and whitened field beneath them. Eastward, the dawn fires the sullen wrack; and the sombre headlands, their bases ringed about with foam, lighten. Far out to sea, a steamer, looking little as a toy, moves with incredible slowness beneath a plume of smoke; beyond, smears upon the faint horizon indicate other vessels. The men in the car of the airship, swinging level with the wide rim of the sea, have long ago become accustomed to looking down like the god of the ancients upon the insects swimming upon the sea he made. They are wholly occupied in seeking for their prey. Presently the watchers discern upon the sliding surface of the water a mark like the print of a bird's foot, a long V, lengthening. It is the wake of a periscope. This is luck indeed. The airship tilts downwards, comes level again, and the officer pulls a lever, releasing a bomb. The long dark shape slants swiftly downwards, and plunges. In a few seconds there is a muffled detonation, and a fountain of water leaps high. Another bomb follows, and another. At the same time a wireless message spreads instantaneously from the airship and begins to vibrate in the ears of the signalmen in ships scattered far and wide. At the same time flashing signals are made to the nearer vessels. The airship hovers where she is; and the men mark a dark oily stain spreading and spreading and smoothing the waves. It is dotted here and there with pieces of wreckage. Presently five or six trawlers come steaming up to investigate, and the airship glides away. That was a lucky shot.

More often there is no sign after the bomb has been dropped; or there is a smaller area of spreading oil, denoting what is probably slight damage. An airship, sailing high, once dropped bombs upon certain long black objects, which were most likely

whales.

Or the airship assembles the hunting party. Cruising alone, she sights the conning-tower of a submarine a long way off.

There is a destroyer visible, and the destroyer is promptly informed. The men in the airship see the sparks volleying from her wide. funnels as she goes about. about. At the same time the nearest motorlaunch (or M.L.) flotilla receives the summons, and the leader of the trawler section. These all take their places with the accuracy of a quadrille. They have their own means of discovering the approximate position of the submarine, whether the pirate be escaping or sitting on the bottom of the sea waiting for the trouble to blow over.

But whether she goes or stays, every pallid German in the belly of the submarine is also waiting for the deadly depth charge. It is not necessary to hit the vessel. The shock is so tremendous, even at a certain distance, that the lights go out in the submarine, the engines are shaken out of gear, and the plates begin to open out like a flower. Explode the depth charge a little nearer to her, and the submarine is shattered. It is what the German must hope for, even pray for; because if the explosion does no more than open leaks, the water, gradually rising in the vessel, compresses the air, and also makes chlorine gas, and death comes by slow torture. Better, in fact, come to the surface and fight it out or surrender. It has almost come to that with the submarine; that it is safer for her to do murder in the light of day.

There are about eighteen hours of daylight at this time of year; and were a spectator to be suspended so high in air that he could miraculously survey the isles of Britain lying beneath him like a child's garden, he would see a chain of moving silver dots surrounding the whole jagged coastline. He would also remark the seaplanes, darker and swifter specks, like birds. They are quicker in pursuit than the airships, but their endurance in the air is of course shorter. Swooping low, they drop their bombs over the patch of troubled water revealing the enemy below, or over the feather of the moving periscope. If they catch a submarine on the surface, they have need of swiftness, for their quarry can submerge in thirty seconds.

The British seaplane squadrons are frequently met by enemy seaplanes. In the North Sea two British seaplanes met five of the enemy. Two of the enemy attacked one of the British seaplanes, which was a long way behind its leader, and which put up a running fight. The leading British seaplane manoeuvred to attack the three enemy single-seaters from their rear, at a range of 200 to 300 yards. Steering zigzag, and firing to the front, he hit a single-seater, which turned sharply to port, side-slipped, and crashed into the sea, whereupon the rest of the Germans incontinently fled.

In another fight over the North Sea a British Sopwith, a long way from his base, perceiving an enemy, attacked him "from the sun," as the phrase goes. The attacker thus has the light behind him, and the attacked has it right in his eyes. The Sopwith opened fire at fifty yards, whereupon the German dived, streaming smoke; one of his wings dropped off; and he fell headlong into the sea.

But it is not all victory. There is a sad record of a seaplane flying somewhere far out to sea, whose signals of distress were received, but owing to some defect in her signalling apparatus, her description of her position was unintelligible. A gale was blowing up; seaplanes went in the teeth of it to search for the craft in distress; but they could not find her. The wreck of her was afterwards washed on shore. Pilot and observer were never seen again. The war in the air is a boys' war; and these two lads, lost in the air many miles out at sea, fought to the last. Their engine was out of order; the wireless would not work properly; the darkness was gathering, and a storm was rising. Swinging and buffeted high up in the night, they knew that the end was approaching. Perhaps they put the nose of the machine down at the last, on the chance of riding out the gale on the floats. Other lads have done it; have clung to the floats for days and nights; and when they were taken off they were rigid like wood. But whatever happened on that night, be sure the boys' hearts did not fail them.

She

Airship and aeroplane work with the patrolling destroyer flotillas, which are organized separately from the destroyers on duty with the Fleet. Many hundreds of sea-miles they cover, and never see a submarine. And then upon a day, it happens, as it happened to H.M.S. early one fine morning. was cruising at fifteen knots, which is a gentle stroll for a destroyer, when her captain sighted a submarine lying on the surface, little more than 200 yards distant. He rang down for full speed, put the helm hard over, the boat heeling nearly rail under, and ran straight upon the enemy. The steel stem of a destroyer curves outwards under water, so that at the keel there is a sharp projection like an adze. H.M.S. struck the submarine just forward of the conning-tower, and cut right through the vessel. The destroyer captain turned sixteen points, or at a right angle, and released a depth charge, and then another. The sea became darkly suffused with oil.

Another episode. H.M.S., destroyer, cruising at twenty knots, sighted a periscope. It feathered the water some forty yards distant on the starboard beam. The commander put his helm hard oyer, dropped a depth charge on the starboard side,