dearly acquired knowledge could never be put to practical use later. Such is war.

Two or three days out from Halifax the various outfits on board were called on to furnish extra submarine lookouts. At night this was unpleasant work for the weather was often bitterly cold, but it carried with it exemption from all other duties, always an advantage. Each lookout had a strong pair of glasses and would doubtless have seen anything that appeared. The best moment for sighting Uboats was said to be at night when they lay on the surface recharging their batteries, and theoretically visible two miles away.

Submarines, of course, were very much in everyone's mind, and life-boat drill was taken quite as seriously as it deserved. The story, however, had it that the ship's captain (who looked like King George and had an excellent reputation for fooling the subs) could not understand how we took it all so calmly. Most of the other troops he had brought across had spent all their time on deck with life belts on from the moment the ship left port, while we had not taken kindly to the belts nor shown any undue preference for the deck.

For all that, we had plenty of nervous moments. There were crowds of porpoises following the ship, and there is nothing that looks more like a torpedo that a porpoise. There was also a surprise boat drill one day. The signal—five blasts on the ship's whistle—came without a moment's warning and disturbed us, to say the least. There were, however, some who claimed to have known what it was all along. Lastly, there was an inquisitive ship which might have been

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