how they had turned the course of water pipes, all over the ship,
how they had drawn bolts and with blow-pipes had rotted nuts and
rods far in the dark places of the ship's interior, how they had
scientifically disarranged her boilers so that they would not make
steam, and as we saw the German boat looming up, deck upon deck, a
floating citadel, with her bristling guns, we thought what a prize
she would be when she put out to sea loaded to the guards with those
handsome boys whom we had been seeing hustling about the country
as they went to their training camps. Even to consider these things
gave us a feeling of panic, and the recollection of the big boat
in the dock began to bring the war to us, more vividly than it had
come before. And then our first real martial adventure happened,
thus:

As we leaned over the rail that first night talking of many things,
in the blackness, without a glimmer from any porthole, with the
decks as dark as Egypt, the ship shot ahead at twenty knots an
hour. In peace times it would be regarded as a crazy man's deed,
to go whizzing along at full speed without lights. Henry had taken
two long puffs on his cigar when out from the murk behind us came
a hand that tapped his shoulder, and then a voice spoke:

"You'll have to put out that cigar, sir. A submarine could see that
five miles on a night like this!"

So Henry doused his light, and the war came right home to us.

The next day was uniform day on the boat, and the war came a bit
nearer to us than ever. Scores of good people who had come on the
boat in civilian clothes, donned their uniforms that second day;