During the night we passed a number of patrol boats keeping their ceaseless vigil. The patrol service will, when the war is over, undoubtedly reap the full meed of praise to which they are entitled. It is utterly impossible for the landsman to grasp the soul-wearying work on patrol vessels. Frequently of quite small tonnage, keeping the seas in every kind of weather, not bound anywhere in particular, but just slogging to and fro on a set beat, rarely thought of except by the relatives and friends of those serving in them.
We reached Gibraltar in two or three days, during which time no alarms from submarines disturbed our peace. The sight of the Rock for the first time must frequently call forth an exclamation on the strangeness of events which have enabled us to take and hold so fine a strategical position. Isolated as it is from any other of our possessions, it has certainly served us well in the Dardanelles campaign.
Malta was made in the early morning, and it certainly looked a gem set in a sea of opal, although closer acquaintance found it stiflingly hot. Our time here was short, as we were ordered to a vessel leaving early next morning for Mudros, the base in the island of Lemnos. The ship in which we took passage was one of an entirely new class, specially designed for the destruction of submarines. On our passage up, a matter of three days, a sharp lookout was kept, as we were now nearing the danger zone. For some reason difficult to discover there appeared to be a lull in the operations of these craft, due, probably, to the numerous devices employed to restrict their activities. Nevertheless, continual reports were coming in of their being sighted, and our Captain was anxious to try the efficacy of his means of offence, but we were disappointed or otherwise, according to our various temperaments, for we sighted nothing suspicious.
On the third day a French destroyer, with whom we exchanged recognition signals, steamed up to us for a closer inspection. This denoted our close proximity to the great naval base from which the operations in this theatre of war were largely conducted.
A distant view of Mudros, one of the finest natural harbours in the eastern Mediterranean, showed a vast concourse of ships, which grew in interest and numbers as we approached. Eventually we steamed between lines of warships to an anchorage given us by signal. I have seen many reviews and naval pageants, but nothing to compare, in interest, with the assemblage of ships that we now witnessed. British battleships, French battleships, cruisers of both nations; a Russian cruiser, the _Askold_ (which had incidentally been badly hammered in the war with Japan); destroyers, torpedo boats of all ages, submarines (some fresh with the laurels of raids in the Sea of Marmora), North Sea trawlers, tramp-steamers, transports, food-ships, motor-boats, Greek sailing vessels, motor-barges for landing troops, private yachts taken over by the Admiralty (the Admiral conducting operations being himself in one of these), and endless other craft gathered from everywhere to assist in the enormous undertaking of supplying food and munitions and to guard the routes to the various other bases established in the islands around. Towering above all the vessels could be seen the _Aquitania_ and the _Mauretania_, their immense bulk dwarfing every ship in the harbour.