Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/126

 all kinds in sight, single hull and combination, coastal and fleet, large and small. Indeed, one tiny Class H boat, which was wallowing along within a short distance of the Gyandotte, looked to be scarcely more than a toy and appeared to have set forth on a most suicidal venture. Further ahead were larger boats, submarines of possibly a thousand or twelve hundred tons displacement with sterns queerly cut away and much superstructure. In the gray of the morning it was difficult to pick them out a half mile away so closely did their hulls match the hue of sky and water. They were in two column formation, well spaced, and the leaders were far away from the Gyandotte, their presence indicated now and then by a dash of white foam when a wave broke against a conning tower. The convoyers consisted of three cruisers, the Gyandotte amongst them, a heavy looking, high-decked ship which someone said was a submarine tender and two destroyers of about four hundred tons, themselves looking scarcely more seaworthy than their charges. All that day the flotilla steamed northeastward and all of the next, the weather remaining either drizzly or foggy. Some time in the early morning of the fourth day after leaving Norfolk the light 103