Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/251

 patrol flotilla that Summer and Fall, there was plenty of incident. Storms became numerous as Autumn appeared, and the Gyandotte gave the lie to those pessimists who doubted her seaworthiness. There were occasions when Nelson concluded that if he ever reached land again it would be either in a small boat or atop a deck hatch, but the little cruiser always came through somehow, even if she almost stood on her beam ends doing it! Meanwhile Nelson found promotion of a sort. A vacancy in the crew of Number Four gun placed him as trainer, a position for which his study and Garey's instructions had well fitted him, and he blossomed forth with a seaman gunner's distinguishing mark, a bursting bomb worked in white silk on his sleeve. He was rather proud of that insignia and fairly ached for a chance to make good at his job.

He received one letter from Martin about the first of October, mailed at some town on the East coast of Scotland whose name Nelson could not decipher, and which, he decided, he wouldn't have been able to pronounce in any case. Martin reported that the Q-4 was lying up undergoing battery replacements. "We've had a busy time of it since I saw you last," he continued. "We're helping the Limie subs patrol this beastly coast around 226