FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 261 



the sports, under the direction of Captain Benson, 

 passed off admirably. 



The last episode was our capture by three 

 destroyers of the Blue Fleet, on the final afternoon 

 of the manoeuvres, during our run from the Lizard 

 to Cherbourg. Our captors had lost their bearings, 

 a useful predicament for an attacking fleet sent out 

 to harry merchant shipping, and when we had given 

 them the information asked for, they rudely signalled 

 to ask whether we were going our full speed and to 

 express the hope that we were not going slow out 

 of deference to them. This must have been as 

 honey to the Chief Engineer, who was purposely 

 crawling along, as we should in any case have to 

 lie all Sunday night in Southampton Water. 



Two carrier pigeons from the destroyers flew 

 on board the Tagus, and as everything is fair in 

 war, Pam and I fed them with corn till they were 

 too comfortable to fly any further, and captured 

 them after dark when roosting on the home of the 

 humming-birds. Next afternoon, after copying their 

 cipher code messages, which we could not make head 

 or tail of, we released them off Hurst Castle. 



Daybreak on Monday found us alongside the 

 wharf, and then came the usual leave-takings, the 

 curiously abrupt and final break-up of the little 

 community that had for a while been brought into 

 such intimate fellowship. And now each would go 

 his or her way and no more, perhaps, see any of the 

 rest. Human nature is mercifully constructed so 

 that it can break friendships as easily as it makes 

 them. Human nature had to bear something else 

 that July morning, for the first news to greet us on 

 the landing was of the dreadful railway accident 



