ICELAND 87 



independently, navigating her way through the narrow darkened 

 Sounds of Islay and Mull during the next night. 



A fortnight was spent at Port A carrying out sounding of areas 

 along the approach channel, laying buoys and setting up shore 

 marks for fixing the boom defences. From here the ship went on 

 to Scapa Flow to be met there with demands for a whole series 

 of surveys in connection with the defences of this fleet base. 

 H.M.S. Royal Oak had recently been sunk by a German U-boat 

 which had penetrated the defences and had entered the Flow. 

 This had added a great and overpowering urgency to all work 

 connected with booms and other defences. Work commenced 

 onboard at dawn on Sunday, 24th December, one hour after the 

 ship had arrived at Scapa, and continued unceasingly. The weather 

 was cold and stormy, with frequent snow squalls, while day after 

 day the boats' crews set out from the ship across the grey and 

 white ruffled waters of the Flow. While their fellows in the 

 Fleet came and went in cruisers and destroyers, slipping out 

 through the boom at dusk on their warlike missions, the men of 

 Challenger spent their day in drudgery under the unkindest 

 weather conditions; the younger officers particularly, and many 

 of the men, longed to be posted to some more warlike vessel, and 

 many of them requested the Captain for a transfer. But the work 

 was essential and no one could be spared ; the surveying went on 

 and on and on. 



Work completed in the Flow, the ship steamed round to Kirk- 

 wall, where similar surveys were carried out in connection with 

 fixed defences to be laid in the various sounds leading into the 

 Contraband Control Anchorage at Kirkwall, which was crowded 

 with neutral shipping of many nationalities, their national flags 

 painted boldly on their sides, waiting for their turn for examina- 

 tion, their crews cursing the endless delays. 



Long, bitter days were spent here by the surveyors in the field, 

 relieved only by the overpowering kindness of the crofters of 

 Orkney. Many a survey party was called into a farmhouse at 

 dinner time, where they joined the family round the kitchen table 

 to eat a boiled fowl and to enjoy the glow of warmth from the 

 hearth after hours spent observing with the theodolite on some 

 blustery hilltop. The lie up period was now only a peace-time 



