Chapter 9; Ocean Rendezvous

Ocean Rendezvous

The men who sail the ships. At the convoy conference, Merchant Navy skippers receive detailed instructions on enemy tactics and the methods by which to combat them. Co-operation between merchant vessels and their naval and air escorts has been brought to a fine art.

IN THE EARLY DAYS of the war our convoys were covered by Coastal Command either when approaching these shores or when sailing coastwise. With the increase in the range and number of the aircraft at its disposal, Fighter Command can now give protection to ships within a certain distance of the shore by means of a " fighter umbrella." This need not always be spread above the ships but can be opened when necessary. Coastal Command has, in consequence, been able for many months past to concentrate on giving more distant cover.

The first to meet the convoys are the Catalinas. They do so many hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic, for the normal duration of their patrol is, in summer eighteen, in winter fourteen hours, and it is possible for them to remain air-borne for considerably more than twenty four hours. Close behind them come the Liberators and the Sunderland flying boats. Then the Whitleys take charge, followed by the Wellingtons and, as the long journey nears its end, the Hudsons, the long-range fighter Blenheims and Beauforts, and until lately the Ansons.

Thus, in theory, the protection afforded to convoys from the air, once they have reached a certain point, is in daylight continuous and more intense as they near our coasts. In practice this is not always so for a reason which is easily apparent. A convoy keeps wireless silence. It must do so if it is to preserve the secret of its whereabouts. Unfortunately, this is hidden alike from friend and foe. True, the Admiralty knows its port of departure, its speed, course and destination. Where it is can therefore be plotted on the great wall maps in Whitehall, at Coastal Command and at the Area Combined Headquarters. There is, however, one factor which cannot be exactly calculated or known.

It is the weather.

The men who protect the convoys. A Catalina Crew goes out to the aircraft in a launch.

When a convoy runs into heavy weather its progress becomes slower. This, however, is not immediately known in this country. An aircraft, therefore, sent to find the convoy and given the position in which it ought to be may not find it there and may have to search sometimes for hours. On one occasion, for example, nine aircraft were sent out from a station in Northern Ireland to cover a convoy which was, in fact, several hours ahead of the moment at which it was scheduled to pass a given point.

They did not find it, but a long-range Hudson, sent out later, did so after searching for six hours. It had time to signal that it was going back to base and then had immediately to do so, petrol being low. Once a Catalina from Northern Ireland was sent to meet a convoy having the code name " Child." After some hours the Controller at base received the message " Pregnant " followed by the position.

The successful meeting of aircraft and convoy is the responsibility of the navigator. His task and difficulties merit examination. In the crews of Coastal Command the navigator is perhaps even more than in Bomber Command the key man. He is faced with a set of navigational problems which change literally with the changing wind. His craft is not moving in an element of which the tides and currents have been known, charted and tabled for hundreds of years. He has no such exact information but must rely upon a weather report and forecast.

They climb aboard through one of the glass " blisters " in the hull.

Changes in the direction and speed of the wind through which he is to fly cannot be recorded accurately in advance. Temperatures and pressures vary with every change in the cloud formation. Each flight is indeed a navigational adventure. The problems of navigation are much the same when flying over the Atlantic as were those which beset Columbus when sailing upon its surface, though in place of the saliva spat by a seaman over the bows of the " Santa Maria," by the behaviour of which the Admiral was wont to calculate the drift of the ship, the navigator of an aircraft of Coastal Command has drift sights and flame floats to aid him.

To keep the aircraft on its proper course the navigator must know two things : the extent to which the wind is causing it to drift from the track plotted on the chart, in other words, the angle between the course actually flown and the course plotted (track), and the true speed at which the aircraft is flying, that is the speed at which it is, in fact, passing over the sea. The calculation of these two factors enables him to navigate by Dead Reckoning, the method in universal use by the Command.

To find the amount of drift, the navigator makes use of the bomb-sight, the tail drift sight or the observer's bearing compass. The drift wires of the bomb-sight, for example, aligned on some object in the sea, such as a wave cap, until that object appears to travel directly along the drift wires. The drift of the aircraft is then read off on a scale.

The tail drift sight, used more often at night, is constructed on the same principle as the periscope. It passes through the floor and is directed astern. Objects passing directly below the navigator are picked up, followed astern and kept between the drift lines of the instrument by moving it to port or starboard.

The degree of this movement is read off on a scale similar to that of the bomb-sight. Sometimes, especially in very calm weather, smoke or flame floats are used as objects on which to train this sight.

There is also the bearing-wind-compass. This is sighted on the wind " lanes " appearing on the surface as the wind strikes the water. Whatever method is used, one phenomenon is noticeable-from an aircraft, the spume of a wave always seems to move up-wind, for the wave is travelling faster than the spume.

The navigator is responsible for the successful rendezvous between aircraft and convoy at a prearranged point in the vast wilderness of water. Every patrol is a navigational feat.

To calculate the ground speed as distinct from the air speed, the true direction and speed of the wind, the Wind Velocity, as it is called, must be found. Several methods are in use. In one the aircraft alters course three times. During its progress along each new course the navigator takes a drift and from this the wind velocity can be calculated. In another the wind lanes are used in a way similar to that already mentioned. With practice, very accurate results are achieved.

So much for Dead Reckoning. There are other ways of navigating. First by wireless bearings or a " fix," which is the intersection of two or more bearings or " position lines," as they are called. These are obtained from the shore, but as wireless silence is the rule, they are never asked for except when the aircraft is well away from a convoy or has encountered very thick weather and cannot make a landfall. The navigator can, however, obtain his position lines without breaking wireless silence with the aid of the Loop Aerial, by which he takes a bearing from the various wireless beacons situated round our coasts.

The pilot of a Coastal Command aircraft must fly an accurate course, through constant changes of wind and weather. His work is exacting, monotonous, seldom dramatic.

There is finally astro-navigation, the taking with a sextant of sights of the sun by day and of the heavenly bodies by night. This method is much used by the flying boats on their way out to a convoy and back from it. All observations, by whatever means they are made, must be transposed by mathematics into a simple order to the pilot to alter course so many degrees. The pilot has a very important part to play, for he must be able to steer an accurate course at a given height, since height, temperature and barometric pressure have all to be taken into exact account. The height is altered from time to time to allow for every phase of weather through which the aircraft may have to pass.

Every alteration of course and the record of every calculation of drift is recorded in the Navigator's Log. A specimen page, slightly altered for reasons of security, is reproduced with this chapter.

It will at once be apparent that navigation needs knowledge and skill. When both are displayed the results, to a layman, are remarkable. A civilian on passage to Iceland found the aircraft to be forty seconds ahead of the estimated time of arrival after more than six hours' flight out of sight of land, while on the return journey he first saw land through the mists of an autumn afternoon two minutes earlier than had been promised five hours before though the aircraft had had to fly against a wind estimated by the navigator to be blowing at sixty-seven miles an hour, enveloped in cloud reaching down to within fifty feet of the surface of the sea.

The first Catalina to fly to Russia made landfall at a landmark indicated to the navigator seventeen hours before in the Operations Room at base. Such feats of navigation pass almost unnoticed in the Command. They are the rule, not the exception.

On patrol. The mid-ship gunners of the flying boat are alert at their stations.

With the tasks and responsibilities of the navigator in mind it is time to come out in a Catalina flying boat on convoy patrol. That is the best way to appreciate the significance, the monotony and the importance of this operation. It is repeated day in and day out except in weather so bad as to make flying out of the question. Of all the duties performed by the Command it is the least spectacular and the most vital.

You will be on duty one way and another for some twenty-two hours. Wakened, say, at midnight, the crew breakfast twenty minutes later. If the Catalina carries her full complement they should number ten-two pilots, one observer-navigator, two fitters, one of whom is a flight engineer, two riggers and three wireless operators. All of them, in addition to the special duties they perform, are trained air gunners. While the captain, navigator and senior wireless operator go for briefing to the Operations Room the rest of the crew collect the rations, get on board and prepare for departure.

They are joined by the others about 1. 15 a.m. At the briefing, which has not taken long, they have received the Form Green. The orders on it are complete but laconic: L for London, in which aircraft you are about to fly, has been detailed to give "antisubmarine escort" to convoy ZW65. It is made up of 49 merchant vessels moving at a speed of x knots. Particulars of the naval escort accompanying it are given and the position in which it should be found at dawn.

In the crew's quarters, the "watch off" - takes it easy.

A quarter of an hour after the captain and his companions have come on board, the rigger prepares to let go the moorings. One of the fitters then starts first one, then the other engine by means of the auxiliary power unit. This fills the boat with fumes, which will disperse when she is in the air. The engines are warmed up one after the other, so that the flying boat turns in circles first one way, then the other, like a mayfly in the eddy of a stream.

The Catalina then taxies slowly to the flare-path laid out on the surface of the harbour, loch, or estuary where the squadron is based. It consists usually of three dinghies, decked and crewless, bearing each a six-foot pole on which are two lights, one dim for use on clear nights and the other bright, to be turned on when the air near the surface of the ground is thick and misty. The flare-path dinghies are moored in positions which vary according to the direction of the wind. At 1.55, after the rigger has reported that all hatches are closed, the klaxon sounds. The Catalina moves slowly at first, then with swiftly-gathered speed. The take-off has begun.

The flight engineer watches his instrument board, which tells him how the engines are behaving. Any fault must be corrected instantly, when an aircraft is so far from land.

To the right from the cockpit windows, low down and hardly to be discerned in the darkness, two paths of foam appear, the outer a white gash made by the starboard float on the black surface of the water, the inner a broad ribbon faintly luminous beneath the rushing hull. As soon as the flying boat has lifted on to the " step " which divides her bottom into two parts, the floats are retracted, thus increasing her speed and the lift of her hundred-and-four foot wing. If the boat be heavily laden or the weather conditions poor, fifty to sixty seconds or even more may pass before the flying boat is air-borne. In favourable conditions that time is much less.

The pilot takes her off the water ; while he is doing so the navigator gives the course to be steered. One fitter is now keeping the first engineer's watch, his eyes on the panel, partially duplicated in the pilot's cockpit, which shows by means of dials and gauges the manner in which the twin engines set close together above the hull are performing their office. Sometimes it may happen that one or more of these instruments may register an engine fault, such as falling oil pressure.

The front gunner of a Catalina. He must be incessantly watchful, though many months may pass before he gets a Focke-Wulf in his sights.

When this is so it is the duty of the fitter to make sure that the fault thus indicated is in the engine itself and not, a(, sometimes happens, in the recording instrument. He communicates with the pilot by means of a small electric telegraph similar in principle to that used on shipboard. The other fitter is off duty resting together with one of the wireless operators on the bunks, of which there are four, situated in the after cabin. One wireless operator is on watch.

If conditions are favourable and the aircraft be given a steady course, the pilot may relax and throw in the automatic pilot- " handing over to George," as it is called. The " blisters " are manned each by a man. Presently a cup of tea, coffee, cocoa, or meat extract is drunk and afterwards the second pilot relieves the first, for the Catalina has now been flying two hours and that length of time is the normal spell of duty for all alike.

The radio operator has a specially responsible task in Coastal Command, so much of whose work is reconnaissance.

At 6.30 a.m. one of the riggers, if possible a married man, for married men make the better cooks, serves breakfast. It is the first of the four main meals which you will eat during the course of the patrol. The feeding of flying crews has been the subject of close attention on the part of the medical profession. It has taken some time to discover an ideal diet. In the early days the crew drew rations in bulk and these consisted of whatever was immediately available. It was presently noticed that the fatigue from which they suffered on returning from the long sorties they made was severe. The time it took them to' concentrate their thoughts and reply to questions during their interrogation was considerable and there were many complaints of air sickness.

To overcome these troubles it was decided to give them a full and balanced diet similar to that available on Sunderlands, which possess better cooking facilities. Between the four hot meals chocolate and barley sugar are eaten, and cocoa, tea or other hot drinks are provided by the cook, so that the crew can eat or drink something every two hours. The introduction of this balanced diet led to an immediate and very great improvement in the physical well-being of the crews.*

At first light, all who are not resting are maintaining a keen look-out for the convoy, which the navigator expects to sight at 7.30. A little colour has come back into the sea ; not much, but with dawn it is no longer a dull black to be perceived now and again as a background to a wave crest itself barely visible. It hag changed to grey, for this morning a screen of cloud is spread above the Atlantic. From 1,000 feet the sea looks as grey and solid as the mud-flats of an estuary and the white streaks painted on its surface by the wind seem like the pools and rivulets left on these weary expanses by the retreating tide.

At 6.30am one of the riggers serves breakfast. Much thought has gone into discovering the ideal diet for these long, fatiguing patrols.

*Here is a typical menu for one sortie :
- Breakfast
  - Cereal
  - Bacon and sausage
  - Tea
  - Bread and butter or margarine
- Lunch
  - Soup
  - Half the quantity of steak carried cubed and stewed
  - Potatoes and vegetables
  - Dried fruit
  - Orange
- Tea
  - Poached or scrambled egg
  - Bread and butter
  - Tea
- Supper
  - Remainder of steak
  - fried Potatoes and vegetables
  - Bread and butter and cheese

Here and there - for at moments the sunlight pierces or filters through the screen of cloud-patches of emerald green are to be perceived, changing even as the eye catches them to the colour of a peacock's wing. This weather will endure until the afternoon, when a " warm front " will be met with on the return home. The cloud screen will then become a veil trailing over sullen waters.

At 7.53 a.m. numbers of smoke trails are visible fifty miles away. These grow in shape and volume until the ships from which they rise can clearly be seen steaming in three long lines with their naval escort beside them. The convoy has been found. Let a pilot who has seen many describe the scene.

" These Atlantic convoys," he says, " are always a grand sight when you come upon them in the early morning. The daylight is filtering now through the thick cloud, and the ships in their neat formation have a sort of waking-up appearance to them-rather like the feel of some trim little village you come across at dawn having driven along darkened roads all night, curtains being drawn back from cottage windows, a labourer whistling as he turns towards the farmyard, a freshness about the flower-beds in the gardens. . . . You have the feeling that the convoy is stretching itself, shaking its shoulders and preparing for another long day."

The recognition procedure is put into immediate operation. The light from the mast-head of a corvette or a destroyer begins to wink. This procedure is very necessary, for the men on board the ships have vigilant eyes and light fingers. They carry aircraft silhouette cards on the bridge and they know the type of aircraft they ought to see in the neighbourhood of their convoy. But they take no chances ; and rightly so. "Shoot first and argue afterwards" is an excellent motto in a battle such as this, all the more so since the pilots and crews of Coastal Command know what to expect and act accordingly.

" These Atlantic convoys are a grand sight when you come upon them in the early morning. The ships in their neat formation have a sort of waking-up appearance-like some trim little village at dawn."

Merchant captains and their second officers have learnt what British aircraft are likely to be on patrol at a conference which they attend before setting out on the round trip to and from these shores. Among other information the~ are told what are the areas in which air attack may be expected, what tactics the Luftwaffe is using and how to combat them, the best ranges at which to open fire with the type of armament their ships carry, and much else of a secret nature.

Above all it is impressed on them that the aircraft of Coastal Command are on patrol above their heads not only to give warning of the approach of a U-boat or to drive away a Focke-Wulf, but also to help them in any way they can.

Such conferences have proved their worth. They are an important means of establishing and maintaining mutual confidence between the men on the sea and the men in the air.

The correct signals have been exchanged; the Catalina has been duly recognised. This done, it begins a patrol which lasts for between six and seven hours.

Perhaps it may give the convoy its position, for the ships may have experienced thick weather and have been unable to take sights for some time. This is a service much valued and appreciated.

Up and down, round and round it flies, watching and watched. That wake three miles to port may after all turn out to be the wash of a periscope. But as the Catalina approaches hope pines and dies. It is the track of a whale or a porpoise, which are to be found in the North Atlantic more commonly than is generally supposed.

A recognition signal is flashed by Aldis lamp as soon as aircraft makes contact with convoy.

No Kurier breaks the screen of cloud or is to be seen weaving over the water towards the convoy.

This is to be one more of those sorties with nothing much to report at the end of them, another eighteen hours or so to add to the hundreds already to the credit of the crew. But you perceive, as these hours pass, that monotony has not bred contempt, and it becomes clear to you that the vigilance so constantly and so quietly exercised is of the same pure quality as it was when a patrol such as this was a new adventure, the beginning of an operational career.

At 12.30 lunch is served. You eat it with the plate balanced on your knees, or if the navigator is not too busy, on his table. There is not so much room in the Catalina as there is in the Sunderland which will take over at 3.0 p.m. In that boat there is a saloon with portholes and a table which can be laid with crockery, and next door is a big galley with two primus stoves and beyond a cabin for the crew hardly smaller than the saloon. Presently it is to be seen approaching. The letter of the day is flashed; " Returning to base. Good luck," is signalled to the convoy, and the long journey home begins.

It differs but little from the journey out except that most of it is performed in daylight which presently becomes murky and halfhearted, for the " warm front " has come up as the Met. Officer prophesied. The Catalina moves forward through the whorls of vapour, swaying a little to the now risen wind. The navigator spends much of his time gazing through the bomb-sight at the bearded seas

moving past beneath. As you draw nearer to land he makes frequent use of bearings obtained for him by the wireless operator from the different wireless beacons available. Soon after 7.0 p.m. the captain and the second pilot are seen to be relaxing. Their gaze is no longer straining through the sloped perspex of the cockpit. Their airman's and their seaman's sense perceive the loom of the land. When its presence is announced they shift a little in their seats, eat an apple, and presently take over from George."

At 8.0 p.m. the Catalina is over base. It circles the control point till the look-out acknowledges its signal and flashes a green light to signify permission to land. This manoeuvre can be carried out in one of two ways according to the state of the water. If it is rough the captain will make a glide approach into wind and go down to within a few feet of the water.

A naval escort vessel has swept out to investigate the aircraft. The men on these ships have vigilant eyes and light fingers.

He will then flatten out before touching down at about 80 knots. In a glide landing the sound of the water against the hull is the same, many times magnified, as that made by sand-paper rubbed along wood. If the surface of the sea is smooth and glassy he will make a long, flat approach with his engines partially opened up and will only ease back the throttles after he has touched down. This is known as "flying on.,,

When the Catalina begins to taxi to its moorings a rigger, having dismounted the forward gun, stands by in the nose to pick them up and two members of the crew man the drogues used to check the speed and thus to make the operation of mooring easier. As soon as it is completed the engines are stopped ; a pinnace to take off the captain and observer for interrogation comes alongside. The patrol is over.

Of the perils encountered by the aircraft of Coastal Command engaged in their long and unremitting task little has been said. It is a temptation to take them for granted, as do the pilots and crews. The chief of them is not flak nor fighters but weather. However skilful may be the Met. forecasters, they cannot be infallible. When they err, or when, rather, they do not foresee everything, an aircraft or a flying boat may not return.

" While returning to its base, the aircraft ran Into bad weather."

On 20th October, 1940, a Sunderland set out at 5.0 p.m. from a Scottish base on a special mission closely connected with the battle. Two hours later a magnetic storm of the first magnitude developed. This put the wireless set partly out of action and gravely affected the compass. After seven and a half hours the Sunderland succeeded in making a signal saying that it was returning to base. It received none of the replies sent in return.

Five hours later an S 0 S followed by a request for bearings was picked up at base and Group Headquarters. By then it was six in the morning but still dark. The Sunderland, its compass unserviceable, was lost and had no fuel left. The captain decided to alight.

The gale was now blowing at eighty miles an hour and the navigator judged the waves to be more than twenty feet high. Three flame-floats were dropped, but they did not burn, and the direction of the wind was gauged by a parachute flare.

The captain brought the flying boat down in the trough between two waves. It was lifted up by one of them, so large and powerful that it took all flying speed away from the boat, which came to a halt with both wingtip floats intact.

The crew were at once prostrated by violent sea-sickness and this endured for many hours. The wireless operators began to send out signals, not knowing if any would be received. One was, and they presently picked up a message telling them that a warship would arrive in eight hours.

The Sunderland continued to drift in tumultuous seas at a speed of about eight miles an hour. How long she would endure the buffeting it was hard to say. The wireless set was dismantled, repaired and reassembled. The signals subsequently made were picked up by the warship, faint at first, but strong after midday. At 2.20 p.m. the Sunderland signalled : " Hurry, cracking LIP." Fifteen minutes later she was sighted and the look-out on the bridge of the warship read the word " hurry " flashed by a lamp. At that moment as the crew caught sight of the warship a wave larger than the rest struck the Sunderland head on. She began to break up and the crew-there were thirteen of them-were flung into the water.

The captain of the warship manoeuvred her so as to approach the wreckage of the flying boat from the lee quarter. He took the way off his ship as the crew swept past abreast of, and almost as high as, his bridge. A Naval Commander and twelve ratings with lines secured to them went over the side and pulled on board nine of the crew, who had then been fifty minutes in the sea. The other four were lost. The Sunderland had remained afloat in a full gale for not quite nine hours. The name of the warship was H.M.A.S. "Australia."

Next to weather and a long way behind in importance is the danger of engine failure. This is comparatively rare, for design and craftsmanship have improved almost beyond measure since the last war. Even modern engines, however, cannot always be relied upon to stand up to the great strains put upon them by constant use in all conditions of weather. Moreover, some of the bombers which it is necessary for Coastal Command to employ in reconnaissance duties must continue unfalteringly to patrol at an average height much lower than that at which they were designed to fly. Overheating is sometimes the result.

On 24th October, 1941, at 7.30 a.m., for example, a Whitley far out over the Atlantic developed trouble in its port engine. Height was maintained on the starboard engine for two and a half hours by running it at 2,600 revolutions and plus six boost. (Supercharger.) At the end of this time "the solder was running out of both engines," reports the pilot. " I attempted to land into the wind at right angles to the swell," he, continues. "This was where I made my mistake.

I touched the swell amidships ; then the nose of the aircraft struck it, smashing the gun-turret, which suddenly appeared through my windscreen. . . . For the two and a half hours during which I kept the aircraft in the air we were constantly sending out messages indicating our position." So accurate was the navigation of the observer that aircraft sent to the rescue found the Whitley five miles only from the position it had last indicated. The crew were picked up.

In the same month, many hundreds of miles to the South, a Hudson was forced to alight in the sea 135 miles from the coast of West Africa. " The crew swam to the dinghy, which was still not inflated and on arrival was found to be inverted. . . . Almost immediately after this two sharks arrived and circled, one with fin above the water and the other well below the surface. In driving them off the dinghy pump was lost.

For some time no further action was taken with regard to the dinghy as our attention was fully occupied with the sharks ; clinging to the dinghy and so positioned that each could see behind his opposite number, a good watch was kept. The sharks were frequently driven off by splashing." The crew eventually succeeded in boarding the dinghy, from which they were rescued some forty-eight hours later.

There is also the Whitley on patrol two hundred miles off Iceland on Christmas Eve, 1941. At 3.49 p.m. its base received the following message : "S 0 S. Am landing in sea. Merry Christmas." It is pleasant to record that the Whitley got back on one engine and landed safely.

One other danger - must be mentioned, intangible and difficult to assess though it be. It is the effect on pilots and crews of the monotony of their task. This monotony results in strain which sometimes has a curious effect on the mind. "I have more than once found myself making a sudden, steep bank when 500 miles out in the Atlantic under the impression that I was avoiding a mountain," confesses a General Reconnaissance pilot. " One of my friends, shortly before he went on his rest, swore he saw a man riding a motor-bicycle 450 miles off the West coast of Ireland * `

" With luck," writes another with eleven hundred flying hours to his credit, describing the daily round, " we arrive at our patrol area in six hours. On the other coast of England the bombers are arriving home. Our work is just beginning-the hunt for submarines.... Sometimes we imagine they are a myth. It is not easy to go on believing in something you have never seen. . . . We are for ever searching for signs of the enemy. But nothing appears. Even the waves are formalised into the monotony : each one exactly like its predecessor. The wireless operator is receiving and sending, but his woodpecker taps are drowned by the engines. The navigator is bent over the chart table, plotting courses--sometimes going for'ard to check the aircraft's drift.

One of the fitters is working on the clocks and gauges, noting down temperatures, pressures, and petrol consumption. The air gunners lead the most frustrated existence of all. They sit and wait and watch and wait, hour after hour, day after day, month after month. They lean on their guns praying for a glimpse of the enemy." But the same pilot adds : " We have helped twenty great ships to-day to bring armaments and food to England. That is our reward."

It is indeed, and the words of the Master of a merchant vessel may serve to confirm those of the pilot. "The first flying boat to appear on this recent occasion," he writes, " found the convoy in the early hours of the morning while it was quite dark and we still had, as escort, the pleasant company of a Sunderland at midnight the same day. I know it must be very monotonous at times to the men of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command being on patrol duty, but I would like them to know what a thrill it is to us seamen -I know I speak for all -to see them around us and what confidence it gives us. I would also add that we enjoy their company after trudging along at slow speed for twenty days or more ; it heartens us."

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