Viewed in the waning starlight, for day was on the point of breaking, the "Anzac" appeared to be a vessel of about two hundred feet in length, with a tripod mast surmounted by a large fire-control platform. She had but one funnel, well abaft the mast. For'ard of the conning-tower was a turret mounting a pair of fourteen-inch guns; four six-inch quick-firers thrust their muzzles through casemates in the superstructure; while four twelve-pounder anti-aircraft guns and a pair of searchlight projectors were placed upon the bridge and a raised platform at the after-end of the superstructure.
At first sight the monitor gave the impression that she was top-heavy, until her enormous beam and length beyond each end of the superstructure belied the suggestion. The hull proper was little less than four hundred feet in length, with a maximum beam of one hundred and twenty. Her draught was but five feet six inches, the freeboard being but two feet for'ard and eighteen inches aft. Her maximum speed was a bare seven and a half knots.
The "Anzac" was still in the throes that invariably attend the first commissioning of a new vessel, for she had left the Clyde only three days previously, and had put in to Devonport to ship her fourteen-inch guns. On the run round to Portsmouth she was to undergo gunnery trials, and if no serious defects were revealed, she was to proceed to the North Sea to take part in impending operations.
Dog-tired, Tressidar turned in as soon as the chums had reported themselves to the officer of the watch. It seemed less than five minutes, although it was four bells (6 a.m.), when the sub. was roused and informed that the captain wished to see him.
"A wigging for being late, I suppose," he soliloquised. "A jolly bad beginning."
But he was mistaken. An armed trawler was to be navigated to Portsmouth, and the "Anzac" had to provide an officer and crew for the job. Tressidar, being the most recently joined, was selected by his skipper for this service.
"The 'Gannet' is lying off Wilcove," continued the skipper of the "Anzac." "She's ready for sea with the exception of victualling stores. You will have to demand these from Royal William Yard. She'll do twenty knots easily, without having to drive her, and even if we have a good start you ought to overhaul us before Portland Bill is abeam."
Already the crew told off for the service had fallen in for inspection. They numbered ten hands, including a chief petty officer. The "Gannet's" engine-room staff were already on board, having been shipped when the vessel left Belfast, where she had been re-engined.
The "trawler" was in fact a trawler no longer. A comparatively new boat, with lines that promised a fair turn of speed, she had been taken over by the Admiralty for use as a patrol vessel. Her machinery was removed and turbine engines substituted, giving her a maximum speed of twenty-eight knots. Her armament consisted of two twelve-pounder quick-firers, so woe betide the luckless German submarine that might mistake the "Gannet" for a slow and helpless fishing-craft.
Disquieting reports of the presence of a hostile submarine off St. Catherine's Point, a craft that had hitherto successfully evaded all attempts at capture or destruction, had necessitated the presence of the "Gannet" off the Isle of Wight, and arrangements had been made to "turn over" the R.N.R. crew of another armed trawler directly Tressidar brought his command into Spithead.