A cold grey morning in April somewhere in the North Sea; to be more exact, 18 miles N. 75° W. of the Haisborough Lightship.
Viewed from the fore-bridge of H.M. torpedo-boat destroyer Calder, there was little in the outlook to suggest that a state of war had existed for twenty months. The same short steep seas, the same lowering sky, the almost unbroken horizon towards which many anxious glances were hourly directed in the hope that "they" had at last come out.