The Southland, immediately astern of Kong Gustav—Krause had checked the name on his list soon after dawn—was smoking badly, perhaps in the effort to steam an extra half knot to regain station, and several other ships were making more smoke than they should. Luckily with the wind from ahead, and blowing hard, the smoke was lying low and dispersing rapidly. In calmer conditions the convoy would have been surmounted by a pillar of cloud visible fifty miles away. The commodore had a signal hoist flying; almost for certain it was the signal so frequently displayed in every navy—“Make less smoke.”
