The Fuse

It was in this period that certain phases of the war began to shake the
foundation of things. I do not recall who said that an army marches on
its stomach, but it is true, and it is no less a verity that nations
function primarily on food. The submarine was waxing to its zenith now,
and Europe saw the gaunt wolf at its door. Men cried for more ships.
Cost became secondary. A vessel paid for herself if she landed but two
cargoes in an Allied port.

Every demand in the economic field produces a supply. On this side of
the Atlantic great shipbuilding plants arose by some superior magic of
construction in ports where the building of ships had been a minor
industry. In this Vancouver did not lag. Wooden ships could be built
quickly. Virgin forests of fir and cedar stood at Vancouver's very door.
Wherefore yards, capable of turning out a three-thousand-ton wooden
steamer in ninety days, rose on tidewater, and an army of labor sawed
and hammered and shaped to the ultimate confusion of the Hun.

Thompson had seen these yards in the distance. He read newspapers and he
knew that local shipbuilding was playing the dual purpose of
confounding the enemy and adding a huge pay-roll to Vancouver's other
material advantages. Both of which were highly desirable.

But few details of this came personally to his attention until an
evening when he happened to foregather with Tommy Ashe and two or three
others at Carr's home--upon one of those rare evenings when Sophie was
free of her self-imposed duties and in a mood to play the hostess.