The Steamship ‘Ferrona’ is shown here off Marseilles – whose transporter bridge is visible beyond her starboard bow – wearing at her fore masthead the French tricolour in the traditional courtesy to the country of her next port of call. She is also wearing the funnel livery and, at her main masthead, the house-flag of Lowden, Connell & Co. of Liverpool. Flying from her bridge halyards are the four flags J. H. F. L. of her identification hoist in the International Code of Signals in force at the date of the painting, 1916, in the middle of the First World War. The hull is painted in camouflage grey and on her poop is mounted the gun with which merchant vessels were permitted to be armed ‘for defensive purposes only’. Despite which protection, on 28th October 1917, while on passage from Marseilles to Gibraltar, ‘Ferrona’ was intercepted by the German submarine U.