Merchantmen-at-arms : the British merchants' service in the war Part 6

Here is the voyage practically at an end with the coming of an expert in local navigation. The anxiety of a landfall is over. The channel buoys, port hand and starboard, stretch out ahead to mark definite limits to shoal and sandbank; familiar landmarks loom up through the drift of distant city haze; the outer lights.h.i.+p curtsies in the swell, beckoning us into port to resume the brief round of longsh.o.r.e life. After a lengthy period of silence and detachment, we are again in touch with the affairs of the beach; the news of the day and of weeks past is told to us in intervals of steering orders--sailor news, edited by a competent understanding of our professional interests. The tension of the voyage is unconsciously relaxed. We are in good hands. The engines turn steadily and we come in from sea.

If the pilot was ever a welcome attendant in the peaceful days, his services in the war earn for him an even warmer appreciation. War measures in their operation have rendered our seaports difficult of entry. The buoyage has, perhaps, been reset in the interval of a voyage's absence. Boom defences and examination areas exist, channels are closed or obstructed; certain of the lights.h.i.+ps or floating marks may be withdrawn on short warning. Amid all our doubts and uncertainties, we look for the one a.s.sured sea-mark on the unfamiliar bars--the red-and-white emblem of a pilot vessel on her boarding station. Undeterred by the risk of mine or torpedo while marking time on their cruising ground, the pilots are constantly on the alert to board the incoming vessels as they approach from seaward. No state of the weather drives the cutter from her station to seek shelter in safer waters. If the seas are too high for boatwork, she steams ahead and offers a lead to a quieter section of the fairway where boarding may be attempted.

Turn and turn of the pilots in service can no longer be effected. The even balances of their roster (that worked so well in peace-time) have been rudely disturbed by war. The steady round of duty, in which every man knew the date of his relief, has given place to a state of 'feast and famine'; all hands are frequently mustered to meet the sudden and unheralded demands of an inward-bound convoy, or the limited accommodation of the cutter is taxed and overloaded by the release of pilots from an outward ma.s.s sailing.

There are grades of pilotage--from that of the rivers and protected waters to the more hazardous voyages between coastal ports. It is, perhaps, to the sea-pilots of Trinity we are most intimately drawn.

While the river pilot is with us for the short term of the tide, the Trinity man is of our s.h.i.+p's company for a day or days. His valued local knowledge is at our service to set and steer fair courses in the perplexing tangents of unfamiliar tideways; operations of the minesweepers and patrols--that alter and multiply beyond counting in the course of a voyage abroad--are a plain book to him. If we meet disaster in the channels, we have a prompter at our elbow to advise a favourable beaching. We have a peer to confide in throughout our difficulties.

After days of anxious watchkeeping on the bridge we are well served by a competent relief.

s.h.i.+p movements in the western waters are controlled by the naval authorities in a manner that allows of independent sailings, but the Trinity pilots' duties lie in the Channel and the North Sea, where a more exacting regime is in force. From the Downs to the north, measures adopted for protection of the s.h.i.+ps call for a time-table of sailings and arrivals that can only be adhered to by the pilot's aid. A 'War Channel' is established, a sea-lane of some two hundred and eighty miles that has constantly to be swept and cleared in advance of the traffic.

Navigation in the channel obstructs an efficient search for mines; sweeping operations interfere with the pa.s.sage of the s.h.i.+ps. No small amount of control and management is necessary to reconcile conflicting actions and expedite the safe conduct of the s.h.i.+pping. Latterly, sailings were restricted to the hours of daylight; a system of sectional pa.s.sages is enforced, by which all vessels are scheduled to make a protected anchorage before nightfall. An effect of this is to group the vessels in large scattered convoys, forming a pageant of s.h.i.+pping that even the busiest days of peace-time could not rival.

In all the story of the Downs, the great roadstead can rarely have presented such a scene as when, on a chill winter morning, we lay at anchor awaiting pa.s.sage. Overnight, we had come in under convoy from the westward, eighteen large s.h.i.+ps, to swell the tonnage that had gathered from the Channel ports. From Kingsdown to the Gull, there was hardly water-s.p.a.ce to turn a wherry. Even in the doubtful holding ground of Trinity Bay some large s.h.i.+ps were anch.o.r.ed, and the fairway through the Roads was encroached upon by more than one of us--despite the summary signals from the Guards.h.i.+p. All types were represented in our a.s.sembly; we boasted a combination in dazzle paint to set us out, and our signal flags carried colour to the mastheads to complete the variegations of our camouflage. Troop transports from the States, standard cargo s.h.i.+ps, munition carriers come over in the night from the French ports, high-sided empty colliers returning to the north for further loads, deep-laden freighters for London, ammunition and store s.h.i.+ps for the Fleet, coasters and barges, made up the mercantile s.h.i.+pping riding at anchor, while naval patrols and harbour craft under way gave movement to the spectacle. Snow had fallen, and the uplands above Deal and Walmer had white drifts in the quartered fields. To seaward, we could see twin wreaths of smoke blowing low on the water, marking the progress of a flotilla of minesweepers, on whose operations we waited. A brisk north wind held out our signal flags, shewing our ports of destination, and the pilot cutter, busily serving men on the inward bound, took note of our demands. In time, the punt delivered our pilot, and we hove short, awaiting a signal from the Guards.h.i.+p that would release the traffic.

The teeth of the Goodwins had bared to a snarl of broken water that shewed the young flood making when movement began among the s.h.i.+ps. Long experience had accustomed the pilots to the ways of the minesweepers, and when the clearing signal 'Vessels may proceed' was hoisted at the yard-arm of the Guards.h.i.+p, there were few anchors still to be raised.

Crowding out towards the northern gateway, we found ourselves in close formation. Variations of speeds rendered the apparent confusion difficult to steer through, but the action of a kindred masonry among the pilots seemed to clear the narrow sea-lane. There was little easing of speed; with only a few hours of winter daylight to work in, s.h.i.+pping was being driven at its utmost power to make the most of the precious time. 'All out,' stoking up and setting a stiff smoke-screen over the seascape, we thinned out to a more comfortable formation, while the smaller craft, taking advantage of the rising tide, cut the inner angles of the channel to keep apace.

With flood tide to help us, we made good progress. The press of s.h.i.+pping gradually dropped astern till only the troop transport, our sea-neighbours of the convoy, kept company with us. Satisfied with the speed made, the pilot reckoned up the mileage and the tide. We were for Hull and, with luck, he expected to make Yarmouth Roads before darkness and the Admiralty regulations obliged us to bring up. Like all who serve the tide, he was prepared for an upset to his plans. "Not much use figuring things out in these days, Capt'n," he said. "A lot o'

happenings come our way. In spite o' these fellows out there"--he pointed to a group of destroyers lining out on our seaward beam--"the U-boat minelayers get in on the channels to lay 'eggs'; as fast as we can sweep them up, sometimes. But"--cheerfully--"they don't always get back for another load: saw the bits o' one being towed into Harwich last week."

Happenings came our way. At the Edinburgh Channel, where the troop transports parted company and turned away for London, we were halted by an urgent signal from a spurring torpedo-boat. 's.h.i.+ps bound north to anchor instantly,' was the reading of her flags; we rounded to and obeyed. In groups and straggling units, we were joined by the larger number of the fleet that had left the Downs with us. Some few were for the Thames and steamed ahead in wake of the troop-s.h.i.+ps, but the most were bound for east-coast ports and anch.o.r.ed near the Channel Lights.h.i.+p.

Two hours of precious daylight were lost to us as we rode out the last of the flood. High water came and we swung around on the cant of the wind. The pilot grew visibly impatient. The traverse of his reckoning lessened in mileage with every hasty step or two up and down the bridge.

Yarmouth Roads receded into the morrow; Lowestoft (if the chief could crack her up to thirteen) was possible, but unlikely. Time pa.s.sed, with no clearing signal--we were to be 'nipped' on the long stretch with no prospect but to dodge into Hollesay Bay before black night came.

By some mysterious agency, the coasters developed a foreknowledge of permission to proceed. Feathers of white steam curled from their windla.s.ses, and their anchors were awash before the block was signalled clear. They had start of us. Less handily, we got under way and stood on into the Black Deep, where the smaller craft were throwing green smoke in their efforts to get ahead. The tide had now turned ebb to set us on our way. As we surged past the channel buoys the pilot was rea.s.sured.

The prospect of windy Lowestoft Roads beckoned him on with every coaster we overhauled and pa.s.sed; the outlook improved as we timed our pa.s.sage between the sea-marks. Off the Sunk, we came on the cause of our stoppage. The pilot noted a new wreck on the sands, one that had not been there when last he steered over this route. Beached at high water, he said. She had not been long on. The wreck lay listed on a spit of the sandbank. Her bows were blown open, exposing the interior of forecastle and forehold. Neutral colours were painted on her topside; the boats were gone and dangling boat-falls streamed alongside in the tideway. There was no sign of life on her, but a patrol drifter was standing by with a crowd of men on her decks. Out to seaward a flotilla of minesweepers was busily at work. Turning no more than a curious eye on the mined neutral, the pilot paid attention to the steering. That we were over a mined area had no grave concern for him. Relying on the minesweepers, he kept course and speed--the channel was reported clear.

LIGHTs.h.i.+PS

DEVOTED to the service of humanity, in a bond that linked all seafarers, lights.h.i.+ps and isolated sea-beacons were regarded as exempted from the operation of warlike acts. The claim of the 'beacons established for the guidance of mariners' rested upon a high conception of world-wide service to mankind. Their duties were not directed to military uses or to favouring alone the nation who manned them. Their upkeep was met by a universal levy. Their warning beams were not withdrawn from foreign vessels; no effort was made to establish the nationality of a s.h.i.+p in distress ere setting portfire to the signal-gun to call out the lifeboat. On rare occasions sea-rovers interfered with the operation of the guide-marks. Retribution overtook them; they were outlawed by even the loose opinion of the period. There is surely more than legend in the ballad of Sir Ralph the Rover; if death by s.h.i.+pwreck was not actually his fate, it is at least the penalty adjudged to him by popular acclaim.

Smeaton, in his Folio, records an instance of reparation for a similar 'diversion.'

"Lewis the Fourteenth being at war with England during the proceeding with this building, a French privateer took the men at work upon the Eddystone Rock, together with their tools, and carried them to France, and the Captain was in expectation of a reward for the achievement. While the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of that monarch. He immediately ordered them to be released and the captors to be put in their place: declaring that though he was at war with England, he was not at war with mankind. He therefore directed the men to be sent back to their work with presents, observing that the Eddystone Lighthouse was so situated as to be of equal service to all nations having occasion to navigate the Channel."

A lights.h.i.+p is as peaceful and immobile as the granite blockstones of a lighthouse. She requires an even greater protection, exposed as she is to dangers on the sea that do not threaten the landward structure. She is incapable of offence or defence. Unarmed, save for the signal-gun that is only used to warn a vessel from the sands or to summon a.s.sistance to a s.h.i.+p in distress, she can offer no resistance to a show of force. She is moored to withstand the strongest gales, and cannot readily disengage her heavy ground-tackle. She has no efficient means of propulsion; parted from her stout anchors, she would drive helplessly on to the very shoals she had been set to guard. To all seafarers, in war as in peace, she should appeal as a sea-mark to be spared and protected; in the service of humanity, she is exposed to danger enough--to the furious gales from which she may not run.

Unlike the Grand Monarch, the Germans are bitterly at war with mankind.

As one of their first war acts at sea, they sh.e.l.led the Ostend Lights.h.i.+p. Like the Lamb, she was using the water; the Wolf would suffer no protestation of her innocency. Was she not floating placidly on the same tides that served the German coast?

In view of his subsequent atrocities in torpedoing hospital s.h.i.+ps and sh.e.l.ling rafts and open boats, it is probable that our light-vessels would have been similarly destroyed by the enemy, but that his submarine commanders found under-water navigation required as accurate a check as in coasting on the surface. The fury of the Wolf was, in his own interest, tardily suppressed. He recognized that the value of the lights.h.i.+ps in establis.h.i.+ng a definite position was an a.s.set to him.

Withal--his 'fix' decided--he had no qualms in sowing mines in the area of these signposts; nor did he stay his hand in the case of a sea-mark that was not vital to his plans. Two lights.h.i.+ps on the east coast were blown up by mines; one, off the coast of Ireland, was deliberately torpedoed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LAMPMAN OF THE GULL LIGHTs.h.i.+P]

The menace of the German sea-mine remains the greatest war danger to which the lights.h.i.+ps are exposed. Zeppelin and seaplane pay visits to the coastal waters, but the sea is wide for a chance missile from the air, and no great success has attended their bombing efforts. But the enemy mine has no instant aim. Full-charged and deadly, its activity is not confined--as the British mine is--to the area of the mooring. Their minelayers, creeping in to the fairways in cloak of the darkness, are anxious to settle their cargo of high explosive as quickly as possible.

Not all of the mines they sow hold to the hastily slipped 'sinkers' till disaster to our s.h.i.+pping or the untiring search of the minesweepers reveals their presence. Many break adrift and surge in the tideways, moving as the set of the current takes them. Vessels under way, by keen look-out and ready helm, can sight and avoid the drifting spheres, but the lights.h.i.+ps have no power to steer clear. Moored on the offset of a shoal or sandbank (their position, indeed, a guide to the minelayer), their broad bows offer contact to all flotsam that comes down on swirl of the tide. The authorities were unwilling to expose their men to a danger that could not be evaded, however gallant the s.h.i.+pmen or skilled their seamans.h.i.+p. It was not a seagoing risk that could be met; no adequate protection consistent with the lights.h.i.+p's mission could be devised. As the submarine war became intensified, the more distant vessels were withdrawn; new routes were set to divert s.h.i.+pping from the outer pa.s.sages; only those floating sea-marks are now maintained whose removal would entail disaster to the traffic that pa.s.ses by night and day.

Holding station in waters that are patrolled and, in part, protected, the Trinity men who form the crews of the lights.h.i.+ps have readjusted their manning. A large proportion of the able-bodied men have joined the naval forces, leaving the older hands (and some few who have a physical disability) to tend the lights. War risks still remain, for the German minelayers have followed the s.h.i.+pping to the inner channels, but the greybeards have grown stolid and immovable in a service that was never at any time a safe and equable calling. They have become sadly familiar with the new sea-warfare--with disaster to the s.h.i.+pping in the channels.

While they have incident enough, in the movement and activity of patrols and war craft, in the ceaseless sweeping of the channels, to judge our sea-power and take pride in its strength, they have all too frequent experience of the murderous under-water mechanics of the enemy. Living in the midst of sea-alarms, the old placid tedium of their 'sixty days'

has given place to an excitement that even the monotonous rounds of their small s.h.i.+p-life cannot suppress. The men on the 'Royal Sovereign'

were observers of the terrific power of the sea-mine; three s.h.i.+ps in sight being blown to small wreckage within an hour. 'Shambles' jarred to distant torpedoings off the Bill. The 'South Goodwin' saw _Maloja_ brought up in her stately progress by a thundering explosion, then watched her list and settle in the stormy seaway; a second crash and upheaval drew the eyes of the watch on deck to the fate of the _Empress of Fort William_ as she was hastening to succour the people of the doomed liner. Up Channel and down, the lights.h.i.+pmen were observers of the toll exacted by the enemy--the price we paid for the freedom of the seas.

But not all their observations of sea-casualties brought gloom to the dog-watch reckoning. If there remained no doubt of the intensity and power of German submarine activity, they were equally a.s.sured of the efficiency of our surface offence, and the deadly precision of our own under-water counter-measures. On occasion, there were other sea-dramas enacted under the eyes of the lights.h.i.+pmen--short, swift engagements that set an oily sc.u.m welling over the clean sea-s.p.a.ce of the channel, or an affair of rapid gunfire that cleared a pest from the narrow waters. There is at least one instance of a lights.h.i.+p having a commanding, if uncomfortable, station in an action between our drifters and a large enemy submarine. The lampman of the 'Gull' had a front view.

. . . "Misty weather, it was. Day was just breakin', about seven o' th'

mornin' when I see him. I see him just over there--a little t' th'

nor'ard o' that wreckage on th' Sands. A big fella, about th' size o'

them oil-barges as pa.s.ses hereabouts. I didn't make him out at first--account o' th' mornin' haze, but there was somethin' over there where no s.h.i.+p didn't oughta be. I calls down th' companion--'Master,' I says, 'there's somethin' on th' north end o' th' Sands.' He comes up an'

has a look. Then we made 'im out what he was, a big German sub.--but he hadn't no flag flyin'. Jest then we hears firin', an' th' sh.e.l.ls goes over us an' lands nigh him. They was three drifters jes' come out o' th'

Downs t' start sweepin' an', all three, they goes for him like billy-o--firin' as they comes. We was right atween them an' th' shots pa.s.ses over th' lights.h.i.+p. One as was short just pitches clear an 'undred yards ahead o' us. Two guns he had--th' sub.--an' they didn't half make a din as they goes at it--_bang-bang-bang!_ Th' drifters pa.s.ses us, goin' a full clip. The first one, she got hit a-top th'

wheelhouse, but they didn't stop for nothin'. The' keeps bangin' away with th' gun. . . . Yes. Some shots landed hereabouts, but we was busy watchin' th' drifters. . . . I see their shots. .h.i.ttin', too. I see one blaze up on th' submarine's deck, an' one o' his guns didn't talk back no more. Th' drifters was steerin' straight for him. I dunno how one o'

them didn't go ash.o.r.e herself--near it, she was. The sub. was hard on by this time, an' he stands high--with a list, too, but fightin' away like he was afloat.

"Two more drifters come up an' they joins in, an' th' sh.e.l.ls goes _who-o-o-o!_ overhead again. Then a destroyer, he comes tearin' along at full speed, an' he puts th' finis.h.i.+n' touch to him. There was an explosion on th' submarine, an' th' nex' we see--we see his men tumblin'

out o' him overside t' th' Sands. . . . Them up t' their middles in th'

water an' holdin' their hands up."

The lampman was, of his service, a trained observer. He said nothing of the scene on the deck of the lights.h.i.+p--the watch tumbling up from below, their clothing hastily thrown on--the questioning, the alarmed cries. His concern was directed to the happenings on spit of the Sands.

"Some shots landed hereabouts," he said; but his interest was on the Goodwins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MINESWEEPERS GOING OUT]

VII

'THE PRICE O' FISH'

THE insh.o.r.e patrol hailed us and reported the channel clear as far as the Nore, and we stood on at full speed, making the most of the short winter daylight. Past the Elbow buoy, we met the minesweepers returning from a sweep of their section. They were steaming in two columns, line ahead, and we sheered a little to give them room; within the reading of our Admiralty instructions, they were a 'squadron in formation,' to whose movements we were advised to give way. They pa.s.sed close. The leader of the port column was _Present Help_; we read the name on a gilt scroll that ornamented her wheelhouse. For the rest, she was trim in a coat of iron-grey, with her port and number painted over. A small gun--a six-pounder, perhaps--was mounted on her bows, and she carried a weather-stained White Ensign aloft. She scurried past us, pitching to our bow wash in an easy sidling motion that set her wheelhouse gla.s.ses flas.h.i.+ng a cheery message. The skipper leaned from an open doorway, in an att.i.tude of ease that, somehow, a.s.sured us of his day's work being well done--with no untoward happenings. He waved his cap to our greeting. _Present Help_ and her sisters went by, and we returned to our course in the fairway.

"These lads," said the pilot, waving his arm towards the fast-receding flotilla. "If it wasn't for these lads, Capt'n, you and I wouldn't feel exactly comfortable on the bridge in channel waters. Two went up this week, and one a little while agone." He turned his palms upward and raised both arms in an expressive gesture. . . . "Three gone, one with all hands, but only one merchant s.h.i.+p done in by mines hereabouts in the last month. (_Starboard, a little, quartermaster!_) . . . I dunno how we could carry on without them. Out there in all weathers, clearing the fairways and--Gad!--it takes some doing. . . . I was talking to one of the skippers in Ramsgate the other day. Saying what I'm saying--(_Steady, now, steady's you go!_)--what I'm saying now, and all he said was--'Right, pilot,' he says. 'If you feels that way, remember it when we gets back to th' fis.h.i.+n' in peace-time, an'--for th' Lord's sake--keep clear o' our gear when th' nets is down! I lost a tidy lot o'

gear,' he says, 'with tramps an' that bargin' about on th' fis.h.i.+n'

grounds.'. . . He didn't think nothing of this minesweeping. His mind was bent on his nets and the fish again." A pause, while he conned the s.h.i.+p on a steady course, then, reflectively, "An' there's some folks--there's folks ash.o.r.e growling about the price o' fis.h.!.+"

Of courage in the war, on land as on sea, there are few records comparable to the silent devotion of the fishermen. The heat of attack and fury of battle may call out a reckless heroism that has no bounds to individual gallantry, but the sustained courage required for a lone action under heavy odds--every turn of the engagement being a.s.sessed and understood--is of a rarer quality; mere physical health and high spirit cannot generate it; tradition of a sea-inherence and long self-training alone can bring it forth. That the fishermen (inured to a life of bold hazard and hards.h.i.+p) would offer valuable service in emergency was never doubted, but that the level of their gallantry should reach such heights, even those who knew them were hardly prepared to a.s.sume. And we were weak in our judgment, for their records held ample evidence by which we should have been able to predict a bravery in war action no less notable than their courage in the equally perilous ways of their trade. For a lifetime at war with the sea, wresting a precarious living from the grudging depths, their skill and resolution required no stimulus under the added stress of sea-warfare. In the fury of the channel gales, s.h.i.+pwreck and disaster called forth the same spirit of dogged endurance and elevating humanity that marks their new seafaring under arms. The countless instances of their service to vessels in distress, to torpedoed merchantmen and wars.h.i.+ps, in the records of strife, are but repet.i.tions of their sea-conduct throughout the years of their trading. When Rozhdestvensky's panic-stricken gunlayers opened fire on the 'Gamec.o.c.k' fleet on the Dogger, the story of that outrage was distinguished by the same heroism of the trawlermen that enn.o.bles their diary to-day. When the _Crane_ was sinking, the crew of _Gull_, themselves suffering under fire, boarded her to rescue the survivors. . . .

"When they got on board the _Crane_ they found the living members of the crew lying about injured. The vessel was in total darkness, and it was known that at any moment she might founder; yet Costello (the _Gull's_ boatswain) went below to the horrible little forecastle to bring up Leggatt's dead body. Smith (the second hand), who took charge of the _Crane_ when the skipper was killed, refused to leave her till every man had been taken off. Rea (the engineer) showed unyielding courage when, in spite of the fact that the little s.h.i.+p was actually foundering, he groped back to the engine-room, which was in total darkness, to reach the valves. The stokehold was flooded with water, and Rea could do nothing. He went on deck, where the skipper was lying dead, and all the survivors, except the boy, were wounded."

In all its bearings, the comradely action of the _Gull_ was but a foreshadowing of _Gowan Lea's_ a.s.sistance to _Floandi_ in the raid by Austrian cruisers on the drifter line in the Adriatic. The circ.u.mstances were curiously alike--the actual occurrence, the individual deeds. We have Skipper Nichols refusing to leave until his wounded were embarked, and Engineman Mobbs groping (as Rea did) through the scalding steam of _Floandi's_ wrecked engine-room to reach the stokehold and draw the fires. Then, as in the Russians' sea-panic of October 1904, the fishermen (fighting seamen now) came under a sudden and murderous gunfire at close range. Overpowered by heavy armament, there was no flinching, no surrender. _Gowan Lea_ headed for the enemy with her one six-pounder spitting viciously. The issue was not considered--though Skipper Joseph Watt must have had no doubt that he was steering his drifter towards certain destruction. Her gun was quickly put out of action. Her funnel and wheelhouse were riddled and shot to pieces. Water made on her through shot-holes in the hull. On the gun-platform, her gunlayer struggled to repair the mechanism of the breech--his leg dangling and shattered. Sh.e.l.l-torn and incapable of further attack, she drifted out of the line of fire. Bad as was her own condition, there were others in worse plight. _Floandi_ had come under direct point-blank fire, and her decks were a shambles. Out of control--her main steam-pipe being shot through--seven dead or badly wounded, and only three remaining to work her, she was in dire need of a.s.sistance. Skipper Watt observed the distress of his sea-mate and steered _Gowan Lea_ down to her to offer the same brotherhood as of the _Gull_ to _Crane_. The a.n.a.logy is peculiarly complete: the boarding, the succour to the wounded, the reverent handling of the dead. Not as a new spirit born of the stress of war, but as the outcome of an age-old tradition, Gowan Lea stood by.

After four years of warfare at sea, serving under naval direction and discipline, one would have expected the fisherman sailing under the White Ensign to lose at least a certain measure of his former character--to have become a naval seaman in his habits of thought, in his actions, his outlook. Four years of constant service! A long term!

He has come under a control that differs as poles apart from the free days of 'fleeting' and 'single boating.' He is set to service in unfamiliar waters and abnormal climates, but the habits of the old trade still cling to him. New gear comes to his hands--sweeps, depth-keepers, explosive nets, hydrophones, and paravanes--but he regards them all as adaptations to his fis.h.i.+ng service. He is unchanged. He is still fis.h.i.+ng; that his 'catch' may be a huge explosive monster capable of destroying a Dreadnought does not seem to have imposed a new turn to his thoughts. He is apart from the regular naval service. The influence of his familiar little s.h.i.+p, the a.s.sociation of his kindred s.h.i.+pmates, the technics of a common and unforgettable trade, have proved stronger than the prestige of a naval uniform. In his terms and way of speech, he draws no new farrago from his bra.s.sbound s.h.i.+pmate. Did not the skipper of the duty patrol hail _Aquitania_ on her approach to the Clyde booms and advise the captain? . . . 'Tak' yeer _bit boatie_ up atween thae twa trawlers!'

The devotion and gallantry and humanity of the fishermen is not confined to the enlisted section who man the patrol craft and minesweepers. The regular trade, the old trade, works under the same difficulties and dangers that ever menaced the ingathering of the sea-fishery. Serving on the sea in certain areas, the older men and the very young still contrive to shoot the nets and down the trawls. Their contribution to the diminished food-supply of the country is not gained without loss; 'the price o' fish' is too often death or mutilation or suffering under bitter exposure in an open boat. The efforts of the enemy to stop our food-supply are directed with savage insistence towards reducing the rations drawn from the deeps of the sea; brutality and vengeful fury increase in intensity as the days pa.s.s and the indomitable fishermen return and return to their grounds. In August 1914, fast German cruisers and torpedo-boats raided our fleets on the Dogger Bank. Twenty fis.h.i.+ng vessels were sunk, their crews captured. There was no killing. ". . .

The sailors [of the torpedo-boat] gave us something to eat and drink, and we could talk and were pretty free," said the skipper of _Lobelia_.

Later, on being taken ash.o.r.e ". . . with German soldiers on each side of us, and the women and boys and girls shouting at us and running after us and pelting us, we were marched through the streets of Wilhelmshaven to a prison." Hards.h.i.+p, abuse! Now ridicule! ". . . The Germans stripped us of everything we had. . . . But they were not content with that--they disfigured us by cutting one half of the hair of our heads off and one half of the moustache, cropping close and leaving the other half on, making you as ugly as they could. . . . It was a nasty thing to do; but we made the best of it, and laughed at one another."

Hards.h.i.+p, abuse, ridicule! The fishermen still served their trade at sea. Now, brutality! The third hand of _Boy Ernie_ details the callous precision of German methods in September 1915. The smack was unarmed.