them there—the submarine firing, sinking,
and rising again in unexpected quarters; the trawler
firing, dodging, and trying to ram. The trawlers
are strongly built, and can stand a great deal of
punishment. Yet again, other German submarines
hang about the skirts of fishing-fleets and fire into
the brown of them. When the war was young this
gave splendidly “frightful” results, but
for some reason or other the game is not as popular
as it used to be.
Lastly, there are German submarines who perish by
ways so curious and inexplicable that one could almost
credit the whispered idea (it must come from the Scotch
skippers) that the ghosts of the women they drowned
pilot them to destruction. But what form these
shadows take—whether of “The Lusitania
Ladies,” or humbler stewardesses and hospital
nurses—and what lights or sounds the thing
fancies it sees or hears before it is blotted out,
no man will ever know. The main fact is that
the work is being done. Whether it was necessary
or politic to re-awaken by violence every sporting
instinct of a sea-going people is a question which
the enemy may have to consider later on.
Dawn off the Foreland—the
young flood making
Jumbled and short
and steep—
Black in the hollows and bright
where it’s breaking—
Awkward water
to sweep.
“Mines reported
in the fairway,
“Warn all
traffic and detain.
“’Sent up Unity,
Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”
Noon off the Foreland—the
first ebb making
Lumpy and strong
in the bight.
Boom after boom, and the golf-hut
shaking
And the jackdaws
wild with fright!
“Mines located
in the fairway,
“Boats now
working up the chain,
“Sweepers—Unity,
Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock and Golden Gain.”
Dusk off the Foreland—the
last light going
And the traffic
crowding through,
And five damned trawlers with
their syreens blowing
Heading the whole
review!
“Sweep completed
in the fairway.
“No more
mines remain.
“’Sent back Unity,
Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”
The Trawlers seem to look on mines as more or less
fairplay. But with the torpedo it is otherwise.
A Yarmouth man lay on his hatch, his gear neatly stowed
away below, and told me that another Yarmouth boat
had “gone up,” with all hands except one.
“’Twas a submarine. Not a mine,”
said he. “They never gave our boys no chance.
Na! She was a Yarmouth boat—we knew
’em all. They never gave the boys no chance.”
He was a submarine hunter, and he illustrated by means
of matches placed at various angles how the blindfold
business is conducted. “And then,”
he ended, “there’s always what he’ll
do. You’ve got to think that out for yourself—while
