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 AUXILIARIES

II

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