Almost before a gun had spoken the fishermen rallied to their country's aid. Some few indeed were off the Danish coast or far North, Iceland way, unconscious that a more feverish business than fishing had begun, and heard the astonishing news only on their return from waters already troubled. Which of us knows anything of this community or thought it essential to our naval efficiency? Yet if anywhere the spirit of personal independence survives, they cherish it these men, Britons to the bone, wedded to freedom since their ancestors came in their long galleys out of the North East to harry the Saxon farmers. Take English and Scotch together and you may number the East Coast fishermen at a hundred thousand, and their ships, trawlers and drifters, accustomed to voyage to the Polar ice or the White Sea, at some three thousand six hundred. Of these perhaps four hundred of the slower and more ancient craft, the lame ducks of the flotillas, some of them of outlandish type and antiquated gear, manned by boys and men past service in the wars, still drag their trawls or lie to their nets to keep the markets supplied. Since eighty per cent of our spoils of the sea go abroad in normal times, the home supplies can be maintained by the reduced fleet. The rest, over three thousand, steamers and rare sea-boats all, are in national employ, often with their crews complete and handled by the skippers who know them, proud warrant officers now in His Majesty's fleet, and working for the most part in groups commanded by some Lieutenant of the Royal Naval Reserve, a Commodore, in his way, with a squadron admirals might envy. Many of the fisher folk belonged to the Reserve and joined the fighting fleets, and practically all of military age are long since involved in the sea affair. Two things belong to the story—these men, whether of Grimsby or Hull, Cardiff or Leith, or any other of the great centres, were volunteers, and assess their motives for what you will, it was not the Government wage that brought them. Their fellows, old men, still on the fishing grounds, do a thriving business compared with that for which the Government pays its few shillings a day. It is well that the country should know that the work for which no gold can pay was not undertaken for gold, and that they have held on as mine-sweepers when as fishermen they would have lain snugly in harbour. "If there have been frozen feet in the trenches there have been frozen fingers on the sea," says one. "Fifteen hours of drenching and buffeting were our portion that day. The vessel with the pull of the tackle and the drive of the engines keeping her like a half tide rock, never clear of sweeping seas. Thud, slap, crash and swish as they came over our bows and swirled along the deck, never ceasing." They were needed, every man of them. For it happened that in this most civilised warfare machines were employed with which, search the world round for them, no other men could effectively deal. But for their never resting labours the seas about these islands would have been as impassable for ships as a tropical forest for a motor car. Let us open our eyes and acknowledge the grandiosity of the German mind, the spaciousness of its schemes. It is not characteristic of Germany to do things by halves and the simple may well be amazed at the grandeur of her mine-laying campaign.

No country can teach Germany anything on this subject. She is sole mistress of the black art. Before the outbreak of war she had put her mind to it and possessed vessels fitted to carry 500 mines, fitted with special and ingenious mechanisms for lowering and floating them. When her surface ships were driven from the seas her resources were not exhausted, and a fleet of mine-laying submarines continues the business with magnificent industry. No one will ever write a song on "The Mariners of Germany," for the German is not a sailor. Nor has he ever understood the code of honour which prevails upon the sea. But as an engineer he has perhaps few equals, and in so far as engineering skill applied to ships can go you will do well to reckon with him. As for his mines themselves, they are of many patterns, strange sea-beasts with "all manner of horns and of bumps." "There are some kinds," says the author of "In the Northern Mists," "that have horns—like a dilemma; and any logician will tell you that a dilemma is a very dangerous thing for the inexperienced to handle. It is better not to break the horns of the ungodly in this case, for when the horns are broken the mine explodes. Some are arranged to come up to the surface long after they are hidden in the depths, and at unexpected times, like regrettable incidents from a hectic past. Others are constructed with fiendish ingenuity to wait after touching a ship until they have felt at its most vulnerable part before exploding. Some are made to float about at random, as a malevolent wit flings about his spiteful jests, caring not whom he wounds. And others, more dangerous still, drift when they were meant to remain anchored; and then, when they are cast upon the German coasts, our enemy is ever ready to describe them as English mines,—never German, mark you. But it is a rascally people, that cares nothing for the difference between meum and tuum. The task of sweeping for all these different brands of tinned doom is almost as great as that of the old lady in the nursery rhyme, whose job it was to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. The labour of Sisyphus was child's play compared to it."

Conceived in the magnificent style, elaborated with curious subtlety, representing meticulous and anxious thought the purpose was no less than to convert the waters frequented by Allied shipping into a broad field of death. The magnitude of the conception fascinates one. Had it been understood, as it has not been understood, the timid might have had less sleep o'nights; but they slept untroubled, and none save those whose grave charge it was to counter the campaign can judge or form any estimate of its far-reaching and devilish audacity.

It has been, let us bear in mind, not an occasional but a continuous menace, and threatens us still. Day and night mines are freely sown—a patch here and a patch there—steadily, persistently. "They grow like daisies," some one has said, "cut down in the afternoon, they are up again next morning." Let the sweepers work how they will the end is never in sight. Mines have been laid from the Cape to the West Indies; from Archangel to the Dardanelles; off every Allied port; in every navigable channel; on every avenue of approach to these islands from the ocean or the narrow sea. Strewn with a lavishness that counts no cost too heavy, they represent an expenditure that runs to many millions. In one area alone more than 1,000 mines have been destroyed by our sweepers. No more necessary, no more exhausting, no more hazardous work than theirs is done to-day in any waters.

Let it not be supposed that these admirable activities involve a careless or haphazard disposal of the destructive charges. Each has been laid in accordance with a calculated plan and with definite intention. There is a method in this madness. Take a single instance: in certain areas mines are laid time and again to deflect the stream of traffic into a channel where submarines may act with comparative impunity from danger. The game is played so that the pawn, endeavouring to escape capture by the knight falls a victim to the castle. These thoughtful contrivances demand thoughtful answers and result in an encounter of wits such as the world will probably never see again upon the chequer-board of the seas. But not wits alone are sufficient, and the pieces in the game are numerous. Bear in mind that the area of the North Sea alone is greater than Germany. It is not a case of 20 or 50 or 100 vessels. One can form some picture of such activities. But what are the actual numbers? On the British side some 1,700 ships and 25,000 men concentrate their activities on sweeping for mines. The mind staggers at the immensity of the thing. Is any one surprised that German confidence stands high; that it believed no answer was possible; that it had as good right to believe in the success of these battalions of explosives as in German artillery and German armies?

In the early days mines were directed against our fighting fleet, to endanger their excursions in the North Sea, or to fetter their movements in pursuit of hostile vessels. To protect the fleet, mine-sweepers, specially constructed, or old gunboats, built some of them as early as 1887, manned throughout by naval ratings, kept, unknown to the public,—whose gaze was concentrated upon the trawlers and drifters,—a vigil unimaginable in its range and exhausting in its intensity. Their work continues; but the jackals, baulked of nobler prey, changed their hunting ground and laid still more numerous traps for less wary creatures—the traders. They, too, however are learning caution. There is a certain region through which since the war began 38,000 trading vessels have voyaged; in which no more than 4 have been destroyed by mines. Weigh these facts and consider the compliment that fits the achievement. If you ask by what methods the German mines are safely garnered you will be told that the trawlers sweep in pairs; a method which seems to have advantages over that of the enemy. Pursue your enquiry and you will learn that they are less dangerous at high than at low water; that floating mines since they are easily pushed aside, and explode to expend their force largely in the vacant air, are less of a danger than the anchored type; that when brought to the surface gun or rifle fire disposes of them at a safe distance; that there are other little things to be found when fishing. "Last month, when nearly completing the sweeping, I swept up five mines and came across five full petrol tanks, each holding about 51 gallons or more, which appeared as if they had been moored."

When you have gathered these facts from an authority, the conversation lapses into generalities. It is useless to display an eagerness for knowledge, the book is closed. For the curious it may be added, however, that mine fishing is an art, considerably more complicated than baiting a hook or throwing a fly; that some men are fishers by nature and others despite experience, remain clumsy; that the wriggle and the tug and the play of the fish are part of the sport, that the amusement is not unaccompanied by danger, and that good fishermen are not easy to replace. With these suggestions the matter stands adjourned sine die—that is, till the end of the war.

Mine sweepers are of course protected, for the sympathetic mind will understand that a submarine which has just laid traps resents their removal. Like the ghost of the murderer, its habit is to haunt the region of its labours. For trading with these gentry the fishers have their own methods, sometimes more primitive and courageous than effective, as when the master of a sailing craft—it is fact not fiction—fancied himself a 40 knot destroyer and tried to ram the enemy. Unarmed audacity occasionally, indeed, achieves miracles. One gunless trawler by persistent ill-mannered harassing pursuit, so terrified a German commander who was attacking a merchant vessel, that his quarry escaped. Submarine hunting in armed craft is of course another matter and accounted the greatest of all great games. Sea-going Britons pine for it with an inextinguishable longing. Lowestoft mine-sweepers hanker after leave not to spend by the fireside but on this brave sport. Volunteers jostle each other for the service. Admirals previously on the retired list renew in it all the zest and vigour of their youth. Alas, that after the war a pursuit which outbids in popularity tiger-shooting or steeple-chasing should come to an untimely end.

Another submarine habit is with infinite, untiring Teutonic patience to do the work over again in the wake of the sweepers, for which amiable procedure there is no cure save an equal and opposite persistence. Yet another is to lay little mines nearer the surface to catch trawlers engaged in fishing for bigger ones placed deeper for larger ships. Oh excellent, persevering and philanthropic Teuton!

No one in the world can teach trawler or drifter men, who spend less than a month ashore in the twelve, seamanship. "Smooth sea and storm sea" is alike to them. Grey, tumbling waters are their winter portion, decks continually awash, frozen gear, intolerable motion. Watch that short bluff little vessel 100 miles from any port and a gale rising, with her high bows staggering up from the hollow of the wave that hid her from sight, streaming from rail to rail, to plunge headlong into the next hollow, climb up the approaching mountain to encounter the smothering crest, shake herself and disappear again into the turbid water between the bigger seas. You will see no one on deck save the unconcerned man at the wheel in oilskins and sea-boots, in whom it produces no emotion. That wild sky and furious sea are familiar acquaintances of his, that waif of a boat rolling and pitching through it is his home. Skald to the Viking's son! Mine fishing to men of this stamp was merely a variation in the ordinary way of business. Of course the danger was vastly greater, but they were inured to danger. Against shelling they have a prejudice, for mines they care nothing, and among those still at their old trade the Admiralty prohibition against fishing in mine fields—a prohibition constantly disregarded—creates perhaps as much resentment as the German sowing of them. Good brooms they make these broad-beamed, bluff-bowed vessels, and life preservers too. To their presence in the North Sea and elsewhere thousands already owe their lives. Twenty miles off Tory Island a trawler picked up the survivors from the Manchester Commerce; another, the Coriander, saved 150 of the men from Cressy and Hogue; still another brought home fifty men of the ill-fated Hawke; the Daisy rescued twenty men from the destroyer Recruit. In the Mediterranean the North Sea men were ubiquitous. In answer to distress signals they appeared as if by magic. "Ultimately," wrote one of the passengers on the ill-fated Arabia, "I was put aboard a trawler on which were about 166 rescued.... We had few wraps and most of us lay till we reached Malta in drenched clothes. They were 37 hours of utter misery.... More than half the survivors on the trawler were women and children."

Drudgery, and monotonous drudgery, it all is, relieved, if you find it relief, that any moment may see the end of you and your ship. Here is the process. "A deck hand came up the ladder and handed up two pneumatic lifebelts. The Captain silently passed one to me. After we had fastened them securely he glanced at the chart and compass. Then he gave a command and a signal was flashed to the other boat. Thus the first preparation was made for our 'fishing.' The other boat nosed easily alongside. There was a clanking of machinery and she made off again, carrying one end of a heavy steel cable. Several hundred yards away she resumed her course, while the cable sagged far down beneath the surface of the water. That was all—we were sweeping.... It was late in the afternoon that we made our first catch. A sudden tightening of the cable made it clear that we had hit an obstruction. There was just a slight tremor all through the boat. Everybody stepped to the rail and gazed intently into the water. 'That'll be one,' said the commander as the cable relaxed. Sure enough it was 'one.' The Boche mine broke the surface of the water and floated free, her mooring of 1 inch steel cut off as cleanly as if with a mighty pair of shears. As it rolled lazily in the swell it reminded me of a great black turtle with spikes on its back." Such is the normal procedure, and a rifle bullet does the rest. "There was an explosion that made our teeth rattle, while a huge volume of black smoke belched upward into the still air. And a shining column of water shot straight up through the black cloud to a height of 50 or 60 feet.... Then the water poured back through the smoke and the grim cloud drifted off over the waste of the North Sea."

If you pursue your search for incidents you may meet something of this type. The gear of the trawler Pelican was just being hove in when a mine was discovered entangled in the warp. The winch was stopped just as the mine bumped—anxious moment—the ship's side. Any lurch meant an explosion and certain destruction. The skipper ordered all hands into the boat and to pull away. Remaining alone on board, with infinite care he worked to clear the mine, gently, very gently, unwinding the gear of the winch. The men lay on their oars at a safe distance and waited in suspense. At last the mine was released and the skipper cautiously paid out 120 fathoms of line. Hardly was it done when, having touched something, the devil-fish exploded, shaking the trawler from stem to stern and half filling the distant boat with water. When the warp was hauled on board it revealed nothing but a mass of wreckage. If you are in search of adventure on board a mine-sweeper and are in luck you may enjoy the excitement of an aeroplane attack, with bombs dropping around you from the overhead circling enemy, or machine gun bullets rattling on the deck from a German battle-plane. Or again an angry submarine commander rising out of the deep may send a shell or two your way. For the rest it is a peaceful life, and if you escape the attentions of all these death-dealing devices, mine, aeroplane and submarine, you may arrive home safe enough. The odds are probably somewhat in your favour, but the mathematicians have not worked out the table of chances. You may have the best of it and secure quite a number of mines, or one of the enemy devices may secure you. You never can tell. Here is a transcript.

"It was about four in the morning. This time of year. Just such darkness as this. The London Girl came down on my port side.... I opened the door (of the deckhouse) to hear what she had to say. 'Don't go near so-and-so,' her old man shouted. 'What's that?' I said. 'Don't go,' he hailed—'so-and-so—some mines adrift.' That's all. I was just backing into the wheelhouse again when there was a flash and a roar. He'd gone. Not enough left afloat to make a platter. That's it. There's five boats in line astern of you one minute. There's a bright light and when you look back there's only four. It ain't the mines you see that's the worry. I've seen hundreds. It's the beggar you can't see. Never know when it's under your forefoot. Dirty game, like, I call it. No sense in it. Sinking ships. Any ships. I'd never have believed it. Don't know what's come over the world." Most of us are in like case. Only the knights of the German Round Table, those idealist seekers after grace and loveliness, know and in good time, perhaps, will take the rest of the world into their confidence.

Against mines you cannot retaliate but against the U. boat you can occasionally hit back. "A number of trawlers," writes a correspondent, "were fishing off Aberdeen on a fairly stormy day when a submarine came to the surface and commenced firing at the trawlers, making for one in particular—the Strathearn. The Strathearn ran for it, pursued by the submarine. While the shots were falling round, some of the crew shouted to Geordie, the skipper, 'Geordie, get the boat out.' Said Geordie, 'I'll see you in h—ll first! Fire up! If she's gaun doon, I'm gaun doon. Fire up! I think we hae a chance.'

"During this time Geordie was making towards another trawler, the Commissioner (armed) which had her gear down and seemed totally unconcerned. But, as soon as the Strathearn passed her and there was nothing between the submarine and herself, a blow with an axe cut her gear away, she swung round, and at the same moment her gun appeared.

"Her first shot missed the submarine, so did the second; the third hit the enemy's conning tower, a fourth hit the enemy's gun, and the fifth sent the submarine down in flames, and all was over, bar the shouting."

Our Allies could bear witness to the work of British mine-sweepers and patrols in the Mediterranean. In one raid Austrian cruisers and destroyers attacked the patrol line in the Adriatic and sank 14 of our drifters. Our fishermen have swept for mines off Russian, French and Italian ports, and of their work at the Dardanelles all the world has heard. Captain Woodgate of the Koorah has vividly described an episode in which he was himself the protagonist.

"When we were up in the Dardanelles there were what we call three groups—One, Two and Three—and each group had to go up, one at a time. The vessel I was in belonged to the second group. The night we were going to make the final dash in the Dardanelles, up in the Narrows, we went, no lights up, everything covered in. They let us get right up to the Narrows, and as we turned round to take our sweeps up one of our number was blown up. Then they peppered us from each side, from one and a half to two miles. We heard cries for help. I said, 'We shall have to do the best we can, and go back and pick up.' There was no waiting, no saying 'Who shall go?' As soon as I called for volunteers three jumped in. I kept the vessel as close as I could to shelter them. I did not think any would come back alive, but they did come back. No one was hit, and I said, 'Now we'll get the boat in.' Just as we got the boat nicely clear of the water, along came a shot and knocked it in splinters. I shouted, 'All hands keep under cover as much as you can,' and I got on the bridge, and we went full steam ahead. I could not tell you what it was like, with floating and sunken mines and shots everywhere. We got knocked about, the mast almost gone, rigging gone, and she was riddled right along the starboard side. One of the hands we picked up had his left arm smashed with shrapnel; that was all the injury we got. When we got out the commander came alongside and said, 'Have you seen any more trawlers?' I said, 'Yes, we've got the crew of one on board, the Manx Hero.' We were the last out, and I can tell you I never want to see such a sight again.... I thought of the three men in the fiery furnace, how they were preserved, and of Daniel in the lion's den, and I think of the 24 of us coming out under that terrible fire and the water covered with floating and sunken mines."

"There's one good thing about it," remarked a skipper who had his second vessel blown up under him,—"you take it calmer the second time." We thought we knew the mettle of these men. We did, but we know it better now. Eighty of these skippers have been killed in action, many have been blown up more than once, and several, among them that celebrity "Submarine Billy," have had three such elevating experiences. But it makes no difference. They go to sea again. One hardly knows what to make of this type of human being. Perhaps the British race has no monopoly in it, but one wonders. Let an expert speak, the commander of a destroyer, whose testimonial, if any testimonials are required, has value.

"Only a quarter of an hour before the Admiral had wished me a pleasant trip. That quarter of an hour now seemed Æons away. The Channel was battering us and bruising us.... To climb to the bridge was a perilous adventure in mountaineering. Here crouched three figures, swathed from head to heel like Polar explorers. The glass of the wind-screen was sweating and trickling like the window of a railway carriage. From time to time the Captain wiped clear patches with the finger of his fur glove and made very uncomplimentary remarks about the snow. Behind him stood the steersman, a swaddled mummy with a blue nose tip, dripping icicles." All in a moment appeared a smudge on the horizon—"a friend and brother—the King of the Trawlers." "They're It, absolutely It," said the Captain. "No weather's too bad for 'em. They're our eyes and our ears. They know every blessed wave in the Channel, not merely as passing acquaintances, but they address 'em by their Christian names. They'll do anything, and go anywhere and chance the luck. They're just simple fishermen but they run the whole show and they run it magnificently—guns, semaphores, wireless, everything! They live on kippers and tea, and I don't believe they ever go to sleep."

If the Royal Navy, which has its own views on efficiency, says these things of them, further remarks seem needless.