Our Destroyer Service is perhaps as efficient, and as dashing, as anything ever seen in the way of organised human activity. It is long established, and its very perfection seems almost to stand in the way of our wonder at its achievement. The performance of our trawlers and drifters, on the other hand, is the more astonishing because it was an afterthought, the work of a service called into being—suddenly created, as it were, out of nothing—to meet the need of a grave moment which no imagination could well have provided against. When the moment came, everyone knew what might be expected from our Navy. It had not occurred to anyone that our fishermen might help to keep the sea against an outbreak of piracy, not only with courage but with marked success. Yet this they did; and of all the disappointments which the War has brought our enemies this must have been one of the most unexpected and unpleasant.

In reading the accounts which follow, it will be remarked that the work to which our trawlers and drifters set themselves, with such admirable readiness and courage, was not only new to them, but was continually taking new and unforeseen forms, so that they have been called upon to show quickness and adaptability, as well as the capacity for training and discipline. The armament and methods of the submarine of 1915 were different from those of the later and more dangerous boats of 1917. The trawlers, too, were much less adequately armed and equipped. Our men had at first to play a game in which there were no certain rules, and no standard weapons. We can hardly over-praise the officers of the R.N.R. who, in those critical days, took command of the special-service trawlers and fought them with the native skill of the Elizabethan sea-dogs. Nor can we admire too heartily the ready pluck and patriotism with which the skippers, mates, deck-hands and boys of our fishing-fleets turned their hands at a moment’s notice from nets to depth-charges and twelve-pounders, and undertook the daily sweeping of mines, in seas now doubly treacherous, and a hundred times more deadly. There is a strange and almost pathetic sound, even in the names of the little ships themselves—names bearing none of the splendour of history or the prestige of war, but the humble and intimate memories of wives and children, or the jesting pride of the homely seaport where they lived in the time of peace.

The Ina Williams (now His Majesty’s Trawler, Ina Williams) was steaming towards the Irish coast at seven o’clock, one evening in early summer, when she sighted a large submarine on her port beam, some two-and-a-half miles away. The enemy had just come to the surface; for there was no sign of him in that direction a few moments before, and he had not yet got his masts or ventilators up. The Ina Williams was armed, fortunately, with a 12-pounder gun, and commanded by Sub-Lieutenant C. Nettleingham, R.N.R., who had already been commended for good conduct, and after nine months’ hard work was not likely to lose a fighting chance.

He headed straight for the U-boat. She might, of course, submerge at any moment, leaving the pursuer helpless. But Mr. Nettleingham calculated that she would disdain so small an enemy, and remain upon the surface, relying upon her trained gunners and keeping her superiority of speed, with her torpedoes in case of extreme necessity. He was right in the main. The U-boat accepted battle by gunfire; but a torpedo which missed the starboard quarter of the Ina Williams by only 10 feet must have been fired at least as soon as the trawler sighted her, and showed that the enemy was not disposed to underrate even a British fishing-boat. Mr. Nettleingham had saved his ship by the promptness with which he turned towards the submarine, and he now opened fire, keeping helm to avoid any further torpedoes.

The fight was a triumph for English gunnery. The Ina Williams had the good fortune to have fallen in with a wildshot. All his five shells were misses—some short, some on the trawler’s starboard side. The gunner of the Ina Williams had probably had no experience of firing at a moving target, almost level with the water. The U-boat was going 10–12 knots, too, and that was faster than he expected. The result was that his first three shots failed to get her; they fell astern, but each one distinctly nearer than the last. The pirate commander did not like the look of things; he called in his guns’ crews and prepared to submerge. Too late. The British gunner’s fourth shot caught the U-boat on the water-line, half-way between conning-tower and stern. A fifth followed instantly, close abaft the conning-tower itself. The wounded submarine was probably by this time out of hand, for she continued to submerge. Just before she disappeared, the sixth shell struck the conning-tower full at the water-line, and the fight was over. It had lasted fifteen minutes, and the Ina Williams was still 3,400 yards away when the enemy sank. She steamed straight on to the position of the U-boat, and found that even after the ten minutes which it took her to reach the spot, large bubbles of air were still rising, and the sea was being more and more thickly covered with a large lake of oil. The depth was fifty fathoms, and out of that depth, while the Ina Williams steamed round and round her buoy, she had the satisfaction of seeing the dead brute’s life-blood welling up with bursts of air-bubbles for nearly an hour, until the sea was thick for five hundred yards, and tainted for a much further distance. The smell of the stuff was peculiar, and new to the trawler’s crew; they could not find the right word to describe it. But they were eager to scent it again, and as often as possible, for it meant good work, good pay and a good report.

This was a thoroughly professional bit of service, a single fight at long range; but it was no smarter than the sharp double action fought by His Majesty’s Armed Smacks Boy Alfred and I’ll Try against two German submarines. The British boats were commanded by Skipper Walter S. Wharton, R.N.R., and Skipper Thomas Crisp, R.N.R., and were out in the North Sea when they sighted a pair of U-boats coming straight towards them on the surface. The first of these came within 300 yards of Boy Alfred and stopped. Then followed an extraordinary piece of work, only possible to a German pirate. The U-boat signalled with a flag to Boy Alfred to come nearer, and at the same time opened fire upon her with a machine-gun or rifles, hitting her in many places, though by mere chance not a single casualty resulted.

Skipper Wharton’s time had not yet come; he was not for a duel at long range. He threw out his small boat, and by this submissive behaviour encouraged the U-boat to come nearer, which she did by submerging and popping up again within a hundred yards. A man then came out of the conning-tower and hailed Boy Alfred, giving the order to abandon ship as he intended to torpedo. But 100 yards was a very different affair from 300. It was, in fact, a range Skipper Wharton thought quite suitable. He gave the order ‘Open fire’ instead of ‘Abandon ship,’ and his gunner did not fail him. The first round from the 12-pounder was just short, and the second just over; but having straddled his target, the good man put his third shot into the submarine’s hull, just before the conning-tower, where it burst on contact. The fourth shot was better still; it pierced the conning-tower and burst inside. The U-boat sank like a stone, and the usual wide-spreading patch of oil marked her grave.

In the meantime the second enemy submarine had gone to the east of I’ll Try, who was herself east of Boy Alfred. He was a still more cautious pirate than his companion, and remained submerged for some time, cruising around I’ll Try with only a periscope showing. Skipper Crisp, having a motor fitted to his smack, was too handy for the German, and kept altering course so as to bring the periscope ahead of him, whenever it was visible. The enemy disappeared entirely no less than six times, but at last summoned up courage to break surface. The hesitation was fatal to him—he had given the smack time to make every preparation. He appeared suddenly at last, only 200 yards off, on I’ll Try’s starboard bow; but his upper deck and big conning-tower were no sooner clearly exposed than Skipper Crisp put his helm hard over, brought the enemy on to his broadside and let fly with his 13-pounder gun. At this moment a torpedo passed under the smack’s stern, missing only by ten feet, then coming to the surface, and running along on the top past Boy Alfred. It was the U-boat’s first and last effort. In the same instant, I’ll Try’s shell—the only one fired—struck the base of the conning-tower and exploded, blowing pieces of the submarine into the water on all sides.

The U-boat immediately took a list to starboard and plunged bows first—she disappeared so rapidly that the gunner had not even time for a second shot. I’ll Try immediately hurried to the spot, and there saw large bubbles of air coming up and a large and increasing patch of oil. She marked the position with a Dan buoy, and stood by for three-quarters of an hour with Boy Alfred. Finally, as the enemy gave no sign of life, the two smacks returned together to harbour.

For this excellent piece of work the two skippers were suitably rewarded. Skipper Wharton, who had already killed two U-boats and had received the D.S.C. and the D.S.M. with a bar, was now given a second bar to his D.S.C. Skipper Crisp already had the D.S.M., and now received the D.S.C. But with regard to the gratuity given to the whole crew of each boat for the destruction of an enemy submarine, a distinction was made, Boy Alfred being rewarded for a ‘certainty’ and I’ll Try for a ‘probable’ only. This is interesting as showing the scrupulous caution with which our anti-submarine returns have been made up. The Germans have tried to persuade their public, at home and abroad, that many of the U-boats claimed to have been destroyed by us have, in fact, escaped, with more or less injury, and made their way home to refit. The exact contrary is the case. No one, with any power of judging the evidence, could examine our official reports without coming to the conclusion that the number of our successes has been greatly underestimated in the published records. The Admiralty have no doubt felt that, where so much is at stake, it is better to run no risk at all of misrepresenting the situation and its possibilities. If certainties only are counted, and the campaign judged and conducted accordingly, there will be no disillusionment for us, and the long list of ‘probables’ will give us a margin, uncertain in quantity, but absolutely sure to be on the right side of the account. This policy has entirely justified itself. In the long record of the anti-submarine work of these four years, only one complete disappointment has occurred, only one dead U-boat has come to life again. On the other hand, the first list of certainties published by the Admiralty—the list of 150 pirate commanders put out of action—could not be disputed, even by the authors of the German communiquÉs. It is not an estimate, it is a statement, beyond suspicion or dispute; but to ensure this result restraint was necessary, and the restraint was often regretted by the authorities as much as by the British crews who felt themselves stinted of their full reward. There was probably no member of the Board who did not wish that more could be done for the gallant men of I’ll Try; but her report, as here paraphrased, just fell short of the full evidence required by the rules. She killed her bird; but she could not prove that he was not a runner.

The same year, in the second week of August, two other smacks distinguished themselves in action. The first of these was the G. and E., commanded by Lieutenant C.E. Hammond, R.N. She was sailing at mid-day in company with the smack Leader, and about a mile to north of her, when she saw a submarine break surface about three cables beyond to the south-east. Lieutenant Hammond must have found it hard to play a waiting game, but to go at once to the help of his consort would have revealed that he was no unarmed fishing-boat. The pirate, therefore, was able to board and blow up Leader with a bomb, after ordering her crew into their small boat. He then came on fearlessly, closing, as he thought, another helpless victim. When within 200 yards he fired a rifle, and G. and E.’s crew encouraged him by getting out a boat; but when he came to forty yards and slewed round, parallel to the smack, Lieutenant Hammond hoisted the White Ensign and opened fire. The U-boat appeared to be paralysed with astonishment. For a whole minute she lay motionless, and that minute was just long enough for G. and E.’s gunner. He got off five shots in a tremendous hurry. One was a miss, and two hit the rail of the smack; but one of these went on, and penetrated the enemy very usefully in the lower part of the conning-tower. The other two were clean hits in much the same spot. Down went the enemy—not in the way a submarine would dive by choice, but nose first, and with stern up at a very high angle. The five men who had been on her deck and conning-tower, for the purpose of enjoying a little shooting at British fishermen, got an entirely new view of sport in these sixty seconds. One was killed with a rifle-shot by a petty officer on the G. and E., three disappeared in the shell bursts, and the fifth was seen still clinging to the conning-tower, as the U-boat carried him down to death. The tide made all hope of rescue vain—it was too strong even for a buoy to be put down to mark the spot.

Four days later, on the same ground, the smack Inverlyon, commanded by Skipper Phillips, with an R.N. gunner, Ernest M. Jehan, sighted a submarine at 8.20 P.M., steering right towards her in the twilight. When the two boats were within less than thirty yards of each other, the submarine was seen to be a U-boat flying the German ensign, with an officer on deck hailing ‘Boat!’ Evidently he expected to be obeyed, for he stopped dead and gave no sign of action. He had no gun mounted, and appeared to be out of torpedoes.

Mr. Jehan might well have been taken by surprise by this sudden meeting at close quarters in the dusk; but he was not. In an instant the White Ensign was hoisted, and he himself was firing his revolver at the officer steering the enemy boat. This was his pre-arranged signal for his mates to open fire, and it was obeyed with deadly quickness and precision. The gun was a mere pop-gun, a 3-pounder, but at the range it was good enough. Of the first three rounds fired, the first and third pierced the centre of the enemy’s conning-tower and burst inside, while the second struck the after part of the same structure and carried it away, ensign and all. The officer fell overboard on the starboard side. The submarine was now out of hand. The tide brought her close round Inverlyon’s stern, within ten yards, and the gun was instantly slewed on to her again. This time, six rounds of extra-rapid fire were got off. The first hit the conning-tower, the second and fourth went over, the third, fifth and sixth hulled the U-boat dead. She sank, with the same ominous nose-dive, her stern standing up at an angle of 80°. The swirl was violent, and in it three bodies were flung to the surface. A shout was heard from one of them—a pirate, but a man in agony. Skipper Phillips stripped, took a lifebuoy in his arms and leaped overboard. He swam strongly, but vainly, in that rush of wild water and oil, and at last had to be dragged home on his own buoy. The smack meantime was drifting over the dead submarine, and brought up when her trawl got fast upon it.

The trawl was even more useful in another action, where it actually brought on the fight at close quarters and made victory possible. One day in February, H.M. Trawler Rosetta, Skipper G.A. Novo, R.N.R., had gone out to fish, but she had on deck a 6-pounder gun concealed in an ingenious manner which need not be described. She joined a small fleet of four smacks and two steam trawlers some forty-five miles out, and fished with them all night. Before dawn next morning a voice was heard shouting out of the twilight. It came from one of the steam trawlers: ‘Cut your gear away! there’s a submarine three-quarters of a mile away; he’s sunk a smack and I have the crew on board.’

‘All right, thank you!’ said Skipper Novo—to get away from the pirate was precisely what he did not wish to do. For some fifteen minutes he went on towing his trawl, in hope of being attacked; but as nothing happened, he thought he was too far away from the smacks, and began to haul up his trawl. He was bringing his boat round before the wind, and had all but the last twenty fathoms of the trawl in, when the winch suddenly refused to heave any more, and the warp ran out again about ten fathoms—a thing beyond all experience. ‘Hullo!’ said the skipper, ‘there’s something funny.’ He jumped off the bridge and asked the mate what was the reason of the winch running back. ‘I don’t know, skipper—the stop-valve is opened out full.’ The skipper tried it himself; then went to the engine-man and asked him if full steam was on. ‘The steam’s all right.’ ‘Then reverse winch!’ said the skipper, and went to give a hand himself, as was his custom in a difficulty. The hauling went on this time, all but to the end.

Suddenly the mate gripped him by the arm—‘Skipper, a submarine on board us!’—and there the enemy was, a bare hundred yards off on the starboard quarter. ‘Hard a-starboard, and a tick ahead!’ shouted the skipper, and rushed for the gun, with the crew following. The gun was properly in charge of the mate, and he got to it first; but the brief dialogue which followed robbed him of his glory. ‘Right, skipper!’ he said, meaning thereby ‘This is my job.’ But in the same breath the skipper said: ‘All right, Jack. I got him! You run on bridge and keep him astern.’ The Rosetta’s discipline was good—the mate went like a man, and the skipper laid the gun.

He was justified by his success. The enemy was very quickly put out of action, being apparently unable to cope with the whirlwind energy of Skipper Novo. From the moment of breaking surface less than sixty seconds had gone by, when the gun of the Rosetta began speaking, and spoke nothing but hard words directly to the point. The target was 250 feet long, and only 300 feet away. Every shot was a hit. The fourth caused an explosion, and flames shot up four or five feet above the submarine. Evidently she could no longer submerge, and she attempted to make off upon the surface. But Skipper Novo was right in his estimate of his own chance—he had ‘got him.’ His fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth shots were all direct hits on the receding target, and at the eighth the enemy sank outright.

Rosetta then spoke the smack Noel, which had been close to her during the action, and now confirmed all her observations. Skipper Novo had no doubt that the U-boat had been the obstruction which was tangled in his net. She had carried it all away, and to get clear had been obliged to come to the surface without knowing where she might find herself. As to her fate, there was no reasonable doubt. But since neither debris nor survivors were seen, the case, with rigid scrupulosity, was refused a place among the certainties. The enemy are no better off for that.

The story of two trawlers, Lark II and Lysander III, will show how much difference luck may make in giving or withholding the evidence necessary to prove a complete success. These two boats were included in a small division patrolling off the Cornish coast, and hunted two submarines with apparent success, one in March and one in April, but obtained the maximum award on the first occasion only. The third ship of the division was then the drifter Speculation, and the division commander was Chief Skipper Donald McMillan, R.N.R. He was in a certain position close inshore on March 10, listening with hydrophones for a U-boat which was known to be on the prowl, when he sighted a steamer about four miles away in the act of being blown up. He made for her with all speed, but she sank in four minutes; twenty-one of her crew of twenty-five were found still floating in one small boat and a raft. The Chief Skipper ‘interrogated’ the poor men, and found that the ship was a Spanish steamer, the Christina. Then he put them on board Speculation, and ordered her to take them at once into St. Ives, while Lark and Lysander carried out their hydrophone work as before.

When Speculation had gone about 2½ miles on her way, the Chief Skipper suddenly heard her fire a shot; and the same moment she changed course and blew her siren. Lark and Lysander raced to join the hunt with their utmost speed. They found Speculation cruising round, with depth-charges ready to drop. She had already dropped two, besides firing her 3-pounder into the wake of the enemy’s periscope, and had seen not only oil, but some wreckage, and a large object which rolled over and disappeared again. The Chief Skipper ordered her to proceed on her course to St. Ives, and then instructed Lysander III to stand by and drop her depth-charges on the chance of stirring up the wounded U-boat. Within five minutes he sighted the wake of a submarine on his own port bow, only 100 yards distant but going fast. He made a bee line for the wake, thinking it possible he might ram her, and when just over the disturbance on the water he dropped his first depth-charge. Then, as the submarine was still making headway, he closed again and dropped his second charge right over the wake. The enemy thereupon showed oil and ceased to make headway; so Lark and Lysander alternately bombed his supposed resting-place with no less than eight charges. After nearly an hour of this, they stood by, listening on hydrophones and watching the oil still rising. Then a destroyer arrived, asked questions, heard the whole story and steamed away without comment. Two hours later a motor-launch came by, and was good enough to examine the spot and contribute one more depth-charge. Two hours more, and Speculation returned to spend the night with her division—all listening keenly, but without result. Finally, next morning, two sweepers, John Kidd and Castor II, arrived and swept round about the buoy which had been put down. The three boats of the division stood by and watched anxiously; they felt sure that the sweep fouled some object between 9 and 10 A.M., but at 11.15 they received the order to resume their patrol and went reluctantly away, foreboding a verdict of ‘probably damaged.’

Twelve days later they had a joyful surprise. It had been decided that as the depth of water, the season, and other circumstances were all favourable, it was worth while to send a diver to explore the spot. Accordingly, on March 25, an officer diver went down and succeeded in finding and examining the submarine. She was lying on her port beam-ends in twenty-four fathoms. Her conning-tower had been practically blown off—evidently by a depth-charge which had made a direct hit or something very near it. She had also a large fracture in the hull, on the port side amidships. This was, of course, conclusive, and the division received the maximum award. They were the more jubilant, because they had been quite certain of their kill, and had picked up what they considered first-rate evidence—not debris indeed, nor survivors, but a lot of onions, which must have been brought there by somebody. Also they had been told that their ‘obstruction’ was the wreck of an Italian ship, torpedoed just about there only a few days before. It was a consolation to have so annoying a suggestion conclusively disproved.

The next action of Lark II and Lysander III fell short of this final felicity. In April the division passed under the command of Chief Skipper G. Birch, R.N.R., and the third place in it was filled by the drifter Livelihood. They were patrolling one evening off Tintagel Head, when a periscope was sighted by Lark II, about 500 yards away on the starboard quarter, and going N.N.W. at the very slow speed of two knots. It was noted as being very high, quite three feet out of the water. The Chief Skipper came round immediately in order to bring his guns to bear; but the periscope had disappeared before he could accomplish this. He then hoisted the necessary signals for warning the rest of the division, steamed towards the last position of the submarine, lay to, and listened with the hydrophone. But at this moment the periscope reappeared; it was now only one foot above the surface and not more than twenty yards away, on the starboard beam. This was, of course, too near for a torpedo, and Lark II accordingly got her chance.

The first shot from her 12-pounder was an extraordinarily happy one—it hit the periscope and scattered it in splinters. The Chief Skipper lost not a moment—he rang the telegraph for full speed, turned towards the enemy, and as soon as he got way on the ship dropped a depth-charge set for fifty feet. His miniature fleet was perfectly in hand, and seconded him brilliantly. Drifter Livelihood closed on his port quarter, and dropped her depth-charge almost on the same spot; trawler Lysander III followed with another. The three boats continued to play the game in combination; the leader dropping five depth-charges in all and the others three each. All these exploded satisfactorily, and one of the Chief Skipper’s produced a second heavy under-water explosion, after which large quantities of dark oil and air bubbles rose to the surface. The position was then buoyed, and the division patrolled the area all night, using hydrophones at intervals. Next morning a wireless message was sent to Penzance, and another trawler took the watch as relief. Sweeping operations followed, but the bottom was reported rocky and foul, and no satisfactory result was obtained. Diving was not possible in such a place, and in the end the official verdict was one of ‘Probably seriously damaged.’ For this the reward was only half of what would have been given for a certainty; and, to the gallant trawlers and drifters, that was probably the smallest part of the disappointment. It is trying to end so exciting a chase with a cry of ‘gone away,’ and especially so when you are positive that the cry is a mistaken one. The evidence for a kill was very strong—the enemy’s speed was slow, his periscope was blinded, he was liberally depth-charged at close quarters—there was a violent double explosion to be accounted for, and a good uprush of oil and bubbles. But the line is strictly drawn, and this time the conclusive evidence was unprocurable.

Among the many cases of fine team-work by these gallant little fishing-boats two more must be given here—one as an example of the deadly thoroughness and precision with which our trawler and drifter divisions can do their hunting, and the other to show how keenly they will fight against an enemy armed with vastly superior guns.

A division of four drifters—Young Fred, Pilot Me, Light, and Look Sharp—under Lieutenant Thomas Kippins, R.N.R., was patrolling one afternoon in April, when at 5.25 P.M. Skipper Andrew Walker, R.N.R., sighted a periscope about 150 feet away on the starboard quarter of his ship, Pilot Me. He immediately altered course to starboard, and the submarine thereupon submerged entirely. Skipper Walker passed over the spot where she was last seen and dropped a depth-charge, altered course rapidly and dropped another, fired a red rocket to warn the division, dropped a third and fourth depth-charge, and hoisted the signal asking his commander to come north at full speed. He then stopped his engines and listened on his hydrophone. Hearing no sound, he made for Young Fred, who had altered course and was now closing him. When the two boats were only 300 yards apart, the submarine came to the surface right between them. She rose at an angle of 45°, bows up, and hung so for about two minutes, during which Pilot Me, Light, and Look Sharp all opened fire, and the two last claim to have hit her. At any rate she went down again, stern first; but Lieutenant Kippins, who was steaming straight for her in hope of ramming, was not disposed to take any chances. He took Young Fred exactly over her, dropped two depth-charges and passed on. The explosion which followed was a very heavy one; the fountain of water which rose was mast high and completely hid the drifter flagship from her companions, who thought for a moment that she ‘had gone.’

The Chief Skipper was far from gone. The spray was hardly off his deck, and the Young Fred was still rocking, when he turned again and then again, dropping two more depth-charges, and ordered Pilot Me to put down a Dan buoy to mark the position. This was done, but it was but marking a grave. H.M.S. Express, who had received a wireless signal and hurried to the spot, reports that she found the sea covered with oil, which had extended in a long stream to the northward on the ebb tide. Thick oil was still rising to the surface, and there were streaks of dark brown colour, very noticeable, and distinct from oil. Even when four miles to leeward, whilst approaching, the new comers had been struck by a very strong smell of petrol, which naturally gave them hopeful expectations.

The expectations were fulfilled; in fact the evidence brought on board the Express went almost beyond what was acceptable to a British ship’s company who had not just been fighting for their lives. The articles of wreckage which it is possible to mention included a quantity of brand-new woodwork, with bright brass fittings, a large portion of a white wooden bunk, bits of furniture and living-spaces, a shot-hole plug, two black-painted gratings, a mattress and bedcover, two seamen’s caps, with cap ribbons of the IV and V Untersee Boot Flotille, and their owners’ names, a vest and two pairs of drawers; also a red flag, a fit ensign for these lawless savages. For their destruction, it is hardly necessary to say, the full reward was given. Lieutenant Thomas Kippins and Skipper Andrew Walker also received the D.S.C. and two of their men the D.S.M. This was an execution rather than a fight; but our fishermen can show their battles too, battles worthy of the sea-dogs who kept the narrow seas against more worthy enemies. In the Downs, and in the first twilight of a November morning, three of His Majesty’s armed drifters—Present Help, Paramount and Majesty—were beginning their daily sweep, when Skipper Thomas Lane, R.N.R., of the Present Help, which was spare ship at the moment, sighted an object one mile distant to the eastward. As day was breaking, she was quickly marked for a pirate submarine—a huge one, with two big guns mounted on deck, one a four-inch and one a 22-pounder. Nevertheless Present Help, Paramount and Majesty opened fire at once with their 6-pounders, not standing off, but closing their enemy, and continuing to close her under heavy fire until they were hitting her with their own light guns. Even our history can hardly show a grander line of battle than those three tiny ships bearing down upon their great antagonist; and if U.48 did not fall to their fire, it is none the less true that her surrender was due in the first place to their determined onset.

It was Paramount who took and gave the first knocks. Her searchlight was shot away, and she in reply succeeded in putting one of the pirate’s guns out of action. In the meantime—and none too soon—Present Help had sent up the red rocket; it was seen by two other armed drifters, Acceptable and Feasible, who were less than two miles off, and by H.M.S. Gipsy, who was four miles away. Skipper Lee, of the Acceptable, immediately sang out ‘Action,’ and both boats blazed away at 3,000 yards’ range, getting in at least one hit on the enemy’s conning-tower. At the same moment came the sound of the Gipsy’s 12-pounder as she rushed in at full speed.

The U-boat started with an enormous, and apparently overwhelming, advantage of gun power. She ought to have been a match, twice over, for all six of our little ships. But she was on dangerous ground, and the astounding resolution of the attack drove her off her course. In ten minutes the drifters had actually pushed her ashore on the Goodwin Sands—Paramount had closed to thirty yards! Drake himself was hardly nearer to the galleons. Then came Gipsy, equally resolute. Her first two shots fell short; the third was doubtful, but after that she got on, and the pirate’s bigger remaining gun was no match for her 12-pounder. After two hits with common pointed shell, she put in eight out of nine lyddite, smashed the enemy’s last gun and set him on fire forward. Thereupon the pirate crew surrendered and jumped overboard.

It was now 7.20 and broad daylight. Lieutenant-Commander Frederick Robinson, of the Gipsy, gave the signal to cease fire, and the five drifters set to work to save their drowning enemies. Paramount, who was nearest, got thirteen, Feasible one, and Acceptable two, of whom one was badly wounded. The Gipsy’s whaler was got away, and her crew, under Lieutenant Gilbertson, R.N.R., tried for an hour to make headway against the sea, but could not go further than half-a-mile, the tide and weather being heavily against them. They brought back one dead body, and one prisoner in a very exhausted condition; afterwards they went off again and collected the prisoners from the other ships. Then came the procession back to port—a quiet and unobtrusive return, but as glorious as any that the Goodwins have ever seen. Full rewards followed, and the due decorations for Skippers Thomas Lane, Edward Kemp and Richard William Barker. But their greatest honour was already their own—they had commanded, in victorious action, His Majesty’s Armed Drifters, Present Help, Paramount and Majesty.