nter know when he
has struck a mortal blow? If oil and bubbles come up for some time in
one place, or if they come up with a rush, that is suggestive. Then, it
does not require a nautical mind to realize that by casting about on
the bottom with a grapnel you will learn if an object with the bulk and
size of a submarine is there. The Admiralty accept no guesswork
from the hunters about their exploits; they must bring the brush to
prove the kill.

With Admiral Crawford I went to see the submarine defences of the
harbour. It reminded one of the days of the drawbridge to a castle,
when a friend rode freely in and an enemy might try to swim the moat
and scale the walls if he pleased.

"Take care! There is a tide here!" the coxswain was warned, lest the
barge should get into some of the troubles meant for Fritz. "A cunning
fellow, Fritz. We must give him no openings."

The openings appear long enough to permit British craft, whether
trawlers, or flotillas, or cruiser squadrons, to go and come. Lying as
close together as fish in a basket, I saw at one place a number of
torpedo boats home from a week at sea.

"Here to-day and gone to-morrow," said an officer. "What a time they
had last winter! You know how cold the North Sea is--no, you cannot,
unless you have been out in a torpedo boat dancing the tango in the
teeth of that bitter wind, with the spray whipping up to the tops of the
smoke-stacks. In the dead of night they would come into this pitch-
dark harbour. How they found their way is past me. It's a trick of those
young fellows, who command."

Stationary they seemed now as the quay itself; but let a signal speak,
an alarm come, and they would soon be as alive as leaping
porpoises. The sport is to those who scout and hunt. But do not
forget those who watch, those who keep the blockade, from the
Channel to Iceland, and the trawlers that plod over plotted sea-
squares with the regularity of mowing-machines cutting a harvest, on
their way back and forth sweeping up mines. They were fishermen
before the war and are fishermen still. Night and day they keep at it.
They come into the harbours stiff with cold, thaw out, and return to
hardships which would make many a man prefer the trenches.
Tributes to their patient courage, which came from the heart, were
heard on board the battleships.

"It is when we think of them," said an officer, "that we are most eager
to have the German fleet come out, so that we can do our part.