his words above the rattle of the train.
"There was a lot of talk in the papers about Jellicoe and Beatty and
the Grand Fleet and the Battle Cruisers, but they didn't come our way
and we didn't trouble them. We had a couple of score of trawlers and
drifters and four hundred simple fishermen to cram the fear of the Lord
into. That was our job!"

He spoke with the peculiar word-sparing vividness of the man to whom
the Almighty had vouchsafed the mysterious gift of handling other men.
"Long-shore and deep-sea fishermen, good material, damned good, but
they took a lot of coaxing." He paused and contemplated his hands
resting on his knees. Scarred by frost-bite they were, with huge bones
protruding like knuckle-dusters. "Coaxing, mind you," he repeated.
"I've been chief of an Argentine cattle-boat for four years and Second
on a windjammer round the Horn for three years before that. I know
when to drive and when to coax. Never touched a man, sir." He paused,
rubbing off the moisture condensed on the window, to peer info the
night.

Here, then, was an Apostle of Naval Discipline among a community of
fishermen whose acknowledged tradition it was to get drunk when and
where it suited their inclinations, to put to sea in the top-hats of
their ancestors and return to harbour as weather or the fish dictated,
whose instinctive attitude towards strangers was about as encouraging
as that of the Solomon Islanders.

"We took 'em and trained 'em--gradually, you understand. Taught 'em to
salute the King's uniform, an' just why orders had to be obeyed:
explained it all gently"--the stupendous hand made a gesture in the air
as if stroking something. "Then after a while we moved 'em on to
something else--the Game itself, in fact--and my merry men tumbled to
it in no time. It was in their blood, I guess. They'd hunted
something all their lives, and they weren't scared because they had to
take on something a bit bigger. I tell you, after a few weeks I just
prayed for a submarine to come along and show what we could do."

The Volunteer grinned understandingly. "Well?" he said.

"We got one a week later. Just for all the world like a bloomin'
salmon. First we knew that there was one about was the _Merrie
Maggie_, one of our trawlers, blowing up. Well, I'd been over the same
spot in the morning, and there were no mines there then, so I knew our
friend wasn't far off...." The Submarine Hunter mused for a moment,
staring at