ctions. This time a fiery rocket, bearing a life-line, soared
from its tube with a loud hiss and sped across the hundred yards of
boiling sea. It straddled the wreck. The thin line it carried was soon
exchanged for a stout hawser--hauled from the breakwater--and this was
made fast to the stump of the mainmast, which had followed the other
"sticks" overboard when the vessel heeled over on the rocks. It was now
floating, wrestling and tugging at the mass of confused rigging, and
pounding dangerously at the ship's side.

One by one the unfortunate Norse crew were hauled over the harbour bar
in the breeches-buoy by fifty willing British sailors, and the first to
come was the captain's wife and little daughter.

There was but one casualty, and that among the rescuers. The stretcher
was lifted from the ambulance at the door of the substantially built
house standing back from the little town. A white-faced woman ran out
into the storm. She had spent a year of nights and days half expecting
such as this, and now that it had come the blood seemed to ebb from her
body, and at first she scarcely heard a familiar voice assuring her that
it was only a cut on the head from a broken wire rope.

CHAPTER XIX

HOW H.M. TRAWLER NO. 6 LOST HER REFIT

AN earlier chapter described the periodical overhauls necessary to keep
the ships of the hard-worked auxiliary navy in proper fighting
condition. These "refits" were needed not only by the ships but also by
the men who worked them. They came about once a year and lasted for two
or three weeks, during which time the crews were able to go home for at
least a few days of much-needed rest.

To describe how everyone, from commander to signal-boy, looked forward
to these spells of leave is unnecessary. Let the reader imagine how he
himself would feel after nine or ten months of the monotony and danger,
to say nothing of the hardships, of life at sea in time of war.

There was, however, another consideration, one seldom referred to but
nevertheless unavoidably present in the minds of all. Each time a refit
came round there were ships which would never be docked again, and
comrades who had missed their leave. Men told themselves that the luck
they had enjoyed for so long could not last, and it is about one of
these, in a fight against overwhelming odds, that the following story
deals.

Three of his Majesty's armed trawlers were plunging through the sea on
their lonely beat in the West