. . . . . . . .

Running before the wind and sea the German raider _Frederick_, carefully
disguised and loaded with several hundred mines, approached the British
coast. The gale was increasing in force as darkness closed down, and
heavy showers of sleet shielded her from the view of any passing craft.
The weather was ideal for her dark purpose, which was to lay a
mine-field over a stretch of sea where it was thought the Anglo-American
trade routes converged.

For the first few days out from Wilhelmshaven the weather had been misty
with heavy snowfalls, conditions enabling the mine-layer (and afterwards
raider) to run the blockade and elude the network of patrols, not,
however, without some very close shaves. On one occasion a large
auxiliary cruiser passed in a snow squall, and during subsequent
movements the raider found herself in the midst of a British fishing
fleet, but passed unrecognised in the darkness. And now that she was
approaching the British coast, and the scene of actual operations, the
barometer again obliged by falling rapidly.

It was a wild night and very dark when the first mine splashed
overboard. A snowstorm set in, and as the work proceeded heavy seas
broke over the vessel, smothering her with spray, but she was
comparatively a large ship, built for ocean trade. Although the darkness
and the snow were conditions favourable to the laying of mines in
secret, and without their aid the danger of discovery would have been
great, the rising gale and the heavy seas rendered the work both
difficult and dangerous, notwithstanding that these deadly weapons were
so arranged as to go automatically overboard.

Before the last of her cargo had been consigned to the deep it was
blowing great guns, and one sea after another was breaking over the
ship. Although sheltered waters lay less than fifty miles distant, to
proceed there would mean certain discovery and destruction, so all
through that wild night, and for many hours afterwards, the raider
sought by every means in her power to battle seawards, away from the
coast and danger, heading into the teeth of the gale and out on to the
broad bosom of the North Atlantic, all unknowing that but for the
severity of the storm she must have been observed, probably in the very
act of laying the mine-field, by the small warship riding out the
north-wester in the more sheltered waters close inshore.

* * *