Part 4

But the affairs of that Sunday were not yet complete. Twenty minutes after the mine had been exploded a great rumble was heard way out at sea, and soon it was ascertained by the captain of the mine-sweeper that a Scandinavian tramp had met her doom by striking a German mine.

"We went off to see if we could pick up some of the poor chaps," observed the skipper. "Among the twenty-one men and boys we rescued were four who'd been passengers aboard a passenger vessel which had been torpedoed by a German U-boat without warning near Malta. They told us, when they got down into our engine-room, that they were just having one hell of a time getting home. I don't blame them for thinking that. Through good fortune, and taking chances of being sent to the bottom ourselves, we have saved the lives of many of these neutrals who might have perished. Yes, here we are mine-sweeping as a job, flying the white ensign of the British Navy; and yet we have found time to save life imperilled by the enemy. Sometimes I wonder what sly Fritz would have to say if he'd even saved a single neutral. He'd be blowing yet. Did you ever stop to think that our Government never has jeopardised a single neutral life? On the other hand, the lives of neutrals that have been rescued at this port run into the thousands. They talk about the freedom of the seas. What else has there been until Germany showed that what she wants is the 'tyranny of the seas.' Leastways, that's how it strikes me. Ever stop to----"

His attention was caught by a signal from the other vessel, and a keen-eyed sailor wig-wagged back an answer. It was all right, although at first I still remembered the timely warning regarding the slightly submerged mine. As a matter of fact, it was merely a desire of the sister ship's captain to turn around and "sweep back," as the land-lubber might term it.

"Let's see," said the commander, "where was I.... Oh, yes.... Realise that we go out and save lives that the enemy imperils far out at sea? They are lives that don't concern us, but we don't feel like letting a poor chap drown if we can help it. On the other hand, our enemy stops at nothing, and, moreover, takes advantage of our humanity. I think that it should be known that we dash out to the rescue never knowing when the ship may go up against one of Fritz's eggs, which may be anywhere in the sea. Why do we go? Just to pick up a benighted lot from an ill-fated tramp, and there's nothing in it. Yet we do it all the time, and the C.O. commends us for it, too."

We came to a new spot in the green sea to sweep. It was fairly rough, and the little vessel bumped and jumped. And this is the work that goes on from daybreak to dusk seven days a week. If a trawler strikes a mine she usually counts on saying good-bye to herself and 80 per cent. of her crew, and the other type of mine-sweeper is lucky if she gets off with a loss of less than 40 per cent.

Back and forth in a monotonous sea we steamed, and you had an idea how dull this work can be sometimes; also that when it comes to sweeping you saw that the North Sea is a big place.

"It's become a science," observed the skipper. "Fritz has a hard time many a night 'laying his eggs,' and the many ways we have of bringing them to the surface has baffled him a good deal."

A torpedo-boat destroyer hove within signalling distance. The commander was handed a message by a sailor. The alert skipper read it, and said:--

"Tell 'em 'yes.'... Just want to know if we had swept around there."

Still the smoke-coloured little vessels kept up the job of plying back and forth in the waters. Men were busy at the stern of the ships watching the wooden kites that are made so as to catch the mines by the hawser that is slung between the two steamers. The slightest sign of a ball-like piece of steel in the sea and the dullness of sweeping is relieved, for then the skipper knows that he has unhooked one of the mines. Along came a submarine, flying the white ensign of the Royal Navy. The mine-sweepers realise that these men have no arm-chair job, and admire the commander and crew of the under-water boats accordingly. A sailor semaphored with his arms, and the commander of the mine-sweeper sent a message back, and the submarine passed slowly on her way.

"If some of those people at home and abroad at their firesides realised what the men at sea have to suffer to keep this coast free they might have a different way of talking," declared the commander, now taking to his much-burned old pipe. "Those chaps that have just come in have had a week without any sleep--or next to none--and their food has all been canned stuff. There are many persons who think the North Sea's a pond--same as they do over in America."

On we steamed in our section of the waters with never a sign of a German mine. Finally, the day came to a close, and the captain ordered the hawser to be slipped and the kite hoisted in the stern crane of his vessel, the like being done by the other sweeper.

As if glad that the day's work was over, the small craft pressed forward to the harbour, and were disappointed to find that a big tramp was taking up the room of their berths. They anchored outside, waiting for the big steamer to get away.

"Do they tell you when you can come alongside the dock?" I asked.

"No need to," said the captain with a smile. "You'll see."

We had been in the open harbour for about twenty minutes when the bows of the ugly vessel came slowly on. An instant later all the small craft were ready to speed to their respective berths in their turns, and it was not so very long before the mine-sweeper was tied to her part of the dock. The commander of the sister vessel to the one I had been aboard came over to us.

"Good ship that of yours?" I said.

"Yes," muttered the man with two rings of the Royal Naval Reserve on his sleeve. "She's all right; but I love this ship. I had her a year ago, and she's a little wonder. It would take me a long while to love another vessel."

My skipper laughed.

"Just one of those days," he said. "Come, let's go and have a spot."

V. THE ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION

Buffeted about from Antwerp to Gallipoli, Egypt, the Greek Islands, Salonika, and then to France, first under an admiral, then part of an army corps, again under an admiral, and finally back to military regime--the life of the Royal Naval Division, which startled an Empire by their valour on the Ancre, has been one full of thrills, sorrows, threats of extinction, brave deeds, and perilous journeys. They are proud of their naval origin, and are also tenacious of their naval customs, despite the fact that all their fighting has been done ashore and few sailors survive among them.

In August, 1914, Mr. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, mobilised and organised, as a division for land fighting, reservist seamen, stokers and marines, and naval volunteers whose services were not required afloat, also recruits drawn mainly from among the miners of the North of England and Scotland. Guards' officers, naval and marine instructors--each in his own ritual--help to train them. To the Navy, who raided them when it needed seamen or stokers for its ships, they were "dry-land sailors." To the Army, they were just a bunch of "so-called salts" or "Winston's Own." But their instructors soon recognised that in these grousing, middle-aged stokers, and in these silent stolid illiterate miners and ironworkers from the North Country, they had the raw material of soldiers as fine as Great Britain can breed.

In many respects, the Division has had the worst of both worlds. They have beaten their way steadily to the fore without much recognition in print; but since Beaucourt fell, both military and naval men have been eager to grasp their hands.

Now and again a brief mention fell to their lot while they were in Gallipoli, where the military were attracted to them a bit by the idea of calling their battalions after famous admirals such as Nelson, Drake, Hood, Collingwood, Anson, Howe, Benbow, and Hawke. Sir Ian Hamilton made mention of the fearlessness of the division in his despatches, and Major-General D'Amade eulogised them for their bravery after the frays of the 6th, 7th, and 8th of May, 1915. In June, 1915, the Collingwood battalion was wiped out; of the officers of this battalion and of the Hood, who went to the attack, not one returned unwounded. The other battalions also suffered terribly, having been equally contemptful of danger.

Prior to that they had, of course, been to Antwerp. Even if they did not have a chance to do much, the Division, at any rate, caused the Belgians to hold out for five days longer than they might otherwise have done.

Among the many brave men on the officers' roll are well-known Britishers who have given their lives for their country. There was Rupert Brooke, the poet; Denis Browne, formerly musical critic of The Times; F. S. Kelly, holder of the Diamond Sculls record, who also was an exceptionally clever composer and pianist; and Arthur Waldene St. Clair Tisdall, a great scholar and poet of Cambridge. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour on the 25th of April, at Gallipoli, for going to the rescue of wounded men on the beach. To accomplish this, he pushed a boat in front of him. On his second trip he was obliged to ask for help. In all, he made five trips in the face of great danger. He met death in action barely three weeks afterwards.

Lieutenant-Commander Arthur M. Asquith, son of the former British Premier, is one of the gallant men attached to the Hood battalion. He has been through the thick of many fights, and has been wounded more than once, escaping death through sheer good fortune.