By seven bells in the afternoon watch the dusk of the long winter night began again to settle over the sea, blotting out one patrol from another. On this as on many other similar nights spent in the bitter frost, thick sea fog or flying spume, in waters infested with mines and hostile submarines, certain senses became dulled, though the brain remained alert and the limbs as active as cramp and cold would allow. But the little incidents of those long hours are lost in blurred memories of cries from the look-out, hulls towering out of the blackness, the flashing of Morse lamps, the ceaseless and violent pitching and rolling of a small ship, moments of tense excitement, followed by hours of cold and an utter weariness of the soul.
When the first pale streaks of returning daylight had turned to the fiery red of a frosty sunrise, dirty and unshaven men moved painfully about the slippery decks. The sea had flattened in the night and the snowing had ceased, but twenty degrees of frost had gripped the wet decks and the soaked clothing. As the vessels stood towards the shore weary eyes were turned anxiously on the signal station, but not yet was the recall to be hoisted, for although the seas around had been swept clear of mines, there was still a careful inspection to be made before the area could be reported clear, so that ships might come and go.
When at last a line of flags fluttered to the distant mast-head away on the hill ashore, and the signal-boy read out, "M.L.'s to return to harbour," there was a feeble cheer.
. . . . . . . .
On a calm, frosty morning some three weeks later the boats of the old night guard, now doing their spell of day duty, discovered a long trail of thick greenish-black oil on the surface leading seawards. It was evident that a hostile submarine had rested during the previous night on the sandy bottom in the shallow water close inshore and, rising to the surface, had made off at daybreak. The trail was followed and information was quickly received from an Iceland trawler, which had passed the submarine on the surface some two hours previous. Ships were concentrated by wireless, and although it did not fall to the lot of the M.L.'s to give the coup de grâce, they had the satisfaction of returning to harbour with the knowledge that their honour had been retrieved, and yet another German submarine would never again commit outrage on the high seas.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CASUALTY
There were duties performed by the new navy which bore no relationship to anti-submarine fighting, or, in fact, to warfare at all, unless it was to the ceaseless battle waged between all who go down to the sea in ships and the elements they seek to master.