VII
'THE PRICE O' FISH'
THE inshore patrol hailed us and reported the channel clear as far as the Nore, and we stood on at full speed, making the most of the short winter daylight. Past the Elbow buoy, we met the minesweepers returning from a sweep of their section. They were steaming in two columns, line ahead, and we sheered a little to give them room; within the reading of our Admiralty instructions, they were a 'squadron in formation,' to whose movements we were advised to give way. They passed close. The leader of the port column was Present Help; we read the name on a gilt scroll that ornamented her wheelhouse. For the rest, she was trim in a coat of iron-grey, with her port and number painted over. A small gun—a six-pounder, perhaps—was mounted on her bows, and she carried a weather-stained White Ensign aloft. She scurried past us, pitching to our bow wash in an easy sidling motion that set her wheelhouse glasses flashing a cheery message. The skipper leaned from an open doorway, in an attitude of ease that, somehow, assured us of his day's work being well done—with no untoward happenings. He waved his cap to our greeting. Present Help and her sisters went by, and we returned to our course in the fairway.
"These lads," said the pilot, waving his arm towards the fast-receding flotilla. "If it wasn't for these lads, Capt'n, you and I wouldn't feel exactly comfortable on the bridge in channel waters. Two went up this week, and one a little while agone." He turned his palms upward and raised both arms in an expressive gesture. . . . "Three gone, one with all hands, but only one merchant ship done in by mines hereabouts in the last month. (Starboard, a little, quartermaster!). . . I dunno how we could carry on without them. Out there in all weathers, clearing the fairways and—Gad!—it takes some doing. . . . I was talking to one of the skippers in Ramsgate the other day. Saying what I'm saying—(Steady, now, steady's you go!)—what I'm saying now, and all he said was—'Right, pilot,' he says. 'If you feels that way, remember it when we gets back to th' fishin' in peace-time, an'—for th' Lord's sake—keep clear o' our gear when th' nets is down! I lost a tidy lot o' gear,' he says, 'with tramps an' that bargin' about on th' fishin' grounds.'. . . He didn't think nothing of this minesweeping. His mind was bent on his nets and the fish again." A pause, while he conned the ship on a steady course, then, reflectively, "An' there's some folks—there's folks ashore growling about the price o' fish!"
Of courage in the war, on land as on sea, there are few records comparable to the silent devotion of the fishermen. The heat of attack and fury of battle may call out a reckless heroism that has no bounds to individual gallantry, but the sustained courage required for a lone action under heavy odds—every turn of the engagement being assessed and understood—is of a rarer quality; mere physical health and high spirit cannot generate it; tradition of a sea-inherence and long self-training alone can bring it forth. That the fishermen (inured to a life of bold hazard and hardship) would offer valuable service in emergency was never doubted, but that the level of their gallantry should reach such heights, even those who knew them were hardly prepared to assume. And we were weak in our judgment, for their records held ample evidence by which we should have been able to predict a bravery in war action no less notable than their courage in the equally perilous ways of their trade. For a lifetime at war with the sea, wresting a precarious living from the grudging depths, their skill and resolution required no stimulus under the added stress of sea-warfare. In the fury of the channel gales, shipwreck and disaster called forth the same spirit of dogged endurance and elevating humanity that marks their new seafaring under arms. The countless instances of their service to vessels in distress, to torpedoed merchantmen and warships, in the records of strife, are but repetitions of their sea-conduct throughout the years of their trading. When Rozhdestvensky's panic-stricken gunlayers opened fire on the 'Gamecock' fleet on the Dogger, the story of that outrage was distinguished by the same heroism of the trawlermen that ennobles their diary to-day. When the Crane was sinking, the crew of Gull, themselves suffering under fire, boarded her to rescue the survivors. . . . "When they got on board the Crane they found the living members of the crew lying about injured. The vessel was in total darkness, and it was known that at any moment she might founder; yet Costello (the Gull's boatswain) went below to the horrible little forecastle to bring up Leggatt's dead body. Smith (the second hand), who took charge of the Crane when the skipper was killed, refused to leave her till every man had been taken off. Rea (the engineer) showed unyielding courage when, in spite of the fact that the little ship was actually foundering, he groped back to the engine-room, which was in total darkness, to reach the valves. The stokehold was flooded with water, and Rea could do nothing. He went on deck, where the skipper was lying dead, and all the survivors, except the boy, were wounded."
In all its bearings, the comradely action of the Gull was but a foreshadowing of Gowan Lea's assistance to Floandi in the raid by Austrian cruisers on the drifter line in the Adriatic. The circumstances were curiously alike—the actual occurrence, the individual deeds. We have Skipper Nichols refusing to leave until his wounded were embarked, and Engineman Mobbs groping (as Rea did) through the scalding steam of Floandi's wrecked engine-room to reach the stokehold and draw the fires. Then, as in the Russians' sea-panic of October 1904, the fishermen (fighting seamen now) came under a sudden and murderous gunfire at close range. Overpowered by heavy armament, there was no flinching, no surrender. Gowan Lea headed for the enemy with her one six-pounder spitting viciously. The issue was not considered—though Skipper Joseph Watt must have had no doubt that he was steering his drifter towards certain destruction. Her gun was quickly put out of action. Her funnel and wheelhouse were riddled and shot to pieces. Water made on her through shot-holes in the hull. On the gun-platform, her gunlayer struggled to repair the mechanism of the breech—his leg dangling and shattered. Shell-torn and incapable of further attack, she drifted out of the line of fire. Bad as was her own condition, there were others in worse plight. Floandi had come under direct point-blank fire, and her decks were a shambles. Out of control—her main steam-pipe being shot through—seven dead or badly wounded, and only three remaining to work her, she was in dire need of assistance. Skipper Watt observed the distress of his sea-mate and steered Gowan Lea down to her to offer the same brotherhood as of the Gull to Crane. The analogy is peculiarly complete: the boarding, the succour to the wounded, the reverent handling of the dead. Not as a new spirit born of the stress of war, but as the outcome of an age-old tradition, Gowan Lea stood by.
After four years of warfare at sea, serving under naval direction and discipline, one would have expected the fisherman sailing under the White Ensign to lose at least a certain measure of his former character—to have become a naval seaman in his habits of thought, in his actions, his outlook. Four years of constant service! A long term! He has come under a control that differs as poles apart from the free days of 'fleeting' and 'single boating.' He is set to service in unfamiliar waters and abnormal climates, but the habits of the old trade still cling to him. New gear comes to his hands—sweeps, depth-keepers, explosive nets, hydrophones, and paravanes—but he regards them all as adaptations to his fishing service. He is unchanged. He is still fishing; that his 'catch' may be a huge explosive monster capable of destroying a Dreadnought does not seem to have imposed a new turn to his thoughts. He is apart from the regular naval service. The influence of his familiar little ship, the association of his kindred shipmates, the technics of a common and unforgettable trade, have proved stronger than the prestige of a naval uniform. In his terms and way of speech, he draws no new farrago from his brassbound shipmate. Did not the skipper of the duty patrol hail Aquitania on her approach to the Clyde booms and advise the captain? . . . 'Tak' yeer bit boatie up atween thae twa trawlers!'
The devotion and gallantry and humanity of the fishermen is not confined to the enlisted section who man the patrol craft and minesweepers. The regular trade, the old trade, works under the same difficulties and dangers that ever menaced the ingathering of the sea-fishery. Serving on the sea in certain areas, the older men and the very young still contrive to shoot the nets and down the trawls. Their contribution to the diminished food-supply of the country is not gained without loss; 'the price o' fish' is too often death or mutilation or suffering under bitter exposure in an open boat. The efforts of the enemy to stop our food-supply are directed with savage insistence towards reducing the rations drawn from the deeps of the sea; brutality and vengeful fury increase in intensity as the days pass and the indomitable fishermen return and return to their grounds. In August 1914, fast German cruisers and torpedo-boats raided our fleets on the Dogger Bank. Twenty fishing vessels were sunk, their crews captured. There was no killing. ". . . The sailors [of the torpedo-boat] gave us something to eat and drink, and we could talk and were pretty free," said the skipper of Lobelia. Later, on being taken ashore ". . . with German soldiers on each side of us, and the women and boys and girls shouting at us and running after us and pelting us, we were marched through the streets of Wilhelmshaven to a prison." Hardship, abuse! Now ridicule! ". . . The Germans stripped us of everything we had. . . . But they were not content with that—they disfigured us by cutting one half of the hair of our heads off and one half of the moustache, cropping close and leaving the other half on, making you as ugly as they could. . . . It was a nasty thing to do; but we made the best of it, and laughed at one another."
Hardship, abuse, ridicule! The fishermen still served their trade at sea. Now, brutality! The third hand of Boy Ernie details the callous precision of German methods in September 1915. The smack was unarmed. ". . . It was very heavy and deliberate fire. [There were two enemy submarines.] The shots . . . were coming on deck and going through the sails. We threw the boat overboard and tumbled into her. . . . I started sculling the boat away from the smack, all the time under fire; but the Germans were not content with firing shells at a helpless craft—they now turned a machine-gun on to defenceless fishermen in a boat on the open sea. . . . The boat was getting actually riddled by the machine-gun fire, and before I knew what was happening, I was struck by a bullet on the right thigh, and began to bleed dreadfully. . . . The smack was blown to pieces and went down. This was the work of one of the submarines—while she was sinking the smack the other was firing on us."
Throughout all the malevolent and calculated campaign of destruction, the fishermen remain steadfast to their old traditions of humanity. When Vanilla is torpedoed without warning and vanishes in a welter of broken gear, her sea-mate, Fermo, dodging a second torpedo, steams to the wreckage to rescue the survivors—but finds none. In a heavy gale, Provident of Brixham risks her mast and gear, gybing to close the sinking pinnace of the torpedoed Formidable, and rescue the exhausted seventy-one men who crowded her. The instances of fisher help to merchantmen in peril are uncounted and uncountable.