Acting Sub-lieutenant Sefton brought his binoculars to bear upon the nearmost trawler. The action was merely a perfunctory one. He knew both trawlers almost about as much as their own crews did, and certainly more than their respective owners in pre-war times. For close on fifty hours, watch in and watch out, the Calder had been dancing attendance on these two almost insignificant specimens of the North Sea fishing-fleet--the Carse o' Gowrie and the Dimpled Lassie, both registered at the port of Aberdeen.
Carrying bare steerage-way, the destroyer glided slowly past the Dimpled Lassie's port quarter. From the trawler's stern a flexible wire hawser led beneath the foaming wake of the propeller, dipping with a sag that did not gladden the heart of the young officer of the watch.
"Any luck yet?" shouted Sefton through an enormous megaphone.
At the hail two men's heads appeared above the bulwarks aft, while a greatcoated figure came in view from behind the storm-dodgers of the trawler's bridge.
"Not the least, sir," replied the master of the Dimpled Lassie, Peter M'Kie, skipper R.N.R. "Are we right, sir?"
The acting-sub had a few minutes previously taken an observation. The destroyer was playing the part of nursemaid to the two trawlers, for although both skippers could find their way, even in thick weather, almost anywhere in the North Sea, solely by the aid of lead-line and compass, neither had the faintest experience in the use of the sextant.
"Ought to be right over it," replied Sefton. "Carry on, and trust to luck."
The trawlers were "creeping" with grapnels. Not for mines, although there was always a possibility of hooking one of those fiendish contrivances. That was a risk that the tough fisherman faced with an equanimity bordering on fatalism. Mine-sweeping they had engaged upon almost continuously since the notable month of August, 1914. Now they were on particular service--a service of such importance and where so much secrecy was imperative that these two Scottish trawlers had been sent expressly from a northern base to scour the bed of the North Sea in the neighbourhood of Great Yarmouth, where there were Government craft for disposal in abundance.
Sefton replaced his binoculars, and, turning, found that his superior officer had just come on deck and was standing at his elbow.
Lieutenant Richard Crosthwaite, D.S.O., the "owner" of the destroyer, was one of those young officers who had made good use of the chances that the war had thrown in his way. Specially promoted for good work in the Dardanelles, he found himself at a comparatively early age in command of a destroyer that had already made a name for herself in the gallant but ill-starred operations against the Turks.