CHAPTER VII.
UNDER THE WHITE ENSIGN.
Because he was a Sea Scout, clever at semaphore signalling, with a knowledge of seamanship, resourceful, and generally handy, Mark Redisham had no difficulty in entering the Royal Naval Reserve, the more especially as he was strongly recommended by Captain Damant. It satisfied him greatly to be appointed at once as signal-boy and wireless operator on board His Majesty's steam trawler Dainty.
She was named the Dainty when launched, and as the Dainty she had toiled and battled for three stormy winters on the wild North Sea. But now her impudent white and red funnel and her gaudy hull were painted a sombre war grey, her trawling gear had been altered, her fish-well turned into a cabin, and the name on her bows had given place to the number 99. She was no longer a mere fishing craft, but classed as one of the great new fleet of naval mine-sweepers, flying the white ensign, and manned by a crew of sturdy East Coast fishermen wearing the blue jacket and loose trousers and flat-topped caps of the British Navy.
It was a proud moment for Mark when early on the morning following the "raid" on the pigeon-loft he went on duty, and the Dainty steamed out of Haddisport harbour and bore northward abreast of the lighthouse and past his home on the cliff. She was one of a squadron of twelve, and they went out in the company of the torpedo gunboat Rapid.
Word had come that the Germans had sown an extensive mine-field to the west and south of the Dogger Bank, scattering their deadly explosives over the seas, to the peril of peaceful trading vessels as well as of any British battleships and cruisers that might enter the area of danger. Two Danish cargo steamers and half a dozen English fishing boats had already been blown up, and our busy scavengers of the sea were now to go out and rake up the carefully-sown seedlings of death.
The work was dangerous, for at any moment one of the stout little vessels of the squadron might find a mine with her keel instead of with her stretched wire hawser, which meant ten more good men sent to the bottom. And there was always the risk of a premature explosion if a mine had to be handled in releasing it from its moorings.
Mines are not pleasant things to handle at any time—certainly not such powerful ones as the Germans employ, with glass "beards," or projecting spikes, the breaking of one of which results in an explosion great enough to sink a Dreadnought! They are charged, not with gun-cotton, but with the even stronger explosive known as T.N.T., which has the quality that if the mine filled with it strikes a ship it blows in the side of the vessel and then continues its destructive work in the interior.
The skipper of mine-sweeper 99 was Harry Snowling, R.N.R., an old salt who had fished for thirty years on the North Sea, and knew its deeps and shallows as well as he knew the lines on his own honest, weather-beaten face. But, of course, he had had no experience of mine-sweeping, and had only vague ideas as to how the mines were to be located.
"What's she doin' of, bor?" he questioned, when they were far out in the blue water, watching a seaplane sweeping overhead and flying to and fro athwart the gunboat's course.