"No," Rodney answered. "No, the Levity is in the repair yard. She got a bit knocked about in the scrap we had with the enemy off Heligoland. But in any case, I was only aboard her temporarily. Destroyers don't carry midshipmen as a rule, you know. I've been appointed to the Dauntless, the new light cruiser out there. Captain Damant is in command of her. She's heaps better than the Atreus; in fact, she's about the best light cruiser in the service. I thought you'd heard of my luck. I wrote to mother about it."
"But I haven't seen mother for over a week." Mark explained. "I expect to see her to-morrow, though."
"I'm afraid you won't," Rodney told him. "I believe you've got to sweep up a new mine-field that the Germans have laid south of the Dogger. That's where the Rapid was sunk this morning."
"The Rapid! Was she mined?"
"Yes, worse luck. No lives were lost, though; and, of course, she was obsolete, and no good for fighting, so it's not very serious. We'd already paid the enemy in advance, seeing that Lieutenant Ingoldsby torpedoed one of their newest destroyers yesterday afternoon. I'm awfully glad to have met you. Give my love to mother and the girls when you get home, and tell them I'm getting to know the North Sea as well as I know our own garden. Good night."
Mark drew back to make way for the lieutenant, who had been giving the skipper instructions for the sweeping of the new mine-field.
At daylight the next morning, having taken in fresh stores, the Dainty and her consorts steamed off.
On arriving at the scene of their duties they found another fleet of trawlers already at work, helped by an aeroplane. They combined in a systematic sweep of the known area and exploded some scores of mines without an accident. The new picking-up net lately introduced was doubtless the reason of this freedom from disaster.
Sweeping the seas for explosive mines indiscriminately laid by the enemy for the destruction of any ship which might run up against them, was not the only work in which the British steam trawlers and drifters were engaged. These stout little vessels, with their hardy crews of North Sea fishermen, were also engaged to act as scouts and messengers patrolling the coasts. Many of them were fitted with wireless masts, by means of which they sent out reports by code of anything suspicious which might be observed.
Thus, while the Dainty was still in the neighbourhood of the Dogger Bank, threading her way through a fleet of English herring smacks, Mark Redisham was able to send out a wireless message intimating that a German submarine of the largest and newest type had been seen. He gave her number as U50, and added that she had been watched taking in a supply of petrol and other stores from a captured English trawler manned by Germans.