THE FISHERMAN-SCOUT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15900, 24 April 1915, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE FISHERMAN-SCOUT.

MINE-SWEEPERS' DANGEROUS WORK. During the last six months vrt have heard much of the mine-sweeper and his dangerous work of clearing the trade routes of the deadly German mines; but little has been heard of the fishermanscout, who day and night patrols the sea and who can hardly hope to distinguish himself by doing something that will win 1 him praise and renown. Yet everywhere around the English coasts he is always on the alert, for even when a storm drives the fishing fleets to seek shelter in port he must slay on his lonely beat and perform the arduous duties of a sentinel of the sea. Occasionally he is allowed to spend a day or two ashore, and then you mar see that during the last six months he has been transformed from a blue guernseyed fisherman into some sort of a naval man, although, thanks to the generosity of subscribers to the Mire-sweepers' Fund, he is so well supplied with vari-colourcd woollen helmets, mittens and mufflers as to bear little resemblance to any other sailor-man seen afloat or ashore.

If you ask him what his duties are he can hardly tell you, for. as a rule, he sails "under sealed orders:" at least, until a scurrying little motor-launch overtakes him after he has left the harbour he neither knows where he is going nor what he has to do. One thing, however, he is well aware of, and that is that there will be no more trawling nor driftnet fishing for him until the war is over, for he is under Admiralty orders and receives Admiralty pay. He now belongs to the British Navy, and although he may sometime:) grumble that there is " a lot too much bloomin' discipline " about his new job, he is proud of his warrant officer's uniform or his Naval Reserve cap.

He may be a tough old skipper who knows the Iceland and Faroe fishing banks as well as he docs the North Sea and Grimsby Fish Dock Road, or he may be only a village lad who was cook on a steam drifter when the war began; but to-day he is one of His Majesty's sea scouts, and when he talks to you he generally has a way of letting you know it.

Trade Route Policeman. There are several thousand fishermen employed in mine-sweeping, and probably quite as many, if not more, engaged in patrolling the seas around the English coast. Their patrol boats are all steam trawlers and steam drifters (herring boats) which have been taken over by the Admiralty, and they are doing work which, if it were not for them, would have to be done by gunboats and destroyers. In a sense every British fishing vessel is now a sea scout, for the Board of Admiralty has publicly offered substantial rewards to any such vessel that brings in. or communicates to one of His Majesty's ships, useful information concerning the presence or movements of German warships or minelayers; but the master of a regular patrol boat receives definite ii structions as to the extent of ins " bent " and what lie must do if ho sights a German war vessel 0/ notices anything suspicious in the movement-" or behaviour of any ship- flying a neutral flag. He is the policeman of the trade routes, and no doubt he keeps a watchful eve on the foreign fishing llcets in the North Sea— duty no one can perform better than he because he is a fisherman himself and knows all that a fisherman should and should not do. He may not have a "wireless" apparatus with which to communicate with a British warship or the shore, hut he has not been left in doubt as to how lie may must quickly ►end important information. He knows that lie must be ready to run every risk rather than fail to do it.

Soon after the war broke out one old skipper of a patrol boat asked a naval ofluer how lie was to send news quickly if his boat was patrolling many miles away from a naval base. "Why, easily enough." was the prompt reply. "All you have to do is to pile your old boat up on the shore somewhere and run to the nearest coastguard station or telegraph office!" The skipper stared at the officer, for he knew that his "old boat" was onlv two years old and had cost £3300: but the'skippers of patrol boats do no*, ask such ideations now.

Mot Quite Defenceless. When more is known about the naval side of this war than is known to-day, it will be realised that it was a iortuaato

thing for Knglaud that at the outbreak of hostilities there were between 3000 and 4000 well-built, first-class steam trawlers and drifters from which the Admiralty could hire or commandeer vessels for mine-sweeping and patrolling. Steam trawlers wo havj had for many rears, but if war with Germany had broken out a few years ago, there would hive been no fast steam drifters to serve as scouts; lor until recently all the drifters were sailing boats. If the Admiralty had wanted to design small steamers' for mine-sweeping and patrol work, it could hardly have produced vessels more tit for the" work than the average steam trawler and steam drifter, and there is reason for believing that some of them have been, and will be. used for other useful purposes. Many of the drifters have iron hulls, and are by no means so defenceless as they appear to be. They look like simple fishing boat*, but a submarine that attempted to treat one of them in the way German submarines have lately treated British merchant ships might discover that she was nothing like so inoffensive as she looked.

They tell some strange tales, do these fishermen who catch no fish, but who sometimes see things we shall never read about in admirals' reports. They nugh,t alarm people who know little of the sea, and what is continually going on upon and beneath it.

The ships of neutral nations know them, and some of them are glad to follow in the wake of tho little boat flying the white ensign when they are picking their way through dangerous waters. At night the stealthy destroyer flashes its searchlight for a moment on the little boat.' but dashes onward without stopping, those on board her grateful, no doubt to the fishermen who have set them free to do their own good work. For the little boat is übiquitous. You may see it everywhere, from the North Foreland to Capo Wrath, and if you cannot see it you may be sure that it is the|9-