KEEPERS OF THE SEA.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 23, 22 March 1918, Page 6

KEEPERS OF THE SEA.

A STRANGE VARIETY OE CRAFT.

Keepers of the seal Do the public know even in a dim and shadowy way what a strangely diversified force are its wardens —over the waters, under the water, on the water, “carrying on” with the duty of protecting the seaways along which we must pass to victory —or never get there at all? High overhead soared a string of aircraft, a whole long line of them, which, reaching from horizon to horizon, seemed like a wide arch of seaplanes flung across the sky. Beneath the span of these aerial scouts and forming a kind of chord to the arc they made steamed a flotilla of submarines differing in type. Some showed only the hump of their conning-towers above the water that curled around them; others reminded one of great grey whales bearing a little ‘ ‘ castle ’ ’ filled with. men upon their backs. As these eerie craft rippled along one visualised those other men of their crews who could not be seen, but were standing quietly at their posts in the submerged hulls amid a clatter of machinery, a few feet only under water, yet isolated as completely from the world about them as it is possible for men to be. Except by the “pointers” which told their depth they would scarcely know whether they were near the top or the bottom—and, possibly, they were too busy with valves and levers to bother much about so.small a thing as this. Farther off destroyers were coming along with their masterful sweep. The perfect embodiment of concentrated power, they shore contemptuously through the billows, disdaining to lift a forefoot to step over even the highest of them. Instead of giving to the sea they invited its buffets. In either side their sharp blows flung great walls of seething water, while astern of them stretched in swan’s paths of fleecy whiteness the long wakes of snowy foam. Woe to any U-boat that lurked where they ran, for with a turn of the wheel they would pounce upon it as a terrior snaps up a rat. Turning from the destroyers, one's eyes fell upon quaint, lumpish patrol boats. High above these swung a kite baloon floating about like a mammoth green speck in the eyes of the morning sun, an odd contrast to the little airship which could just be discerned threading the mists far away in the offing. Both “gasbags” supported perches, wherein sat “cherubs” who had gone aloft for the express purpose of taking care of the life of poor merchant Jack, and were doing their chilly task keenly, if not over cheerfully. It is hard to feel cheery with the Arctic in your bones. With clouds of smoke pouring from her funnels a torpedoboat (a kind of elderly relative of the destroyer) fussed her way into the picture, only to pass quickly out of it again. She also had an individual task among the “keepers,” and was getting through it with a self-important air, utterly heedless of anything else.

For awhile her smoke almost obscured a couple of minesweepers that were plodding abreast and rolling frightfully. With them it was now heads down, heels up; now the other way round. But the tubby old craft—trawlers both —went doggedly on with their business utterly heedless of the pitching and tossing. Nor were these the only “sweepers” thus linked together in different directions. Ugly half-grown Titans of monitors waddled ungracefully through the midst of shaplier hulls. Then a speck in the distance rapidly grew into a huge cruiser, which almost as rapidly dwindled into a speck again as she passed swiftly over the edge of the horieon. This remarkable of craft made its fascinating picture of alert movement in a comparatively small stretch of sea. And though it furnished only a partial index to our Fleet (despite the many types represented) one gathered from it an idea of the ceaseless activity always going on around our coasts.—“Jaokstaff," in the “Daily Mail."