LITMIR.BIZ

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      What we had done to our otter trawl I don't think anyone knew, least of all the "hand," and I am none the wiser to this day, but it caught fish. We treasured that trawl as something exceedingly precious, and nothing, nothing whatsoever, would cause us to alter its ropes or leads a hair's breadth. We lived in constant dread that we should meet a "hitch" (an obstacle on the bottom of the sea) that would make it necessary to cut the warp and lose this wonderful trawl. It would have taken two weeks, perhaps two months, to discover another like it, and we were averaging fifty pounds a week.

      Success breeds ambition, and I installed a motor auxiliary engine. Further, there is only one way of catching more fish than by trawling all day, and that is trawling all night. The fish, especially whiting, do not see the net coming in the dark. So we acquired the habits of night-hawks, sailing at four o'clock in the afternoon, and returning at six the next morning. It paid. It paid handsomely. What should I not be able to report at the next general meeting of dream merchants?

      It was a fine sight on a pitch-black night to see our wake streaming away like smoke from the propeller, so bright with phosphorescence that it seemed a powerful light must be hung over the stern. And to watch the net, lit with a myriad tiny lamps, creeping in yard by yard. Then, what a splashing as the big skate and plaice came alongside!

      It must be remembered that the dream ship's career as a fishing smack was during the last phases of the great war. She saw three German submarines, two steamers sunk, and had her stalwart ribs severely shaken by depth-charges on several occasions. In fact, as one concussion caused her to leak, I had serious thoughts of decorating her with a wound-stripe on the starboard quarter. What the effect of one of those fearful implements of destruction must be at close quarters, and while submerged, I can hardly imagine. I only know that one was dropped about half a mile from the dream ship, and from the cabin it sounded as though someone had hit the oil-tanks with a sledge-hammer, and felt as though she had run bow on, and at a nine-knot clip, into an iceberg.

      Over twenty good, sound fishing smacks belonging to the fleet with which we sailed were sent to the bottom by German submarines. In one case the crew were stripped of their jerseys—the only article aboard the smack that seemed to appeal to the Hun—and left on deck while the submarine submerged under their feet. The one survivor's chief complaint appeared to be the loss of his jersey.

      On more than one occasion a German submarine appeared in the midst of the fishing fleet, which they favoured as an unsuspected lurking-place. Warps were cut on the instant, and, under full sail, a hundred smacks might have been seen racing harbourward minus their gear. This became such a common occurrence that patrol boats were sent out with the fleet, and "forbidden areas" created.

      These last were unpopular with fishermen. The authorities seemed to pitch inevitably on the most prolific grounds to place under the ban. Poaching became general. In one instance the skipper of a smack, who had had a bad "week's work," decided to make amends or perish in the effort. He altered the registered number of his boat, which is carried in large white figures on the mainsail and bow, with whitewash, burnt-corked the faces of himself and his crew, and sailed for the banned area.

      For hours he trawled backward and forward across the holy ground, with dread and hope alternating in his heart, and with the first hint of dawn hauled in his net, to discover that in the general excitement he had "shot" his trawl with the cod-end untied!

      Nothing daunted, he returned to the attack the following night, and as Fate the Jester so often decrees, on this occasion, when the cod-end was securely tied and all going well, the hated voice of the fisheries inspector, better known as the "bogey-man," came out of the night, close alongside: "You are reported for trawling in the proscribed area."

      Simultaneously a shaft of light from an electric torch bit into the darkness, exposing the smack's number and her black-faced crew.

      "Stand by. I'm coming aboard," were the next instructions, but the men were suddenly electrified into life. In stony silence, so that their voices should not be recognized, the skipper successfully threatened the boarding "bogey-man" with a cutlass, while the crew set the steam capstan to work and soon had the trawl aboard with its valuable freight.

      With the "bogey-man" still threatening dire vengeance, the smack stood out to sea, and catching the morning breeze, outstripped the inspector's launch. The authorities never knew who perpetrated this outrage, as, when they came to look up the smack's number in the register, they found it to be that of an antiquated hulk that had never left harbour.

      It is to be feared that the dream ship poached. On one occasion a thick fog descended upon her while trawling. She continued the motion blindly for three hours, when the fog lifted and we discovered—naturally with deep regrets—that we had covered a forbidden area from end to end, and had caught sole, plaice, and turbot to the value of forty pounds.

      The dream ship had many experiences while "paying for herself," and was destined to have many more. For her size, it is doubtful if any craft has enjoyed a more varied life, and the more I think of her lying there in foreign waters, ... But of this anon.

      THE PREPARATION

       Concerning preparations in general, and personnel in particular

      Chapter II headpiece

      CHAPTER II

       Concerning preparations in general, and personnel in particular

      Our separate excursions into the field of commerce resulted in a healthier financial outlook at the next general meeting of dream merchants. Plans developed apace. Lists were made, schedules drawn up. An actual sailing date began to emerge out of a welter of conjecture.

      On paper, the dream ship was converted from a work-worn fishing-smack into a cruiser yacht of comfort and elegance within a month, and a trifle under the estimated cost.

      On paper, the art of navigation was acquired in our spare time, after the airy fashion of a Correspondence-School advertisement.

      And again on paper—a map of the world outspread on the cabin table, to be exact—we actually decided on our route. At the point of an indomitable lead pencil we traversed vast tracts of ocean in the winking of an eye, and explored the furthermost corners of the earth; and if there is a more fascinating evening's entertainment, I should like to hear of it.

      Spain should be touched at, for the sake of her wine, if nothing else; perhaps Madeira, and most certainly the Canary Islands. After that, there was the little matter of the Atlantic Ocean, ending in the West Indies. Then came the Caribbean Sea, the Panama Canal, and so down into the milky way of the Pacific. It looked a long way; it was a long way, but we had a ship, and we had a crew, and what was the sea if not the highway of the earth? The enthusiasm of ignorance? Perhaps; yet I am convinced that without the enthusiasm, and most certainly without the ignorance, we should never have set sail, much less won through to our goal.

      The transition from fancy to fact was effected the following morning, when Steve and I commenced the soul-racking task of transferring twelve tons of rusty pig-iron from the dream ship's bilge to the quay alongside which we lay. This mass of obstinate metal had to be chipped and painted, and ultimately replaced so that we might disport ourselves on our beam ends, if the elements so willed, without shifting it. It was one of the dream ship's strong points, that her ballast was all "inside." There was no "fin" of lead hanging from her keel, that might come adrift from a multitude of causes, and leave us a tottering hulk. I told Steve this, as we wrestled with two hundredweight pigs, that had a knack of slipping their moorings in mid-air, and crashing through the cabin floor boards, or on to our anatomies with striking impartiality. I told it to him again, as we sat in the rain on the quay, chipping rust into each other's eyes, but received no satisfactory reply on either occasion.

      "By the way," was all he said that evening, when, weary and bruised and rusty, we flung ourselves on our bunks, "according to schedule, this is where we study navigation, isn't it?" And for three mortal hours he gave his undivided attention to a nautical epitome. That is the kind of man

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