ur command of the surface had stopped. While new and larger U-boats are
sent abroad on the trade routes, special submarines, less encumbered by
the stores and equipment that longer passages would demand, make
frequent visits to the fairways to sow a freight of mines. No section of
the channels holds sanctuary for the coaster. Close inshore, as in the
offing, is all a danger area, open to the stealthy visits of the
submarine minelayers. Right on the Mersey Bar, the Liverpool pilot
steamer went up with a loss of forty lives; remote West Highland bays
have echoed to the crash of mines exploded; seaward of the Irish banks,
the deeps are alike dangerous. Counter-measures there are (services as
efficient and resourceful in life-saving as those of the enemy are
cunning and viciously ingenious in murder), but even the gallantry and
skill and untiring efforts of our minesweepers cannot wholly clear the
immense water-spaces. Mechanical contrivances--the Otters--are valuable,
and aid in fending the mines, but (the sea-bottom being foul with
wreckage) they are often a danger to their carriers. There is ever the
harassing uncertainty which no vigilance may allay. The sheer relief of
passing over the hundred-fathom line to the comparative safety of the
deeps of ocean is never experienced by the cross-channel captain.

Favoured by their light draught and smaller proportions, the coasters
are perhaps less exposed to successful torpedo attack than their larger
and deeper ocean sisters. In the early days of submarine activity, the
enemy was loath to use his deadlier and more expensive weapon on the
small craft. He relied on gunfire to produce effects. The channel seas
were not then as well patrolled as now by armed auxiliaries: he could
have a leisurely exercise in frightfulness at little risk to
himself--there was no return to his fire--it was an easy target
practice. _Cottingham_ was shelled at short ranges when off the Bristol
Channel. Unarmed and outdistanced, the master stopped his engines,
lowered the two boats, and abandoned ship. The shelling continued, but
was directed on the sinking ship; the submarine commander evidently
thought the bitter wintry weather would accomplish a more refined
_Schrecklichkeit_ than the summary execution of his shell-bursts. In the
heavy battery of a sou'west gale, the boats drove apart. The master's
boat was sighted by a patrol, and the crew of six rescued after some
hours' exposure. The mate's boat c