alms in sowing mines in the area
of these signposts; nor did he stay his hand in the case of a sea-mark
that was not vital to his plans. Two lightships on the east coast were
blown up by mines; one, off the coast of Ireland, was deliberately
torpedoed.

[Illustration: THE LAMPMAN OF THE GULL LIGHTSHIP]

The menace of the German sea-mine remains the greatest war danger to
which the lightships are exposed. Zeppelin and seaplane pay visits to
the coastal waters, but the sea is wide for a chance missile from the
air, and no great success has attended their bombing efforts. But the
enemy mine has no instant aim. Full-charged and deadly, its activity is
not confined--as the British mine is--to the area of the mooring. Their
minelayers, creeping in to the fairways in cloak of the darkness, are
anxious to settle their cargo of high explosive as quickly as possible.
Not all of the mines they sow hold to the hastily slipped 'sinkers' till
disaster to our shipping or the untiring search of the minesweepers
reveals their presence. Many break adrift and surge in the tideways,
moving as the set of the current takes them. Vessels under way, by keen
look-out and ready helm, can sight and avoid the drifting spheres, but
the lightships have no power to steer clear. Moored on the offset of
a shoal or sandbank (their position, indeed, a guide to the minelayer),
their broad bows offer contact to all flotsam that comes down on swirl
of the tide. The authorities were unwilling to expose their men to a
danger that could not be evaded, however gallant the shipmen or skilled
their seamanship. It was not a seagoing risk that could be met; no
adequate protection consistent with the lightship's mission could be
devised. As the submarine war became intensified, the more distant
vessels were withdrawn; new routes were set to divert shipping from the
outer passages; only those floating sea-marks are now maintained whose
removal would entail disaster to the traffic that passes by night and
day.

Holding station in waters that are patrolled and, in part, protected,
the Trinity men who form the crews of the lightships have readjusted
their manning. A large proportion of the able-bodied men have joined the
naval forces, leaving the older hands (and some few who have a physical
disability) to tend the lights. War risks still remain, for the German
minelayers have followed the shipping to the inner channels, but the
greybeards have grown stolid and immov