able in a service that was never
at any time a safe and equable calling. They have become sadly familiar
with the new sea-warfare--with disaster to the shipping in the channels.
While they have incident enough, in the movement and activity of patrols
and war craft, in the ceaseless sweeping of the channels, to judge our
sea-power and take pride in its strength, they have all too frequent
experience of the murderous under-water mechanics of the enemy. Living
in the midst of sea-alarms, the old placid tedium of their 'sixty days'
has given place to an excitement that even the monotonous rounds of
their small ship-life cannot suppress. The men on the 'Royal Sovereign'
were observers of the terrific power of the sea-mine; three ships in
sight being blown to small wreckage within an hour. 'Shambles' jarred to
distant torpedoings off the Bill. The 'South Goodwin' saw _Maloja_
brought up in her stately progress by a thundering explosion, then
watched her list and settle in the stormy seaway; a second crash and
upheaval drew the eyes of the watch on deck to the fate of the _Empress
of Fort William_ as she was hastening to succour the people of the
doomed liner. Up Channel and down, the lightshipmen were observers of
the toll exacted by the enemy--the price we paid for the freedom of the
seas.

But not all their observations of sea-casualties brought gloom to the
dog-watch reckoning. If there remained no doubt of the intensity and
power of German submarine activity, they were equally assured of the
efficiency of our surface offence, and the deadly precision of our own
under-water counter-measures. On occasion, there were other sea-dramas
enacted under the eyes of the lightshipmen--short, swift engagements
that set an oily scum welling over the clean sea-space of the channel,
or an affair of rapid gunfire that cleared a pest from the narrow
waters. There is at least one instance of a lightship having a
commanding, if uncomfortable, station in an action between our drifters
and a large enemy submarine. The lampman of the 'Gull' had a front view.
. . . "Misty weather, it was. Day was just breakin', about seven o' th'
mornin' when I see him. I see him just over there--a little t' th'
nor'ard o' that wreckage on th' Sands. A big fella, about th' size o'
them oil-barges as passes hereabouts. I didn't make him out at
first--account o' th' mornin' haze, but there was somethin' over there
where no ship didn't oughta be. I calls down th'