forth in a monotonous sea we steamed, and you had an idea how
dull this work can be sometimes; also that when it comes to sweeping you
saw that the North Sea is a big place.

"It's become a science," observed the skipper. "Fritz has a hard time
many a night 'laying his eggs,' and the many ways we have of bringing
them to the surface has baffled him a good deal."

A torpedo-boat destroyer hove within signalling distance. The commander
was handed a message by a sailor. The alert skipper read it, and said:--

"Tell 'em 'yes.'... Just want to know if we had swept around there."

Still the smoke-coloured little vessels kept up the job of plying back
and forth in the waters. Men were busy at the stern of the ships
watching the wooden kites that are made so as to catch the mines by the
hawser that is slung between the two steamers. The slightest sign of a
ball-like piece of steel in the sea and the dullness of sweeping is
relieved, for then the skipper knows that he has unhooked one of the
mines. Along came a submarine, flying the white ensign of the Royal
Navy. The mine-sweepers realise that these men have no arm-chair job,
and admire the commander and crew of the under-water boats accordingly.
A sailor semaphored with his arms, and the commander of the mine-sweeper
sent a message back, and the submarine passed slowly on her way.

"If some of those people at home and abroad at their firesides realised
what the men at sea have to suffer to keep this coast free they might
have a different way of talking," declared the commander, now taking to
his much-burned old pipe. "Those chaps that have just come in have had
a week without any sleep--or next to none--and their food has all been
canned stuff. There are many persons who think the North Sea's a
pond--same as they do over in America."

On we steamed in our section of the waters with never a sign of a German
mine. Finally, the day came to a close, and the captain ordered the
hawser to be slipped and the kite hoisted in the stern crane of his
vessel, the like being done by the other sweeper.

As if glad that the day's work was over, the small craft pressed forward
to the harbour, and were disappointed to find that a big tramp was
taking up the room of their berths. They anchored outside, waiting for
the big steamer to get away.

"Do they tell you when you can come alongside the dock?" I asked.

"No need to," said the captain with a smile. "You'll see."

We had been in t