leads through
that lead to the ship which you're sweepin' _with_. She makes her end
fast and you make yourn. Then you sweep together at whichever depth
you've agreed upon between you, by means of that arrangement there
which regulates the depth. They give you a glass sort o' thing for
keepin' your distance from the other ship, but _that's_ not wanted if
you know each other. Well, then, you sweep, as the sayin' is. There's
nothin' _in_ it. You sweep till this wire rope fouls the bloomin'
mines. Then you go on till they appear on the surface, so to say, and
then you explodes them by means of shootin' at 'em with that rifle in
the galley there. There's nothin' in sweepin' more than that."

"And if you hit a mine?" I asked.

"You go up--but you hadn't ought to hit em', if you're careful. The
thing is to get hold of the first mine all right, and then you go on
to the next, and so on, in a way o' speakin'."

"And you can fish, too, 'tween times," said a voice from the next
boat. A man leaned over and returned a borrowed mug. They talked about
fishing--notably that once they caught some red mullet, which the
"common sweeper" and his neighbour both agreed was "not natural in
those waters." As for mere sweeping, it bored them profoundly to talk
about it. I only learned later as part of the natural history of
mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro-toluol by hand out of a German
mine you develop eruptions and skin-poisoning. But on the authority of
two experts, there is nothing in sweeping. Nothing whatever!

A BLOCK IN THE TRAFFIC

Now imagine, not a pistol-shot from these crowded quays, a little
Office hung round with charts that are pencilled and noted over
various shoals and soundings. There is a movable list of the boats at
work, with quaint and domestic names. Outside the window lies the
packed harbour--outside that again the line of traffic up and down--a
stately cinema-show of six ships to the hour. For the moment the film
sticks. A boat--probably a "common sweeper"--reports an obstruction in
a traffic lane a few miles away. She has found and exploded one mine.
The Office heard the dull boom of it before the wireless report came
in. In all likelihood there is a nest of them there. It is possible
that a submarine may have got in last night between certain shoals and
laid them out. The shoals are being shepherded in case she is hidden
anywhere, but the boundaries of the newly discovered mine-area must be
fixed and th