The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-21

Der and ochre and rust-red steam
trawlers, tugs. hsrbor boats, and
yachts once cleand and respectable,
now dirty but happy. Throw in fish,
steamers, surprise-packets of unknown
lines and indescribable junks. sam
pans, lorchas. catamarans and general
service stink-pontoons. filled with in
describable apparatus. manned by men
no dozen of whom seem to talk the
same iialect or wear the same clothes
The mustard colored jersey who is
cleaning six-pounder on a Hull
craft clips his words between his
teeth and would be happier in Gaelic;
the whitish singlet and blue trousers
held up by what Is obviously his SOL
der brothers spare regimental belt
is pure Lowestoft. The complete blue
serge and SCOT suit passing a wire
down a hatch is Glasgow as far as
you can hear him, which is a fair dis
lance, because he wants something
done to the other end OF the wire;
and the fiat-faced boy who should be
attending to II halls from the remoter
Herbides and is looking at a girl on
the dock edge.
Grimly Save Their Money.
The bow-legged man in the ulster
and green worsted comforter is a
warm Grimsby skipper. worth several
thousands. He and his crew. who are
mostly his own relations. keep them
selves to themselves and grimly save
their money. The pirate with the red
| beard barking. over the rail at a friend
with gold earrings comes from Skye
The friend is West Country.
The noticeably insignificant man
with a soft and deprecating eye is
skipper and part owner of the big
slashing Iceland trawler on which he
droops like a flower. She is built on
almost transatlantic lines, carries a
little boat deck aft with tremendous
stanchions. has a nose cooked high
| against ice and sweeping seas and
looks rather like a hawkmoth at rest
The small shifting man is reported to
be a holy terror at sea-
Child Wireless Operator.
The child in the Pullman car uni
form just going ashore is a wireless
operator aged nineteen. He Is at
tached to a flagship one hundred and
twenty feet long. under an admiral
aged twenty-five who was till the
other day third mate of a North At
lantic tramp but who now leads a
squadron of six trawlers to hunt sub
marines.
The principle is simple enough.
Its application depends on circum-
stances and surroundings. One type of
German submarine meant for muir
der of the coasts may use n winding
and rabbit-like track between shoals
where the choice of water is limited.
Their career is rarely long. but while
il lasts moderately exciting.
Others. told of for deep sea assas-
sinations. are attended to quite quIet-
ly and without any excitement at all
Others. again. work the inside of the
North Sea. making no distinction be-
tween neutrals and allied ships. These
carry guns and since their work keeps
them a good deal on the surface. the
trawler fleet, as We know, engages
them there-the submarine firing.
sinking. and rising in unexpected
and trying to ram.
TrawIers Sturdy and Strong.
The trawlers are strongly built and
can stand a great deal of punishment.
Yet again, other German submarines
hang about the skirts of fishing fleets
and fire into the brown of them. When
the war was young this gave SPLEEN
didly "frightful" results, but for some
reason or other. the game Is not as
popular as II used to be.
Fingers of Dead Women Point.
Lastly. there are German subma-
rines who perish by ways so curious
and ineXplicable that one could almost
credit the whispered idea Ut must
come from the Scotch skippers) that
the ghosts of the women drowned
lead them to destruction. But what
form those shadows take-whether of
the Lusitania ladies. or humber stew
ardesses or hospital nurses. and what
lights or sounds the thing fancies II
sees or hears before 1t is blotted out,
no man will ever know. The main
thing is that the work is being DONE
whether II was necessary or polite
to reawaken by violence every sport
ing instinct of a seagoing people Is a
question which the enemy may have
to consider later on.