THE RAW MATERIAL 



The Admiral of the Fleet had a vice-admiral, as 

 wise and experienced as himself, to take command 

 in his absence or indisposition. This arrangement 

 proved of very great value when the fishermen were 

 absorbed as naval ratings, for they had the advan- 

 tage of having worked according to a system and 

 under discipline; and the training in this respect 

 proved particularly valuable to the fishermen who 

 became sweepers, and worked in flotillas. 



Some of these admirals and vice-admirals could 

 claim forty or fifty years' experience at sea — and let 

 it be remembered that with the exception of a very 

 few weeks ashore in the course of a year the whole 

 of that long period was spent on the wild North Sea 

 waters, far from land, in little ships which had to 

 ride out any storm that raged. No country in the 

 world except England could point to exactly the 

 same type of man or vessel, though the French and 

 Newfoundlanders had some experienced and gallant 

 fellows toiling on the Atlantic fishing-banks and in 

 the inhospitable Icelandic regions. Dr. W. T. 

 Grenfell had done much to show the world what the 

 Newfoundland codinen were — the men who rallied to 

 their Motherland and did such noble service at sea 

 and on the Western Front; and Pierre Loti, in his 

 powerful story Le Picheut d'lslande, dealt with the 

 hard life of the fishers of Brittany who went far 

 north to reap the harvest of the sea. 



Hard men, too, and schooled in discomfort, were 

 the engineers and firemen of the trawlers and the 

 drifters; men of whom countless deeds of heroism 



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