A SKIPPER'S TALE 



I was twenty-five years old. First it was sailing 

 smacks, then it was steam trawlers. Of course I 

 had a lot of the old fleeting days, when smacks went 

 out to the North Sea for eight weeks at a time, and 

 were always out like that with the fleets except when 

 the}- made short runs home for fresh water and 

 stores and to refit. I was single-boating in the 

 steamboats for a long time, and I was master of a 

 single-boater, the Lobelia, when the war broke out. 



" I had started from home to earn my livelihood 

 a fortnight before Christinas in 1913, and I worked 

 away up to August, 1914, when the war broke out. 

 We had come into port, Grimsb}', not knowing what 

 was going to happen, and lay there for ten days be- 

 fore the insurance people would permit us to go to 

 sea. When we sailed it was on condition that we 

 fished within a certain limit. 



' We sailed on August 20, and the day before a 

 friend and myself went for a bit of pleasure to a 

 little country place a few miles from Grimsby. 



" We went to sea, and he was blown up by a mine 

 and I was taken prisoner by the Germans, and after 

 sixteen months of shameful treatment was sent 

 home a broken man. 



" The Lobelia was in the nor'-west corner of the 

 Dogger, what we call the Nor'-West Rough, and 

 there were other steam trawlers about. It was fine, 

 calm summer weather, and we were in good spirits, 

 for we had 160 boxes of fish in the fish-room, the 

 result of five days' fishing. We were making 

 another haul and then we were going home. 



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