" SUBMARINE BILLY " 



Shoal, I was standing by the cabin hoochvay, 

 threading a needle of black twine. We hadn't shot 

 the gear, as we had lost our trawl through fouling a 

 wreck, and we had bent a new trawl. 



" We were getting ready to shoot, and as I filled 

 the needle I looked around, being pretty suspicious. 



" Suddenly, about half a mile away, I saw two 

 submarines, and I had no sooner spied them than 

 one of them began to fire on us. 



" ' Skipper,' I said, ' there's two German sub- 

 marines.' 



" The skipper looked and said, ' No, they're 

 English.' 



11 ' No, they're not,' I said. ' Do you mean to 

 say that if they were English they'd fire on fishing 

 smacks? Of course, they wouldn't. They're Ger- 

 mans.' And so they were, and as soon as they'd 

 come up they'd begun to fire on us. 



" It was very heavy and deliberate fire. The 

 shots, three-pounders, were coining on deck and 

 going through the sails. One shell came along, 

 and I just stepped aside, like this, and it 

 missed me and went through the bulwarks. The 

 shots went right through the bulwarks, which, of 

 course, are not very thick, and they were going 

 through all the sails, ripping holes in them. 



" I said to the skipper, ' It's time we were getting 

 the boat out.' 



" The skipper said, ' All right,' and we threw 

 her overboard — she was on deck — pulled her along- 

 side by the painter, and tumbled into her as bard 



l L5 



