ADVENTURE WITH GERMAN PIRATES 



able that in carrying out this work of destruction 

 most of the Germans were extremely nervous and 

 intensely apprehensive of the sudden appearance of 

 some British war vessel from whose vengeance they 

 could not hope to escape. 



A clear insight into the methods of German sub- 

 marine warfare at this period was given by a Scotch 

 skipper who had fallen into the pirates' power and 

 had the good fortune to escape. The narrator was 

 Mr. David Stewart, and his vessel was the Jane 

 Stewart, of Cockenzie. The scene described by the 

 skipper was just such a one as might have been ob- 

 served in the higher parts of the North Sea before 

 the war, when the herring fishery was being carried 

 down towards the Yarmouth area. The Jane 

 Stewart was a fine, practically new craft of a type 

 which had proved very successful, both as a fisher 

 and commercially. She was fitted with a powerful 

 motor, a means of propulsion which had stood many 

 a craft in good stead in bad weather and danger- 

 zones. She was surrounded by a large fleet of fish- 

 ing vessels, which had their drift-nets out, their 

 lights showing, and look-out men on duty — and 

 look-out men in those times and places understood 

 to the full the stern need of incessant watchfulness. 

 The details of what happened on the night of 

 August 3, 1916, were told by the skipper to a re- 

 presentative of The Scotsman, in which newspaper 

 they were published. 



The night was exceptionally calm — it was spoken 

 of as one of the calmest nights that the fishermen 



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