NATIONAL TRIBUTES 



and patrols ; the number at the beginning of the war 

 was 12. It was impossible to imagine more arduous 

 or more dangerous duties ; yet not a single man had 

 asked to be relieved, and if one man was lost scores 

 and scores leaped forward to take his place. 



It was shown in these speeches that men had been 

 torpedoed once, twice — even as often as seven times, 

 and in spite of all had gone back at the earliest mo- 

 ment to confront the perils which they seemed to 

 scorn ; and that there were transports which had been 

 torpedoed several times over. About S,ooo men had 

 been lost, said Earl Curzon, yet never a man was 

 found who refused to sail. It was a record which 

 brought a lump to the throat and invested with ever- 

 lasting fame the British mercantile marine. 



So far the details were amazing — so suggestive of 

 magnitude as to be almost incomprehensible and in- 

 credible. They showed what the Navy really was, 

 they indicated what the Navy had done and was 

 doing in its terrible silence and solidity, and there 

 was pictured to some extent the part which fisher- 

 men had played in more than three long years of 



.r. 



A round dozen vessels had grown to the enormous 

 fleet of 3,300 ; yet even then the picture was not com- 

 plete, the story was not fully told, however briefly. 

 It remained for Mr. Lloyd ( : to crown the 



tribute of the Houses of Parliament with some elo- 

 quent and generous sentences, in which he showed 

 how deeply he understood and appreciated the work 

 of the fishermen and the sacrifices they had made. 



171 



