FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



and courageously confronting it ; and there was the 

 most happy phrase "deckhand in the British Navy" 

 — a term which gave " deckie " his right and 

 honourable position in the vast scheme of sea 

 power. He was not merely Tom, Dick or Harry 

 of this or that of His Majesty's drifters ; he was 

 definitely and permanently set down as Richard 

 Manning, deckhand in the British Navy ; and 

 Richard Manning was merely one of a host of 

 brave enduring fellows who risked all and so often 

 gave all for their country and their countrymen. 



And such countrymen some of these were, too ! 

 So selfish, co callous to everything but their own 

 comfort, so regardless of anybody's safety except 

 their own. On the long coast-line stretching from 

 Dover to the farthest northern point of Scotland the 

 people know too well what three years' war had 

 meant, for there had been brutal bombardments, 

 murder-raids by German airships and aeroplanes 

 and inevitable losses through catastrophes in home 

 and foreign waters. 



Silent streets of little houses in fishing ports 

 where Death's hand had fallen heavily, bore tragic 

 witness to extensive sorrow ; shattered buildings and 

 wrecked homes in peaceful and non-combatant areas 

 gave further proof of German cruelty and cowardice, 

 yet never a German gun was fired, never a German 

 bomb was dropped which did not harden the deter- 

 mination of these grim sweepers and patrollers and 

 fishers to yield nothing to the enemy, but to fight 

 him to a crushing end. 



180 



