THE FOURTH YEAR 



fewer in number; they were invariably crowded, 

 largely with liberty men, and to begin such a jour- 

 ney needed a strong bracing effort. But the travel- 

 lers were indomitably cheerful and friendly ; and 

 the skipper's wife found consolation on the return 

 journey by telling of her husband and something — 

 not much — of what he was doing. It was always 

 declared, with pride, that he was " doing his bit " 

 with the best of them. 



The multitudes of people who had not been able 

 to see actual drifters and trawlers had an oppor- 

 tunity at the end of the three years of war to look 

 upon cinematograph representations of the vessels 

 and their crews, displays being given in various parts 

 of the country. These productions were Admiralty 

 official films, and they gave decidedly interesting 

 glimpses of such features of the work as could be 

 with discretion shown in public. Some of the pre- 

 liminary work on shore by men and women was 

 depicted, one picture representing the fitting of a 

 circuit of 144,000 feet of wire. Another picture 

 showed the making of a join in an electric cable, 

 which was commonly called a " pudding." A very 

 interesting film was that which showed the glass 

 floats used to support submarine-catching nets in 

 the water, and women workers were shown fitting 

 detonators to electrical contact mines. Audiences 

 were also allowed transient views of submergible 

 and floating mines, and drifters were shown con- 

 taining the war-nets which had superseded the 

 masses or " fleets " of herring nets which had been 



235 



