144 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



the signals, and, if a skipper is disposed to do so, he 

 may trawl on a different tack. 



The gear is shot about noon daily. By that time 

 the men have boarded their fish and received their 

 supplies of empty boxes from the carrier. For five 

 or six hours the steamboats trawl at the rate of about 

 two and a half miles an hour. A faster speed would 

 mean the risk of damaging the gear and catching less 

 fish. At about five o'clock in the afternoon the gear 

 is hauled, and all hands are very busily employed in 

 gutting and packing the fish. Meanwhile, the trawl 

 has been shot again, and is towed until at midnight 

 the admiral's signal to haul is seen and the gear is 

 got up, to be shot again and hauled once more at 

 about six o'clock in the morning. There are, conse- 

 quently, three shoots and three hauls in the course of 

 the twenty-four hours. 



I know of nothing more impressive and splendid as 

 an act of labour than this hauling of a North Sea trawl, 

 especially at midnight. There is all around the vast 

 solemnity of tumbling water, and the bobbing, dipping 

 lights of the floating town with its population of, say, 

 five hundred men. The steam-winches are wheezing 

 and clanging, and the wheels of miscellaneous mechanism 

 are rattling, with sudden stoppages and spasmodic starts. 

 Drowsy men have tumbled up from below, and all are 

 working harder, surely, than ever slave toiled at his 

 oar in the bank of a galley. In my own special craft 

 the skipper, with set face, gives the lead ; next to him 

 is the mate, prototype of Ham in David Copperfield y 

 and each in his place in that serried little rank is 

 another member of the crew, 



