THE GREAT MARCH GALE 223 



" To the North Sea smacksman every part of the 

 Dogger has a particular name, but the most gruesome 

 of all is 'The Cemetery,' and that's what we call the 

 'edge' of the Bank, because so many ships and men 

 have been lost there. Even to-day, when scarcely any- 

 thing fishes on the Dogger except powerful, well- 

 appointed steamboats, no skipper is happy if he gets 

 caught on The Cemetery. Like most other men, he 

 wants to spend as little time as possible in such a 

 melancholy place. If he has his gear down and a breeze 

 springs up, he's only content when he hauls his trawl 

 and cuts and runs for it. With steam that's an easy 

 enough thing to do, but in the old days things were 

 vastly different, because the sailing vessels either had 

 to ride out a gale or founder. The smacks were out for 

 six, seven, eight, or ten weeks at a time, and only ran 

 home to re-fit and re-provision and then got back to the 

 fishing-grounds. This meant that year in and year out 

 the smacksman had to spend his life on the stormy 

 waters of the Dogger and face all its dangers. He 

 might be two or three hundred miles away from port, so 

 that there was no chance of seeking shelter. I shouldn't 

 have cared to show my nose in port and have to say 

 that I had run home because I was scared of a breeze. 

 I shouldn't have gone back to sea again in that particular 

 smack nor in any other. The man who gets upset 

 because of wind and weather isn't the man to make a 

 living on the Dogger. He carries his life in his hands, 

 and always expects them to be emptied suddenly. 



" Well, I sailed from Scarborough as skipper of a fine 

 little ketch of fifty-one tons which was called the Uncle 

 Tom. We were single-boating and I wanted to get as far 



