THE GREAT MARCH GALE 225 



" The breeze had been prophesied by weather experts, 

 but it came sooner than any of us expected. I was 

 hoping to get out to the Dogger and back home before 

 the weather grew too bad for fishing. There had been 

 three or four days of calm, and when I got to the north- 

 west edge of the Bank, on The Cemetery side, it was still 

 pretty calm, with only just a nice fishing breeze. 



" The gear had been shot at about eleven o'clock at 

 night. Then the wind freshened, but didn't grow into 

 anything like a smart breeze. At the same time the 

 sea got up in the most amazing way. There were a good 

 many other smacks about, and in the blackness of that 

 awful night they were fair napped. 



" We had been trawling for two or three hours, and 

 I should think we had a fair lot of fish in the net. 

 When I saw how bad the weather was likely to be I 

 gave the order to haul the trawl, but I'd scarcely spoken 

 the words when the Uncle Tom gave a heavy lurch and 

 the thick trawl- warp was snapped just like a piece of 

 thread. This meant that the whole of the gear, worth 

 about thirty pounds, was gone ; and that's a heavy loss 

 for poor smacksmen. When you lose your gear in the 

 North Sea you don't get it back unless, as sometimes 

 happens, another trawler hauls it up ; but even then it's 

 scarcely worth bothering about. It's best to say good- 

 bye to your property. 



" There was only one thing to do. The gale had 

 broken on us, and even in the darkness I could see the 

 waves tearing towards us like mad things. I took the 

 tiller and headed for home, and did all I could to make 

 a run for it. In the Uncle Tom the companion was well 

 forrard, and not aft, as you see it in the old yawls that 

 15 



