276 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



in the neighbourhood of an old smack which, anchored, 

 served as a mark-boat. Ordinarily the admiral would 

 have been in command, but he was ashore for a brief 

 spell, and in his absence the vice-admiral controlled the 

 fleet, flying his flag in the Ruff. From the little un- 

 romantic flagship and the mark-boat rockets had been 

 fired, to direct the fishing. 



There was nothing whatever in that region of water 

 in the form of a ship of war until the Russian Baltic 

 Fleet appeared on the horizon, commanded by Admiral 

 Rozhdestvensky. The fleet, which had been solemnly 

 blessed by the Czar, had sailed from Libau on i5th 

 October 1904; shortly before midnight on Friday, the 

 22nd, it bore down, in two sections, on the Gamecock 

 Fleet. One section passed without doing more than direct 

 searchlights on the trawlers and show coloured lights. 



The fishermen looked with interest at the warships, 

 some of them pausing in their work. Toil on the 

 Dogger is monotonous, and it is not every day or night 

 that battle squadrons pass. Some of the men laughed 

 and joked and enjoyed the spectacle of the searchlights 

 and coloured lights as they might have relished an 

 entertainment ashore. 



The first squadron of the Baltic Fleet steamed in- 

 offensively through and beyond the fishing- vessels. The 

 second squadron, consisting of four battleships, steamed 

 just across the head of the trawlers, plying their search- 

 lights. Then a bugle rang out in the night, and instantly 

 guns and machine-guns rapped and rattled, and upon 

 the helpless fishing-craft a hail of missiles fell. Some 

 accounts put the duration of the cannonade at twenty 

 minutes ; certainly for ten the broadsides blazed 



