278 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



of the warships, only two or three hundred yards away 

 from their defenceless targets, officers, petty officers, and 

 men must have seen the nature of the craft that formed 

 the fleet. There were the regulation lights burning, and 

 the decks were illuminated with powerful lamps which 

 gave light enough for the men to see their work of 

 gutting and packing their latest catches. The human 

 figures were clearly visible, even the heaps of fish in the 

 pounds could have been seen, yet so blindly panic- 

 stricken were the men-of-war's men that they did not 

 for a moment stop their murderous cannonading. 



Not a shot was fired in answer ; the Russians heard 

 the startled cries of inoffensive men ; they must have 

 heard the screams of some of the wounded ; they could 

 not fail to see the discharge of green rockets from the 

 vice-admiral's vessel and other trawlers ; still they held 

 to their mad business and blazed away until they had 

 steamed through the fishing-area and saw nothing 

 around them but the open waters, and no ship of any 

 kind except the creations of their own imaginations. 



The Czar-blessed Baltic battleships lumbered on 

 their way towards the Straits of Dover, never stopping 

 to inquire into the havoc they had wrought. There is 

 no reason why, in their senseless fright, the responsible 

 officers should not have wiped out the fishing-fleet com- 

 pletely and left one or two survivors to make their way 

 to land or be picked up, to tell the amazing story. They 

 had done enormous mischief; yet little compared with 

 what might have been caused under proper fire discipline. 



Shot and shell and rifle calibre bullets had put the 

 entire Gamecock Fleet out of action in a few minutes. 

 The great and complicated work of trawling had been 



