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But when the need for oversea service arose the reserves made no objection at all to manning transports and doing duty on patrol, mine-laying, mine-sweeping, and other craft engaged in duty in the war zone.
The official report of the battle was as follows: "Mine-sweeping having been in progress during the last ten days inside the straits, a general attack was delivered by the British and French fleets on Thursday morning upon the fortresses at the Narrows.
The attractive part of his idea is that if we did this the Turks must withdraw most of their mobile artillery from the Peninsula to meet us, which would give the Navy just the opportunity they require for mine-sweeping and so forcing the Narrows forthwith.
Mining, mine-sweeping, an uneventful Russian sortie an June 23, progress of Japanese land forces down the peninsula and close investment of Port Arthur this was the course of events down to the final effort of the Russian squadron on August 10. By this time Japanese siege guns were actually reaching ships in the harbor.
Through good fortune, and taking chances of being sent to the bottom ourselves, we have saved the lives of many of these neutrals who might have perished. Yes, here we are mine-sweeping as a job, flying the white ensign of the British Navy; and yet we have found time to save life imperilled by the enemy. Sometimes I wonder what sly Fritz would have to say if he'd even saved a single neutral.
"Who wouldn't sell that little farm?... Now we're in for it. It will be the devil of an old, tough night." Mine-sweeping? Patrolling? Or is he But I hope not. We were better off than we knew then, though then we thought it would be hard luck for a dog.
He lunched in a big public grill-room, and chatted with a naval officer at his table who was engaged in mine-sweeping with a steam-tramp. The latter was not vastly enthusiastic over things, but was chiefly depressed because he had to report at a naval base that night, and his short London leave was all but run out.
He knows Broadway well, can tell you where he likes best to get his hair cut, and where he considers they put up the best cocktail. One day I was permitted to take a trip with this captain-lieutenant and get back. Mine-sweeping has been written about by persons from Kipling down, so I will just tell you the story as I then saw it.
Far out to seaward a formation of Mine-sweeping Sloops crept away to the west. Close inshore, where the gulls circled vociferously, an insignificant trawler with a rusty funnel lay rolling in the swell. A wisp of bunting jerked to the stumpy foremast, and a pair of hand-flags zigzagged above the trawler's wheel-house.
They exchanged their nets for guns and mine-sweeping paraphernalia: they became submarine-hunters, mine-sweepers, fleet-messengers and patrollers of the great commerce sea-ways in the South. They became a little Navy within the Navy, in fact, already boasting their own peculiar traditions, and probably as large a proportion of D.S.C.'s as any other branch of the mother Service.
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