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Three ports, besides six days' leave in London." "You had plenty of time ashore before that," replied Jack. "Maybe I did. But I'd like to have some more. Besides, this isn't very exciting business." Night fell again, and still nothing had happened to break the quiet monotony of the trip. Lights of trawlers flashed up ahead. Interest on the bridge picked up.
While this gossip, which was explicit with exuberant detail, was engaging us, I summoned my scientific mind, which is not connected with my soul, to listen to what was being said, and the rest of me was deaf. They went on to tell each other about other trawlers and other crews. Other ships and men, I heard, had most of the luck. "The fish follow some of 'em about," complained the skipper.
Far and near the dark trawlers heaved to the soft swell, and they looked picturesque enough; but the strange vessel was handsomer than any of the fishing-boats, and Jim's curiosity was roused. The new smack was flying a flag at her masthead, but Jim could not read well enough to make out the inscription on the flag. He said, "Who's he?" and his mate answered, "A blank mission ship.
But he wouldn't pay much for the meat and hide of Skjalda, not anywhere near enough to buy a good milking cow. He said the English on the trawlers don't set much store by cow's meat. The summer has been only so-so, and I'm sure we'll have plenty of uses for what money I've been able to scrape together. Of course, a cow is a good thing to buy, an enjoyable luxury, if only you have plenty of money.
This, of course, was not the first news that we had received of it; we had been duly apprised of its departure from Libau on 15th October and had also heard with surprise on the part of the Japanese, and with bitter mortification and shame on my own part of its subsequent unprovoked and unpunished attack upon the Gamecock fleet of British trawlers; but nobody was in the least disturbed by the news that this formidable fleet was at last actually at sea, for as a matter of fact we in Japan regarded its departure as nothing more than a move on the part of the Russian Government intended to encourage the garrison of Port Arthur to continue its resistance.
Boveyhayne Bay is a little bay within the very large bay that is guarded at one end by Portland Bill and at the other end by Start Point. It lies in the shelter of two white cliffs which keep its water quiet even when the sea outside is rough, and so it is a fine home for fishermen though there is no harbour and the trawlers have to be hauled up the shingly beach every night.
As we steamed in, another carrier, which had left London after us, hoisted her signal pennant, and took over that job. While still our ship was under way, boats put out from the surrounding trawlers, and converged on us for our outward cargo, the empty fish-trunks.
In the bay is the second Ganges, now a sort of mother-ship for mine-sweepers and trawlers, and one of the busiest places one can imagine. The King not long ago dined aboard this ship, and is said to have expressed great interest in the work carried on from the Ganges.
Sometimes a hayrick on fire is mistaken for a vessel's appealing signal; sometimes the signals, of enormous and unnecessary size, which the French trawlers burn to each other at night around the Goodwins, set both the lightships and lifeboats all astray; and the coxswains of the lifeboats, both at Ramsgate and Deal, have to be on their guard against these delusive agencies.
These vessels were built on yacht lines and, because they filled their holds quickly, made quick runs to port with their catches, thus getting in several trips in a season. Also, there were the steam trawlers, the most progressive of the fleet, owned and operated by huge fish firms in Boston or Portland.
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