TRAWLER MEN AVENGED

The following account of the destroyer action off Dunkirk in the early morning of Thursday last has been compiled from eyewitnesses’ narratives: Five weeks have passed since the officers and men of the Drifter Patrol congregated in the grey church by the quayside at Dover. It was a rather pathetic gathering that mourned its dead that Sunday morning, with the painted sunlight streaming down through the stained-glass windows lighting the weather-beaten faces of skippers and deckhands, trimmers and enginemen of the Trawler Reserve. There was, in their solemn faces, a trace of faint hurt bewilderment, like that on the face of a child that has bumped its head in the dark. The German destroyers had fallen upon them 48 hours before, sunk seven of their little craft, and escaped scot-free. They were only fishermen, for all their brass buttons and blue uniforms and plentiful display of DSCS and DSMS; simple folk accustomed to judge life by tangible results. They were not concerned with strategy or the might-have-been. They had been accustomed to look to their big brothers, the destroyers, in the simple faith of children when there was trouble, and for once they had looked in vain. They had had a drubbing, and they took it according to the tradition of British seamen; but the puzzled, grieving look remained. The captain of the Drifter Patrol marched them away from the church and talked to them, standing on a drum of paint. It was in no sense of the word a speech, but it was a very moving little address. “Never fear,” he concluded, “we’ll take tea with the Hun before you’re all much older, or I’ll eat my hat.” It takes a brave man to prophesy concerning war these days, but the men of the Drifter Patrol stumped back to their little craft comforted, and, as events transpired, he was right.