The problem of this coast resolves itself into keeping touch with the
enemy's movements; in preparing matters to trap and hinder him when he
moves, and in so entertaining him that he shall not have time to draw
clear before a blow descends on him from another quarter. There are
then three lines of defence: the outer, the inner, and the home
waters. The traffic and fishing are always with us.
The blackboard idea of it is always to have stronger forces more
immediately available everywhere than those the enemy can send. _x_
German submarines draw _a_ English destroyers. Then _x_ calls _x + y_
to deal with _a_, who, in turn, calls up _b_, a scout, and possibly
_a²_, with a fair chance that, if _x + y + z_ (a Zeppelin) carry on,
they will run into _a² + b² + c_ cruisers. At this point, the equation
generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the
whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may
call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the
comparisons: the Grand Fleet is the "strong left" ready to give the
knock-out blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up.
The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar
plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the
"blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn
as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive
at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.
The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he
sees a chance, and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with
intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a
fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it
is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of
draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship
of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man
observed thoughtfully: "You can't look at any water now without seeing
'Lusitania' sprawlin' all across it. And just think of those words,
'North-German Lloyd,' 'Hamburg-Amerika' and such things, in the time
to come. They simply mustn't be."
He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after
many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. "I never
thought I'd like killin' men," he reflected. "Never seemed to be any
o' my dooty. But it is--and I do!"
A great deal of the East Coast work concerns mine-fields--ours and the
enemy's--both of which shift as occasion requires. We search for and
root out the enemy's mines; they do the like by us. It is a perpetual
game of finding, springing, and laying traps on the least as well as
the most likely runaways that ships use--such sea snaring and wiring
as the world never dreamt of. We are hampered in this, because our
Navy respects neutrals; and spends a great deal of its time in making
their path safe for them. The enemy does not. He blows them up,
because that cows and impresses them, and so adds to his prestige.