The three abreast move slowly over the area to be cleared of mines and behind them the dan ships follow at intervals, putting out the flags. At the end of their run they turn and come back, overlapping a little on the old course and the dan ships pick up the flags and set them on the outer course again.
All the boats are armed against airplanes. The gunners stand at their posts and search the sky constantly, while the radio operator listens to the spotting instruments on the shore. They take no chances with the planes. When one comes near them they train their guns in that direction until they recognize her. And even the friendly planes do not fly too close. For these men have been bombed and fired on from the air so often that they will fire if there is any doubt at all. Sticking up out of the water are the masts of many ships sunk early in the war when the German planes ranged over the Channel almost with impunity. They do not do it any more.
The voice of the radio man comes up through the speaking tube to the little bridge. “Enemy aircraft in the vicinity,” he says, and then a moment later, “Red alert.” The gunners swing their guns and the crew stands by, all eyes on the sky. From the English coast the Typhoons boil out angrily, fast and deadly ships that fly close to the water. In the distance the enemy plane is a spot. It turns tail and runs for the French coast. The radio man calls, “All clear,” and the crew relaxes.
On the little bridge the captain directs the laying down of the colored flags, while his second checks the distance between the boats. If the dan ship gets too close, a mine may explode under her. With instruments the distance is checked every few seconds. The little flotilla moves very slowly, for when it has passed and marked the free channel the ships with supplies must be able to come through in safety.
Suddenly the dan ship is struck by a heavy blow, the sea about flattens out and shivers, and then a hundred yards ahead a tower of water and mud bursts into the air with a roar. It seems to hang in the air for a long time and when it falls back the dan ship is nearly over it.
There is a large, dirty place on the ocean, bottom mud and a black gluey substance, which comes from the explosive. The crew rush to the side of the ship and search the water anxiously. “No fish,” they say. “What has happened to the fish? You’d think there would be one or two killed by the blast.” They have set off one of the most terrible weapons in the world and they are worried about the fish.
The captain marks with great care on his chart the exact place where the mine was exploded. He takes several sights on the coast to get the position. Another mine roars up on the other side of the lane. The second in command takes up the blinker and signals, “Any fish?” and the answer comes back, “No fish.”
The day is long and tedious, sweeping and turning and sweeping, and when the job is done it is only done until the night, for on this night the mine layers may creep over from the French coast and sow the field again with the nasty things, or a plane may fly low in the darkness and drop the mines on parachutes. The work of the sweepers is never finished.
It is late when they turn for home and it is dark when the little ships file into the harbor and tie up to the pier. Then the captain and his second relax. The strain goes out of their faces. No matter how long or uneventful the sweep, the danger is never gone. The gun crew clean and cover their guns and go to their quarters. The officers climb down to the tiny wardroom. They kick off their fleece-lined boots and settle back into their chairs. The captain picks up the work he has been doing for weeks. He is making a beautifully exact model of—a minesweeper.
COAST BATTERY
SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, July 8, 1943—The guns hide in a field of grain and red poppies. You can see the cannon muzzles protruding and aiming at the sky. The battery is on the south coast, in sight of France. There was a time when the great flights of German bombers came over this undefended coast and carried their bomb loads to London and Canterbury. But the coast is not undefended now.
The spotters are all over the hills, the complicated and delicate listening posts which can hear a plane miles away, and the spotters are girls. When a strange ship is heard, its position is phoned to the plotters of position, and the plotters are girls, too. The sighters are girls. Only the gunners who load and turn the gun itself are men. It is an amazing institution, the mixed battery, something unique in the history of armies.
The barracks are nearby, one for the girls and another for the men. The eating hall is common, the recreation room is common, and the work is common.
Twenty-four hours a day the crews are on duty. They can do what they want within a certain distance from the gun. The girls read and wash their clothing, sew and cook. The kitchen, a temporary affair, is built of kerosene tins filled with sand laid like bricks. The new kitchen is just now being built.
The countryside is quiet. The guns are silent. Suddenly the siren howls. Buildings that are hidden in camouflage belch people, young men and women. They pour out, running like mad. The siren has not been going for thirty seconds when the run is over, the gun is manned, the target spotted. In the control room under ground the instruments have found their target. A girl has fixed it. The numbers have been transmitted and the ugly barrels whirled. Above ground, in a concrete box, a girl speaks into a telephone. “Fire,” she says quietly. The hillside rocks with the explosion of the battery. The field grass shakes and the red poppies shudder in the blast. New orders come up from below and the girl says, “Fire.”
The process is machine-like, exact. There is no waste movement and no nonsense. These girls seem to be natural soldiers. They are soldiers, too. They resent above anything being treated like women when they are near the guns. Their work is hard and constant. Sometimes they are alerted to the guns thirty times in a day and a night. They may fire on a marauder ten times in that period. They have been bombed and strafed, and there is no record of any girl flinching.
The commander is very proud of them. He is fiercely affectionate toward his battery. He says a little bitterly, “All right, why don’t you ask about the problem of morals? Everyone wants to know about that. I’ll tell you—there is no problem.”
He tells about the customs that have come into being in this battery, a set of customs which grew automatically. The men and the women sing together, dance together, and, let any one of the women be insulted, and he has the whole battery on his neck. But when a girl walks out in the evening, it is not with one of the battery men, nor do the men take the girls to the movies. There have been no engagements and no marriages between members of the battery. Some instinct among the people themselves has told them trouble would result. These things are not a matter of orders but of custom.
The girls like this work and are proud of it. It is difficult to see how the housemaids will be able to go back to dusting furniture under querulous mistresses, how the farm girls will be able to go back to the tiny farms of Scotland and the Midlands. This is the great exciting time of their lives. They are very important, these girls. The defense of the country in their area is in their hands.
The manager of the local theater has set aside two rows of seats this evening for members of the battery who are off duty. The girls who are to go change from their trousers to neat khaki skirts and blouses. They spend a good deal of time making themselves pretty. They sit in the theater, leaning forward with excitement. The film is a little stinker called War Correspondent, made six thousand miles from any conflict, where people are not likely ever to see any.
It concerns an American war correspondent who through pure handsomeness, cleverness, bravery, and hokum defeats every resource of the Third Reich. The Gestapo and the German Army are putty in his hands. It is a veritable Flynn of a picture.