fitted her with wireless and sent her out to take care of her unarmed
sisters on the fishing-grounds. She flew the White Ensign.

These were the proudest days of her life: she was helping to keep the seas.
It is true the big ships of the Fleet might laugh at her in a good-natured
way and pass uncomplimentary remarks about her personal appearance, but
they had to acknowledge her seamanship and her pluck. She could buffet her
way through weather that no destroyer dare face, and mines had no terrors
for her, for even if she were to bump a tin-fish it only meant one old
trawler the less, and the Navy could afford it.

It was during these days, too, that she became known, though not by name,
to readers of _Punch_, for her adventures and those of her crew were often
chronicled in his tales of the "Auxiliary Patrol." And when she had seen
the War through she said Good-bye to his pages and made ready to return
again to the ways of peace. She was quite satisfied; she never thought of
giving up her job, though she was now a very old ship, and it would have
been no shame to her. She just took a fresh coat of paint and steamed away
to the Dogger Bank once more.

* * * * *

The other day a small paragraph appeared in some of the newspapers that
were not too busy discussing the possibilities of another railway strike:
"The Grimsby trawler _King George_," it said, "is reported long over-due
from the fishing-grounds, and the owners say that there is no hope of her
return." No one would notice this, because the first round of the English
Cup was to be played that week, and besides it was not as though it were a
battleship or a big liner that had gone down. It was just the old _King
George_.