Talk:Little Grey Ships

Information about this edition
Edition:	https://archive.org/details/littlegreyships00bell
Source:	London: John Murray, 1916
Contributor(s):
Level of progress:	i came i dumped
Notes:
Proofreaders:	i saw

Reviews

• The Athenaeum 1916 October

Glimpses, mainly, of the work and ways of the men who man our mine-sweepers and patrol ships. In various ports, which may not be named, and on sundry ships, the author found his characters.

• The Illustrated London News:

A better gift than “Little Grey Ships” in the present time of stress it would be hard to find. It is a tonic, not a narcotic. The people who live in the cities, grey, too, and chilled by winter weather will find it bracing to read these sketches of the work of the mine weepers in the North Sea. Since we went to war there has arisen a navy within the Navy, until the officer in command of the little auxiliary vessels can boast that he has more craft under his command than the Commander in-Chief of the Grand Fleet itself. Trawlers that once trawled tor fish trawl now for other and deadly things. Mr. J. J. Bell has made a study of the men who man them. They represent reserve of rough, dogged strength that the ingenuity of Germany has pitted itself against, a reserve not of fighting, but of fisher men. Mr. Bell’s text is brief and his argument all to the point. “Trawler Buzzard of —— mined 7.15 this mornin'.” And then the story of how the Buzzard was mined, what she was doing, and what the men of her sister-trawlers said and did, both when they were working with her and after they returned to port. The patient enemy ceaselessly sows his mines, and as patiently the mine-sweepers gathers them up. They are not a comfortable catch to handle—

Slow work but excitin' too,
For maybe you poaches your egg o.k.,
An' maybe it scrambles you!