PERHAPS it would be an exaggeration to say that we hurled all these things at them. We certainly refrained from throwing filth, because there was a notice posted in the changing-hut which which forbade defilement of the Reservoir water under a penalty of five pounds. But we did try both wet and dry flies, three different kinds of spinning minnows, and a local lure which the Head Keeper called a 'twodecker," and on any other water than Blagdon ought to guarantee its user, if not a fish, certainly fourteen days without the option.

Let us, however, collect ourselves and start at the beginning.

The General Strike was the beginning. Because of the strike our ship found herself moored alongside a row of commercial docks, from which all but a white-bearded Dockmaster had fled. On account of his venerable snowy beard, gold-laced cap, and very nautical reminiscences, he was given the honorary rank of Admiral, and christened Casabianca.

Casabianca was hailed into the Ward-room by the Navigating Officer, and, before he had time to get his first cock

You needn't worry about fishing, Pilot," interrupted the First Lieutenant. "There's no leave for officers or men. God bless my soul! Fishing! Don't you realise that there's a General Strike on?"

"What about Blagdon ? " chipped in the Gunnery Lieutenant, whose home was somewhere in the same county. "When the Armistice comes round and they give leave again, I'll fetch my car and we'll go and have a day there-all three of us."

The Navigator brightened. "Blagdon ! Lead me to it. That's where the trout run up to twenty pounds, isn't it? He appealed to me.

The Navigating Officer passed the time in luring University undergraduates from their labours in the holds of grain and banana ships, bringing them on board on the pretence of giving them hot baths and drinks, and tactfully leading the conversation round to the fishing possibilities of their parents' demesnes.

The Gunnery Lieutenant put on his Whale Island gaiters, cadged a moribund Ford lorry from Casabianca, and proposed to convert it, embellished by the ship's secondary armament, into a tank. This project being discouraged, he armed the seamen-guard to the teeth, posted them in a cordon round a block of offices enshrining a "black-leg "typist with shingled hair and skirts of surpassing brevity, and beguiled the tedium of the long days by driving the moribund Ford round the cordon, "seeing, as he phrased it, "that everything was all quiet on the Potomac."

The importation of beer and a cinema and the conversion of an empty cargo-shed into a wet-canteen furnished all the simple needs of the ship's company. Out of sight of the boundless ocean, consuming beer at cost price in their leisure hours under the wistful gaze of Mary Pickford and Jackie Coogan, they were content that the General Strike should last for ever, and sang hymns to the glory of Mr B, the local irreconcilable.

Touched by the plight of these hapless ones, a local amateur dramatic society descended upon the cargo-shed, and organised nightly concerts with appropriate songs and recitations.

ing spirit of beating swords into ploughshares, proposed to drive the three of us to Blagdon in the Ford lorry. This was negatived on the grounds of comfort; also Casabianca had other uses for it. It remained for him to go home and fetch his own car, in which, on the appointed day, we fared forth.

To anybody insensitive to the charm of the English countryside in May I would recommend ten days' durance within the walls of a stagnant commercial docks. I did not realise before how much one could miss trees. You do not miss them at sea in the same way. Perhaps there is compensation for the eye in the curves and colour of the waves; and the changing surface, with its rhythm and suggestion of restrained energy, is a good substitute for organic growth. Anyhow, our eyes feasted, as the phrase goes, on the trees during that hour's drive, while the road skirted the river gorge and the parks of local magnates, and the oaks and sycamores and elms, with here and there a copper beech, were like surf flung skyward from a roller bursting against a cliff. Delicious greens and purples, and in places an almost autumnal delicacy of russet, where the April frosts had nipped the young leaves.

The car wheeled round a bend, and Blagdon came in sight. A chilly wind from the north-east distressed its surface.

"I know a lake where the fish rise best in a north-east

wind," said the G.L. as he swung his freight into the little avenue leading to the changing-hut. "It's in Ireland," he added mournfully.

We made our way to the changing-hut, and introduced ourselves to the Head Keeper with the humility of newcomers to a famous stretch of water in the presence of its oracle and sovereign.

"Would we get any fish?

the pathetic query levelled at so many keepers in the touching, almost superstitious, belief that in the answer lies all the fortunes of the day. Had the Head Keeper been Irish I don't doubt that he would have overwhelmed us with affirmative assurances. However, he is Scotch, and his answer was to walk to the door of the shed and close it against the wintry blast.

"It's a snell wind," he murmured, and our hearts sank. The oracle had spoken.

We climbed silently into our waders and put up our rods. In turn we submitted our flybooks for inspection and advice. The wise, grey, crow-footed eyes scanned their contents, and a fly was indicated with a forefinger here and there. But we somehow felt that it was more as a concession to our enthusiasm than in any spirit of optimism that he made the selection.

Finally, we fared forth to our destiny, pausing in the doorway for a last backward glance at the painting of the record trout that hangs on the

"I won't go as far as to say that the fellow who caught that fish is a liar," muttered the G.L. as we crunched across the gravel with our rods; "but he was lucky-darned lucky."

There is plenty of room on Blagdon. The presence of the dozen or so of fishermen scattered along the weather shore was not irksome as it would have been along the bank of a river. One spot of the lake is said to be as good as another, and consequently you do not have the deplorable conviction that the intruder ahead of you has appropriated the only decent pool within miles. Indeed, on that particular day the sight of these co-optimists dotted along the shallows had a reassuring effect upon us. If we were fools to waste our time hurling out a line on a north-east wind to splash upon the sullen and unresponsive surface of the dourest stretch of water in all merrie England -well, we were not the only

ones.

It may have been due to a universal realisation of thisthe bond of a forlorn hope that draws men together-but there prevailed among us all a spirit of amiable fraternity, and with but one exception we exchanged trivial amenities as we passed and repassed each other during that morning's fruitless fishing. The excep

the edge of the reservoir, his rod speared into the turf beside him, his elbow on his knee, and stared out across the water in motionless contemplation. Of his personal appearance I took in little, but for an hour I had observed him as I fished slowly in his direction, attracted by nothing more than his complete immobility. Few Europeans voluntarily preserve an unchanging posture for so long. An Esquimo beside an air-hole; an Indian watching a ford where the deer step down to drink in the starlight; a Buddhist ascetic on the threshold of Nirvanait is right and proper that they should keep very still. But this perfectly good AngloSaxon (he bore every resemblance to one at all events), backed by the lovely English landscape all harmlessly astir with the spring and the wind, somehow sat too still-almost terribly still.

To do him justice, there was plenty to repay observation on that May morning, even though the lake might never have held a fish, so few evidences did it give of their existence. Every little bay and indentation where the high ground behind afforded shelter from the wind, was clouded with myriads of gnats, and through their jigging hosts the swallows swooped tirelessly hour after hour; the ceaseless froufrou of their wings was like