Voice From Grimsby

At fog-wreathed Grimsby on the North Sea, where British fishermen now don the greasy dungarees of the Royal Navy to go fishing for mine and submarine, Writer A. J. Liebling of The New Yorker found British character wondrously salted away in the diary of a patrol-boat captain. The captain was dead: he had "copped it in a fight with some motor torpedo boats. A one-pound shell took half of his head off." But he had left his immortally mortal diary behind him:

"Dec. 11. Coventry. London, Manchester. Ow I wish I could come up with a Jerry plane. I would show them. Today my steward put my knife spoon and fork in bucket of water to wash then forgot they were there, chooked water overboard with them in it. I could of chooked im overboard too.

"Dec. 16. I of a fine crew. One chap that worked in sweetshop. One bus conductor. One building workman. Two married men that of never been to sea.

"What a bloody sample.

"Dec. 21. I told cook to make rice pud. Late in day rice floating on galley floor he put about 1/2 a stone of rice in boiling water nice pud.

"Jan. 6. Today men grappled German mine were bringing it over side but not fast enough. I leaned over side and seized cable to help. Opened my mouth to give orders and upper and lower plates fell out.

"They are not gone. I know where they are."

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