"Somewhere in the North Sea" in 1917, when I was a stoker on H.M.S. _Champion_, there were plenty of floating mines about. One day, several of us were waiting outside the galley (cook house) for our dinners, and the cook, a man from Walworth, was shouting out the number of messes marked on the meat dishes which were ready for the men to take away. He had one dish in his hand with no number marked on it, when a stoker rushed up and shouted: "We nearly struck a mine--missed it by inches, Cookey." But Cookey only shouted back: "Never mind about blinkin' mines nah; is this _your_ perishin' dish with no tally on it?"--_W. Downs (late stoker, R.N.), 20 Tracey Street, Kennington Road, S.E._ A Philosopher at Sea We were a helpless, sorry crowd, many of us with legs in splints, in the hold of a "hospital" ship crossing from Boulogne. The boat stopped dead. "What are we stopping for, mate?" one man asked the orderly. "The destroyers wot's escortin' of us is chasin' a German submarine. I'm just a-goin' on deck agin to see wot's doin'." As he got to the ladder he turned to say: "Nah, you blokes: if we gits 'it by a torpedo don't go gettin' the ruddy wind up an' start rushin' abaht tryin' ter git on deck. It won't do yer wounds no bloomin' good!"--_E. Bundy (late L/Corporal, 1/5th L.F.A., 47th Division), 4 Upton Gardens, Barkingside, Ilford, Essex._ Extra Heavyweight Amongst the crew of our mine-sweeper during the war "Sparks," the wireless operator, was a hefty, fat chap, weighing about 18 stone. One day while clearing up a mine-field, laid overnight by a submarine, we had the misfortune to have four or five of the mines explode in the "sweep." The explosion shattered every piece of glass in the ship, put the engines out of action, and nearly blew the ship out of the water. "Bill," one of our stokers--a Cockney who, being off watch, was asleep in his bunk--sat up, yawned, and exclaimed in a sleepy voice: "'Ullo, poor ole 'Sparks' fallen out of 'is bunk again! 'E'll 'urt 'isself one of these days!"--_R.N.V.R., Old Windsor, Berks._ Three Varieties The boat on which I was serving as a stoker had just received two new men as stokers. On coming down the stokehold one of them seemed intent on finding out what different perils could happen to him. After he had been inquiring for about an hour a little Cockney, rather bored, got up and said, "Now look here, mate. The job ain't so bad, looking at it in this light--you've three ways of snuffing it: one is _burnt_ to death, the other is _scalded_ to death; or, if you're damn lucky, _drowned_. That's more chances than they have upstairs."--_B. Scott (late Stoker, H.M.S. "Marlborough"), 29 Stanley Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex._ He was a Bigger Fish The battleship in which I was serving was picking up survivors from a torpedoed merchantman in the North Atlantic. They had been drifting about for hours clinging to upturned boats and bits of gear that had floated clear of the wreckage.