At war, this focus of the public outlook has persisted. The threat to our sea-communications, to the source by which the nation gains its daily bread, has drawn an intense interest to the fortunes of the ships, but that interest has rarely been extended to the coasting vessels and the seamen who man them; there is little said of the work of the coastal pilots, on whose skill and local knowledge so much depends. We are concerned for our _Britannics_ and _Justitias_, but the fate of the _Sarah Pritchard_ of Beaumaris, or the escape of _Boy Jacob_ are small events in relation to the toll of our tonnage. Their utility has not been brought before us in the same way as the direct service of the great ocean carriers. It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs served by them are, in part, obscured. We are, perhaps, satisfied that alternative channels exist for passage of the tonnage they transport: road and rail are open for inland carriage. The situation is not quite so clear. Pressure at the rail-heads, at the collieries, at the steelworks and the manufactories, has thrown a burden on our island railways that they are unable to bear. But for the service of the coasters and the resolution of the home-trade seamen, the block to our traffic could not have been other than fatal. By relieving the congestion on the lines, they made possible the expansion of our output of munitions. Millions of tons that would otherwise have been put upon land transport (and have lain to swell the accumulations), are brought to tide-mark to be handled and cleared and ferried between home ports and across the channels by the coasting vessels. The Fleet is coaled and stored almost entirely by sea. Our men in France and Flanders are carried and fed and refitted by light-draught steamers. Power is transmitted to our Allies from British coalfields by our grimy colliers. Constant voyaging, dispatch at the ports of lading and discharge, seagoing through all weathers, make huge the total of their tonnage, but their individual cargoes rank small against the mammoth burdens of the oversea merchantmen. The sea-ants (however busily they throng the ports) are seldom remarked; their work is carried on in the shadow of more spectacular and lengthy voyaging. On occasion, a stray beam of popular recognition is turned on the smaller craft--as when _Wandle_ steams up Thames after her gallant fight, or when _Thordis_ (Bell, master) rams and sinks a U-boat--but the light is quickly slewed again to illuminate the seafaring of the oversea vessels. Similarly--with the men--interest has centred on the deep-water mariner; the coasting masters and their crews, together with the pilots, are little heard of. Their navigations, steering by the land on a short passage of a tide or two, have not the compelling emphasis of long voyaging on distant seas.