On the following August 3, when 20 miles south of the Start, _Mitchell_ had yet another engagement. She had left Falmouth two days before as the _Arius_, of Riga, then as the French _Cancalais_, of La Houle, and cruised between the Lizard and the Owers, to Guernsey, and in the neighbourhood of Ushant. At 1.45 p.m. she was sailing close-hauled on the starboard tack, steering west; there was a fresh breeze, rather a rough sea, and a slight haze. Three miles away on the starboard beam appeared a submarine, who five minutes later began shelling the schooner. Lawrie let his ship fall off the wind, and the shells came bursting around, passing through sails and rigging, so after ten minutes of this the schooner hove-to and ‘abandoned’ ship. Slowly and cautiously the submarine approached, and when about 3,000 yards off stopped his engines, but continued to fire. Then he came up on the decoy’s starboard beam, about 1,000 yards away; but after fifteen minutes of shelling from this position, Lawrie decided that he could tempt the enemy no nearer. It was now 4 p.m., so _Mitchell_ started her motor, cleared away all disguises, put the helm hard aport, and so brought the enemy well on the beam, allowing all four guns to bear. Over twenty shells were fired, of which three or four hit the base of the conning-tower; but the submarine, having replied with four shots, dived, and made off. For two hours and a quarter had this engagement been prolonged, and the enemy must have been considerably annoyed to have wasted seventy of his shells in this manner. There was every reason to suppose that he had received injuries, and though there were no fatalities aboard the schooner, yet the latter’s windlass, sails, rigging, and deck fittings had been damaged, and two of her men had been wounded. Lieutenant Lawrie received for this gallant fight a bar to his D.S.C., and a similar award was made to Lieutenant T. Hughes. Such, briefly, was the kind of life that was spent month after month in these mystery sailing ships. It was an extraordinary mixture of monotony and the keenest excitement. From one hour to another no man knew whether he would be alive or dead, and the one essential thing consisted in absolute preparedness and mental alertness. To be surprised by the enemy was almost criminal; to escape narrowly from shipwreck, to remain unmoved under shell-fire, to see the spars crashing down and your shipmates laid out in great pain, to be hit and yet refusing to hit back until the right moment, to keep a clear head and a watchful eye, and all the time handle your ship so that the most was got out of the wind—all this was a part of your duty as a Q-ship man. Officers and men believed that if their Q-ship were torpedoed and any of them were captured, they would be shot as _francs-tireurs_. German prisoners had not hesitated to make this statement, although I do not remember an instance where this was carried out.