There can be no doubt but that these sailing ships had the most strenuous and arduous task of all. They suffered by being so useful, for the Q-steamships, as a rule, did not spend more than eight days at sea out of twelve, and then they had to come in for coal. The schooners, as we have seen, could keep the sea for a month, so long as they had sufficient water and provisions. Several more were added to the list during 1917 and 1918, and there was never any lack of volunteers for them. The only difficulty was, in these days of steam, in choosing those who had had experience in sailing craft. The revival of the sailing man-of-war was certainly one of the many remarkable features in the naval campaign. CHAPTER VII MORE SAILING SHIPS During the ensuing months many demands were made on the sailing-ship man-of-war. There were pressed into the service such vessels as the schooner _Result_, the 220-ton lugger _Bayard_, the three-masted schooner _Prize_, the motor drifter _Betsy Jameson_, the ketch _Sarah Colebrooke_, the auxiliary schooner _Glen_ (alias _Sidney_), the brigantine _Dargle_, the _Brown Mouse_ yacht, built on the lines of a Brixham trawler, and so on. The barquentine _Merops_, otherwise known as _Maracaio_ and Q 28, began decoy work in February, 1917. She was fitted out in the Firth of Forth with a couple of 12-pounders and a 4-inch gun. At the end of May she had a severe engagement with a submarine, and was considerably damaged aloft. In March the 158-ton Rye motor ketch _Sarah Colebrooke_ was requisitioned, and sent to Portsmouth to be fitted out, appearing in May as the _Bolham_. A month later, 20 miles south of Beachy Head, she fought a submarine, and had quite an unpleasant time. One of the enemy’s shells exploded under the port quarter, lifting the ketch’s stern high out of the water, another exploded under the port leeboard, sending a column of water on board, and swamping the boat; whilst a third burst on board, doing considerable damage. She fought the submarine until the latter disappeared, but the _Bolham’s_ motor was by this time so choked with splinters and glass that she could not proceed to the spot where the submarine had last been seen, and of course it so happened that there was no wind.