And not only lives but ships with valuable cargoes of food were often saved. For example, there is the notable incident of the saving of the _Berwen_. In the rapidly falling darkness of a winter day, with a strong south-west gale blowing and a heavy sea running, the little wooden drifter _Lloyd George_, manned by ten hardy Scotch fishermen, while patrolling the War-Channel between the Shipwash and the Sunk light-vessels, sighted the large merchant steamer _Berwen_, apparently mined and not under control, to the south-westward of the Shipwash. The _Lloyd George_ immediately steamed at full speed to the assistance of the _Berwen_, only to find that the mined ship had been abandoned by her crew and was rapidly drifting on to a minefield which stretched to leeward of her, where several moored mines could be plainly seen at intervals in the rise and fall of the heavy sea. The skipper of the drifter, realising the danger and the necessity for immediate action, with great skill and wonderful seamanship placed his drifter alongside the _Berwen_ and, having put three members of his crew of ten on board her, passed a tow-line and commenced to tow her to the south-west, away from the minefields. The little drifter, not fitted for towing, having none of the necessary appliances on board, and not having the power to deal with so heavy a tow, could make little, if any, progress in the teeth of the ever-increasing gale; but she held on to the _Berwen_ and fought bravely on throughout the dark night, surrounded by the unknown dangers of mines, and was able at the coming of daylight to hand her charge over safely to the tugs for which she had wirelessed. The _Berwen_ eventually reached the Thames with only a few hundred tons damaged out of the seven thousand tons of sugar which formed her cargo. One is not surprised to hear that a grateful country omitted to pay any salvage to the seamen who, by their gallant action, had rescued so valuable a cargo, on the ground that the sugar was Government property.