Iles war diary, 1914-1919 / G. H. Iles - Page 223
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[Page 223]
Sep 6th at 2 AM. slumber was disturbed by an order to raise steam immediately for sea; - we were now quite used to these disturbances of the peace and steam was speedily raised, after which we all patiently awaited the order to proceed, - our continued life of inactivity was proving monotonous, - day after day, and month after month, the same routine was being gone through, patrolling various sections of the North Sea, convoying merchantmen across to Bergen in Norway, dummy stunts around Jutland and Heligoland, were by now all becoming just the ordinary stunts.
We were still awaiting orders when at 11 AM, a floating object was observed floating dead in line for the bow of our ship, - it did not take very long to discover that it was a floating mine drifting about aimlessly – a rifle and ammunition was procured, and a shot fires by Perry Officer Crawford pierced the mine and caused it to sink just about 100 yards from our ship, - it did not have the appearance of one of our own mines but was very similar to the mines laid by the Hun submarines, and reported as such – Expectations of going to sea subsided during the afternoon