aiguillettes, responsible for vast decks and crypt-like flats, a
student of extended above-water tactics, thinking in tens of thousands
of yards instead of his modest but deadly three to twelve hundred.

And the man who takes his place straight-way forgets that he ever
looked down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bridge under the whole
breadth of heaven, but crawls and climbs and dives through
conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the
cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he
is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels.

* * * * *


EXPERT OPINIONS

"But submarine work is cold-blooded business."

(This was at a little session in a green-curtained "wardroom" cum
owner's cabin.)

"Then there's no truth in the yarn that you can feel when the
torpedo's going to get home?" I asked.

"Not a word. You sometimes see it get home, or miss, as the case may
be. Of course, it's never your fault if it misses. It's all your
second-in-command."

"That's true, too," said the second. "I catch it all round. That's
what I am here for."