single detail of what is left out--she spent a certain time in testing
arrangements and apparatus, which may or may not work properly when
immersed in a mixture of block-ice and dirty ice-cream in a
temperature well towards zero. This is a pleasant job, made the more
delightful by the knowledge that if you slip off the superstructure
the deadly Baltic chill will stop your heart long before even your
heavy clothes can drown you. Hence (and this is not in the book
either) the remark of the highly trained sailor-man in these latitudes
who, on being told by his superior officer in the execution of his
duty to go to Hell, did insubordinately and enviously reply: "D'you
think I'd be here if I could?" Whereby he caused the entire personnel,
beginning with the Commander, to say "Amen," or words to that effect.
E9 evidently made things work.

Next day she reports: "As circumstances were favourable decided to
attempt to bag a destroyer." Her "certain position" must have been
near a well-used destroyer-run, for shortly afterwards she sees three
of them, but too far off to attack, and later, as the light is
failing, a fourth destroyer towards which she manoeuvres.
"Depth-keeping," she notes, "very difficult owing to heavy swell." An
observation balloon on a gusty day is almost as stable as a submarine
"pumping" in a heavy swell, and since the Baltic is shallow, the
submarine runs the chance of being let down with a whack on the
bottom. None the less, E9 works her way to within 600 yards of the
quarry; fires and waits just long enough to be sure that her torpedo
is running straight, and that the destroyer is holding her course.
Then she "dips to avoid detection." The rest is deadly simple: "At the
correct moment after firing, 45 to 50 seconds, heard the unmistakable
noise of torpedo detonating." Four minutes later she rose and "found
destroyer had disappeared." Then, for reasons probably connected with