at the periscope watching "No. 1 torpedo" get home; the rush of the
vengeful destroyer; the instant orders for flooding everything; the
swift descent which had to be arranged for with full knowledge of the
shallow sea-floors waiting below, and a guess at the course that might
be taken by the seeking bows above, for assuming a destroyer to draw
10 feet and a submarine on the bottom to stand 25 feet to the top of
her conning-tower, there is not much clearance in 43 feet salt water,
specially if the boat jumps when she touches bottom. And through all
these and half a hundred other simultaneous considerations, imagine
the trained minds below, counting, as only torpedo-men can count, the
run of the merciless seconds that should tell when that second shot
arrived. Then "at the correct interval" as laid down in the table of
distances, the boom and the jar of No. 2 torpedo, the relief, the
exhaled breath and untightened lips; the impatient waiting for a
second peep, and when that had been taken and the eye at the periscope
had reported _one_ little nigger-boy in place of two on the waters,
perhaps cigarettes, &c., while the destroyer sickled about at a
venture overhead.

Certainly they give men rewards for doing such things, but what reward
can there be in any gift of Kings or peoples to match the enduring
satisfaction of having done them, not alone, but with and through and
by trusty and proven companions?


DEFEATED BY DARKNESS

E1, also a Baltic boat, her Commander F.N. Laurence, had her
experiences too. She went out one summer day and late--too late--in
the evening sighted three transports. The first she hit. While she was