was proceeding away from us, and was, even then, six or seven miles
away, so an attack was out of the question. The engineer, who had
joined us, drew my attention to the thin wisp of almost invisible
blue-grey smoke from our own stern. The contrast was certainly
striking!

Over dinner I gave it as my opinion that the British boats were pretty
useless. Alten would not agree, and stated that, though in certain
technical aspects they were in a position of inferiority, yet in
personnel and skill in attacking they were fully our equals. He seemed
to hold them in considerable respect, and he remarked that, when making
a passage, he was more anxious on their account than in any other way.
He informed me that, on the last passage he made, he was attacked by a
British boat which he never saw, the only indication he received being
a torpedo which jumped out of the water almost over his tail. Luckily
it was very rough at the time, which made the torpedo run erratically,
otherwise they would undoubtedly have been hit.

What appeared to astonish him was the fact that the British boat had
been able to make an attack in such weather. We are now charging on one
engine, 500 amperes on each half-battery.

* * * * *

We are due back at Zeebrugge at 10 p.m. to-night. We should have been
in at dawn to-day, but we received a wireless from the senior officer,
Zeebrugge, to say that mine-laying was suspected, and we were to wait
till the "Q.R." channel, from the Blankenberg buoy, had been swept. We
lay in the bottom for eight hours, a few miles from the western end of
the channel.