vouchsafed was a torrent of blasphemy from Alten.

The torpedo had jumped clean out of the water a hundred yards short of
the steamer, and had then evidently dived under the ship; so I gathered
later when Alten had calmed down somewhat. We were about to surface and
give her the gun, when luckily Alten took a good sweep round with the
skyscraper and discovered one of those wretched little airships about a
mile away, coming towards the steamer, which was wailing piteously, on
her syren.

As the chart showed forty metres we decided to bottom and have lunch.

Over lunch we discussed the misadventure. Alten was loud in his curses
of Tanzerman (the torpedo lieutenant at Bruges), from whom he had got
the torpedo in guaranteed good condition only forty-eight hours before
we sailed. He launched forth into a tirade against the torpedo staff at
Bruges, and, warming to his subject, he roundly abused the whole of the
depot personnel, whom he stigmatized as a set of hard-drinking,
shore-loafing ruffians, who were incapable of realizing that they
existed for the benefit of the boats' personnel and "material."

I naturally disagreed, and did so the more readily that I
conscientiously disagree with him. I find that there is a tendency on
the part of some of these submarine officers, who have been U-boating a
long time, to get into narrow grooves. Most reserve officers are not
like this, as they have only been in during the war. Alten is an
exception; he left the Hamburg-Amerika on two years' half pay in 1912,
and was, of course, kept on in 1914. After all, the depot staff are
Germans, and as such labour for the Fatherland, and though their work
in office and workship is not so dangerous as ours, on the other hand