The Secret Service Submarine: A Story of the Present War

NEW YORK SULLY & KLEINTEICH 1915
The verses used as preface appeared in the issue of Truth for 4th November 1914. They are reproduced here by special and courteous permission of the Editor. The verses were published anonymously, but the author has kindly allowed me to mention his name. He is Mr. William Booth.
THE SONG OF THE SUBMARINE
This is the song of the submarine Afloat on the waters wide. Like a sleeping whale In the starlight pale, Just flush with the swirling tide. The salt sea ripples against her plates The salt wind is her breath, Like the spear of fate She lies in wait, And her name is Sudden Death.
I watch the swift destroyers come, Like greyhounds lank and lean, And their long hulks sleek Play hide-and-seek With me on the waters green. I watch them with my single eye, I see their funnels flame, And I sing Ho! Ho! As I sink below, Ho! Ho! for a glorious game!
I roam the seas from Scapa Flow To the Bight of Heligoland; In the Dover Strait I lie in wait On the edge of Goodwin's Sand. I am here and there and everywhere, Like the phantom of a dream, And I sing Ho! Ho! Through the winds that blow, The song of the submarine!
William Booth.
On thinking it over, I date the extraordinary affairs which so thrilled England and brought me such undeserved good fortune from the day on which I tried to enlist.
The position was this. My father was an engineer with a small, but apparently thriving, foundry at Derby. My mother died and my father sent me to Oxford, my younger brother, Bernard Carey, being an officer in the Navy. At Oxford, I was one of that perennial tribe of young asses who play what used to be called the Giddy Goat in those days with the greatest aplomb and satisfaction to themselves. I was at a good college—Exeter—for originally we were west-country people, and all sons of Devon and Cornwall go to Exeter.
I was immensely strong and healthy. I did not row, but played Rugby football, being chosen to play in the Freshmen's match, and subsequently got my Blue. I did no reading whatever. My father gave me a more than sufficient allowance, and in my second year, having sprained myself badly, I bought a motor car—an expensive Rolls-Royce—on credit, and became a blood. I could not play games any more, though I was healthy enough, so I used to go constantly to London to see my dentist, which, of course, meant dinner at the Café Royal, too many cocktails at the Empire, and a wild rush home in the car to get to College before twelve o'clock at night.