"Here," he said, "you 'op it!"
I went out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind me.
Then for the Erst time since we landed I felt tired—more tired than I had ever felt in my life before.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
For purposes of fiction, only the broad outlines of a great achievement have been sketched into this story; and no attempt has been made to reproduce faithfully the strategy or events of St. George's Day, 1918. Indeed, only such ships find their replicas here as the turning-circle of the tale allows, and if the Author has anywhere endeavoured to be true to facts, it is in the portrayal of those fearsome and bloody conditions under which the Navy added so fair a page to History.
II
BEHIND THE VEIL:
THE STORY OF THE Q BOATS
(1918)
1
FIRST BLOOD
There was a day, now happily past, when the submarine scourge was broadcast upon the seas; then the country turned for its salvation to the Navy, upon which, under the good providence of God, it had grown accustomed to rely in most of the crises of its history. Scientific and mechanical appliances, on a scale adequate to meet and checkmate the outrage of unrestricted submarine warfare, could not be produced by pressing a button. With workshops and laboratories yielding their output at highest pressure, the German submarine building yards were gaining in the race. Every day brought its sickening tale of sinking and burning and murder on the high seas, and in Whitehall offices men studied statistics and columns of figures with faces ever growing graver.