At 4 a.m. the submarine climbed to the surface and found two squadrons of battleships blackening the sky with smoke, screened by destroyers on all sides and brooded over by Zeppelins. She fired at two miles range and missed the flagship, halved the range and fired again—this time at the last ship in the line—and blew a hole in her side through which you could drive a motor omnibus. She then dived to a considerable depth and sat and listened to the “chug” of the destroyers’ propellers circling overhead and the detonations of their explosive charges. These gradually grew fainter as the hunt moved away on a false trail.
The submarine then came up and investigated; the remainder of the German Fleet had vanished, leaving their crippled sister to the ministrations of the destroyers, who were visible casting about in all directions, “apparently,” says the report dryly, “searching for me.” The stricken battleship, with a heavy list, was wallowing in the direction of the German coast, sagging through a right angle as she went. The menace that stalked her fetched a wide circle, reloading on the way, and took up a position ahead favourable for the coup de grâce. She administered it at 1,500 yards range and dived, praising Allah.
Later, having breakfasted to the accompaniment of distant explosions of varying force, she rose to the surface again. It was a clear sunny morning with perfect visibility; the battleship had vanished and on the horizon the smoke of the retreating destroyers made faint spirals against the blue.
Since British submarines specialise in attacking enemy men-of-war only, their operations are chiefly confined to waters where such craft are most likely to be found. Those who read the lesson of Jutland aright will therefore be able to locate roughly the area of British submarine activity.
In the teeth of every defensive device known to Kultur, despite moored mines, explosive nets, and decoys of fiendish ingenuity, this ceaseless patrol is maintained. Winter and summer, from sunset to dawn and dawn to sunrise, there the little wet ships watch and wait. Where the long yellow seas break in clouds of surf across sandbanks and no man dares to follow, they lie and draw their breath. Their inquisitive periscopes rise and dip in the churning wake of the German minesweepers themselves. They rise out of the ambush of depths where the groundswell of a forgotten gale stirs the sand into a fog; and an unsuspecting Zeppelin, flying low, lumbers, buzzing angrily, out of range of their high-angle gun.
Here too come other submarines, returning from a cruise with the murder of unarmed merchantmen to their unforgettable discredit. They come warily, even in their own home waters, and more often than not submerged; but they meet the little wet ships from time to time, and the record of their doubtful achievements remains thenceforward a song unsung.
A British submarine on patrol sighted through her periscope the periscope of another submarine. So close were the two boats that to discharge a torpedo would have been as dangerous to one as the other, and the commanding officer of the British boat accordingly rammed his opponent. Neither boat was travelling fast, and he had fully three seconds in which to make his decision and act on it.
Locked together thus, they dropped down through the depths; the German blowing all his tanks in furious efforts to rise; the other flooding every available inch of space in a determined effort to force his adversary down and drown him.
Now the hull of a submarine is tested to resist the pressure of the water up to a certain depth; after that the joints leak, plates buckle, and finally the whole structure collapses like a crumpled egg-shell. With one eye on the depth-gauge the British lieutenant forced the German down to the safety limit and, foot by foot, beyond it. Then gradually they heard the enemy begin to bump along their bottom; he had broken away from the death-lock and was rolling helplessly aft beneath their hull. The sounds ceased and the needle on the dial jerked back and began to retrace its course. The British submarine rose, to contemplate a circle of oil slowly widening on the surface in the region of the encounter.
Few of these grim games of Peep-bo! are without a moral of some sort. A gentleman adventurer within the mouth of a certain river was aware of a considerable to-do on board flag-draped tugs and river-craft; he himself shared in the universal elation on sighting through his periscope a large submarine, also gaily decked with flags, evidently proceeding on a trial trip. He waited until she was abreast of him and then torpedoed her, blowing her sky-high. Remained then the business of getting home.