"What followed was very business-like. It illustrates the attitude the British have come to take toward the submarines because of their flagrant violations of every form of international law and decency. It is the attitude which any country, obliged to fight against them, will assume. To the British mind, submarines must be exterminated, just as one would exterminate a nest of poisonous vipers, or a nest of hornets. People ask me how many submarines are being captured now. Very few! Many are destroyed, but few captured.
"No sooner did the hull of the submarine show itself than we began to hammer her with our three-inch guns. She opened fire, but her shots went wild, and, in a few seconds, she disappeared.
"As fast as we could, we ran over to where she had gone down. If the principles which obtain on land, in the air or in the navy at large, existed in submarine warfare, we would have gone over to see if we could rescue any of the wounded, but it was a U-boat and we simply made sure that there was nothing left of the craft.
"About where she went down, a quantity of gas and air bubbles were rising, and the dirty patch of oil was once more in evidence. That was a pretty certain sign the career of one U-boat was at an end, for the sea must have been pouring into her, and even though all her crew did not drown, once the salt water reached the storage batteries, the chloride would do the work.
WERE TAKING NO CHANCES.
"But we are taking no chances. We circle round and round the spot and drop depth bombs—deadly machines. These are powerful explosives which are set so they will detonate at a certain depth. We first sounded the bottom and then set our bombs for ten fathoms. Suddenly I hear a cry from the boat behind us. One of the crew reaches out, grabs the collar of a man who has just dropped a depth bomb over the stern and yanks him unceremoniously into the cockpit. At a glance I see what has happened.
"The engineer has stalled his motor—just as the bomb was let go. It sinks slowly, and there is a slight momentum left in the submarine-chaser. We hold our breath and watch in suspense, expecting any second to see our comrades hurled into the air among a mushroom of water and splinters.
"There is no way to help them. Suddenly there is a muffled roar, a column of water rises to what seems a hundred feet, and falls back, drenching every one who is near it. But our comrades are unhurt. The momentum of their boat has carried them just far enough to save them from being blown to atoms. That is the second narrow escape for our little squadron in this chase after a single submarine.
"But our work is done. There is no doubt now about the fate of the U-boat. It is not necessary for one of the depth bombs actually to come in contact with the submerged craft to destroy it. When under water, a submarine's rigidity is multiplied. Its elasticity is next to nothing. An explosion as powerful as that of a depth bomb near it, is almost certain to cripple it if not destroy it. It is the same principle as that which kills fish in a pond when dynamite is exploded beneath the surface of the water. The shock is sufficient to kill the men in the U-boat, and so we glide along homeward, secure in the knowledge that even if our gunfire did not finish the enemy, the bombs have done the work. On the surface, we notice swarms of dead fish."