E9 had an exciting time. While she was watching for her prey, she saw a big German cruiser and she had to dive. When she came up again, the cruiser had gone, but there was a destroyer instead, and this she marked down. At one time she was actually too near the destroyer to fire a torpedo because it would have been dangerous to herself. At last she got about six hundred yards off and then she fired two torpedoes, one after the other. The first missed, but the second hit the destroyer fairly in the middle and blew her to pieces. Another German destroyer which was near hastily ran away.
Lieut.-Commander Horton and his gallant men returned to Harwich flying the little yellow flag, and underneath it a little white flag, also bearing the grim device of a skull and crossbones. It was then that he was given the jesting nickname of “The Double-toothed Pirate,” for as you know the skull and crossbones has always been the emblem of pirates.
I do not myself like this nickname, for Lieut.-Commander Horton is by no means a pirate. On the contrary, he always fights fair. He is as clever as he is brave, and he has always been a great believer in submarines, which he has been studying for years. When he was serving in H.M.S. Duke of Edinburgh he won a gold medal for saving life. That was when the Delhi went ashore with the Princess Royal and the late Duke of Fife and their children on board.
An amusing story is told which shows the coolness of submarine officers. One of these gallant fellows, finding that the enemy could see him on the surface by daylight, sank his boat to the bottom and waited for night. Someone asked him what he did all that time. “I did very well,” he said, “we played auction bridge, and I won 4s. 11½d.” But games like this at the bottom of the sea are the great exception.
Never forget our seamen and what they are doing for us in storm, in cold, and in fog. If you have the good fortune to be related to a boy or man in the Navy, write to him regularly and tell him all the home news. He will love to hear it, and, busy as he may be, will probably find time to answer you. But if you don’t hear for a long time, remember that the delightful verses—with only one word altered—which were written by the Earl of Dorset at sea in 1665 are as true now as they were two hundred and fifty years ago:
“To all you children now at land
We men at sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write:
The Muses now, and Neptune too,