Under the periscope

by Mark Herbert Joseph Bennett

Once more the boat came up, and at twenty-one feet the periscope was slowly hoisted and Raymond took his quick look round.

‘All right,’ he announced to the expectant crew. ‘She’s sinking fast by the head—the others are standing by. Hit her right amidships and blown two of her funnels out. There’s a lot of things floating in the water, though, and a boat is dodging about. She’s almost gone. Want a look?’

Seagrave and Boyd in turn stepped to the periscope and gazed at the stricken Destroyer, now at her last gasp. Her comrades were dashing round her at high speed in a wide circle, and heads and debris of all sorts were bobbing on the surface.

‘Beastly, isn’t it?’ said Raymond, taking another look. ‘Makes you feel a bit sick to think we’re responsible for it all. Ah! there she goes. She’s under now. I’d like to get another, all the same, but rather too risky. Right. Down periscope 40 feet. Fall out diving stations.’

Then they went down once more to the greeny depths, and the normal routine was resumed. But it wasn’t quite the same. From the other side of the curtains the whispering voices of the men and the subdued talk from aft had taken on a new tone. To all appearances they were back to ordinary diving routine, the coxswain and helmsmen in the control room and the rest scattered over the boat, but a subtle change had taken place. Before, they had been playing at it, but now, well, those heads bobbing on the water were mute evidence of the experience they had been through.

Perhaps in the heat of an action it may be different, and one may feel differently about it, but in a submarine where no one but the captain sees the enemy there is always rather an aftermath to cold-bloodedness, a realisation of what the others have gone through. True, at the time, one realises that if the enemy is not put under, one’s own boat and her crew will be, but after the first excitement has worn off and the torpedoes have been fired and found their mark, comes the feeling of not having given the men a sporting chance, the feeling one had at school after having ‘dotted the other fellow’ one on the nose or taken the starch out of some one who was always ridiculing us. One wanted to shake hands afterwards and be magnanimous (horrible word), and forget the whole thing. But there was no shaking hands here, and there were some who wouldn’t shake hands again ever ... up there ... heads bobbing on the sea. Beastly.....

The whisperings grew fainter, and the talk in the after compartment flagged and ceased. The men off watch were dropping off to sleep, and Seagrave and Boyd had clambered into their bunks. Forward the four empty racks showed the day’s work done, and behind the tube doors the spare torpedoes were shipped and ready in case of necessity.

Raymond sat writing out his report, a short, concise narrative of the events, for the benefit of Captain Charteris and ‘their Lordships,’ those vague beings of Whitehall whose opinions rule the Naval world.

There was no periscope watch just yet, as it was too dangerous to risk being seen for a while, and ‘123’ jogged slowly homewards (she was due in to-morrow morning) at the forty feet level, at the sedate speed of slightly under two knots an hour.

At four o’clock tea appeared, and the boat came to life once more. Men could be heard passing aft on their way to the meal, and an opening of lockers and clattering of crockery announced the progress of the meal. In the ward room the officers took theirs off the chart-table and talked of mice and men.