‘I went out in the T.B. as a sight-seer, and watched the submarine dive through my glasses with the interest of a child with a new toy. It was the first time I’d seen a boat go under, and I remember wondering what it felt like to be down below. At the same time I noticed a tramp steamer, a Norwegian she was, coming down Channel across our track, and I recollected mentioning it to the captain of the Torpedo Boat.
‘We hoisted a red flag to indicate the danger and continued on our course, keeping a good look-out for the periscope meanwhile, and all the time the tramp kept getting closer and didn’t seem to worry about our warning signals. Then the periscope was spotted, and the next moment the tramp was between us and the submarine’s track. At the last minute the Norwegian seemed to have suddenly realised that something was wrong, and thinking the danger was to do with us, altered her course away from us.
‘Even so, something must have been amiss in the boat, or I think she would have gone clear, but the next moment we saw the wake of the periscope under the steamer’s counter, and then it disappeared for good. The Norwegian stopped in answer to our frantic signals, and we went alongside and hailed the master. He said that his engineers reported that the propeller had struck something, so we took his name and port of registry and got the wireless going.
‘Two T.B.s arrived in a short time with divers and other gear, and the tramp was taken into Portland for examination; but nothing was proved, and she was not held to blame. In those days the submarine signals weren’t generally known as they are now.
‘We’d marked and buoyed the spot where we last saw “02’s” periscope, and the divers were just getting ready for a preliminary survey when a man shot out of the water and right up in the air. He fell back with a plop, and we had a boat out and the body on board inside three minutes. It was Allison, the “Sub” of the boat, and he just managed to tell us how things were and what had happened before he fainted. Then the divers got to work, and we were waiting anxiously for news when another body appeared. It was one of the stokers, and he was in a bad condition with shock, and half drowned. We waited and waited, but nobody else came up, and it was not for days afterwards that the boat was raised, and they were all dead by then——’
The gray-haired man sighed and broke off.
‘I knew Allison,’ I said, breaking the silence that followed. ‘It was he who told me practically all I know about “02.”’
‘Did you?’ said the gray-haired man; ‘and I knew Belton: I knew him very well.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘I hope I haven’t——’
‘Not at all,’ replied my informant. ‘But I think I knew him better than most people, because, you see, he was my son.’