floated forward again.
Raymond smiled as he watched the men leaving their posts. A humorist in a boat is worth his weight in gold.
The crew dispersed about their various jobs, some to continue their watch in the engine-room or at the wheels, while the watch below turned in their hammocks or stretched out on deck, leaving a courteous gangway to the curtained-off space, anywhere they could find room for a blanket and pillow.
The second coxswain set the diving rudders, spat on his hands, bit off a chunk of tobacco, and retired aft. She would do now, and the coxswain alone could keep her at her depth with the hydroplanes, the great horizontal rudders at the fore-end of the boat that steered her up or down in the same manner as an ordinary vertical rudder steers a surface ship to left or right.
Raymond spent a few minutes satisfying himself that all was well and the helmsman on his course, and then stepped through into the fore-compartment and looked at the chart.
Seagrave and Boyd had both turned in, and in the ‘Ward Room’ it seemed strangely silent. When on the surface the thump and bang of the Diesels filled the boat, and down below one could always hear the water lapping over the superstructure, and feel the vibration and general sense of resistance and energy. But now she was submerged there was an intense stillness, a sort of dead stillness, and only the faint hum of the motors indicated that she was under weigh. There was no motion, no vibration, and no feeling of strain or energy. She might have been at anchor in harbour, except that the hatches were closed and the steering chain rattled now and again.
At one moment noise and rushing water, the next, ‘Diving stations!’ a clang, a hiss or two, and ... silence.
The men’s voices drifted in from the after-compartment, and the clatter of knives and forks indicated that the cook was getting breakfast ready.
After a while Raymond went back to the control room, inhabited now by only the coxswain and helmsman.
‘Eighteen feet,’ he said.