Raymond nodded approval.
‘That’s the sort. Hard-working ‘Subs’ of boats a pace forward, march! One of our world’s workers, but died before attaining maturity. All the same this new battery of ours seems pretty good.’
‘What always scares me,’ returned the other, ‘is shutting down the ventilators for diving. I know I shall forget it some day, and then we’ll have chlorine gas in the boat and be as cold as haddocks in about five minutes, like those poor beggars in “164.”’
‘The day you feel that coming on, you want to let me know. Suicidal mania is not one of my deficiencies. You let me know beforehand and I’ll have you hanged, drawn, and quartered, and bits of you hung round the superstructure as a warning to others of the awful fate of ‘Subs’ who feel the first symptoms of incipient lunacy approaching.’
‘What was it happened to “159” last trip, by the way?’ put in Boyd.
‘Oh, it wasn’t much,’ replied Raymond. ‘“Snatcher” told me about it. They were having tea at about thirty feet when they heard a rumbling stunt. He took her down to eighty feet and stopped there till he had recovered from the fit of nervous prostration into which he had been thrown. Then he went down to a hundred and twenty, took the opportunity of going round and seeing if the boat was right at that depth. When he was satisfied he came up and kept her at forty-five for the rest of the patrol.’
‘What was it?’ queried Seagrave.
‘Seaplane bomb dropped from right above, and only just missed ’em. It was a smooth day, and the pilot must have been able to see the boat easily. The joke was that the stoker P.O., who was off watch at the time, was asleep, with his head against the skin of the hull, and when the bomb went off, the vibration of the boat’s side gave him a lump on the back of the chump as big as an ostrich egg.’
‘Interesting and instructive experience,’ remarked Boyd. ‘Honest Herbert harried by the Hun! That’s the reason there wasn’t any gin in the boat yesterday. The shock to the nerves must have been too much for them.
‘Let the Hun pass,