X. A TRIP IN A SUBMARINE
The man who craves excitement is apt to get his fill for a while after a trip in a British submarine under the North Sea. He may dream of the experience for many nights afterwards, and the lip of the conning-tower well seems to get higher and higher until the water rushes over like an incipient Niagara—then he awakens.
The wind was blowing about 30 knots when I boarded the mother ship of the submarines in the English East Coast port. It was an unsettled sort of morning, and just after I had walked over two narrow planks to the under-sea craft, aboard which I was to make a cruise under the North Sea, the sun shot forth a widening streak of blurred silver like a searchlight on the prancing green-grey waves. With care, the two-striper skipper gave his orders to get the submarine under way, and soon he stuck her nose at the east. One felt the frost in the air, and fingers grasping the canvas shield of the conning tower were benumbed.
Three men stood in line on the aft hatch while the submersible glided through the port waters. Four other sailors were getting a last good lungful of fine fresh sea air for'd. At the conning tower were the commander, his helmsman, and a young lieutenant—the boss of the torpedoes. Now and again another officer popped up his head through the conning-tower well, and that opening to the boat's bowels appeared just about large enough for his broad shoulders. The nose of the shark-like craft passed through white-caps as steadily as a ship on a calm ocean.
"Hands for'd, sir," announced the junior lieutenant.
The commander mumbled an answer, and the men were ordered to close the for'd hatches, and soon the iron doors were screwed down. The gas engines shot off black smoke into the curdling wake of the vessel's twin propellers, and as we surged along into the uninteresting sea the skipper sang out to have the aft hatches shut. The well-disciplined bluejackets instantly obeyed the order, and the iron slabs banged to, and I knew that those men were busying themselves in their particular work of seeing that everything was ready for submerging.
The commander of the submarine was an agile man, about 5 feet 7 inches tall. His face looked tired, and there were lines about his eyes, which were only for his ship. I do not think that he had the chance to give me a look—a real look—all the time I was aboard. There was always something which needed his attention. I found that the speed we were making against the wind closed my eyes, for there is very little protection on the conning tower of a submarine; and that alone might have given the commander that tired look. But I gathered afterwards that the eyes are strained a good deal in looking for enemy craft. There, in the distance, was the port whence we had emerged, and we now were out on the breast of the sea in war time. Two miles off our port bow was a grey vessel, to which our skipper gave his attention for a while. She was a British destroyer plunging through the water at 22 knots.
The sun had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but there were still streaks of blue in the sky. The commander shot his gaze aft, to starboard, port, and before him. Although we were heading straight out to sea, the skipper was ever on the alert.