What could an old merchant captain say to this, a man who had been practically obliged to leave his ship in an enemy country, and lie about like a wreck on land, while on the other side of the Channel and off the Shetlands the cursed English cruisers lay in wait, and four miles from New York even the American post on neutral ships was overhauled?
I shrugged my shoulders and was silent.
Then it all came out.
Herr Lohmann told me straight away that he was thinking of starting a line of submarine traders to America, and asked me if I would be willing to take command of the first boat. He explained that the first voyage was to be to Newport-News, and asked me, as I had a knowledge through my voyages on the Baltimore line of the North German Lloyd ships, of the waters and depth conditions outside Chesapeake Bay, whether I thought I should be equal to taking such a submarine trader safely across the Atlantic, if the matter really came off.
It was a great plan.
I was never one for weighing pros and cons, and so I said "Yes" straight away. This was indeed a chance for a fellow of over forty-five years, in this war of "black lists" and daily postal robberies, to do something!
"Herr Lohmann," I said, "if the matter really comes off, you can count on me."
And the matter really did "come off."
Barely two months had elapsed when a telegram called me to Bremen for an important discussion. There I saw designs, sketches, and constructional drawings enough to make me open my eyes wide. And when, four months later, during which time I had been by no means idle, I travelled to Kiel, there rose before my eyes on the slips a strange steel object. Trim, comfortable-looking, and quite harmless she lay there, but nevertheless, hidden in its interior, was the realisation of all those detailed, overwhelmingly complicated figures and plans.
I cannot say that the completed reality even then helped to make more intelligible those blue papers with their endless network of strokes and lines, which had so dismayed and bewildered the mind and eye.