Nevertheless R19 still ran awash. Until she was within easy distance of hostile territorial waters it was policy to do so, since a British seaplane would find it difficult to distinguish friend from foe should she spot the ill-defined shape of a submerged craft creeping blindly through the water at a depth of from fifty to a hundred feet.
"Submarine on the port bow, sir," reported the look-out.
The order for "General Quarters" rang out. Telescopes and binoculars were brought to bear upon the triangular-shaped grey object, cleaving the waves at a distance of nearly three miles, while the four quick-firers were promptly raised from their places of concealment and manned to open fire at the first word of command.
The old couplet:
"Twice armed is he who has his quarrel just,
Thrice armed is he who gets his blow home fust",
is essentially applicable in modern naval warfare when single-ship actions take place at comparatively short range. The days of courteous exchange of compliments between doughty antagonists before opening fire are past. The first shot may decide, and frequently has decided, the contest.
Therein, especially during night encounters between destroyers in the Straits of Dover and off the Belgian coast, the Huns held an important advantage. Every vessel afloat was to them an enemy craft, while the British had to withhold their fire until they made certain that they were not attacking a friendly or neutral ship.
"She's flying the White Ensign!" exclaimed Macquare. "By Jove, she's been at it!"
The approaching submarine turned out to be one of the E Class returning from observation patrol. She was showing a considerable amount of freeboard. Most of her water-ballast had been started. Just abaft her conning-tower, on the port side, a tarpaulin and a "thrum mat" had been lashed over a rent extending from just above her water-line to half-way across her curved deck. Pumps were steadily ejecting water—a circumstance that told of strained plates and shattered rivets. Of her twin periscopes, one had been shorn off close to the top of the conning-tower; the other, bent at an acute angle, trailed drunkenly over the side.
Dive she could not, unless once and for all time. Only by running on the surface and keeping the leaks under control could she hope to make port. With her ensign proudly displayed, and most of her officers and crew drawn up on her narrow deck, she held on her course, the passing submarines saluting each other according to the honourable and long-standing custom of the seas.