Five men on the trawler were scanning the sea with glasses, looking for submarines. We could follow all their motions, could tell when they thought they had found us and see their disappointment at their mistakes, but though we were never more than five hundred yards from them I did not think they were pikers because they did not find us. I had tried that hunt for the tiny wave of a periscope.
"No use wasting a torpedo on those fellows," said our commander. "We will use the gun on them."
"How far away can you use a torpedo?" I asked.
"Two hundred yards is the best distance," he said. "Never more than five hundred. A torpedo is pure guesswork at more than five hundred yards."
We crossed the bow of the trawler, circled around to her starboard quarter and came to the surface, fired nine shots and submerged again in forty-five seconds.
The prey secured, we ran submerged through the mine field and past the net barrier to come to the surface well within the harbor and proceed peacefully to our mooring under the shelter of the guns of the land forts.
TALE OF THE CHILD OF TERBEEKE
How It Saved a British Battalion