* * * *
*
“But submarine work is cold-blooded business.”
(This was at a little session in a green-curtained
“wardroom” cum owner’s cabin.)
“Then there’s no truth in the yarn that
you can feel when the torpedo’s going to get
home?” I asked.
“Not a word. You sometimes see it get home,
or miss, as the case may be. Of course, it’s
never your fault if it misses. It’s all
your second-in-command.”
“That’s true, too,” said the second.
“I catch it all round. That’s what
I am here for.”
“And what about the third man?” There
was one aboard at the time.
“He generally comes from a smaller boat, to
pick up real work—if he can suppress his
intellect and doesn’t talk ‘last commission.’”
The third hand promptly denied the possession of any
intellect, and was quite dumb about his last boat.
“And the men?”
“They train on, too. They train each other.
Yes, one gets to know ’em about as well as they
get to know us. Up topside, a man can take you
in—take himself in—for months;
for half a commission, p’rhaps. Down below
he can’t. It’s all in cold blood—not
like at the front, where they have something exciting
all the time.”
“Then bumping mines isn’t exciting?”
“Not one little bit. You can’t bump
back at ’em. Even with a Zepp——”
“Oh, now and then,” one interrupted, and
they laughed as they explained.
“Yes, that was rather funny. One of our
boats came up slap underneath a low Zepp. ’Looked
for the sky, you know, and couldn’t see anything
except this fat, shining belly almost on top of ’em.
Luckily, it wasn’t the Zepp’s stingin’
end. So our boat went to windward and kept just
awash. There was a bit of a sea, and the Zepp
had to work against the wind. (They don’t like
that.) Our boat sent a man to the gun. He was
pretty well drowned, of course, but he hung on, choking
and spitting, and held his breath, and got in shots
where he could. This Zepp was strafing bombs
about for all she was worth, and—who was
it?—Macartney, I think, potting at her between
dives; and naturally all hands wanted to look at the
performance, so about half the North Sea flopped down
below and—oh, they had a Charlie Chaplin
time of it! Well, somehow, Macartney managed
to rip the Zepp a bit, and she went to leeward with
a list on her. We saw her a fortnight later with
a patch on her port side. Oh, if Fritz only fought
clean, this wouldn’t be half a bad show.
But Fritz can’t fight clean.”
“And we can’t do what he does—even
if we were allowed to,” one said.
“No, we can’t. ’Tisn’t
done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water,
dry him, and give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington
Hall.”
“And what does Fritz do?” I asked.
“He sputters and clicks and bows. He has
all the correct motions, you know; but, of course,
when he’s your prisoner you can’t tell
him what he really is.”
