found no submarine on the surface. It showed a business-like flotilla of destroyers on their beat, and a long line of net drifters at anchor in the far distance amid sandbanks. An armed trawler with rust-streaked sides and a gun forward was making her way through the cold, grey seas in the direction of the drifters; a hoist of gay-coloured signal flags flew from her stump of a mast, and at the peak a tattered German ensign. The crew were clustered for warmth in the lee of the engine-room casing, their collars turned up{79} above their ears, and their hands deep in their pockets. They were staring ahead intently at the line of nets guarding the entrance to the harbour they were about to enter. None noticed a black speck that peeped intermittently out of their tumbling wake thirty yards astern, and followed them up the channel. Three or four fathoms beneath that questioning speck, in an electric-lit glittering steel cylinder, a young man stood peering into the lens of a high-power periscope, both hands resting on a lever. He spoke in a dull monotone, with long intervals of silence; and throughout the length of that cylinder, beside valve and dial and lever, a score of pairs of eyes watched him steadfastly.
{79}
“She’s given her funnel a coat of paint since last month ... port ten—steady! steady!... There’s the gate vessel moving.... The skipper is waving to hurry him up.... Wants his breakfast, I suppose.... That must be the big crane in the dockyard.... There are flags hung about everywhere.... Starboard a touch.... It’s getting devilish light.... There’s something that looks like a battle-cruiser alongside....”
There was a long silence, then the figure manipulating the periscope suddenly stood upright.{80}
{80}
“We’re through,” he said quietly. “And that’s their new battle-cruiser.”
. . . . .
In the smoking-room of a British submarine depot a group of officers sat round the fire. Now and again one or other made a trivial observation from behind his newspaper; occasionally one would glance swiftly at the clock and back to his paper as if half afraid the glance would be intercepted. The hands of the clock crept slowly round to noon; the clock gave a little preliminary whirr and then struck the hour.
“Eight bells,” said the youngest of the group in a tone of detachment, as if the hour had no special significance. A grave-faced lieutenant-commander seated nearest the door rose
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