! The German commander, grinning broadly, stepped into a
gig with a bombing crew; torpedoes were not wasted on sailing-vessels.

"Get into your dingy," he cried, motioning toward the craft dangling
astern.

The Maine skipper, in his red underclothes, besought, and then
cursed--while the German grinned the more broadly. Finally, however, the
irate--sic--skipper and his crew of five clambered into their dingy as
ordered by the commander of the submarine. And then! No sooner had the
schooner crew cleared the wind-jammer than the deck-load of lumber
resolved itself into a series of doors, and out of each door protruded a
gun. It was the last of that submarine, of course. The schooner got five
submarines before another submarine happened to witness the destruction
of a companion craft.

Next day when the schooner approached a submarine the undersea boat let
drive with a torpedo, and the joyous days of that particular wind-jammer
were at an end. But thereafter the Germans seldom tried to bomb a
sailing craft.

Airplanes have played their important part in the work of our navy in
combating the submarine. Seaplanes are sent on patrol from regular bases
or from the deck of a parent-vessel, a steamship of large size. Flying
at a height of 10,000 feet, an airplane operator can see the shadow of a
submarine proceeding beneath the surface. Thus viewing his prey, the
aviator descends and drops a depth-bomb into the water. Our airmen have
already won great commendation from the British Admiralty and aerial
commanders. Whatever may have been the delays in airplane production in
this country, the American Navy has not been at fault, and Secretary
Daniels's young men went into British seaplanes when American planes
were not at hand. From British Admiralty sources have come many tales of
the skill and courage of the American aviators. There was one recent
instance noted of an American pilot scouting for submarines who spotted
a periscope. He dropped a bomb a few feet astern and a few feet ahead of
that periscope, both bombs falling perfectly in line with the objective.
He circled and then dropped a bomb in the centre of a disturbance in the
water. Up came oil in great quantities.

Another American pilot managed the rare feat of dropping a bomb
precisely upon the centre of the deck of a submarine, and had the
unhappy experience of seeing it fail to explode--as recently happened in
the submarine fight off Cape Cod, near Chatham.

In