utwater parts the waves, is merely a part of the same
gloom. Aloft and on deck the battleship is a part of the night. Below
deck all is dark save perchance a thin, knife-like ray emanating from a
battle-lantern. The lookouts, straining their eyes into the black for
long, arduous stretches, are relieved and half-blind and dizzy they
grope along the deck to their hammocks, stumbling over the prostrate
forms of men sleeping beside the 5-inch guns, exchanging elbow thrusts
with those of the gun crews who are on watch.

The trip this far has been a constant succession of drills and
instruction in the art of submarine fighting--all to the tune of general
alarm and torpedo defense bells. And the while preparations for sighting
the enemy have never been minimized. They involved precautions not
dissimilar to those on board a destroyer or other patrol-vessel, but
were of course conducted on a vastly greater scale. As suggesting an
outline of measures of watchfulness, we may regard this battleship as
the centre of a pie, with special watches detailed to cover their given
slice of this pie. These slices are called water sectors, and each
sector, or slice, extends at a given angle from the course of the ship
out to the horizon. Of course as the vessel is constantly moving at a
rapid rate, the centre of the pie shifts, too. In this way every foot of
water within the great circle of the horizon is under constant
supervision night and day by a small army of lookouts, armed with
binoculars and gun telescopes.

And so our battleship goes on through the night. On the bridge all is
quiet. Officers move to and fro with padded footfalls, and the throb of
the great engines is felt rather than heard. The wind begins to change,
and presently the captain glancing out the door of the chart-house
clucks his chagrin. For the night has begun to reveal itself, thanks, or
rather, no thanks, to the moon, which has torn away from a shrouding
mass of clouds and sends its rays down upon the waters of the sea. It
had been a fine night to dodge the lurking submarine, but now the silver
light of the moon, falling upon the leaden side of the battleship,
converts her into a fine target.

"Nature is certainly good to the Germans," chuckles an officer to a
companion, taking care that the captain does not hear.

"Yes," comes the sententious reply. The lookouts grow more rigid, for
whereas formerly they could see nothing, objects on the water are now
pencilled