ea craft, aboard which I was to make a cruise under the North
Sea, the sun shot forth a widening streak of blurred silver like a
searchlight on the prancing green-grey waves. With care, the two-striper
skipper gave his orders to get the submarine under way, and soon he
stuck her nose at the east. One felt the frost in the air, and fingers
grasping the canvas shield of the conning tower were benumbed.

Three men stood in line on the aft hatch while the submersible glided
through the port waters. Four other sailors were getting a last good
lungful of fine fresh sea air for'd. At the conning tower were the
commander, his helmsman, and a young lieutenant--the boss of the
torpedoes. Now and again another officer popped up his head through the
conning-tower well, and that opening to the boat's bowels appeared just
about large enough for his broad shoulders. The nose of the shark-like
craft passed through white-caps as steadily as a ship on a calm ocean.

"Hands for'd, sir," announced the junior lieutenant.

The commander mumbled an answer, and the men were ordered to close the
for'd hatches, and soon the iron doors were screwed down. The gas
engines shot off black smoke into the curdling wake of the vessel's twin
propellers, and as we surged along into the uninteresting sea the
skipper sang out to have the aft hatches shut. The well-disciplined
bluejackets instantly obeyed the order, and the iron slabs banged to,
and I knew that those men were busying themselves in their particular
work of seeing that everything was ready for submerging.

The commander of the submarine was an agile man, about 5 feet 7 inches
tall. His face looked tired, and there were lines about his eyes, which
were only for his ship. I do not think that he had the chance to give me
a look--a real look--all the time I was aboard. There was always
something which needed his attention. I found that the speed we were
making against the wind closed my eyes, for there is very little
protection on the conning tower of a submarine; and that alone might
have given the commander that tired look. But I gathered afterwards that
the eyes are strained a good deal in looking for enemy craft. There, in
the distance, was the port whence we had emerged, and we now were out on
the breast of the sea in war time. Two miles off our port bow was a grey
vessel, to which our skipper gave his attention for a while. She was a
British destroyer plunging through the water at 22 knots