.

The sun had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but there were still
streaks of blue in the sky. The commander shot his gaze aft, to
starboard, port, and before him. Although we were heading straight out
to sea, the skipper was ever on the alert.

"Motors ready?" asked the commander of the sub-lieutenant, whose head
showed up from the well after communicating with the engine-room chief
artificer.

"Motors ready, sir," was the answer, and the younger man wrung his cold
hands.

By that time England's coast was a hazy outline. But on we cut through
the waves until England disappeared, and soon after the real thrill
came--the thrill of going down under an angry ocean. The gas engines
were stopped, and the way on the craft was allowed to carry her a good
distance, following the order from the commander.

That officer looked around, and signalled to a British
destroyer--another of the warships ploughing the waters of the North
Sea. A sailor expert signalman used his arms as semaphores, and an
answer soon was received by our skipper.

On the engine-room telegraph of the submarine is a word that does not
figure on the apparatus of other types of warships: it is "Dive." The
commander told me that we were going down very soon. I observed that the
destroyer had turned around and was heading out to sea. We were almost
at a stop, when our skipper told me to get into the conning-tower well
and to be down far enough to give him room. It must be realised that
immediately after the order to submerge has been rung in the
engine-room the conning-tower hatch is closed. Hence the commander and
his helmsman have no time to lose when the submarine is going under, as
it takes forty-five seconds to submerge an under-sea craft, and at
times, if pressed, it can be accomplished in thirty seconds.

Up to that time I had not devoted much attention to the inside of the
conning-tower hatch, beyond glancing at the brass ladder. Soon I
discovered that there were two ladders, and that the distance to the
inside deck of the boat was about twice as great as I had imagined.

After I had taken my foot off the last rung of the ladder and stepped on
the chilled, wet canvas-covered iron deck, my head was in a whirl at the
sight of the bowels of brass and steel. The skipper had set the arrow at
"Dive," and we were going down and down--a motion which is hardly
perceptible to the layman.

The activity below and the intricate mechanism of the craft c