ite laughable to see the
torpedo-boats buzzing like angry wasps out of Sheerness in the evening.
They were darting in every direction across the estuary, and the
aeroplanes and hydroplanes were like flights of crows, black dots against
the red western sky. They quartered the whole river mouth, until they
discovered us at last. Some sharp-sighted fellow with a telescope on
board of a destroyer got a sight of our periscope, and came for us full
speed. No doubt he would very gladly have rammed us, even if it had
meant his own destruction, but that was not part of our programme at all.
I sank her and ran her east-south-east with an occasional rise. Finally
we brought her to, not very far from the Kentish coast, and the search-
lights of our pursuers were far on the western skyline. There we lay
quietly all night, for a submarine at night is nothing more than a very
third-rate surface torpedo-boat. Besides, we were all weary and needed
rest. Do not forget, you captains of men, when you grease and trim your
pumps and compressors and rotators, that the human machine needs some
tending also.

I had put up the wireless mast above the conning-tower, and had no
difficulty in calling up Captain Stephan. He was lying, he said, off
Ventnor and had been unable to reach his station, on account of engine
trouble, which he had now set right. Next morning he proposed to block
the Southampton approach. He had destroyed one large Indian boat on his
way down Channel. We exchanged good wishes. Like myself, he needed
rest. I was up at four in the morning, however, and called all hands to
overhaul the boat. She was somewhat up by the head, owing to the forward
torpedoes having been used, so we trimmed her by opening the forward
compensating tank, admitting as much water as the torpedoes had weighed.
We also overhauled the starboard air-compressor and one of the periscope
motors which had been jarred by the shock of the first explosion. We had
hardly got ourselves shipshape when the morning dawned.

I have no doubt that a good many ships which had taken refuge in the
French ports at the first alarm had run across and got safely up the
river in the night. Of course I could have attacked them, but I do not
care to take risks--and there are always risks for a submarine at night.
But one had miscalculated his time, and there she was, just abreast of
Warden Point, when the daylight disclosed her to us. In an instant we
were after he