But he soon got the hang of managing
it and it was not half bad.

CHAPTER XX

HE IS TAKEN ABOARD THE "TIN FISH" AND QUESTIONED

And then he saw it. Whether it had been near him all the time he did not
know. It was in the same wave-valley with himself and seemed to be
looking at him. Even before there was any sign of human life upon it, it
seemed to be standing off there just looking at him, and there was
something uncanny about it. It looked like the little flat cupola of the
town hall at home, only it was darker, and on top of it two long things
stood up like flagpoles. And it bobbed and moved and just stood
there--looking at him.

A life boat might have a name instead of a number but it could not look
at him like that.

Then he saw that it was nearer to him, although he could not exactly see
it move. On top of it were two persons, one of whom appeared to be
looking at him through a long glass. Tom wished that he could see the
rest of it--the part underneath--for then it would not seem so
unnatural.

Then one of the men called to him through a megaphone and he was
possessed by an odd feeling that it was the thing itself speaking and
not the man upon it.

"Speak German?"

"No," Tom called, "I'm American."

He waited, thinking they would either shoot him or else go away and
leave him. Then the man called, "Lift up your feet!"

This strange mandate made the whole thing seem more unreal, and he would
not have been surprised to be told next to stand on his head. But he was
not going to take any chances with a Teuton and he raised his feet as
best he could, while the little tower came closer--closer, until it was
almost upon him.

Suddenly his feet caught in something, throwing him completely over, and
as he frantically tried to regain his position his feet encountered
something hard but slippery.

"Vell, vot did I tell you, huh?" the man roared down at him.

Tom was almost directly beneath him now, walking, slipping, and
scrambling to his feet again, while this grim personage looked down at
him like Humpty Dumpty from his wall. The whole business was so utterly
strange that he could hardly realize that he was standing, or trying to
stand, waist deep, at the conning tower of a German submarine. By all
the rules of the newspapers and the story books, his approach should
have been dramatic, but it was simply a sprawling, silly progress.

Of course, he knew how it was now. The U-boat was only very sl