t the further requirements our sub had to rise to the top, fill
her tanks, let herself go, and then, by an automatic safety device,
fetch up all by herself. So the tank man applied the air-pressure, blew
his tanks free of all water, closed his outer valves and brought her up.
She was now stretched out on the surface--not quite motionless, for the
first of the breeze predicted the night before was on and we could feel
that she was rolling a little. A peek through the periscope while she
was up disclosed further evidence of the breeze--tossing white crests,
two coasters hustling for harbor under short sail, an inbound fisherman
with reefed mainsail making great leaps for home. Looking through the
periscope so, it was easy enough to understand the feeling of power
which might well come to the master of a submarine in war time. The sub
can be lying there--in dark or bright water will make no difference; on
such a day no eye is going to discern the white bone of the moving
periscope; and he can be standing there, with a quick peek now and then
to see what is going on above him; and by and by she can come swinging
along majestically in her arrogance and power--the greatest battleship
afloat, with guns to level a great city, or the biggest and speediest
ship ever built--and he can be there and when he gets good and
ready--Woof! she's gone. War-ship or liner, she's gone and all aboard
gone with her; and the submarine skipper can go along about his business
of getting the next one.

However, the automatic device was set for action at the required depth
and the word given.

In this same middle compartment--the operating compartment of the
ship--was a man with the spiritual face of one who keeps lonely, intense
vigils. He sat on a camp-stool, and his business seemed to be not ever
to let his rapt gaze wander from several rows of gauges which were
screwed to the bulkhead before him. Since I first stepped down into the
sub I had spotted him, and had been wondering if his ascetic look was
born with him or was a development of his job--whatever his job might
be. Now I learned what his job was. He was the man who stood by the
automatic safety devices. If anything happened to the regular gadgets
and it was life or death to get her at once to the surface, he was the
man who pressed a button, or moved a switch, or in some highly
mechanical way applied the mysterious power which would get her safe to
the surface.

The skipper gave the w