ish, winter-stricken sea, the
little covey of submarines running awash, the gray mother-ship going
ahead, as casually as an excursion steamer, into the featureless dawn.

"The weather was wonderful for two days,--a touch of Indian summer on
December's ocean; then, on the night of the third day, we ran into a
blow, the worst I ever saw in my life. A storm--oh, boy!"

He paused for an instant. One could see memories living in the fine,
resolute eyes. The broken noises of the restaurant, which had seemingly
died away while he spoke, crept back again to one's ears. A waiter
dropped a clanging fork--

[Sidenote: A terrific storm comes on toward night.]

"A storm. Never remember anything like it. A perfect terror. Everybody
realized that any attempt to keep together would be hopeless. And night
was coming on. One by one the submarines disappeared into that fury of
wind and driving water, the mother-ship, because she was the largest
vessel in the flotilla, being the last we saw. We snatched her last
signal out of the teeth of the gale, and then she was gone, swallowed up
in the storm. So we were alone.

[Sidenote: Rough water the next day.]

"We got through the night somehow or other. The next morning the ocean
was a dirty brown-gray, and knots and wisps of cloud were tearing by
close over the water. Every once in a while a great hollow-bellied wave
would come rolling out of the hullabaloo and break thundering over us.
On all the boats the lookout on the bridge had to be lashed in place,
and every once in a while a couple of tons of water would come tumbling
past him. Nobody at the job stayed dry for more than three minutes; a
bathing-suit would have been more to the point than oilers.

[Sidenote: The boat registers a roll of seventy degrees.]

[Sidenote: The cook provides food after a fashion.]

"Shaken, you ask? No, not very bad: a few assorted bruises and a
wrenched thumb; though poor Jonesy on the _Z-3_ had a wave knock him up
against the rail and smash in a couple of ribs. But no being sick for
him; he kept to his feet and carried on in spite of the pain, in spite
of being in a boat which registered a roll of seventy degrees. I used to
watch the old hooker rolling under me. You've never been on a submarine
when she's rolling,--talk about rolling--oh, boy! We all say seventy
degrees, because that's as far as our instruments register. There were
times when I almost thought she was on her way to make a complete
rev