Chapter IV: Running Submerged

It was breakfast time, and the officers of the submarines then in port had gathered round one end of the long dining table in the wardroom of the mother ship. Two or three who had breakfasted early had taken places on a bench along the nearer wall and were examining a disintegrating heap of English and American magazines, whilst pushed back from the table and smoking an ancient briar, the senior of the group read the wireless news which had just arrived that morning. The news was not of great importance. The lecture done with, the tinkle of cutlery and silver, which had been politely hushed, broke forth again.

"What are you doing this morning, Bill?" said one of the young captains to another who had appeared in old clothes.

"Going out at about half past nine with the X10. (The X10 was a British submarine.) Just going to take a couple of shots at each other. What are you up to?"

"Oh, I've got to give a bearing the once over, and then I've got to write a bunch of letters."

"Wouldn't you like to come with us?" said the first speaker, pausing over a steaming dish of breakfast porridge. "Be mighty glad to take you."

"Indeed I would," I replied with joy in my heart. "All my life long I have wanted to take a trip in a submarine."

"That's fine! We'll get you some dungarees. Can't fool round a submarine in good clothes." The whole table began to take a friendly interest, and a dispute arose as to whose clothes would best fit me. I am a large person. "Give him my extra set, they're on the side of my locker." "Don't you want a cap or something?" "Hey, that's too small, wait and I'll get Tom's coat." "Try these on." They are a wonderful lot, the submarine officers.

I felt frightfully submarinish in my outfit. We must have made a picturesque group. The captain led off, wearing a tattered, battered, old uniform of Annapolis days, I followed wearing an old Navy cap jammed on the side of my head and a suit of newly laundered dungarees; the second officer brought up the rear; his outfit consisted of dungaree trousers, a kind of aviator's waistcoat, and an old cloth cap.

The submarines were moored close by the side of the mother ship, a double doorway in the wall of the machine shop on the lower deck opening directly upon them. A narrow runway connected the nearest vessel with the sill of this aperture, and mere planks led from one superstructure to another. The day, first real day after weeks of rain, was soft and clear, great low masses of vapour, neither mist nor cloud, but something of both, swept down the long bay on the wings of the wind from the clean, sweet-smelling sea; the sun shone like ancient silver. Little fretful waves of water clear as the water of a spring coursed down the alley ways between the submarines; gulls, piping and barking, whirled like snow flakes overhead. I crossed to one grey alligatorish superstructure, looked down a narrow circular hatch at whose floor I could see the captain waiting for my coming, grasped the steel rings of a narrow ladder, and descended into the submarine. The first impression was of being surrounded by tremendous, almost incredible complexity. A bewildering and intricate mass of delicate mechanical contrivances, valves, stop cocks, wheels, chains, shining pipes, ratchets, faucets, oil-cups, rods, gauges. Second impression, bright cleanliness, shining brass, gleams of steely radiance, stainless walls of white enamel paint. Third impression, size; there was much more room than I had expected. Of course everything is to be seen by floods of steady electric light, since practically no daylight filters down through an open hatchway.

"This," said the captain, "is the control room. Notice the two depth gauges, two in case one gets out of order. That thick tube with a brass thread coiled about it is a periscope, and it's a peach! It's of the 'housing' kind and winds up and down along that screw. The thread prevents any leak of water. In here," we went through a lateral compartment with a steel door, thick as that of a small safe, "is a space where wee eat, sleep and live; our cook stove is that gadget in the corner. We don't do much cooking when we're running submerged; in here," we passed another stout partition, "is our Diesel engine, and our dynamos. Up forward is another living space which technically belongs to the officers, and the torpedo room." He took me along. "Now you've seen it all. A fat steel cigar, divided into various compartments and cram jammed full of shining machinery. Of course, there's no privacy, whatsoever. (Readers will have to guess what is occasionally used for the phonograph table.) Our space is so limited that designers will spend a year arguing where to put an object no bigger than a soap box. We get on very well however. Every crew gets used to its boat; the men get used to each other. They like the life; you couldn't drag them back to surface vessels. An ideal submarine crew works like a perfect machine. When we go out you'll see that we give our orders by Klaxon. There's too much noise for the voice. Suppose I had popped up on the surface right under the very nose of one of those destroyer brutes. She might start to ram me; in which case I might not have time to make recognition signals and would have to take my choice between getting rammed or depth bombed. I decide to submerge, push a button, the Klaxon gives a yell, and every man does automatically what he has been trained to do. A floods the tanks, B stands by the dynamos, C watches the depth gauges and so on. That's what we call a crash dive."

"Over at the destroyer base," I said, "they told me that the Germans were having trouble because of lack of trained crews."

"You can just bet they are," said the captain. "Must have lost several boats that way. Can't monkey with these boats; if somebody pulls a fool stunt--Good Night!" He opened a gold watch and closed it again with a click. "Nine o'clock, just time to shove off. Come up on the bridge until we get out in the bay."

I climbed the narrow ladder again and crept along the superstructure to the bridge which rose for all the world like a little grey steel pulpit. One has to be reasonably sure-footed. It was curious to emerge from the electric lighted marvel to the sunlight of the bay, to the view of the wild mountains descending to the clear sea. The captain gave his orders. Faint, vague noises rose out of the hatchway; sailors standing at various points along the superstructure cast off the mooring ropes and took in bumpers shaped like monstrous sausages of cord which had protected one bulging hull from another; the submarine went ahead solemnly as a planet. Friendly faces leaned over the rail of the mother ship high above.

Once out into the bay, I asked the second in command just what we were up to. The second in command was a well knit youngster with the coolest, most resolute blue eyes it has ever been my fortune to see.

"We're going to take shots at a British submarine and then she's going to have a try at us. We don't really fire torpedoes--but manoeuvre for a position. Three shots apiece. There she is now, running on the surface. Just as soon as we get out to deep water we'll submerge and go for her. Great practice."

A British submarine, somewhat larger than our American boat, was running down the bay, pushing curious little waves of water ahead of her. Several men stood on her deck.

"Nice boat, isn't she? Her captain's a great scout. About two months ago a patrol boat shot off his periscope _after_ he made it reasonably clear he wasn't a Hun. You ought to hear him tell about it. Especially his opinion of patrol boat captains. Great command of language. Bully fellow, born submarine man."

"I meant to ask you if you weren't sometimes mistaken for a German," I said.

"Yes, it happens," he answered coolly. "You haven't seen Smithie yet, have you? Guess he was away when you came. A bunch of destroyers almost murdered him last month. He's come the nearest to kissing himself good-bye of any of us. Going to dive now, time to get under."

Once more down the steel ladder. I was getting used to it. The handful of sailors who had been on deck waited for us to pass. Within, the strong, somewhat peppery smell of hot oil from the Diesel engines floated, and there was to be heard a hard, powerful knocking-spitting sound from the same source. The hatch cover was secured, a listener might have heard a steely thump and a grind as it closed. Men stood calmly by the depth gauges and the valves. Not being a "crash dive," the feat of getting under was accomplished quietly, accomplished with no more fracas than accompanies the running of a motor car up to a door. One instant we were on the surface, the next instant we were under, and the lean black arrow on the broad moon-faced depth gauge was beginning to creep from ten to fifteen, from fifteen to twenty, from twenty to twenty-five.... The clatter of the Diesel engine had ceased; in its place rose a low hum. And of course there was no alteration of light, nothing but that steady electric glow on those cold, clean bulging walls.

"What's the programme, now?"

"We are going down the bay a bit, put up our periscope, pick up the Britisher, and fire an imaginary tin fish at him. After each shot, we come to the surface for an instant to let him know we've had our turn."

"What depth are we now?"

"Only fifty-five feet."

"What depth can you go?"

"The Navy Regulations forbid our descending more than two hundred feet. Subs are always hiking around about fifty or seventy-five feet under, just deep enough to be well under the keel of anything going by."

"Where are we now?"

"Pretty close to the mouth of the bay. I'm going to shove up the periscope in a few minutes."

The captain gave an order, the arrow on the dial retreated towards the left.

"Keep her there." He applied his eye to the periscope. A strange, watery green light poured out of the lens, and focussing in his eye, lit the ball with wild demoniac glare. A consultation ensued between the captain and his junior.

"Do you see her?"

"Yes, she is in a line with that little white barn on the island.... She's heading down the bay now.... So many points this way (this last direction to the helmsman) ... there she is ... she's making about twelve ... she's turning, coming back ... steady ... five, ... six ... Fire!"

There was a rush, a clatter, and a stir and the boat rose evenly to the surface.

"Here, take a look at her," said the captain, pushing me towards the periscope. I fitted the eyepieces (they might have been those of field glasses embedded in the tube) to my eyes, and beheld again the outer world. The kind of a world one might see in a crystal, a mirror world, a glass world, but a remarkably clear little world. And as I peered, a drop of water cast up by some wave touched the outer lens of the tube, and a trickle big as a deluge slid down the visionary bay.

Twice again we "attacked" the Britisher. Her turn came. Our boat rose to the surface, and I was once more invited to accompany the captain to the bridge. The British boat lay far away across the inlet. We cruised about watching her.

"There she goes." The Britisher sank like a stone in a pond. We continued our course. The two officers peered over the water with young, searching, resolute eyes. Then they took to their binoculars.

"There she is," cried the captain, "in a line with the oak tree." I searched for a few minutes in vain. Suddenly I saw her, that is to say, I saw with a great deal of difficulty a small dark rod moving through the water. It came closer; I saw the hatpin shaped trail behind it.

Presently with a great swirl and roiling of foam the Britisher pushed herself out of the water. I could see my young captain judging the performance in his eye. Then we played victim two more times and went home. On the way we discussed the submarine patrol. Now there is no more thrilling game in the world than the game of periscope _vs._ periscope.

"What do you do?" I asked. "Just what you saw us do to-day. We pack up grub and supplies, beat it out on the high seas and wait for a Fritz to come along. We give him a taste of his own medicine; given him one more enemy to dodge. Suppose a Hun baffles the destroyers, makes off to a lonely spot, and comes to the surface for a breath of air. There isn't a soul in sight, not a stir of smoke on the horizon. Just as Captain Otto, or Von Something is gloating over the last hospital ship he sunk, and thinking what a lovely afternoon it is, a tin fish comes for him like a bullet out of a gun, there comes a thundering pound, a vibration that sends little waves through the water, a great foul swirl, fragments of cork, and it's all over with the Watch on the Rhine. Sometimes Fritz's torpedo meets ours on the way. Then once in a while a destroyer or a patriotic but misguided tramp makes things interesting for a bit. But it's the most wonderful service of all. I wouldn't give it up for anything. We're all going out day after to-morrow. Can't you cable London for permission to go? You'll like it. Don't believe anything you hear about the air getting bad. The principal nuisance when you've been under a long while is the cold; the boat gets as raw and damp as an unoccupied house in winter. Jingo, quarter past one! We'll be late for dinner."

Some time after this article had appeared, the captain of an American submarine gave me a copy of the following verses written by a submarine sailor. Poems of this sort, typewritten by some accommodating yeoman, are always being handed round in the Navy; I have seen dozens of them. Would that I knew the author of this picturesque and flavorous ditty, for I would gladly give him the credit he deserves.

A SUBMARINE

Born in the shops of the devil,
Designed by the brains of a fiend;
Filled with acid and crude oil,
And christened "A Submarine."

The posts send in their ditties
Of battleships spick and clean;
But never a word in their columns
Do you see of a submarine.

So I'll endeavour to depict our story
In a very laconic way;
So please have patience to listen
Until I have finished my say.

We eat where'er we can find it,
And sleep hanging up on hooks;
Conditions under which we're existing
Are never published in books.

Life on these boats is obnoxious
And this is using mild terms;
We are never bothered by sickness,
There isn't any room for germs.

We are never troubled with varmints,
There are things even a cockroach can't stand;
And any self-respecting rodent
Quick as possible beats it for land.

And that little one dollar per diem
We receive to submerge out of sight,
Is often earned more than double
By charging batteries all night.

And that extra compensation
We receive on boats like these,
We never really get at all.
It's spent on soap and dungarees.

Machinists get soaked in fuel oil,
Electricians in H2SO4,
Gunner's mates with 600 W,
And torpedo slush galore.

When we come into the Navy Yard
We are looked upon with disgrace;
And they make out some new regulation
To fit our particular case.

Now all you battleship sailors,
When you are feeling disgruntled and mean,
Just pack your bag and hammock
And go to a submarine.