 2 Days have passed, or rather drag their interminable links away, for there is still not a vestige of news. I have been twice to the flat with no result, except to receive a piece of impertinence from the porter the last time I was there. No news. New Entry. Still no news, and we sail in forty-eight hours. At sea, off the Isle of Wight. It is some days since I turned for solace and enjoyment amidst the discomforts of this life to my pen and notebook. What strange tricks fate plays with us and how lucky it is that one cannot foresee the future. Here I am in U-39. But I must start at the beginning. My last entry was the depressing one of Still No News. Well, I have had news, but it was like a drop of water in the mouth of a parched up man. Another agonizing twenty-four hours passed, and I was sitting in my room about ten o'clock, trying to resign myself to the idea that the next night I should be starting out for my third trip without news of her, when the telephone bell rang. I lifted the receiver and to my amazed joy heard a voice that I could have recognized in a thousand. It was Zoe. I was quite incapable of any remark, and my confusion was further increased when, after a few hellos, which I idiotically repeated, her clear, level tone said, Is that you, Carl? How are you? How was I? What a question to ask! I wanted to tell her that I was bubbling with joy, that a thousand kilogram load had been lifted from my chest, that my blood was coursing through my veins, that I, usually so cool, was trembling with excitement, that I could have kissed the mouthpiece of the humble instrument that linked us together. Yet I was quite incapable of answering her simple question. I can't imagine what I expected her to say, for upon reflection her remark was a very ordinary one, and indeed under the circumstances quite natural. But, as I say, in actual fact I was tongue-tied. I suppose I might have said something, for I next remember her saying, Well, you might ask how I am. And to my horror I realized that she thought I was being rude. My abject apologies were cut short by her tantalizing laugh, and I understood that the adorable one was teasing me. When at length I made myself believe that I really was talking to this most elusive and delightful woman, I wasted no time in suggesting that, late though it was, I might be permitted to go round and see her. She would not permit this, as she said it would create grave scandal, and the Colonel might hear about it upon his return. I pleaded hard, and urged my departure in twenty-four hours. She was firm and reproved me for discussing movements over the telephone. She was right. I was a fool to do so. And Zoe destroys all my caution. However, she said that I might lunch with her next day, and that she had some new music to play to me. I ventured to ask where she had been, but this question was plainly unpleasing to my lady, so I dropped the subject. I blew her a good night kiss over the telephone, to which I think I caught an answer, and then she rang off. Ten minutes had not elapsed when a messenger entered and informed me that I was wanted at the Commodore's office at once. A strange feeling of uneasiness and that of impending misfortune overcame me. I felt like a naughty schoolboy about to interview the headmaster. I followed the messenger into the Commodore's office and found myself alone with the great man. He was seated at a huge roll-top desk which was the only article of furniture in a room which was to all intents and purposes papered with large-scaled charts of the east and south coast of England and of the Channel and North Sea. The Commodore was sealing an envelope as I came in. He looked up and saw me. Then, without taking any further notice of me, he resumed his business with the envelope. I felt that I was in the presence of a personality, and I was, for old man Max is one of the ten men who count in the naval administration. He had a reading lamp on his desk, and I remember noticing that the light shining through its green shade imparted a yellow parchment-like effect to the top of his old bald head. With dainty care he finished sealing the envelope. Then, picking up a telephone transmitter, he snapped, Admiralty! In about a minute he was connected, and to my astonishment I realized that he was talking to the duty-captain of the operations department in Berlin. His words chilled my heart, for he said, Commodore speaking, U-39 sails at 2 a.m. for Operation FQH. Repeat. His words were apparently repeated to his satisfaction, for while I was vainly endeavoring to convince myself that I was unconnected with the sailing of U-39, he banged the receiver into place. Old man Max does everything and bangs, and snapped at me. You, Lieutenant Von Schenck! I admitted I was, then heard this disgusting news. Kranz, 1st Lieutenant U-39, reported suddenly ill, Zeebrugge, poisoning, you relieve him. Ship sails in one hour forty minutes from now. My car leaves here in forty minutes and takes you to Zeebrugge. Here are operation orders. Inform von Weisman he acknowledges receipt direct to me on phone. That's all. He handed me the envelope and I suppose I walked outside. At least I found myself in the corridor, turning the confounded envelope round and round. For one mad moment I felt like rushing in and saying, But sir, you don't understand, I'm lunching with Zoe tomorrow. Then the mental picture which this idea conjured up made me shake with suppressed laughter, and I remembered that war was war and that I had only thirty-five minutes in which to collect such gear as I had Andy, most of my sea-things, Bing and UC-47, and say good-bye to Zoe. I ran to my room and made the corridors echo with shouts for my faithful Adolf. The excellent man was soon on the scene and whilst he stuffed under-clothing, towels, another necessary gear into a bag he had purloined from someone's room, I rang up Zoe. I wasted ten minutes getting through but at last I heard a deliciously sleepy-voice murmur, Who's that? I told her and added that I was off, to my secret joy and intensely disappointed and long-drawn, Ooh! came over the wire. So she does care a bit, I thought, mad ideas of pretending to be suddenly ill crossed my mind, anything to gain twenty-four hours, what the Fatherland is above all such considerations, and after some pleasant talk and many wishes of good luck from the darling girl, with a heavy heart I bade her good-night. The old man's car, which is a sixty-horsepower Ben's, was waiting at the mess entrance and once clear of the sentries we raced down the flat, well-metaled road to Siebrug in a very short time. The guard at Bruges Barrier had phoned us through to the Siebrugge fortified zone and we were admitted without delay. In three-quarters of an hour from my interview with old Max I was scrambling across a row of U-boats to reach my new ship, U-39. I went down the after-hatch, reported myself to von Feisman, and delivered his orders to him, of which he acknowledged receipt direct to the Commodore according to instructions. Von Feisman is a very different stamp of man to Alton. Of medium height, he has sandy-coloured hair, steel-grey eyes, and a protruding jaw. He is what he looks, a fine North Prussian, and is, of course, of excellent family, as the Feismans have been settled in Grinnetts for a long period. He struck me as being about thirty years of age, and on his heart he wore the cross of the second class. I have heard of him before, as being well in the running towards an Ordre Poulemérite. An interesting chart is hanging in the wardrobe on which is marked the last resting place of every ship he has sunk. He puts a coloured dot, the tint of which varies with the tonnage, black up to two-thousand, blue from two-thousand to five-thousand, brown five-thousand to eight-thousand, green eight-thousand to eleven-thousand, and a red spot with a ship's name for anything over eleven-thousand. He has got about a hundred and twenty-thousand tons at present. He opposes the Ordre Poulemérite school of thought, which pins faith on the gun, and Feisman has done nearly all his work with a good old torpedo. Altogether, undoubtedly, a man to serve with. The U-39 was in that buzzing and semi-active condition which to a trained eye is a sure indication that the ship is about to sail. Punctually at five minutes to two a.m. Feisman went to the bridge, and at two a.m. the wires were slipped, and we started on a ten-days trip. As the dim lights on the mole disappeared and the ceaseless fountain of star-shells, mingling with the flashing of guns, rose inland on our port beam, my mind travelled overland to the flat at Bruges, and I wondered whether Zoe was lying awake listening to this ceaseless rumble of the Flanders cannon. We went on at full speed, as it was our intention to pass the Dover Straits before dawn. Though our Intelligence Bureau issues the most alarming reports as to the frightfulness of the defences here, I was agreeably surprised at the ease with which we passed. Von Feisman, to whom I had hinted that we might find the passage tricky, rather laughed at my suggestion, and described to me his method which, at all events, has the merit of simplicity. He always goes through with the tide, so as to take as short a time as possible, and always decides on a course and steers it as closely as possible, keeping to the surface unless he cites anything, and diving as soon as anything shows up. Even if he dives he goes on as fast as possible on his course, irrespective of whether he is being bombed or not. I must say it worked very well last night. We shaped a course to pass five miles west of Greenay, and when that light, which for some reason the French had commodiously lit that night, was a beam, we sighted a black object, probably a trawler or destroyer, about half a dozen miles away right ahead. Feisman immediately dived and, without deviating a degree from his course, held on at three-quarter speed on the motors. Some time later the hydrophone watchkeeper reported the sound of propellers in his listeners, and that he judged them to be close at hand, so I imagine we passed very nearly directly underneath whatever it was. After an hour's submerging we rose, and found Dawn breaking over a leaden and choppy sea. Nothing being in sight, we continued on the surface for an hour, charging batteries with a starboard engine, five hundred amps on each. But at nine a.m. the clouds lying low and an aerial patrol being frequent hereabouts, we dived and cruised steadily down Channel at slow speed, keeping periscope depth. Several times in the course of the forenoon we sighted small destroyers and convoy craft in the distance, footnote one, probably P-boats, and a footnote, all steering westerly. They were probably returning from escorting troop ships over to France last night. In every case we went to sixty feet long before they could have seen our stick, footnote two, periscope, and a footnote. Feisman is evidently as cautious in this matter as he is hardy in others. The more I see of him, the more I like him. He is a man of breeding, and it is of value to serve in this boat. As I write we are on the surface about ten miles east of the Isle of Wight, still steering down Channel. Tonight at midnight we report our position to Tsebruga. Up till now we have maintained wireless silence for fear of the British and French directional stations picking up our signals and fixing our position. After supper this evening Von Weisman explained to me the general plan of our operations for the next eight days. Our cruising billet is about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of the Sillies, at the focal point where trade for Liverpool and Bristol and the up channel trade diverges. Von Weisman says that this is a plum billet and we should do well. I feel this is going to be better than those piffling little mind-laying trips, and though we shall be away ten days it will qualify me for four days leave in Belgium. New entry. There was nearly an awkward moment last night, or rather there was an awkward moment and nearly an awkward accident. I relieved the navigator at midnight. The pilot is an unassuming individual called Siegel, and took on the middle watch. It was blowing about force-four from the south-west, and a nasty short lumpy sea was running which caught us just on the Port bow. About once every ten seconds she missed her step with the waves, and dipping her nose into it shoveled up tons of water, which as the bow lifted raced aft and breaking against the gun flung itself in clouds of spray against the bridge. In a very few minutes every exposed portion of me was streaming with water. At about two a.m. I had turned my back to the sea for a moment, and my thoughts were for an instant in bruge. When, on facing forward once again, I saw a sight which effectually brought me back to earth. This was the spectacle of two black shapes evidently steamers, one on either bow, distant I should estimate, six hundred or seven hundred meters. I had to make a quick decision, and I decided that to fire a torpedo in that sea with any hope of a hit, especially with the boat on surface, was useless. Furthermore, that at any moment either of the steamers might sight us from their high bridge and turn in ram. These thoughts were the work of an instant, and I at once rang the diving-bell, and pushing the lookout before me, in five seconds I was in the conning-tower and had the hatched down. I at once proceeded down into the boat, and the first thing that struck my eye was the diving-gauge with the needle practically stationary at two meters. The boat was not going down properly, and for an instant I was rudely shaken until a cool voice from the wardroom remarked, Helm, hard a port, an order that was instantly obeyed, and as she began to turn the moving needle on the depth-gauge began its journey round the dial. It was the captain who had spoken. As soon as they heard the diving alarm he was out of his bunk, and at glance at the gauge he has fitted in the wardroom told him we were not sinking rapidly. In an instant he had put his finger on the trouble, which was that we were almost head on to the sea, with the result that he had given the order as stated above, which, bringing us beam on to the sea, had caused her to dive with ease. He is efficiency itself. As I explained to him what had happened, the noise of propellers at varying distances from us overhead led him to state his belief that we had run into a convoy home were bound to Southampton from the Atlantic. He approved of my actions in every particular, save only in my omission to bring the boat away from the sea as I began to dive. This morning we are beginning to get the full force of what is evidently going to be a southwesterly gale of some violence. The seas are getting larger as we debouch into the Atlantic. This looks bad for business. New entry. At the moment we are practically hoeved to on the surface, with the port engine just jogging to keep her head on to sea and the starboard ticking round to give her a long, slow charge of two hundred amps. The wind is force seven to eight, and a very big sea is running which makes it entirely impossible to open the cutting-tower hatch. The engine is getting its air through the special mushroom ventilator, which is apparently not designed to supply both the boat's requirements and those of the engine. And the whole ventilator gets covered with sea every now and then, during which period until the baffle drains get the water away, no air can get in, so the engine has a good suck at the air in the boat, and the result of all this being a slight vacuum in the boat. It is a very unpleasant sensation, and made me very sick. This is really a form of sickness due to the rarefied air. I had a great surprise when I looked at the barograph this morning as the needle had gone right off the paper at the bottom, and at first glance I thought we had struck a tropical depression of the first magnitude, which, flouting all the laws of meteorology, had somehow found its way to the English Channel. But the engineer explained to me that, as I have already stated, the low atmospheric pressure in the boat was due to the cutting-tower hatch being shut down. I have discovered that Von Weissmann is a martyr to sea sickness. All day he has been lying down as white as a sheet and subsisting on milk tablets and sips of brandy, yet such as the man's inflexibility of will that he forces himself to make a tour of inspection right round the boat every six hours, night and day. It is this will to conquer which is made Germans unconquerable, though come the four corners of the world in arms against us, as the great poet says. We are, of course, keeping watch from inside the cutting-tower. It is at all events dry, but as to seeing anything one might as well be looking out through a small glass window from inside a breakwater, to bed till 4 a.m. New entry. A most unprofitable day. I grudge every day away from Zoe on which we do nothing. This morning about noon the gale blew itself out, but a heavy confused sea continued to run. At 2 p.m. we saw a most tantalizing spectacle. A big tank steamer, fully six hundred feet long and of probably seventeen thousand tons berthen, hove in sight, escorted by two destroyers. To attack with a gun was impossible as we could only keep the cutting-tower open when sterned to sea, and in any case the two destroyers prevented any surface work. We tried to get in for an attack, but we had not seen her in time, and the best we could do was to get within three thousand yards, at which range it would have been absurd to have wasted a torpedo. The chances of hitting being a hundred to one against, even if the torpedo had run properly in the sea that was on. I had a good look at her through the foremost periscope in between the waves, and it maddened me to see all that oil, doubtless from Tampico for the grand fleet, going safely by. The destroyers were having a bad time of it, crashing into the sea like porpoises, their funnels white with salt, and their bridges enveloped in sheets of water and spray. They little thought that, barely a mile away, amidst the tumbling, crested waves a German eye was watching them. There is no doubt these damn British have pluck, for it was the last sort of weather in which one would have expected to find destroyers at sea, and yet I suppose they do this throughout the winter. After all one would expect them to be tough fellows, they are of teutonic stock, though by their bearing one might imagine that the Creator made an Englishman, and then Adam. Let's hope we get some decent weather to-morrow. I have just been refreshing my memory by reading of what I wrote in the book concerning the day in the forest with the adorable girl. There is an exquisite pleasure in transporting the mind into such memories of the past when the body is in such surroundings as the present, if only I could will myself to dream of her. NEW ENTRY A fine day in every sense of the word. The weather has been and remains excellent, and I have been present at my first sinking. It was absurdly commonplace. At ten a.m. this morning a column of smoke crept upwards from the southern horizon. Fund vicemen steered towards it on the surface until two masts on the top of a funnel appeared. We dived and proceeded slowly under water on a southerly course. Half an hour passed, and von vicemen brought the boat up to Periscope depth and had a look. He called to me to come and see an invitation I accepted with alacrity. With natural excitement I looked through the Periscope, and there she was, unconsciously ambling to her doom like a fat sheep. She was a steamer, British, of about four thousand tons, slugging home at a steady ten knots. But she was destined to come to her last mooring place ahead of scheduled time. We dipped our Periscope, and I went forward to the tubes. Five minutes elapsed, and the order instrument bell rang, the pointer flicking to stand by. I personally removed the firing gear safety pin and put the repeat to ready. A breathless pause. Then a slight shake and destruction was on its way, whilst I realized by the angle of the boat that vicemen was taking us down a few meters. That shows his coolness. He didn't even trouble to watch his shot. Anxiously I watched the second hand of my stopwatch. Vicemen had told me the range would be about five hundred meters. Thirty seconds. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Has he missed? Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Thirty—a dull rumble comes through the water, and the whole boat shakes. Hurrah! we have hit, and the order surface comes along the voice pipe. The cheerful voice of the blower is heard, evacuating the tanks. I run to the conning tower and closely follow vicemen up the ladder. At last I am on the bridge. There she is. What a sight! I feel that I shall never forget what she looked like. Though if all goes well, I shall see many another fine ship go to her grave. But she was my first. I felt the same sensation when, as a boy, I shot my first roe deer in the black forest. One instant a living thing beautiful to perfection. The next my rifle spoke in a bleeding carcass laid beneath the fine trees. So with this ship. I am a sailor, and every sailor every ship that floats has, as it were, a soul, a personality, an entity. To carry the analogy further a merchant craft is like some fat beast of utility—an ox, a cow, or a sheep—whilst a warship is a lion if she is a battleship, a leopard if she is a light cruiser, etc. In all cases worthy game. But war has little use for sentimentality, and in my usual wandering manner I see that I have meandered from the point and quite forgotten what she did look like. What I saw was this. I saw that the steamer had been hit forward on the starboard side. The upper portion of the stem-piece was almost down to the water level. Her foremost hold was obviously filling rapidly. Her stern was high out of the water, the red ensign of England flapping impotently on the ensign's staff. Her propeller, which was still slowly revolving, thrashed the water, and this heightened the impression that I was watching the struggles of a dying animal. The propeller was revolving in spasmodic jerks, do I imagine, to the fast failing steam only forcing the cranks over their dead centers with an effort. A boat was being lowered with haste from the two devots abreast the funnel on one side, but when she was full of men, and, due to the angle of the ship, well down by the bow, some one inboard let go the foremost fall or else it broke, for the bows of the boat fell downwards and half a dozen figures were projected in grotesque attitudes into the sea. For a few seconds the boat swung backwards and forwards like a pendulum. When she came to rest, hanging vertically downwards from the stern, I noticed that a few men were still clinging like flies to her thwarts. Truly, anything is better than the Atlantic in winter. Meanwhile the ship had seized to sink as far as outward sides went. I mentioned this to von Weisman, who was at my side with a slight smile on his face, amused doubtless at the eagerness with which I watched every detail of this, to me novel tragedy. He answered me that I need not worry that she was being supported by an airlock somewhere forward, that the water was slowly creeping into her and her boilers were probably soon go. This remarkable man was absolutely correct. There was an interval of about five minutes during which another boat, evidently successfully lowered from the other side, came round her stern, picked up one or two men from the water, and also collected the survivors in the hanging boat. Then the steamer suddenly sank another two feet. There was a dull rumbling, as of heavy machinery falling from a height, a muffled report, a cloud of steam and smoke, a sucking noise, and then a pool in the water, in the middle of which odd bits of wood and other buoyant debris kept on bobbing up. Nothing else. No, I am wrong. There were two other things, a U-boat representing the might of Germany, and a whaler with perhaps twenty men in it, representing the plight of England. As she went I felt hushed and solemn. It was an impressive moment. A slight chuckle came from imperturbable vicemen. He had seen too many go to think much of it, and he gave an order for the helm to be put over, so that we might approach the whaler. They were horribly overcrowded, and were engaged in trying to sort themselves into some kind of order. We passed by them at fifty yards, and vicemen, seizing his megaphone, shouted in English, Good-bye! Steer west for America! A cold horror gripped my heart. It was an awful moment. I dare not write the thoughts that entered my head. I turned away my head and faced aft, that he should not see my face. Looking back I saw the whaler rocking dangerously in our wash. And then a commotion took place in her stern, from which a huge bearded man arose, and, shaking his fist in our direction, shouted something or other before his companions pulled him down. Von vicemen heard, and his lips narrowed in. I held my breath in suspense, but he evidently decided against what he had been about to do, for with the order, course north, ten knots, he went below. I remained on deck watching the rapidly receding whaler through my glasses, until she was a mere speck, alone on the ocean, one hundred and fifty miles from land. Then the navigator came up, and with strangely mixed feelings of exultant joy and depressing sorrow, I went below. Von vicemen was in the wardroom. I watched him unobserved. He was humming a tune to himself, and had just completed putting a green dot on the chart. This done he lay back on the satis and closed his eyes. Strange, insoluble man. For long hours I could not forget that whaler. I see it now as I write. I suppose I shall get used to it all. What would Zoe say? The most wonderful thing about man is that he can stand the strain of his own invention of modern war. I am rather tired tonight. But must just jot down briefly what has taken place today, as there is never any time in the daylight hours. Soon after dawn, at about eight a.m., we sighted a fair-sized steamer of about three thousand tons, which we sunk, but I cannot say what she looked like, or whether any one escaped, as we never came to the surface at all, Von vicemen siding smoke on the western horizon just as he hit her. We accordingly steered in that direction. However, I think she went almost at once, as Von vicemen put a dot, black, on the chart, as we made towards number three. I very much wanted to know whether there were any survivors, but I did not like to ask him at the time, and he has been in such an infernal temper ever since that I haven't had a suitable opportunity. The cause of his rage was as follows. Steamer number three turned out to be a fine fact-chap of the clan-line, Von vicemen said, when we first sighted her. We moved into attack and fired our port bow tube. I waited in vain by the tubes for the expected explosion. Nothing happened, but after a couple of minutes a snarl came down the voice-pipe. Surface, gun-action stations. I ran aft and found the captain white with rage. Mr. Head, he said with intense feeling, I'll have to use that confounded gun. In about three minutes the captain and myself were on the bridge and the crew were at their stations round the gun. For the first time I saw the ship, she was stern on and apparently painted with black and white stripes. As I examined her through glasses she was distant about three thousand yards. I saw a flash aboard her and a few seconds later a projectile moaned overhead and fell about six thousand yards over. So she is armed, thought I, and she has actually opened fire on us first. The effect of this unexpected retort on the part of the Englishman was to throw vicemen into a proxism of rage. Why don't you fire? What the devil are you waiting for? Et cetera, et cetera, were some of the remarks he flung at the gun crew. I did not consider it advisable to mention to him that they were probably waiting his order to fire, and also his orders for range and deflection, as I had imagined that, here as everywhere else, an officer controls the gunfire. Probably in this boat it is not so, as vicemen take so little interest in his gun that he affects to be, or else actually is, ignorant of the elements of gun control. At any rate, under the lash of his tongue, the gun's crew soon got into action, the gunlayer taking charge. Our first shot was short, very considerably so, as was also the second. Meanwhile the steamer had been keeping up a very creditably controlled rate of fire, straddling us twice, but missing for deflection, as was natural considering that we were boughs on to her. I felt thoroughly in my element listening to the significant wail of the enemy's shell punctuated by the ear-splitting report of our own gun. Vicemen gripping the rail with both hands, and to my surprise ducking when one went overhead, watched the target with a fixed expression, but made no attempt to control our gunfire, which was far from creditable, as is inevitable when it is left to the mercy of the inferior intellect of a seamen. However, at the tenth or eleventh round we hit her in the upper works, as was shown by a bright red and yellow flash near her funnel. This did not check her firing or speed in the least, in fact she seemed to be gaining on us. She also began to zigzag slightly and throw smoke bombs overboard. Which were not so effective from her point of view as I had thought they would be. Matters were thus for some minutes. We had just hit her aft for the second time, though the shooting was so disgustingly bad that I was about to ask whether I might do the duties of control officer when there was a blinding flash and the air seemed to fill with moaning fragments. When I had recovered from my relief from finding that I was personally uninjured, I observed that two of the gun's crew were wounded and one was lying either killed or seriously wounded on the casing. We had been hit in the casing well forward, and as was subsequently proved when we dived, little material damage was caused to the boat. This enemy's success caused a temporary cessation of fire. The two wounded men were cautiously making their way aft to the conning-tower, and I called for a couple of stokers to come up and carry away the third, when von Weisman suddenly gave the order to dive. The gun's crew had once made a rush for the conning-tower, and were down the hatch in a trice, one of the wounded men fainting at the bottom. I was unaware as to the reason of this order to dive, and thought that perhaps the captain had sighted a periscope, as I was turning to proceed him down the conning-tower hatch. I distinctly saw the man lying by the gun lift his hand. I felt I could not leave him there, and instinctively cried, he is still alive. But von Weisman, who was urging the crew to hurry down the hatch, pressed the diving alarm as soon as the last sailor was half in the hatch. I knew that this meant that the boat would be under in thirty to forty seconds, so I had no alternative but to get down the hatch as quickly as possible. I did so with reluctance, and I was followed by von Weisman, who joined me in the upper conning-tower. I forced myself not to look out of the conning-tower scuttles during the few seconds that elapsed as the casing slowly went under, until at last nothing but waving green water showed at each little window. I feared that, if I had looked, I would have seen a wounded man, stung into activity by the cold touch of the Atlantic. Perhaps von Weisman read my thoughts, or else he remembered my remark concerning the man, for he turned to me and in level tones said, Have you any doubt that he was dead? I hesitated a moment, and he continued, By my direction you have no doubt he was. How brutal war is, and what a perfect exponent of the art the captain proves himself to be. To me a life is a life, a particle of the thing divine. To him a life is a unit, and a half maimed and probably dying seaman is as nothing in the scales when the safety of a U-boat is at stake. The seaman are numbered in their tens of thousands, the U-boats in their tens. The steamer had hit us once, luckily only in the casing, a second hit might well have punctured the pressure-haul, and our fate in these waters would have been certain. Therefore having summed these things up and balanced them in his mind, he dived, and the sailor died. Once below water von Weisman seen more his imperturbable self, and unless I am mistaken he is never really happy on the surface, at least when in action he is a true water mole. New entry. A day full of interest, though once again I have to force myself to absorb the horrors of war. I imagine that I am now going through the experiences of a new arrival on the western front who feels a desire to shudder at the sight of every corpse. At ten a.m. this morning we sighted the topsoles of a sailing boat to the southwest. Closing her on the surface we approached to within about six thousand meters, when suddenly von Weisman ordered gun-action stations. The gun crew came tumbling up, but not quick enough to suit him, for as they were mustering at the gun he gave the order to dive, only, however, taking her down to periscope depth before instantly ordering surface, and then gun-action stations again. This time we opened fire on the ship, which was a Norwegian bark, and, being in the barred zone, liable to destruction. von Weisman had announced overnight that at the first opportunity he would give that gun's crew a bellyful of practice, and he certainly did. As soon as the first shot was fired she backed her topsoles, and when our fourth shot struck her, somewhere near the foot of the fore-mast, her crew could be seen hastily abandoning their ship. This action on their part had no influence with von Weisman, who would take impersonal charge of the helm, and, with the engines running at three-quarter speed, he was zigzagging about, to make it harder for the gun's crew. Every now and then he flung a jive at the crew, such as suggesting that they should go back to the high sea's fleet and learn how to shoot. The sailing ship was soon on fire, for, considering the circumstances, the shooting was very fair, though had I been controlling it I could have confidently guaranteed better results. When she was blazing nicely fore and aft, von Weisman ordered to practice to cease, and sent the crew below. He then ordered course south, speed ten knots, and I took over the watch. An hour and a half later when the navigator gave me a spell, a black cloud on the northern horizon marked the funeral pyre of another of our victims. When I went below, the captain had just finished playing with his precious old chart. NEW ENTRY We received a message at 2 a.m. last night from Helagoland to return forthwith. It is now 2 a.m. and we are approaching the redoubtable Dover barrage. We had no trouble coming up-channel today, which seems singularly empty, at any rate in mid-channel, where we are. NEW ENTRY We got back about three hours ago, and as I was appointed temporary to the boat, von Weisman kindly allowed me to leave her and come up to Bruges as soon as we got into the shelters at Zebrooga. I got up here just in time for a late dinner. Hunger satisfied, I retired to my room, and, needless to say, at once rang up my darling Zoe. By the mercy of Providence she was in, but imagine my sensations when I heard that a cursed swine of a colonel was also back from the front and expected in at the flat at any moment, being then, she thought, engaged in his after-dinner drinking-bouts at the Cavalry Officer's Club. I could only groan. A laugh at the other end stung me to furious rage. Appeased in an instant by her soothing tones as she told me that I should be glad to hear that he was only up from the psalm on a four-days leave, and was returning next morning by the eight a.m. troop train. Glad, I could have danced for joy. I breathed again. As the colonel was expected back at any moment, she thought it advisable to terminate the conversation, which was done with obvious reluctance on her part, or so I flattered myself. He goes to-morrow, so far so good. But what of the intervening period? Could any more refined torture be imagined than that I, who love her as I love my own soul, should have to sit here, while scarcely a mile away, probably at this very moment as I write, that gross brute is privileged to kiss her, to look at her, to, oh, it's unbearable. When I think of that hog, for though I've never seen him, I've seen his photograph, and I know instinctively that he is gross, fresh, as he says, from a drinking-bout, should at this moment be permitted to raise his pig's eyes and look into those glorious wells of violet light. When I think that his is the privilege to see those masses of black hair fall in uncontrolled splendor, then I understand to the full the deep pleasures of murder. I would give anything to destroy this man, and could shake the Englishman by the hand who fires the delivering bullet. Steady? Steady? What do I write? No, I mean it, every word of it. Yet of all the mysteries, and to me Zoe is a mass of them, surely the strangest of all is contained in the question, why does she live with him? She doesn't love him. She's practically told me so. In fact, I know she doesn't. Let me reason it out by logic. She lives with him, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Suppose it be voluntarily, then her reasons must be A. Love. B. Fascination. C. Some secret reason. If she is living with him involuntarily, it must be D. He has a hold on her. E. For financial reasons. I strike out at once A and E, for in the case of E she knows well that I would provide for her, and A I refuse to admit. B is hardly credible. I eliminate that. I am left with C and D, which might be the same thing. But what hold can he have on her? She can't have a past. She is too young and sweet for that. I must find out about this before I go to see again. NEW ENTRY Three days ago I was racking my brains for the solution of a problem, and as I see from what I wrote I was somewhat outside myself, and the interval things have taken an amazing turn. I am still bewildered, but I must put it all down from the beginning. The Colonel left as she said he would, and I went round to lunch with her. We had a delightful tet-a-tet, and after lunch she played the piano. I was feeling in splendid voice, and she accompanied me to perfection, in Kachovsky's to the forest, always a favorite of mine. As the last chords died away, Zoe jumped up from the piano and, with eyes dancing with excitement, placed her hands on my shoulders and exclaimed, Carl, I have an idea. I shall make a prisoner of you for two or three days. I laughed heartily, and almost told her that she had already made me a prisoner for life. Only I can never get those sort of remarks out quick enough. But when she said, No, I am not joking. I mean it. I felt there was some more meaning in her sentence than I had at first thought. I begged to be enlightened, and she then unfolded her scheme. She told me for the first time, then in a forest not far from Bruges, she had a little summer house, to which she used to retreat for weekends in the hot weather when the Colonel was away. He knew nothing of this country house. She was very insistent on that point, so I imagined she paid for it out of her dress allowance or in some other way. The idea that had just struck her was that she had a sudden fancy to go and spend two days there, and I was to go with her. I was ready to go to Africa with her if my leave permitted, and it so happened that I was due for four days overseas leave, limited to Belgian territory, so that this fitted in very well, and I told her so. She was delighted, then, with one of those quick intuitions which women are so clever at. She read the half-form thought on my mind, and said, You mustn't think it's not going to be conventional. Old Babette will be with us to chaperone me. Old Babette is an aged female whom she calls her maid. I think she is jealous of me. I greeted once that, of course, I quite understood it was to be highly conventional, etc., though I smiled to myself as I visualized my mother's shocked face and uplifted hands as she heard my Zoe's ideas on the conventions. I was trying to fathom what was at the bottom of it all when she remarked, Of course is my prisoner you will have to obey all my orders. I replied that this was certainly so. And one of the first things, she continued, that happens to a prisoner when he goes through the enemy lines is that he is blindfolded, and in the same way I shat let you know where you are going. Having a doubtful look in my eyes as I endeavored to keep pace with the underlying idea, if any, of this truly feminine fancy, she suddenly came up to me and, lifting her eyes to mine, murmured, Don't you trust me? In a moment my passion flared up and reigned hot kisses on her face as she struggled to release herself from my arms. When I left that night after dinner, and walking on air, returned to the mess, it was arranged that I should be at her flat with my suitcase at six p.m. the next evening, prepared, to use her own words, to disappear with me for forty-eight hours. She had told me of an address in Bruges which she said would forward on any telegram if I was recalled, and I had to be satisfied with that, for I may as well say here that I never discovered where I went to, and I don't know to this moment in what part of Belgium I spent the last two nights. I tried to find out at first, but as she obviously attached some importance to keeping the locality of her woodland retreat a secret, probably to circumvent the Colonel, I soon gave up trying to get the secret from her, and contended myself with taking things as they came. To go on with my account of what happened, which was really so remarkable that I proposed writing it out in detail to the best of my memory. At six p.m. next day I was naturally at her flat, feeling very much as if I were on the threshold of an adventure. Zoe was excited, and the flat was in a turmoil, as apparently she had only just begun to pack her dressing-case. Soon after six we went down and got into a large Mercedes car which I had noticed standing outside when I arrived. We were soon on our way, and left Bruges by the eastern barrier. We showed our passes, and proceeded into the darkened countryside. We had been running for about a mile when she remarked, "'Prisoners will now be blindfolded,' and took my astonishment slipped a little black silk bag over my head. I was so startled I didn't know whether to be angry or to laugh or what to do. Shortly I did nothing, and entering into the spirit of the game declared that even a wretched prisoner had the right not to be stifled, whereupon she lifted the lower portion of the bag and uncovered my mouth. Shortly afterwards I was electrified to feel a pair of soft lips meet mine, a sensation which was repeated at frequent intervals, and as I whispered in her ear, under these conditions I was prepared to be taking prisoner into the jaws of hell. This pleasant journey had lasted for about three quarters of an hour when my mask was removed, and I was informed that I was inside the enemy lines. Through the windows of the car I could dimly see that an apparently endless mass of fir trees were rushing past on each side. This state of affairs continued for a kilometer or so, when we branched to the right and soon entered a large clearing in the forest, at one side of which stood the house. Babette, Zoe, and myself entered the building, and the car disappeared presumably back to Bruges. The house, built of logs, was of two stories. On the ground floor were two living-rooms, and the domains of Babette, who amongst her other accomplishments turned out to be not only a most capable valet, but a first-class cook. On the second story there were two large rooms. The whole house was furnished after the manner of a hunting lodge, with stags-heads on the walls and skins on the floors. In the drawing-room there was a piano and a few etchings of the wild boar by Chaffain. I dressed for dinner in my smoking, though under ordinary circumstances I should have considered this rather formal, but I was glad I did, for she appeared in full evening tenure. She wore a violet gown, and across her forehead a black satin bandeau with a zee and diamonds upon it. That must have cost two thousand marks, and I wondered with a dull kind of jealousy whether the Colonel had given it to her. I cannot remember of what we talked during dinner. We have a hundred subjects in common, and we look at so many aspects of the world through the same pair of eyes. I only know that when I have been talking to her for a period there is no exact measurement of time for me when I am with her. I leave her presence feeling completed. I feel that a sort of gap within my being has been filled, that a spiritual hunger has been satisfied, that I have got something which I wanted, but for which I could not have formulated the desire in words. I had resolved that on this first night I would bring matters between us to a head and end this delicious but intolerable uncertainty as to how we stood. Yet, when old Babette had served us with coffee in the drawing-room, as I call the second living-room, and we were alone together, I could not bring up the subject. Partly because I think she prevented me so doing by that skillful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with an artfulness with which God endows all women, and also partly because I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! How true was this foreboding in some senses, but I will keep all things in their right order. Let it only be recorded that when she kissed me good night with the tenderness of a mother, and left me to smoke a final cigar I had said nothing, and I could only wonder at the strange fate that had placed me practically alone with a girl whom I had grown to love with a deep emotion, and who appeared to love me, yet often behaved as if I were her brother. The next day we were like two children. The snow was deep on the ground, and the fir trees stood like thousands of sentinels in gray uniform round the clearing. Once during the afternoon, as with Zoe's assistance I was furiously dropping wood for the fire, a droning noise made me look up, and thousands of metres overhead a small squadron of aeroplanes, evidently bound for the western front, sailed slowly across the sky. I thought how awkward it would be for them if they experienced an engine failure whilst over the forest, though they were up so high that I imagined they could have glided ten kilometres, and as I think, but I am not certain, and I have pledged myself not to try and find out. We were in the forest of Montellin, which is barely fifteen kilometres broad. I suppose they could have fallen clear of the trees. As a matter of fact I imagine they would have used our clearing. I'm glad they didn't. That night after dinner she played to me, first Beethoven, and then Chopin. I can see her as I write. She had just finished the fourteenth prelude, and resting her chin on her hand, she smiled mysteriously at me. The hour had come, and, driven by strong impulses, I spoke. I told her that I loved her as I had never thought that a man could love a woman. I told her that I longed to shield her and protect her, and above all things to remove her from the clutches of that bestial kernel, and as I bent over her and felt my senses swim in the subtleties of her perfume, I begged her passionately to say the word that would give me the right to fight the world on her behalf. When I had finished, she was silent for a long while. And I can remember distinctly that I wondered whether she could hear the thump, thump, thump of my heart, which to my agitated mind seemed to beat with the strength of a hammer. At length she spoke. Two words came slowly from her lips. I cannot. I was not discouraged. I could see. I could feel that a tremendous struggle was raging, the outward signs of which were concealed by her averted head. At length I asked her point blank whether she loved me. Her silence gave me my answer, and I took her unresisting body into my arms and kissed her to distraction. Oh, these kisses! How bitter they seem to me now! And yet how I longed to hold her once again. For freeing herself from my embrace and speaking almost mechanically, she said, Carl, I must tell you, I cannot marry you. I pleaded. I prayed. I argued. I demanded. It was in vain. I always came up against the immovable. I cannot. And then I crashed over the precipice towards whose edge I had been blindly going. I had said for the hundredth time, but you know you love me, when with a sob she abandoned all reserve, and flinging her arms round my neck implored me to take her. Then as I caught my breath, she quickly said, as if frightened that she had gone too far. But I cannot marry you. I looked down into those beautiful eyes, and for the first time I understood. For perhaps ten seconds I battled for my soul in the purity of our love, then tearing my sight from those eyes which would lure an archangel to destruction. I was once more master of my body. As my resolution grew, I hated her for doing this thing that had wrecked in an instant the hopes of months, the ideals on which I had begun to build afresh my life. She felt the change, and left me. As she went out by the door she gave me one last look, a look in which love struggled with shame, a look which no man has ever earned the right to receive from any woman. But I was as a statue of marble, dazed by this calamity. Once the door closed upon her I started forward. It was too late. Had she waited another instant, but there I write of what has happened and not what might have been. I did not sleep that night, until the dawn began to separate each fir tree from the black mass of the forest. Twice in the night, with shame I confess it, I opened my door and looked down the little passageway, and twice I closed the door and threw myself upon my bed in an agony of torment. It was ten o'clock when a knock at the door aroused me, and the sunlight through the window-pane was tracing patterns on the floor. There was a note on the breakfast table, but before I opened it I knew that, save for bevet, I was alone in the house. The note was brief, unaddressed, and unsigned. I have it here before me. I have meant to tear it up, but I cannot. It is a weakness to keep it, but I have lost so much in the last few days that I will not grudge myself some small relic of what has been. The note says, I am leaving for Bruges at half-past eight when the car was ordered to fetch us back. I go alone. Bevet will give you breakfast. The car will return for you at eleven o'clock. I rely on your honour in that you will not observe where you have been. Come to me when you want me. Till then, farewell. It was, as she said, and I honourably acceded to her request. This afternoon just before lunch I arrived at Bruges, and since tea-time I have tried to write down what has happened since I left the day before yesterday. Oh, how could she do it? How can it be possible that she is a woman like that? I could have sworn that she was not like this. And yet how can I account for her life with a colonel? There must be some reason. But in Heaven's name, what? Meanwhile, I am to go to her when I want her, and that will be when I can give her my name. But oh, Zoe, I want you now so badly—oh, so badly—and a section. I have told Max's secretary that I want to get to see To be here in Bruges and not to see her is more than I can bear. I sail at dawn to-morrow. Shall I see her? No, it is best not. A frightful noise over the New Year celebrations tonight, champagne flowing like water in the mess. I feel the year 1917 opens badly for me. Vice-man also went to see again for a short trip in the channel, and is not reported for five days. She has despised the Dover barrage once too often. If this is so, it is a great loss to the service. He was a man of iron resolution in underwater attack. I feel I ought to despise Zoe, but I can't. I love her too much. After all, am I not perhaps encasing myself in the robe of a Pharisee? She offered me all she had, save only the one thing, I asked, without which I will take nothing. I cannot reconcile her behavior with her character. Why can't she trust me? Why can't she be frank with me? I will not believe she is that sort. I feel I cannot go out again without a sign. I may not return, and I will not leave her perhaps forever with this bitterness between us. New entry. Let's see and you see forty-seven again, Alton as surly as ever. I decided finally to write to Zoe, but found it difficult to know what to say. Eventually I said more than I had intended. I told her frankly that I experienced a shock, but that I had not meant to seem so cold, and that what I had done had been done for both our sakes. I told her that I still loved her, and I implored her once more to leave the Colonel and come to me as my wife. Already I longed to know what message awaits me on my return. This will not be for three days. We left at dawn this morning to lay mines off the channel to Harwich Harbour, a nest from which submarines, cruisers, and destroyers buzz in and out like wasps. It will be ticklish work. New entry. On the bottom. Our minds are still with us, but so are our lives, which is something. We were approaching the appointed spot at six a.m. this morning. When without the slightest warning the track of a torpedo was seen streaking towards us about fifty yards on the starboard bow. Before Alton, who was on the bridge with me, could do more than press the diving alarm, the track met our ram. I breathed again, and was then reminded by an oath from Alton that the boat was diving. It was evident that we had only been saved by the torpedo running deep under the cutaway part of our bow, otherwise. Well, the tangle of my affairs would have been easily straightened. Further procedure on the surface was suicidal, and we kept hydrofoam patrol, twice hearing the motors of the enemy submarine. At the moment we are on the bottom, waiting to come up and charge tonight, and lay our minds at dawn tomorrow. New entry. On the bottom in twenty-eight meters, and feeling none too comfortable, as there would appear to be about a dozen destroyers overhead. Last night, or rather early this morning, I participated in one of the most extraordinary incidents that I have ever heard of. It was pitch-black dark when I took over at four a.m., and a fresh breeze had raised a lumpy sea, which covered the bridge with spray. We were charging four hundred amps on each, with the intention of laying one mind directly there was sufficient light to get a fix from some of the buoys, which the English stick down all over the place, here in the most convenient manner possible. If only one could believe they never shifted them. Alton says it never occurs to an Englishman to do a thing like that. But I'm not so sure. However we were proceeding along at about five knots, crashing into the sea rather badly, when out of the black beastliness of the night I saw a shape close aboard on the port hand. As I hesitated for a second as to my course of action, I was astounded to see a large submarine which must have been British, on an opposite course, not more than twenty-five meters away. This sounds absurd, but it really wasn't further. I'm not ashamed to confess that I was completely disorganized. It did not seem possible that the enemy was literally alongside me. I don't know how it struck the officer in the British boat, but I must give him credit for doing something first, for he fired a very white light straight at me as the two boats passed. It impinged on the hull, and in the flash I caught a photographic glimpse of his conning-tower, on which was painted the letter E, followed by two numbers, of which one was a two, I think, and the other a nine. By this time he was on my port quarter and rapidly disappearing. In a frenzy of rage I managed to get my revolver out, and whilst with the left hand I pressed the diving alarm, with the right hand I emptied the magazine in his direction. When we were down Alton practically refused to believe me, which made me very pleased that in descending I had trod on a pair of hands which turned out to be his, as he had started up the letter to the upper conning-tower when he first heard the alarm. I presume our opponent dived as well, but evidently he had put two and two together, and used his aerial at some period, for when at dawn we poked a periscope up. A flotilla of destroyers appeared to be looking for something, which something was us, unless I am much mistaken. So we bottomed where we have been ever since. The hydroplane operator keeps up a monotonous sing-song to the effect that fast-running propellers are either receding or approaching. The crew are collected round the mine-tubes, as I write, and are singing a lugubrious song, the refrain of which runs, Death for the fatherland, glorious fate, this is the end that we gladly await. Why will the seamen always become morbid when possible? And there is not a man amongst them who is not inwardly thinking of some beer-haul in Bruges, though I suppose that like their betters they have had their romances of a tenderer kind. New entry. The boat has been rolling about on the bottom in the most sickening manner the whole afternoon. We flooded P and Q to capacity, which gave her fifty tons negative, but it seems to have little effect in steadying her, and it is evident that a really heavy gale is running on top. New entry. Surfaced at ten p.m., a very heavy sea running, and impossible to do much more than heave to. This weather has one point in its favour, and that is that the destroyers are driven in. It got steadily worse all night, and at midnight we lost our foremost wire-mast overboard. We have now, ten a.m., been forty-eight hours without communication. At dawn we could see nothing to fix by, not a buoy in sight, nothing but an expanse of foam-topped, short, steep waves of dirty, neutral-tinted water. How different to the great green and white surges of the broad Atlantic! Under these circumstances Alton decided to risk it and return without laying our minds. For once in a way I agreed with him, as it is better not to lay a minefield at all than dump one down in some unknown position, which one may have to traverse oneself in the course of a month or two. We are now slowly, very slowly, struggling back to sea-bruka. A green sea came down the conning-tower today, and everything in the boat is damp and smelly and beastly. The propellers race at frequent intervals, and the whole boat shutters. I feel miserable. Alton has started to drink spirits. He began as soon as we decided to go back. He will be incapable by to-night, and it means that I shall have to take her in. What hell this is, sitting in sodden clothes, with a stench of four days' living assaulting the nostrils, and a motion of the devil. The glass is very low and is slowly rising, so that I suppose it will blow harder soon, though it is about force eight at present. I wonder what Zoe will have written in reply to my note. When I think of what I rejected, and compare it with my beast-like existence here, I can hardly believe that I behaved as I did. What would I not give now to be transported back to the forest? At this rate of progress we shall take another twenty-four hours. I wonder if I can knock another half-knot out of her without smashing her up. New entry. The extraordinarily violent motion has upset the unshoots. Footnote one, the gyroscopic compass, end of footnote. The bearing-cone of the stabilizing gyro has cracked, and the master compass began to wander off in circles. I was just resting for an hour or two, wedged up on a wet set tee with coats equally wet, when her heavy pitching changed to a wallowing roll, and I heard the pilot, who was on watch, cursing down the voice-pipe, as we had sagged off our course. I heard the voice of the helmsman quarrelously maintain that he was steering his course by unshoots, so I got up and gingerly clawed my way into the control room, where I found by comparing unshoots with magnetic that the former had gone to hell. The reason being obvious, as the stabilizer was exerting a strongly biased torque, I stopped the unshoots, and asked the pilot to give the helmsman a steady by magnetic. As we staggered back to our course, I heard a thud in the wardroom, and on returning to my set tee found that Alton had rolled out of his bunk, where he was lying in a drunken stupor, and that he was faced downwards, sprawling on the deck. Half his face and the broken half of a dirty dish which had fallen off the table whilst I was having tea. As I couldn't let the crew see him like this, I was obliged to struggle and get him back into his bunk. He was like a log and absolutely incapable of rendering me any assistance, though he did open his eyes and mutter once or twice as I lifted him up, trunk first and then his legs. He stank of spirits, and I hated touching him. Lord, what a truly hogish man he is! Yet I cannot help envying him his oblivion to these surroundings. New entry. Arrived in this afternoon. Alton quite slept off his drink, and was offensively sarcastic as I worked on the four part, with wires, getting her into the shelters alongside the Mole. I hastened up to Bruges, and in the mess heard several items of news and found two letters. The first in a well-known handwriting I opened eagerly, but received a chill of disappointment when I read its single line. I am here when you want me, Z. So she thinks to break my resolution. No, I am stronger than she, and now that I know she loves me, I can and will bend her to my will. Even now, at this distance of time, I can hardly understand my conduct the other day. I must have been given the strength of ten. I feel that I could not do it again. Had she hesitated a second longer at the door—well, I can hardly say what I would have done. It is my duty to do so for her sake and my own. But I know my weakness, and in this fact lies my strength. Cost what it may, I shall not permit myself to go near her until she yields. The second letter gave me a great surprise. It was from Rosa. She has passed some examination, and is coming here of all places as a Red Cross nurse. She says she is looking forward to going round a U-boat. She assumes a good deal, I must say. Still, I suppose I must be polite to her. But why the deuce does she sign herself yours, Rosa? She's not mine, and I don't want her. It seems funny to me that I once thought of her vaguely in that sort of way. Now I feel rather disturbed that she is coming here. Though I don't quite see why I should worry, and yet I wonder if it is a coincidence her coming to Bruges. I'm almost inclined to think it isn't. After all, every girl wants to get married, and without conceit my family, circumstances, and in the privacy of the pages of this journal I may add, my personal appearances, are such as would appeal to most girls, except Zoe, apparently. I'll have to be on my guard against Miss Rosa. I heard today that I am likely to be appointed to the Periscope school in a few weeks' time, and meanwhile I am to be attached as supernumery to the Operations Division on Old Max's staff. New entry. The work here is most interesting. I feel glad that I am out of the spiders weaving the web for Britain's destruction. The impasse with Zoe still continues, and my peace of mind has been still further disturbed by the actual arrival of Rosa. She rang me up within twelve hours of her arrival, and of course I was obliged to call. That was the day before yesterday. Rosa is at the number three hospital here, and was horribly effusive. Some people would, I suppose, call her good-looking, but to me, with my mind's eye in perpetual contemplation of my darling Zoe, to look like a turnip. Her first movement after the preliminary greetings was to offer me a cigarette. I then noticed that her fingers were stained with nicotine, unpleasant in a man, disgusting in a woman. Her nose was shiny and greasy, horrible. After a little talk she volunteered the statement that yesterday was her afternoon off, and she was simply longing to have tea in the gardens. I endeavoured to make some feeble excuse on the grounds of the weather being unsuitable, but I am no good at these social lies, and I was eventually obliged to promise to take her there. I was the more annoyed in that her main object was obviously to be seen walking with the U-boat officer. Accordingly yesterday I found myself walking about with her at my side. My feelings can better be imagined than described when I suddenly saw Zoe, accompanied by Babette, in the distance, a hastily altered chorus and prey she didn't see me. In the chorus of the afternoon Rosa had the impertinence to say that at Frankfurt they were saying that I was interested in a beautiful widow at Bruges, and could she, Rosa, write and say I was heart whole, or else what the girl was like? I'm afraid that I lost my temper a little, and I told Rosa she could write to all the busybodies at home, and tell them from me to go to the devil. These women in the home circle, and especially aunts, are always the same. Firstly they batcher one to get married, and then if they think one is contemplating such a step they are all agog to find out whether she is suitable. New entry. Three more boats, two of which are UCs, are overdue. And it's distinctly unpleasant not knowing how or where they go, though the UB boat, Friedrich Altofen, made her incoming position the day before yesterday as off-dungeness, so it looks as if the barrage at Dover which got vicemen has got Altofen as well. I wonder what new devilry they have put down there. How one wishes that in 1914, instead of seeking the capture of Paris, we had realized the importance of the channel ports to England and struck for them. It would not have been necessary to strike even in September 1914. We could have walked into them. Dunkirk at all events should have been ours. However we must do the best with things as they are, not that I would consider it too late even now to make a big push for the French coast. It would seem as a matter of fact that all the pushing is to be at the other end of the line, in the Verdun sector, from the rumours I hear, though I should have thought once bitten, twice shy in that quarter. New entry. Saw Zoe again in the distance, and I think she saw me. At all events she turned round and walked away. This girl whom I cannot, and would not if I could, obliterate from my thoughts, is causing me much worry. She shows no sign of giving in, and I for one intend to be adamant. I shall defeat her in time. The male intellect is always ultimately victorious, other things being equal. I was reading Schopenhauer on the subject last night. What a brain that man had, though I confess his analysis of the female mentality is so terribly and truthfully cruel that jars uncertain of my feelings. His resolution in this conflict, this sex-war one might call it, only adds to her charm in my eyes. She is, I feel, a worthy mate for me, both intellectually and physically, and she shall be mine. I have decided it. Met Rosa to-day at old Max's house, where I went to pay a duty call. Her Excellency is as forbidding a specimen of her sex as any I have ever met. She quite frightened me, and in the home circle the old man seemed quite subdued. I escorted Rosa home, and on the way to her hospital she gave me a great surprise, as after much evasive talk she suddenly came out with the news that she was engaged to Heinrich Baumer of UC-23. I was quite taken aback, and will frankly confess that not so very long ago I imagined, evidently, erroneously, that she was disposed to let her affections become engaged in another quarter. However, I was really very glad to hear this news, and congratulated her with genuine feeling. The knowledge that she was a promised woman quite altered my feelings towards her, and before I quite meant to, I had told her a considerable amount about Zoe. It gave me much relief to be able to unburden myself and confide my difficulties elsewhere than in the pages of this journal. I have asked the girl to tea tomorrow. NEW ENTRY A vile air raid last night. British machines, of course. They seemed determined to get over the town, and from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. relays of machines, of which not one was shot down, attacked us. The din was tremendous, and all sleep was out of the question. Morning revealed surprisingly little damage, as is often the case in these big raids, whereas a few bombs from a chance machine often work havoc. I was down at 50 B.C. Airdrome this morning, and heard that as soon as the moon suits we are going to make Dunkirk sit up as retaliation for last night's efforts. There were also rumours of big attacks impending on London as soon as the new type of gothas are delivered. That will shake the smug security of those cursed islanders. Rosa came to tea, and afterwards I told her more about Zoe, and as I expect any day to be appointed to the Periscope School at Keel, I asked Rosa to try and effect an introduction to Zoe, and do what she could for me. Rosa gave me the impression that she was somewhat surprised that I should have had any difficulty with Zoe. Of course I had not told her of the shooting-box scene. Rosa evidently thinks any woman ought to be honoured. Perhaps I was not so far wrong in my surmises as to Rosa's previous inclinations. I wonder. At any rate she will undoubtedly make Balmer a good wife, and she will probably be very fruitful and grow still fatter and housewifely. She has of a type of woman appointed by God in his foresight as breeders. Zoe, my adorable one, will probably not take kindly to babies. End of Section 8 of Diary of a U-Boat Commander This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The Diary of a U-Boat Commander By Stephen King Hall Section 8 I am ordered to report myself at Keel by next Monday. I am terribly tempted to ring up Zoe on the telephone before I leave. It seems dreadful to leave her without a word, but at the same time I feel that she would interpret this as a sign of weakness on my part, as indeed it would be. I must be firm, for strength of mind pays with women even more than with men. At Keel I left Bruges without a word either to or from my obstinate darling. It is torture being away from her. I had thought that when I was here and not exposed to the temptation of going round and seeing her, that it would be easier. It is not. I long to write, and how I wonder whether she is feeling it as I do. I have read somewhere that a woman's passion once aroused is more ungovernable than a man's. That her whole being cries aloud for me cannot be doubted. And if the above statement is true, what inflexibility of will she must be showing, it almost makes me fear. But no, I will defeat her in this strange contest, and she shall be my wife. The work here is strenuous, and the grass does not grow under one's feet. The course for commanding officers lasts four weeks, and terminates in an exceedingly practical, but rather fearsome test, i.e. they have six steamers here camouflaged after the English fashion with dazzle painting, and these six steamers, protected by launches and harbor defense craft, steam across Kiel Bay in the manner of a convoy. The officer being examined has to attack this group of ships in one of the instructional submarines, and in three attacks he must score at least two hits, or else in theory he has returned to general service in the fleet. Only at the moment I hear that owing to recent losses they are distinctly on the short side where submarine officers are concerned, so they'll probably make it easy when I do my test. New entry. I see I have written nothing here for a fortnight. This is due to two causes. Firstly, I have been so extraordinarily busy, and secondly, I have been most depressed through a letter I received from Fritz. I contain two items of bad news. In the first place I heard for the first time of the tragedy of Heinrich Baumherr's boat, and to my astonishment Fritz tells me that Rosa and another girl were in her when she was lost. It appears that she was to go out for a couple of hours diving off the port as a matter of routine after her two months overhaul. She went out at ten a.m. and was sighted from the signal station at the end of the mole at eleven thirty, when almost immediately afterwards there was an explosion and she disappeared. Motor boats were quickly on the scene, but only debris came to the surface. Divers were sent down and reported that she was in ten meters of water completely shattered. It is assumed, for lack of other explanation, that she struck a chance drifting mine which was moving down the coast on the tide. While Rosa and another sister were missing from the hospital and after forty-eight hours some one put two and two together and started investigations. It has been ascertained that Baumherr motored down from Bruges after breakfast, and that in the car were two figures taken to be sailors as they were muffled up in oil skins. This fact was noted by the control sentries as, though the day was showery, it was not raining hard. Other scraps of evidence unite in showing that these were the two girls who had apparently induced Baumherr to take them out for a dive as a treat. What a tragedy! However, it must have been quite instantaneous. Poor Rosa, with all her vanities about war work, to think that the war would claim her like that. Footnote. It is known that a boat with women on board was lost whilst exercising up Tsebrugge in the spring of 1917. This would appear to be the boat in question. A tin. And a footnote. Fritz added that old Max is almost off his head with rage over the whole business, and it is difficult to say whether he is more angry over Baumherr and the boat being lost, or over the fact that Baumherr being dead he is unable to administer those disciplinary actions in which he delights. New entry. Great excitement here, as the day after tomorrow his Imperial Majesty the Kaiser and Hindenburg are due to pay Kiehl a surprise visit. We are to be inspected and addressed. Tremendous preparations are going on. New entry. His Majesty, accompanied by the great Field-Marshal, inspected us this morning and made a fine speech of which we have been given printed copies. I shall frame mine and hang it in my boat, if I get a command. I transcribe it. Officers and Men of the U-Boat Service. In the midst of the anxious moments in which we live I have determined to make time to come and witness in my own person the labours of those on whom I and the Fatherland rely. Fresh from the great battles on the West, which are gnawing at the vitals of our hereditary enemies, I come to those whose glorious mission it will be to strike relentlessly at our most deadly and cunning enemy, Cursed Britain. God is on our side, and will protect you at sea, for, in the striking at the nation which openly boasts that it aims at starving our women and children, you are engaged on a mission of undoubted holiness. You must sink and destroy even as of old the Israelites smote and destroyed the alien races. To the officers I would particularly say, my person is your honour, and I am your supreme chief. From my hands you will receive honour, and from my hands will proceed just punishment for the unhappy ones who fail in their duty. To the men I would say, trust and obey your officers as you would your God. Officers and men, in you, your Kaiser and Fatherland place their trust. Let neither be disappointed. After his address his Majesty graciously spoke a few words to individuals of whom I had the signal honour of being one. I felt that I was in the presence of an emperor. His gestures, his eyes, his voice, impressed me as belonging to a man born to command, and to fill high places. The Field Marshal never opened his mouth. I understand from his ADC that he rarely speaks in public. New entry. The Colonel is killed. When I think about it I am so excited I can hardly write. I heard the great news last night, quite by accident. I was sitting in the mess after dinner and picked up Devoca, and glancing at the pictures I suddenly saw the portrait of Colonel Stein of the Brandenburgers, killed on the seventh instant near Ippery. I recognized the ugly and bloated face immediately from the photograph of him which he had once shown me. My first impulse was to send her a wire, but, on thinking matters over, I decided that it would be difficult to put all my thoughts into the curt sentences of a telegram. And further, that as all wires are doubtless examined at the main post office at Bruges, it might lead to trouble. So I wrote her a letter. This in a way has been an exhibition of weakness on my part, as I had promised myself that I would not take the first step in reopening communication. But I feel that the fortunate death of Stein has completely altered the case. I told her in the letter that I realized that I had made mistakes, but that if she still loved me with half the strength that I loved her, then a telegram to me would make me the happiest of men. I wrote that yesterday, but have had no wire. Perhaps, like me, she distrust telegrams and prefers letters. New entry. A long letter from Zoe. An accursed fetter. An abominable letter. A damnable letter. She still refuses to marry me. I'll leave for Bruges tonight on 48 hours special leave. New entry. Keel, seventeenth. I hate Zoe. She has broken my heart. After her preposterous letter of the fourteenth, I decided that in a matter which so closely affected my happiness no stone ought to remain unturned to ensure a satisfactory solution of the problem, so I determined to have a personal interview. I arrived at Bruges after tea and what it wants to the flat. I tackled her immediately on the subject of her letter and told her that naturally I understood that a decent interval must elapse before we married, but granted this fact, I told her that I failed to see what prevented our marriage. A most unpleasant and harrowing scene ensued, the details of which form such painful recollections that I really cannot write them down here. Though in the passage of months I have acquired the habit of writing in the pages of this journal with the same freedom as I would talk to that wife whom I had hoped to possess, she maintained an obstinate silence when I urged her to give me at least some tangible reason as to why she would not marry me. She contented herself and maddened me by reflecting in a kind of monotone, I love you, Carl, and am yours, but I cannot marry you. I could have beaten hers till she was senseless, but I had enough sense to realize that with Zoe, whose resolution, considering she is a woman, amazes me. Force is not the best method. As I continued to press her, time was important, had I not journeyed far to see her, those glorious eyes of hers which I love and whose power I dread, filled with tears. I was a brute, I was heartless, I was inconsiderate, I could not love her, I was cruel, and I know not what other accusation crushed me down. Brokenhearted and dispirited, I told her to choose there and then. She collapsed on to a sofa in a storm of tears, and after a severe mental struggle I took the only possible course and, leaving the room, left her forever. I have resumed my service life determined to cast her out from my mind. I will not deceive myself, it will be hard. Love and logic are deadly enemies, but logic must and shall prevail. Though I have seen her for the last time, I cannot escape the net of fascination which the girl has thrown over me. Perhaps in the course of time I shall slowly emerge and free myself from its entanglements. At present I hate her for this blow she has dealt me, and yet— Oh, Zoe, my darling, how I long to be with you. New entry. Today I went through my final test for qualification as U-Boat Commander. At 9 a.m. I proceeded to see in command of the U-11, one of the instructional boats here. We proceeded out into Kiel Bay. On board and watching my every movement was a committee consisting of a commander and two lieutenant commanders. On arrival at the entrance lightship I was ordered to attack a convoy of camouflaged ships which were just visible about fifteen kilometers away off the Spit Bank. I had a very shrewd idea as to the course they would steer, and on coming up from my final observation I found myself in an excellent position, one thousand meters on the bow of the leading ship. The rest was easy. I gave the leader the two bow torpedoes, and, turning sixteen points, fired my stern tube at the third ship of the line. Two hits were obtained, and I returned to harbour well pleased with myself. There is not the slightest chance of having failed to qualify. New entry. My confidence in myself was not misplaced. I heard today that I am on the command list, and anticipate in a few days being appointed to a boat. I wonder which craft I shall get. New entry. I met the ADC to the chief of the staff of the school, at the gardens, and in conversation with him discovered that he had heard that three boats were being detached from the Flanders' flotilla for an unknown destination. This has given me an idea, for I feel that I can never return to Bruges, and I was rather dreading being appointed to one of the boats there. I have dropped a line to Fritz Regels, who is on old Max's staff, and told him that I do not wish to return to Bruges, and I further hinted that I understood a detached squadron was proceeding somewhere, and as far as I was concerned, the further the better, if I could get into it. I have tried the night life at this place, at the Mascotte and Trucadero, in order to forget, but it is a poor consolation. New entry. A letter from Fritz, saying that he has an idea that Corting's boat would suit me, though he could not, of course, give me further details in a letter. However, he informs me positively that I shall not be at Bruges. On the strength of this I have wired to Fritz, and asked him to try and fix up an exchange between me and Corting, provided the latter is agreeable, and the people in Max's office have no objection. I have a recollection that Corting's boat is one of the U-40 to U-60 class, which would suit me admirably, and as for destination I care not where it is, provided only that it be far from Bruges. New entry. At sea. I have quite neglected my poor old journal for several weeks, but I have passed through an extraordinarily busy period. It was approved that I should relieve Corting, whose boat, the U-59, I discovered to be refitting it will him shop in. I was very pleased not to go back to Bruges, though as we steam steadily north at this moment I cannot escape a sense of deep disappointment that upon my return from this trip I shall not enjoy as of old the fascination of Zoe. But I shall have plenty of time to get accustomed to this idea, for this is no ordinary trip. We are bound for the North Cape and Merman Coast, where we remain until well into the cold weather at any rate for three months. Our mission is to work off that fog-bound and desolate coast and attack the constant stream of traffic between England and Archangel. There are two other boats besides ourselves on the job, but we shall all be working far apart. Our first billet is off the North Cape. In order to save time we are to be provisioned once a month in one of the fjords. I don't imagine the Admiralty will have any difficulty in getting supplies up to us, as at the moment we are off the Lofaultons, and we actually have not had to dive since we left the Bight. There seems to be nothing on the sea except ourselves. Where is the much-vaunted and impenetrable web of blockade which the English are supposed to have spread around us? And yet many raw materials are getting very short with us. I see that in this boat they have replaced several copper pipes with steel ones during her refit, and this will lead to trouble unless we are careful. Steel pipes corrode so badly that I never feel ready to trust them for pressure work. The truth about the blockade is that it is largely a paper blockade, yet not ineffective for all that. Unfortunately for us the damned English and their hangars on control the cables of the world, and hence all the markets, and I don't suppose to take the case of copper that a single pound of it is mined from the Rio Tinto without the British Board of Trade knowing all about it. The neutral firms simply dare not risk getting put on to the British blacklist. It means ruination for them. And then all these dollar-grabbing Yankees, enjoying all the advantages of war without any of its dangers, they make me sick. This seems a most profitable job. I've only been up seven days, but I've bagged four steamers, all by gunfire, and all fat ships, brimful of stuff for the Russians. My practice has been to make the North Cape every day or two to fix position, as the currents are the most abnormal in these parts. And I should say that the sailing direction's pilotage handbook and title charts were compiled by a gentleman at a desk who has never visited these latitudes. At the moment I am standing well out to sea, as the immediate vicinity of the North Cape has become rather unhealthy. Yesterday afternoon I had sunk number four in the morning and the crew were still pulling for the coast. Four British trawlers turned up. These damned little crafts seemed to turn up wherever one goes. I longed to have a bang at them with my gun, but apart from the uncertainty as to what they carried in the way of armament I have strict orders to avoid all that sort of thing. So I dived and steamed slowly west, came up at dusk, and proceeded to charge up my batteries. These U-60s are excellent boats, and I am very lucky to get one so soon. I suppose courting, man, wants to stay near his wife. I cannot write that word without painful memories of Zoe and idle thoughts of what might have been. Well, perhaps it is for the best. I m not sure that a member of the U-Boat Service has the right to get married in wartime, for unless he is of exceptional mentality it must affect his outlook under certain circumstances, though I think I should have been an exception here. Then the anxiety to the woman must be enormous. As every trip comes round a voice must cry within her. This may be the last. The contrast between the times in harbour and the trips is so violent, so shattering and clear-cut. With a soldier's wife she merely knows that he is at the front. With us at 8 p.m. one may be kissing one's wife in bruge, and at 6 a.m. creeping with nerves on edge through the unknown dangers of the Dover Barrage. But I have strayed from what I meant to write about, my first command and her crew. The quarters in this class are immensely superior to the U-Sea boats. Here I have a little cabin to myself, with a knee-hold table in it. My first lieutenant, the navigator, and the engineer have bunks in a room together, and then we have a small officer's mess. On this job up here, as we are not to return to Germany for supplies, and consequently I should say we may have to live on what we can get out of steamers, I don't propose to use my torpedoes unless I meet a warship, or an exceptionally large steamer. The gun's the thing, as Arnold de la Perrière has proved in the Mediterranean, but half the fellows won't follow his example, simply because they don't realize that it's no use employing the gun unless it is used accurately, and good shooting only comes after long drill. I have impressed this fact on my gun crew, and particularly the two gun-layers, that I make Voigtman, my young first lieutenant, take the crew through their loading-drill twice a day, together with practice of rapid manning of the gun after a surface, or rapid abandonment of the gun should the diving alarms sound in the middle of practice. I have also impressed on Voigtman that I consider that he is the gun-control officer, and that I expect him to make the efficient working of the gun his main consideration. As regards the crew, they are the usual mixed crowd that one gets nowadays. Half of them are old sailors, the others recruits and new arrivals from the fleet. My main business at the moment is to get the youngsters into shape, and for this purpose I have been doing a number of crash-dives. It also gives me an opportunity of getting used to the boat's peculiarities under water. She seems to have a tendency to become tail-heavy, but this may be due to bad trimming. Voigtman has been in UB-43 for nine months, and seems a capable officer. Socially, I don't think he can boast of much descent, but he has no