‘Very well, sir,’ Ken answered quietly.  And saluting again, he left the cabin.

Going forward again, he found Roy tucking into an enormous breakfast with every evidence of enjoyment.  Williams was acting as host, and listening with interest to Roy’s account of their wanderings across the peninsula.

Ken asked for Gill, and heard that he was doing very well, but only fit to lie up for the present.

Roy rose, brushed the crumbs from his lammies and stretched his tall frame.

‘Heigh ho, I wish we could get back to our chaps,’ he remarked regretfully.

‘Well, of all the ungrateful beggars!’ said Ken with a laugh.  ’Talk of buying a ham and seeing life, you won’t see as much in the trenches in a month as you’ll see here in a day.’

‘Any one can have this steel box for me,’ retorted Roy.  ’I like to fight where I can see what’s coming.’

’Maybe you’ll see more’n you want before you’re finished with this trip, ye long grouser,’ put in Williams.  ’This ain’t no pleasure picnic, let me tell you.  Our old man’s hot stuff, he is, and if I knows anything about it, it won’t be long before he starts handing out surprise packets to them Turks.’

‘Hallo,’ he broke off, ‘we’re for the surface.’

As he spoke, G 2’s bow began to rise and the whole long hull took a gentle slope.

‘Pretty quick!’ exclaimed Ken.  ’I thought you had to do a lot of pumping first.’

‘Bless you, no,’ said Williams with a superior grin.  ’Not with these ’ere modern craft.  They works with horizontal rudders, sort o’ fins along the side.  Blime, G 2 can pop up and down mighty nigh as quick as a dab chick.’

‘There now,’ he continued, as the vessel came back to an even keel.  ’She’s floating just submerged.  I reckon her periscopes is just out o’ the water.’

‘Could we have a look?’ asked Ken eagerly.

‘Ay, I dare say.  You wait a minute and I’ll see.’

He was back in a minute, and beckoned them to come.

There were two periscopes.  It was the forward one they were called to.  They saw a circular table from which a tube ran up through the top of the submarine.  A man in shirt-sleeves—­he was the other coxswain—­got up from a stool and motioned Ken to take his seat and look through what seemed like a pair of binoculars.

Ken gave a cry of surprise.  Instead of the hot, stuffy interior of the submarine with its pale electrics and maze of machinery, he was gazing at a wide circle of small-crested waves which shone gloriously blue under a brilliant sky.  Now and then a white-winged gull swooped across the view, but apart from these, there was no sign of life or of land.

‘Here, let’s have a squint,’ said Roy eagerly, and Ken gave way.

‘Why, it’s like a living picture show,’ declared Roy.  ’Gosh, I could sit and watch it all day.  But I say, can’t other craft spot the periscope in all this sunshine?’