the wharves to see us off.  Yes, there was something of a stir—­you know, the kind of stir that’s made when boats go to sea:  shouted orders, the plash of dropped cables, vagrant noises.  It didn’t take a great time to get under way; we were ready, waiting for the word to go.  The flotilla—­mother-ship, tugs and all—­was out to sea long before the dawn.  You would have liked the picture:  the immense stretch of the grayish, winter-stricken sea, the little covey of submarines running awash, the gray mother-ship going ahead, as casually as an excursion steamer, into the featureless dawn.

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote:  Rough water the next day.]

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

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

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

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