There was a day, now happily past, when the submarine scourge was broadcast upon the seas; then the country turned for its salvation to the Navy, upon which, under the good providence of God, it had grown accustomed to rely in most of the crises of its history. Scientific and mechanical appliances, on a scale adequate to meet and checkmate the outrage of unrestricted submarine warfare, could not be produced by pressing a button. With workshops and laboratories yielding their output at highest pressure, the German submarine building yards were gaining in the race. Every day brought its sickening tale of sinking and burning and murder on the high seas, and in Whitehall offices men studied statistics and columns of figures with faces ever growing graver. The irritable tension of those days is best forgotten now. Prices rose, ships sank, and the Navy said not a word. It was "doing its damnedest" in silence, according to its wont. And not even in forecastle or Wardroom did men so much as whisper what was afoot. To-day* the submarine remains merely as a stern corrective, curbing waste and extravagance, bracing the nation's nerve. The ingenuity of man is boundless, and science has not yet said her last word; human courage and devoted valour alone seem to have reached a point there is no transcending. It was these two factors which stemmed the flood at the moment of supreme crisis; on these the veil is at last lifted, and the tale now told in all simplicity and truth. * Written in August, 1918. The methods of the German submarine in its war against unarmed shipping gradually settled down to a routine which varied but little in the early phases of the conflict. It was the custom to attempt to torpedo at sight, on the principle of the least said the soonest mended. If the torpedo missed, as was not infrequently the case, the submarine broke surface a mile or so away from the ship and fired a shot across her bows. The merchantman had then two alternatives: to take to his heels and try to escape, or to heave to and abandon ship. In the latter case the submarine closed the derelict to within a few hundred yards and summoned the boats alongside. At the muzzle of a revolver the Captain was ordered into the submarine with his papers, and the crew of his boat directed to row a party of German sailors, bearing bombs, back to the ship. These worthies, having placed the bombs in the ship's vitals and looted the officers' quarters, returned to the submarine, propelled by the men they had robbed and whose ship they were engaged in sinking. In due course the bombs exploded and the ship disappeared. It was an economical method, since bombs cost less than torpedoes, and the formality of looting the ship helped to preserve its popularity.