"Right," he said presently. "Keep the boat there, Simmonds." He took a few deep breaths, standing on the after thwart, and then dived. The oarsman leaned over the gunwale and held his breath, gazing under the boat like a man in a trance. After all the tumult of the collision the moment was one of deathly stillness. The tramp lay black against the sunlight half a mile away. The Destroyer was turning in a wide circle, with a flick of white under her stern, and close at hand, amid the wreckage of the still floating unfortunate, the Gunner stood motionless, staring. The dinghy man suddenly sat upright and took a stroke with one paddle. The head and shoulders of the Lieutenant-in-Command broke the oily surface with an abrupt splash. He gripped the stern of the dinghy and heaved himself out of the water. Then, stark and dripping, he stood upright, transfigured by the Mediterranean sunshine into a figure of shining gold, and, raising his arms above his head, semaphored two letters to the watching Destroyer--"OK," finishing with a triumphant wave of the hand. A thin cheer broke out along the crowded rail, the syren sounded a toot of congratulation, and as the resultant wisp of steam dissolved in the air the dinghy suddenly rose, rocked on the slope of a passing swell, and dropped down its smooth flank. The portion of the Destroyer that remained afloat rolled twice; there was a succession of big swirls in the water, an ugly grinding sound, and a snap. The Lieutenant-in-Command gave a short, hard laugh. "There go your peacock feathers," he said to the Gunner, as he climbed on board the wrecked remnant of his command. "Ostridge," amended Mr. Hasthorpe, and clambered forward to the towing bollard and the preliminaries of a piece of seamanship that brought half a Destroyer safely to the dock a hundred and seventy miles away. AUTHOR'S NOTE _The foregoing are based on actual occurrences in the War, and, as far as the author is aware, conform to fact. The characters are imaginary; their words and thoughts those of the writer's imagination._ IV THE ACTION BETWEEN H.M.S. _PRIZE_ AND GERMAN SUBMARINE U93 (1917) The German submarine U93 sailed from Emden on Friday, April 13, 1917, on her maiden trip to the Atlantic. She carried eighteen torpedoes and 500 rounds of ammunition for her two 3.9 mm. guns; her complement consisted of thirty-seven officers and men, under the command of Captain Lieutenant F. Freiherr Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim. A tendency on the part of the crew to regard the date as ill-omened was met by the Commander with the assurance that the combination of Friday and the figure thirteen would cancel any bad luck usually associated with either. About 8.30 P.M. (Greenwich time) on April 30 U93 was in approximately Latitude 49° 40N, Longitude 11° 40W., making her way back to Germany with the sinking of eleven merchant ships to her discredit.