We used to wonder where the other boys were in the midst of all the racket. One was drifting towards the New England coast, her compass smashed to flinders; others had run for Bermuda, others were still at sea. Then we had three days of good easterly wind. By jingo, but the good weather was great, were we glad to have it--oh boy! We had just got things ship-shape again when we had another blow but this second one was by no means as bad as the first. And after that we had another spell of decent weather. The crew used to start the phonograph and keep it going all day long. The weather was so good that I decided to keep right on to the harbour which was to be our base over here. I had enough oil, plenty of water, the only possible danger was a shortage of provisions. So I put us all on a ration, arranging to have the last grand meal on Christmas day. Can you imagine Christmas on a little, storm-bumped submarine some hundred miles off the coast? A day or two more and we ran calmly into ... Shall we say deleted harbour? Hungry, dirty, oh so dirty, we hadn't had any sort of bath or wash for about three weeks; we all were green looking from having been cooped up so long, and our unshaven, grease-streaked faces would have upset a dinosaur. The authorities were wonderfully kind and looked after us and our men in the very best style. I thought we could never stop eating and a real sleep, ... oh boy! "Did you fly the flag as you came in?" I asked. "You bet we did!" answered the captain, his keen, handsome face lighting at the memory. "You see," he continued in a practical spirit, "they would probably have pumped us full of holes if we hadn't." And that is the way that the American submarines crossed the Atlantic to do their share for the Great Cause. II INTO THE DARK I got to the Port of the Submarines just as an uncertain and rainy afternoon had finally decided to turn into a wild and disagreeable night. Short, drenching showers of rain fell one after the other like the strokes of a lash, a wind came up out of the sea, and one could hear the thunder of surf on the headlands. The mother ship lay moored in a wild, desolate and indescribably romantic bay; she floated in a sheltered pool a very oasis of modernity, a marvellous creature of another world and another time. There was just light enough for me to see that her lines were those of a giant yacht. Then a curtain of rain beat hissing down upon the sea, and the ship and the vague darkening landscape disappeared, disappeared as if it might have melted away in the shower. Presently the bulk of the vessel appeared again: gliding and tossing at once we drew alongside, and from that moment on, I was the guest of the vessel, recipient of a hospitality and courtesy for which I here make grateful acknowledgment to my friends and hosts.