In the course of the next few weeks, March remembered that statement often. He went on countless trips in the training subs, until he felt as much at home in them as he did in his own quarters. For the first few times he observed. Then he took over one position after another and executed its duties. Stan was with him on all these trips, but often they were at different ends of the boats during their short journeys. One day, March would take his position at the steering wheel. The next he would handle the big levers controlling the Kingston valves on the main ballast tanks. Then he would work with the men in the engine room, after having studied Diesels in some of his classes. He did a stretch in the torpedo room several times when they shot the practice torps at special targets towed by a surface boat. He worked the interphone system as orderly, took over the little radio shack, spent several hours in the battery room, working the diving planes. “I’ve done everything so far but cook lunch and cut the crew’s hair,” he said to Stan one day, as they relaxed wearily for fifteen minutes after dinner before going to their studies. “Same here,” Stan said. “But I haven’t been assistant pharmacist yet.” “Oh, that’s right,” March recalled. “I haven’t passed out any pills yet. And I don’t think I’ll have to.” “Do you feel that you know the crew’s jobs pretty well now, March?” Stan asked. “Most of them,” March replied. “I know I could take over most of them without any trouble. But I’d like another trip or two in the torpedo room, and I want to be at the diving controls for a crash dive before I’ll feel sure of myself.” “I agree with you on the diving controls,” Stan said, “but I feel okay on the torps now. What I want is a little time on the sound-detector devices.” “You can never have too much time on those,” March said. “Every additional hour of experience with them makes you all the better, I think. But it’s wonderful that they teach every officer to do every job on the boat—not just the work of the other officers but of every enlisted man on board.” Not only did they handle every job of the crew on the sub, but they spent hours every day in classroom and laboratory. They studied engines and motors and navigation and torpedoes, and—above all, lately—theories of approach and attack. In addition to their work on the training subs themselves, they carried out attack problems in the wonderful “mock-up” control room in one of the buildings. Here was a real control room, with controls and periscopes complete. Standing in position at the ’scope, as if he were the Skipper of the ship, March sighted about on the artificial horizon which looked quite real to him. Suddenly he saw what seemed to be two ships appear on the horizon. First he had to identify them. Then he had to judge their speed and course accurately while they still looked like only tiny spots in his periscopes.