The commander mumbled an answer, and the men were ordered to close the for'd hatches, and soon the iron doors were screwed down. The gas engines shot off black smoke into the curdling wake of the vessel's twin propellers, and as we surged along into the uninteresting sea the skipper sang out to have the aft hatches shut. The well-disciplined bluejackets instantly obeyed the order, and the iron slabs banged to, and I knew that those men were busying themselves in their particular work of seeing that everything was ready for submerging. The commander of the submarine was an agile man, about 5 feet 7 inches tall. His face looked tired, and there were lines about his eyes, which were only for his ship. I do not think that he had the chance to give me a look--a real look--all the time I was aboard. There was always something which needed his attention. I found that the speed we were making against the wind closed my eyes, for there is very little protection on the conning tower of a submarine; and that alone might have given the commander that tired look. But I gathered afterwards that the eyes are strained a good deal in looking for enemy craft. There, in the distance, was the port whence we had emerged, and we now were out on the breast of the sea in war time. Two miles off our port bow was a grey vessel, to which our skipper gave his attention for a while. She was a British destroyer plunging through the water at 22 knots. The sun had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but there were still streaks of blue in the sky. The commander shot his gaze aft, to starboard, port, and before him. Although we were heading straight out to sea, the skipper was ever on the alert. "Motors ready?" asked the commander of the sub-lieutenant, whose head showed up from the well after communicating with the engine-room chief artificer. "Motors ready, sir," was the answer, and the younger man wrung his cold hands. By that time England's coast was a hazy outline. But on we cut through the waves until England disappeared, and soon after the real thrill came--the thrill of going down under an angry ocean. The gas engines were stopped, and the way on the craft was allowed to carry her a good distance, following the order from the commander. That officer looked around, and signalled to a British destroyer--another of the warships ploughing the waters of the North Sea. A sailor expert signalman used his arms as semaphores, and an answer soon was received by our skipper.