‘_I’ll Try’s_ shell struck the base of the conning-tower’ 185 ‘The U-boat started with an enormous advantage of gun power’ 199 ‘U.C.-boats stealing in across the black and silver water’ 211 ‘The diver who first went down found the submarine lying on her side’ 229 ‘A fourth boat was partially lowered with a proper amount of confusion’ 241 ‘The U-boat never recovered from the surprise’ 245 ‘Was steering about in figures of 8, with his gun still manned’ 265 ‘A huge column of water which fell plump on the Commander’ 287 ‘The submarine suddenly broke surface’ 291 ‘A tremendous explosion was seen at the shore end of the Mole’ 305 SUBMARINE AND ANTI-SUBMARINE CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF SUBMARINE WAR It is probable that a good deal of the information contained in this book will be new to the public; for it has been collected under favour of exceptional circumstances. But the reader will gain little if he cannot contribute something on his side--if he cannot share with the writer certain fundamental beliefs. The first of these is that every nation has a spirit of its own--a spirit which is the mainspring of national action. It is more than a mechanical spring; for it not only supplies a motive force, but determines the moral character of the action which results. When we read the history of nations, and especially the history of their explorations, wars, and revolutions, we soon recognise the spirit of each, and learn to expect its appearance in every moment of crisis or endurance. If it duly appears, our impression is confirmed; if it fails on any occasion, we are disappointed. But the disappointments are few--nations may at times surprise us; but, as a rule, they are like themselves. Even when they develop and seem to change, they are apt, under the stress of action, to return to their aboriginal character, and to exhibit it in their old historic fashion. To attempt, then, to give an account of any national struggle, without paying attention to the influence of the characteristic spirit of the country or countries concerned, would be a difficult undertaking, and a mistaken one. Even in a short crisis, a great people will probably display its historic colours, and in a long one it certainly will. To ignore this, to describe national actions without giving a sense of the animating spirit, would be not only a tame and inadequate method; it would lower the value of life itself by making mere prose of what should, by right, partake of the nature of poetry. History cannot often be entirely poetical, or poetry entirely historical. When Homer told the tale of Troy, he did not make prose--or even history--of it. He everywhere infused into it ‘an incomparable ardour’--he made an epic. But Mr.