The rest of the story comes after lunch, when we go to visit the Captain (S.) in his depot ship. He has heard all about our pilot, and our submarine too. E. 134 lay all night in her billet, resting on the bottom at 140 feet and listening with all her hydrophones. In the morning her watch was rewarded; she heard, first, the monotonous low ticking of a German submarine’s motors passing near her on the outward patrol--then at 8.30 the heavy dull boom of two explosions close together--then not a sound more! Finally, at her appointed time, noting that the U-boat had never stirred again, she rose to the surface and came home in rear of the sweep. The muddle is cleared up, and in the best manner. [Illustration: ‘She was nearly submerged when the seaplane passed over her.’] We discuss the dead submarine and ask whether she would be, or would have been, more formidable when used against a convoy than against a single ship. The Captain (S.) who has already been torpedoed once himself, thinks there can be no doubt on this subject. ‘A single ship is much more easily approached than a convoy--she has only one set of eyes on the look-out, from one position, and the enemy can stalk her without fear of being trodden on from other quarters. Convoys ought to escape nearly every time, and they do. Look at the record of this port--not one loss in two years.’ This opinion is based on experience, but the matter looks different from the point of view of the convoy escort, whose responsibility weighs upon him every day afresh. This we discover when we pass on to visit a destroyer-leader, at a later hour in the evening. She is being got ready for the night’s work and it is now just six, but her captain assures us that what remains of his time is entirely ours. He takes us down to his own room, an elegant and almost spacious apartment, very unlike anything to be seen in a destroyer of the ordinary type; and he, too, answers our question positively. ‘Which is easiest--to hit a single ship or a convoy? The question answers itself--a submarine ought to get at least one bird out of a covey every time! She does not do it, perhaps; but look at the trouble we take to prevent her. Think of all the work put in by the auxiliary patrol to keep the sea fairly clear to start with--armed yachts, trawlers, whalers, drifters, motor-launches, mine-sweepers, net-drifters and motor-boats, out day and night all round the whole coast of the U.K. That is their routine work; and besides that they supply escorts to individual ships of special value and to ocean convoys, when they have arrived at their port of initial entry, and are to be taken on elsewhere. Then there are the various kinds of protective devices for the ships themselves--the dazzle-painting, the smoke-boxes on broads, and the smoke-boxes for floating behind you. And since we _are_ talking of these things, there is the work of the destroyers and trawlers on regular convoy.’ This is, of course, the