These Northern waters have proved very barren of shipping in the last few weeks, and this fact, coupled with the approaching winter weather, which must be fiendish in these latitudes, makes me quite ready to exchange the Archangel billet for the work round the Orkneys and Shetlands, though this is damnable enough in the winter, in all conscience. There is only one fly in the ointment, and that is that this premature return to North Sea waters might conceivably mean a visit to Zeebrugge, though this class are not likely to be sent there. Though it is many weeks since I left Zoe, I have not been able to forget her. I continually wonder what she is doing, and often when I am not on my guard she wanders into my thoughts. Whilst I am up here, it does not matter much, except that it causes me unhappiness, but if I found myself at Bruges it would be very hard. However, I don't suppose I shall ever see her again. * * * * * Sighted Muckle Flugga this morning, and shaped course for Fair Island. * * * * * Oh! what a hell I have passed through. I can hardly realize that I am alive, but I am, though whether I shall be to-morrow morning is doubtful--it all depends on the weather, and who would willingly stake their life on North Sea weather at this time of the year? Curses on the man who sent us to the Fair Island Channel. Where the devil is our Intelligence Service? If we make Flanders I have a story to tell that will open their eyes, blind bats that they are, luxuriating in the comfort of their fat staff jobs ashore. The Fair Island Channel is an English death-trap; it stinks with death. By cursed luck we arrived there just as the English were trying one of their new devices, and it is the devil. Exactly what the system is, I don't quite know, and I hope never again to have to investigate it. For forty-seven, hours we have been hunted like a rat, and now, with the pressure hull leaking in three places, and the boat half full of chlorine, we are struggling back on the surface, practically incapable of diving at least for more than ten minutes at a time. Even on the surface, with all the fans working, one must wear a gas mask to penetrate the fore compartment. Oh! these English, what devils they are! Here is what happened: Fair Island was away on our port beam when we sighted a large English trawler, which I suspected of being a patrol. To be on the safe side, I dived and proceeded at twenty metres for about an hour. At 5 p.m. (approximately) I came up to periscope depth to have a look round, but quickly dived again as I discovered a trawler, steering on the same course as myself, about a thousand metres astern of me. This was the more disconcerting, as in the short time at my disposal it seemed to me that she was remarkably similar to the craft I had seen in the afternoon, and yet this hardly seemed likely, as I did not think she could have sighted me then.