and come below, being met by the complacent report of "Thirty feet, sir, going down." The passing Dutch trawlers had a good view of the incident, and must have thought the boat had gone mad. There were always so many fishing trawlers about on the Dutch coast that it was impossible for our boats to avoid being seen and noted when on passage on the surface. If possible, one gave them a wide berth in case of accidents, but none of them were ever found to be Germans in disguise. The British patrol boats were more unpleasant: an R boat nearly met her end from one off the Irish coast once at night. The submarine was an anti-submarine patrol, and was charging on the surface, when the trawler approached and endeavoured to ram. The attempt was dodged by a matter of feet, and apparently the trawler's men were too excited to recognise the volley of verbal vitriol (that was addressed to them as they shot past) as being English, for as the R boat dropped across their stern they opened rapid fire on her with the after gun. The submarine men could look into the gun-muzzle at a few yards' range, but in spite of their being nearly deafened by a very rapid and continuous fire, there was no damage done except for a graze on the after superstructure. The submarine then used her superior speed and vanished. Our mine-laying submarines were few in number, for the reason that we had not the need for such boats that the enemy had. We could have built more if we had wished to, but owing to the short length of enemy coast-line we found that a few boats running regularly could cover the work. The mines were laid down anywhere in the Bight where results might be expected from them, and off Zeebrugge and places on the Belgian coast where enemy ships passed. There was far more secrecy over the work of mine-laying boats than that of the patrol boats, for the enemy knew quite well that we had a patrol ring round the Bight, and he probably knew roughly the number and positions of the boats we had out at any time. But the mine-layers used to get short notice of their leaving: they hoisted their mines aboard, got their orders, and vanished to the northeastward before anyone else in the depôt had had time to wonder where they were going. A patrol boat used to have an area about ten miles by ten to work in; a mine-layer had to put the cargo absolutely on the spot ordered,--an error in navigation might mean not only that the enemy would not hit the mines, but that an E boat might run into them later under the impression that she was skirting the field. It was customary, therefore, for the run from Harwich to be made to some light-vessel or a fixed point on the Dutch coast before entering the Bight, and for the greatest care to be taken by star observations, etc., on the run-in to check the reckoning. After the Armistice the evidence of the enemy showed that the navigation and placing of mines had been extraordinarily accurate. Two of the boats