"Why do we have to sit up at night? But we don't. We only have to stay up long enough to charge the batteries for next day, and then we pack up and go to the bottom till morning. That's why winter's the best time to patrol--for comfort, anyway. In December you can only see decently through a periscope for about nine hours--then you come up and charge and get to the bottom for dinner. In July it's more like work: you dive twenty-one hours, come up and charge, and dive again about 2.30 A.M. There's no time for a rest on the bottom, but if you're inside the Bight it's quite exciting getting your charge in. You get put down in the middle of the performance by black shapes coming right on top of you. They're usually trawlers on patrol; but sometimes you see a big bow wave, and that means a destroyer, and you crash-dive in a few seconds. You see, a boat charging like that is like a crab with its shell off; you never feel safe in a boat until you are submerged. On a clear night you can deal with destroyers or any other craft, but these pitch-black nights, or nights when it is foggy or snowing, are the deuce. I never feel happy on those nights till we get to the bottom. It gives me cold feet all the time when I'm on the surface inside there. This trip we got put down at least once during each charge, except the night I went into their front garden to hide. One night, however, I thought we'd never get charged up; we kept getting put under, so that it was a case of twenty minutes' charge and ten minutes' dip for half the night. What's 'putting down' like? Well, you see, when you decide it's dark enough to come up, and you've seen the trawlers go home, you pass the word to 'Stand by for surface' and to get the engines ready. All the hands wake up and get busy (they read and sleep most of the day), and then when they report 'Ready' you blow about five to ten tons out of the tanks, and you come up. There's a routine for the business, you see, and they don't want telling much. I open the lid as soon as it's clear of the surface, and a hand follows me up on to the roof.