The local people are jolly nice to us, and even if they haven't got a regular shoot going, one can get out to the marshes and shoot duck. After the leave we come back and do a couple of days' exercise-diving and torpedo practice, and then we go out again for another trip. It's awfully interesting, because we work in the Huns' front-yard in a way, and it seems so cheeky somehow. Makes us want a drink? Well, I guess not. If you've got cold feet you don't want a drink, because you daren't have it. That's why we don't carry any in the boats. You see, the Owner here looks on us as so many race-horses he's got in training, and if one of us shows symptoms of breathing a bit short, he gets classed as a roarer, and leaves the job altogether to repent in a big ship; there's lots more waiting to take our place, and the Owner's got no what you'd call 'motherliness,' if he thinks you're not all out for business. Hearing propellers? Oh yes, you can hear them quite clearly from any quiet part of the boat; the fore torpedo compartment is a good place for listening, and so is the space abaft the main motors. You can hear what speed he's going, and when you're used to them you can make out what kind of craft he is--trawler or destroyer. The best time, though, is when you've finished a day's patrol and charging and all, and gone on down to the bottom. I allow the whole crew one cigarette apiece, and they have a concert. They gather round the periscope and sing for an hour before turning in, and the orchestra plays--(that's a concertina and a couple of mandolines),--we've got quite a lot of talent in the boats. Smoking like that overnight doesn't matter. If you keep the circulating fans running the smoke all goes away while you're asleep. I don't know where it goes to, 'cos it can't get out; but it goes somewhere. I allow the officers a couple of cigarettes apiece during the day-time, and I smoke whenever I feel scared--that gives me about nine cigarettes a day. Of course you can't smoke at the end of a long summer's day; after about fourteen hours' diving you can't get a cigarette to burn, and a match goes out as soon as it's struck. But you can smoke a bit in the forenoon without spoiling the air in the boat--and besides, on occasions like when somebody is chasing you and dropping those little depth bombs they use, and you've gone to ninety feet or so to keep clear of them, it's a sort of guarantee of good faith if the skipper walks away from the periscope and lights a fag. It looks contemptuous somehow, and the sailors approve. You see, they never know the facts of what's going on. Only the skipper knows the situation, and so they watch you all the time. They spend a trip sitting or lying by their stations, and obeying orders and trusting to their boss not to kill them unnecessarily if he can help it. I tell you, the submarine sailor, once he's past his probation time and been tested on patrol, is a hand