The engine stopped, the port motor woke to full speed, and the control-room was alive with sound and rapid movement. She inclined down by the bow as the captain's boots appeared down the ladder, and as he jumped to the deck his hasty glance at the gauge showed her to be already at twelve feet. But twelve feet by gauge means a conning-tower top still exposed, and as the tanks filled and the internal noises died down a sound could be heard to starboard--a noise of high-speed engines that swelled till it seemed that every second would bring the crash and roar of water each man could imagine so clearly. The gauge-needle checked at fifteen, then swung rapidly up to thirty; the faces watching it relaxed slightly--for the noise swelling through the boat told of destroyers, and destroyers are shallow-draught vessels. The boat still raced on down, with the gauge jerking round through 60-70-80.... "Hold her up, now--back to seventy, coxswain"; the angle changed swiftly to "bow-up" as the spinning wheels reversed and the boat checked at eighty-five; a pump began to stamp and hammer as it drove out the water from a midship tank, and as the trim settled, the big main motors were steadily eased back to "dead slow." The first lieutenant looked up from the gauge and spoke over his shoulder to the captain. "I made it twelve seconds to twenty feet, sir; what was it that passed?" "You're a cheery optimist with your twelve seconds. Your watch is stopped, Number One. It's destroyers, and they didn't give us much room either." "Then d'you mean a fleet?" "I mean I'm coming up to look in a quarter of an hour. I believe if it wasn't foggy I'd see them on the horizon now; that was a screening force that put us down. Here comes another." Again the sound of a turbine-driven vessel came from the starboard hand. It swelled to its maximum and then suddenly died to a murmur, passing away to port. Twice more the warning came, and then fell a silence of just five minutes by the captain's wrist-watch. "Bring her up--twenty-four feet--and _don't_ break surface now." He turned round to the periscope as the boat climbed and tested the raising gear, making the big shining tube move a few feet up and down. As the gauge moved to the 30 mark, the periscope rose with a rush, and he bowed his head to the eye-piece in readiness for an early glimpse of the surface world. At twenty-five feet a grunt of satisfaction and a quick swing round of the periscope spoke of his relief at being able to see at all; the fog was clearing and he was diving across one of the long lanes made in the mist by the rising wind. He turned the boat through eight points to keep her in the lane, turning up-wind to meet the clearer visibility that was coming. As he steadied on the new course he stiffened in his crouching attitude, staring to port: "_Action Stations_--evolution now--get a move on."