Built on the Clyde, she was taken along to the Gareloch to be put through her paces. The Gareloch was quiet, away from spying eyes, free of the attentions of the unwelcome enemy submarine, and here the K.13 carried out her surface trials satisfactorily. The conning tower was closed, the funnels were dropped back flush with the deck, and orders were given to trim the boat for diving. The watertight doors were shut and the sea began to flow into the tanks. Then, as the craft submerged, came disaster. A mighty rush of water swept into the after part of the ship, drowning instantly the thirty-one men on duty there, and carrying the K.13 stern downwards to the bottom. It was afterwards discovered that in diving some of the ventilating scuttles had been left open and these had flooded the stern of the ship. It was a tragic oversight that in a moment swept thirty-one men into eternity. In the forward part of the K.13 forty-two men were imprisoned, held fast on the seabed by the weight of water in the ship. There was no trace of panic. Nobody turned a hair. As quietly as though they still floated serenely on the surface, they stood by and carried out their commander’s orders. For hours they strove to get the ship to move, to lighten the tanks sufficiently to bring her to the surface again. The ship remained fast. No trace of movement was to be detected. The watertight bulkhead across the centre of the vessel held death at bay for the moment, but no one knew how long it could withstand the terrific pressure. At the other side of the bulkhead lay their dead companions, and the hungry sea was waiting to engulf the living. Death threatened them from all quarters, death from drowning, death from asphyxiation owing to the exhaustion of their air supply, death from starvation even if the air held out. Hour by hour death came nearer. They realized it only too well, but still they remained cheerful. When it was seen that all their efforts were useless, Commander Godfrey Herbert, D.S.O., who was in command, and Commander F. H. M. Goodhart, D.S.O., who was aboard to watch the behaviour of the vessel before taking over the command of K.14, conferred and agreed to try to get to the surface, 90 feet above their heads, in order to obtain help. They knew perfectly well that they were probably going to their deaths, that the odds were so tremendously against them that they were not worth considering. They did not think of themselves; they thought only of the forty men caught in that death-trap.