For two hours, turn and turn about, the commander and his second stand watch on the iron grips in the turret, one eye on the periscope, the other on the compass. And this goes on for weeks on end. It is only when they lie for a few hours fifty to seventy-five feet below the surface that they can get some rest. And even then there is no real rest, for one or the other of them must be constantly on duty, testing pipes and gauges, air pressure, water pressure and a thousand other things. I met the next day another officer whose mustache and eyebrows were black as jet, but whose hair was silver white. He was thirty-eight years old. For six years and a half he had been a submarine officer, he told me. "Why did you quit it?" I asked him. "Too old," he said. "Is there an age limit?" I asked. "No," he replied, "but a man knows when he is too old for the work." Yet nothing would induce those who have not yet found themselves too old to leave it. One would think the sailors, at any rate, would find the life tiresome or too dangerous. I talked to several of them about it, but they all agreed that they would not change. "Is this life better than on a battleship?" I asked one sailor. "Oh, yes," he replied. "I would not go back to a battleship." "What makes it better?" I asked. "It is more tranquil," he answered. Tranquil, sixty feet under water and your life hanging on a gauge that needs a good heavy wallop to make it work. When we dropped through the hatch into the interior of the submarine and the cover was clamped down over our heads the commander at once ordered me back into the turret. IV--"WE RAN SUBMERGED THROUGH A MINE FIELD" "Hurry, if you want to see her dive," he said. I climbed into the after section of the turret and fastened my eye to the periscope. Around the top of the turret was a circle of bulls' eyes and I was conscious of the water dashing against them while the spray washed over the glass of the periscope. The little vessel rolled very slightly on the surface, though there was quite a bit of sea running. I watched the horizon through the periscope and watched for the dive, expecting a distinct sensation, but the first thing I noticed was that even the slight roll had ceased and I was surprised to see that the bulls' eyes were completely under water. The next thing there was no more horizon. The periscope also was covered and we were completely beneath the surface. "Did it make you sick?" the commander asked, when I climbed down from the turret, and when I told him no he was surprised, for he said most men were made sick by their first dive.