‘I’ve noticed that,’ I answered. ‘Engineer-Commanders are hard drivers of bargains sometimes.’ ‘Hard drivers! Why I could tell you stories; but no, there isn’t time. I’ve got a long day’s work to-morrow, so I’ll turn in early. See you before you leave?’ He rose to go. ‘One moment,’ I said, ‘before bed, may I read what you’ve written on this card?’ ‘Good Heavens, yes,’ he laughed. ‘Good-night.’ On the card in my friend’s neat handwriting were the words: ‘Tell him how you wrenched off the manhole door or you won’t come back in _my_ boat.’ Such is the personal equation of the Naval Officer. * * * * * ‘He’s in Ward 6,’ the sister told me. ‘Yes, this is visitors’ hour, you’re not breaking the rules,’ and we smiled at each other as she led the way up the cool stone staircase. I found him sitting in an arm-chair, a young man wrapped in a blanket of some sort, but haggard, and, it may have been my imagination, rather gray for his age. He eyed me suspiciously, and I handed him the magic card. ‘That’s Mr Hellison,’ he said, grinning broadly; ‘’e always was one for a joke like.’ I sat down and asked him how he was. ‘Not so ruddy,’ he answered, ‘but it give me a fair turn, it did.’ ‘And you’re stopping in submarines?’ ‘All right, mate, I’ll earn it; I’ll carry out ’is orders, and don’t you fret. I’m goin’ back as a leadin’ ’and, I am.’ I said nothing. ‘It was a fair old show,’ he went on presently, ‘but I come through it all right by a bit o’ luck.’ I congratulated him on his safety. ‘I was on watch in the engine-room, doin’ a job of cleanin’, when it ’appened,’ he continued, ‘and the E.R.A ’ad just gone for’ard for suthing when the bump came. A proper old clang it was, and I ’eard the water simply passing in, in a way o’ speakin’. Then the captain, ’e sung out for the ’ands to muster in the control room, but the lights went out just then, and afore I could get out of the engine-room some one banged the watertight door to, and, as it ’appened, that’s wot saved my life.’ I nodded my interest in his story. ‘We was ’oled in the after compartment as well as for’ard, you see, and them bangin’ that door cut me off from the control room but kept out the water that flooded in between the rest of the bunch and me in the engine-room. I ’eard it risin’ after we ’it the bottom, and the boat took on a bit of a cant. ‘Then I began to get in rather a sweat, as I knew that if I was goin’ to be saved I got to save myself. I come over all funny like at first down there in the dark, and then I ’ad an idea and started right on to work it. ‘First I got ’old of a shifting spanner and fell to work on the man’ole of the No. 4 main ballast tank. That’s under the engine-room, you know, and when I’d got it off the water flopped in a bit owin’ to the shape of the tank.