Even at thirty feet the boat began to roll, and when suddenly a bump was heard forward and a rattle the whole length of the boat, Raymond jumped from his chair, brought her quickly up and glanced ahead. However, there was nothing to be seen, and he lowered the periscope, the boat descending to the patrol level again. ‘What was it?’ asked Seagrave. The other shook his head. ‘Don’t know. One of the mysteries of the deep. Perhaps a mine that didn’t go off. Anyhow you can say so in your letters home. I heard that noise three times in an afternoon when I was in “85” last year. You never can say for certain that it’s not the moorings of a mine, so it’s always best to be on the look-out if you hear that sort of row. I don’t like them knocking to be let in in that way. It’s too forward of them altogether.’ ‘I saw that “U” boat we recovered the other day when I was on leave,’ said Boyd. ‘She struck a mine end on. Great Scott! she was a sight. The whole bow-cap was blown right off, and they found the bodies of the crew in her when they got her up. Poor beggars. They’d grouped up and put the hydroplanes hard-a-rise before they were snuffed out.’ ‘Yes,’ remarked Raymond. ‘I can’t say that it gives me any particular pleasure to think of a crowd of Germans in a submarine striking a mine. It brings it too much home to one, as it were, and, after all, they’re obeying orders in the same way as we are.’ ‘It must seem funny,’ said Seagrave. ‘One minute sitting here reading, and the next, the fore-end blown off and a wall of water flopping in on you. I don’t expect you’d know much about it, though.’ ‘I say, you fellows,’ cried Boyd, coming in from the control room. ‘There’s a hell of a sea getting up. We’re in for a wet night. Sea-boots and oilskins for mine.’ ‘My usual luck,’ said Raymond, fishing in a drawer. ‘I always get it rough on the way home. Who’s the Jonah?’ ‘I don’t know. Some beggar who hasn’t paid for his washing, I suppose. But we’re certainly going to get it in the neck.’ The rolling of the boat at this depth and the gurgling of the water in the vent pipes was a sufficient warning of the state of the weather, and they set to work lashing all portable gear in place and preparing for the expected wetting on coming to the surface. ‘We’d better have dinner before we rise, hadn’t we?’ asked Boyd, struggling into a pair of oilskin trousers. ‘Everything will be all over the shop, and I’ve got some pretty good soup on hand to-night. Main drain loungers and water.’ ‘Yes. Six-thirty will do,’ replied the captain, ‘and we’ll rise at seven. You might see about it, Seagrave.’ The ‘Sub’ departed to the engine-room to confer with his chief minion, and Raymond turned to the navigator. ‘We’ll put her on the course for home now, I think. We’re only about fifteen miles off Fritz’s coast as it is, and we shan’t make much against this. ‘All right. It’s just on half-past six now. I’ll set the course and then shake dinner up.’