In October 1916 the Danish submarine _Dykkeren_ met with a somewhat similar mishap, although the cause of her sudden disappearance was a collision with a Norwegian steamer in the Sound. Divers entrusted with the salvage operations hammered messages of good cheer in the Morse code on the side of the sunken boat, to which the prisoners promptly responded. The commander alone lost his life. He was found dead in the conning-tower. The pirate chiefs of Germany did not have it all their own way even when the absence of Allied patrol vessels, mines, and anti-submarine nets rendered existence a little less worrying than was usually the case with these pariahs of the deep. Lieutenant-Commander Schneider, who had won renown in the Fatherland as an instrument of the ‘Blockade,’ was swept overboard from his conning-tower while his craft was travelling awash. When his body was recovered life was extinct. It was consigned to the deep, whither the Commander had sent many another during his career as a pirate. Some men from a U-boat in the Baltic were investigating the papers of a schooner, when a German cruiser put in an appearance. Being uncertain whether the submarine was a foreigner or not, as no colours were displayed, the man-of-war ventured too close, and crashed into the bow of the stationary vessel. Both U-boat and cruiser were compelled to retire for repairs. Off Norway a German submarine mistook another of her own nationality for a British representative of the underseas and promptly torpedoed her. CHAPTER IX _Sea-hawk and Sword-fish_ “_The present submarine difficulty is the result of our undisputed supremacy upon the sea surface. The whole ingenuity, building power, and resource of Germany are devoted to submarine methods, because they cannot otherwise seriously damage us._”—LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU. They call them ‘blimps’ in the Navy. The term conveys to the landsman about as much information as ‘Blighty’ to a Chinaman. Blimps are speedy little airships driven by a single propeller, with a gondola capable of holding two or three men and a supply of munitions of war. These miniature Zeppelins are handy little craft not given to high flying and acrobatic feats, therefore less interesting to the general public than aeroplanes, though not less useful to the commonwealth. They were the guardian angels of the Merchant Service in the war. As such they played an important part in combating the submarine evil. These tractor balloons, with envelopes conforming to the shape of a fish, can hover over a suspected spot for hours at a time, which a seaplane cannot do. On the other hand, they are useless for raiding purposes on account of their vulnerability. Blimps are submarine spotters, and frequently submarine sinkers.