n their craft were in port.

The arrangements made for the comfort of the men were excellent. A
church, a chapel, recreation rooms, a theatre, a cinema house, and
canteens fronted the quay, and good companies were brought from
London theatres and music-halls to entertain the sailors, while, of
course, provision was also made for outdoor sports and games. There
were, naturally, serious-minded people who considered that some of
these arrangements were of a frivolous character, out of harmony with
the tragedy of war. But those who organised these things knew better.
The strain of submarine work is very great. To occupy the minds of the
men with amusements while they are resting awhile on shore after their
trying duties cannot but help to keep up their _moral_. And that the
_moral_ of the submarine men was wonderful all are agreed. Surely no
other Service on land or sea can supply a greater test of sustained
valour than does this submarine warfare. The conditions of it are
uncanny, calculated to terrify the imagination. As a rule the
submarine is playing a lone hand upon the seas. It is rare, when
disaster comes, for a friendly ship to be near her to bring help or to
carry tidings of her to England. In the great majority of cases, when
one of our submarines has been lost, all that is known of the disaster
is that she does not come home. What has happened to her remains a
secret of the sea never to be revealed. An ordinary patrol for a
submarine of the Harwich Flotilla was of about ten days; a mine-laying
trip, of from three to six days' duration. When the overdue ship did
not return there was suspense for several days, until at last it was
realised that there was no longer room for hope.

In this little flotilla of eighteen submarines, ships that disappeared
had to be replaced by others. For in the course of the war twenty "E"
boats, two "D" boats, and one "L" boat belonging to the flotilla were
lost, and these figures do not include the submarines that were
detached from the Harwich Flotilla to be lost in the Mediterranean and
Baltic. The sailor of to-day has not all the superstitions of his
forefathers, but, like most people, he has some belief in omens.
Certain coincidences made him regard it as very unlucky to sail in a
submarine when a new captain was making his first voyage in her.
Within a short period four submarines that had sailed out of Harwich
under new captains were never heard of again. It was also recognised