that ill luck was likely to attend the first voyage of a newly
launched submarine; but that, so soon as the first voyage had been
safely accomplished, all was well with the ship, which would then be
faced only by the ordinary chances of war.

To turn to an amusing example of the superstition of the sea. In the
course of one cruise a submarine of the Harwich Flotilla had fired
seven torpedoes at various enemy ships without result. The captain
discovered one of his crew kneeling on the deck over a bucket of
sea-water. He was holding under the water and mercilessly wringing an
object against which he was directing a volume of abuse in terms
frankly nautical. Disgusted at the failure of the torpedoes, he was
drowning the ship's mascot, a teddy bear or similar doll, hoping to
change the luck. I wish that I could state that the next torpedo fired
sank a Hun battleship, but I have no record of the sequel.

Even in war there are humorous incidents, and, indeed, there are many
of them. One submarine captain of this flotilla attacked a German
submarine on the surface and gave chase to her with the intention of
torpedoing her. But the Hun had the greater speed; the British
submarine had no gun, and could not get near enough to the receding
foe to use a torpedo. So the captain had to content himself with
signalling insulting messages to the Hun, hoping to taunt him into
fighting; but the shocked Hun dived under the surface and disappeared
in order to avoid the language.

On another occasion a submarine of this flotilla and a German
submarine passed very close to each other in such foul weather that
nothing could be done in the way of fighting, so the two captains
waved their hands cheerily at each other and went their respective
ways. This is the only instance that I can recall of any Hun having
displayed anything remotely resembling a sense of humour in the course
of this war.

Our submarine commanders appear to have been adepts in the art of
successfully bluffing the enemy when the occasion arose. For example,
after one of our air raids on the German coast, a submarine of the
Harwich Flotilla went to the rescue of one of our seaplanes that had
fallen disabled to the water. While she was engaged in sinking the
seaplane and taking off her pilot, a German aircraft came over very
close. The captain of the submarine waved his cap to the enemy airmen,
who concluded that the submarine was a German boat which had brought
down an E