deceived at last, they
lost heart, and the submarine crews were the first to set the example
of mutiny to the German Navy, the first to refuse to face the enemy
that they had been taught to despise.

Later, the crews of the High Sea Fleet followed the example set by
the submarines. When at last, after long waiting, that fleet was
ordered to put to sea and make a fight of it, the ships' companies
would not obey their officers, and the fleet had to remain in port.
Our Navy had no spectacular victory; there was no knock-out blow; for
the enemy had had enough of it and threw up the sponge.

CHAPTER IX

FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS

CHAPTER IX

FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS

Some narrow escapes--Sinking a Zeppelin--The doings of the
E9--Sinking of the _Prince Adalbert_--The decoy trawler.

That the patrolling and mine-laying on the enemy coast was work of a
highly dangerous nature goes without saying. The first of our
mine-laying submarines was launched in 1916 and joined the Harwich
Flotilla. The new experiment was watched with great interest by naval
men, but the history of that ship seemed of evil augury for the future
of these craft. On her first voyage something went wrong, and she
returned to port three days overdue, having caused much anxiety as to
her fate. From her second trip she never returned.

While it is seldom that anything is known of the fate of our lost
submarines, numerous are the records of the narrow escapes from
destruction. It was not at all unusual, for example, when diving off
the German coast, for a submarine to find herself in difficulties
among the shoals. Thus one of the Harwich submarines, when diving
close to the mouth of the Ems river, struck a sandbank with her stem,
and slid up it until her conning-tower was well out of the water. Here
she stuck firmly. At this critical moment two German destroyers were
seen to come out of the Ems and approach her. Efforts were made in
vain to wriggle her off the bank, and it looked much as if she would
be numbered among our submarines that did not come back. But, as luck
would have it, the Germans passed by without perceiving her.
Ultimately, assisted by a rising tide, the submarine was got off the
bank stern first, bumped along the bottom to the safety of deeper
water, and lived to tell the tale and fight another day.

On Christmas Day, 1914, one of our small submarines, the S1, forming
part of the submarine force that was acting in