s a few minutes to a prank of some
sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy
English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly
and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of
Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them a placard or other memento
of their visit.

But the most hazardous exploit, according to gossip of American
forecastles, was a visit which Kelly made to Dublin, remaining, it is
said, for two days at one of the principal hotels, and later rejoining
his boat somewhere on the west coast.

His latest feat was to visit an Irish village and plant the German flag
on a rise of land above the town. One may imagine how the Irish
fisherfolk, who have suffered from mines, treated this flag and how
ardently they wished that flag were the body of Kelly.

But Kelly and his less humorously inclined commanders have been having a
diminishing stock of enjoyment at the expense of the Allied navies in
the past year. Senator Swanson, acting chairman of the Naval Committee
in Congress, said on June 6, after a conference with Secretary Daniels
and his assistants, that the naval forces of the Entente Powers had
destroyed 60 per cent of all German submarines constructed, and that
they had cut the shipping losses in half. Lloyd George in his great
speech last July, said that 150 submarines had been sunk since war began
and of this number 75 were sunk in the past 12 months. Truly an
extraordinary showing.

CHAPTER VIII

Perils and Triumphs of Submarine-Hunting--The Loss of our First
War-Ship, The Converted Gunboat "Alcedo"--Bravery of Crew--"Cassin"
Struck by Torpedo, But Remains in the Fight--Loss of the "Jacob
Jones"--Sinking of the "San Diego"--Destroyers "Nicholson" and "Fanning"
Capture a Submarine, Which Sinks--Crew of Germans Brought Into Port--The
Policy of Silence in Regard to Submarine-Sinkings

But as in the pursuit of dangerous game there is always liable to be two
angles to any experience--or say, rather, a reverse angle, such as the
hunted turning hunter--so in the matter of our fight against the
submarine there are instances--not many, happily--where the U-boat has
been able to deal its deadly blow first.

The first of our war-ships to be sunk by a submarine was the naval
patrol gun-boat _Alcedo_, which was torpedoed shortly before 2 o'clock
on the morning of November 5, 1917, almost exactly seven months after we
entered the