city as an undersea boat, we were now in a position to fight
on equal terms, and I decided to risk a bout with him as soon as it
became light enough for me to see through the periscope. The
intervening time I made use of by having passed up to me in the tower
the long desired cup of morning coffee, in order to stop the tantalizing
agony which the smell of the coffee had caused my empty stomach.
Thereupon we slowly climbed upwards from our safe breakfast depth of
thirty meters. The higher we came--one can read on the manometer how we
are ascending meter by meter--the greater became the excitement and
tension. Without breathing we listened.

Slowly the boat rose. The top of the periscope would soon be thrust
above the surface. My hands clasped the handle with which the
well-oiled, and therefore easily movable, periscope can be turned around
as quickly as lightning, in order to take a sweep around the horizon. My
eye was pressed to the sight, and soon I perceived that the water was
getting clearer and clearer by degrees and more transparent. I could now
follow the ascent of the boat without consulting the manometer.

My heart was pounding with the huntsman's fervor, in expectation of what
I was to see at my first quick glance around the horizon, because the
destroyer, which we sighted only a quarter of an hour before, could be
only a scouting ship. It might belong to a detachment of naval scouts to
protect a larger ship. In my thoughts I saw the whole eastern horizon
full of proud ships under England's flag surrounded by smoke.

I did not see anything, no matter how carefully I scanned the horizon.
All I could see was the reddening morning blush spread over half of the
eastern sky, the last stars now paling and the rising sun showing its
first beams.

"For heaven's sake, nobody is here," I grumbled to myself.

"Oh, he'll surely come back, Captain," said my mate with true optimism.
"The prey was too hot for him to tackle and now he has started to fetch
a couple more to help him."

"It would certainly be less desirable," put in Lieutenant Groening, who,
full of expectations, was standing halfway up the stairway leading from
the tower to the "Centrale" and had overheard our talk. "No, it would be
less desirable," he repeated, "because then comes the entire swarm of
hostile U-boats with their nets cunningly lined with mines. No good will
ever come of that."

"There you are right, Groening," I agreed. "With that sort of