he submarines
had rooms aboard her, which they occupied when off patrol, and the crews
off duty slung their hammocks 'tween decks. The boat was pretty well
crowded, having more submarines to look after than she had been built to
care for; but thanks to the skill of her officers, everything was going
as smoothly as could be. The vessel had, so to speak, a submarine
atmosphere. Everybody aboard lived, worked, and would have died for the
submarine. They believed in the submarine, believed in it with an
enthusiasm which rested on pillars of practical fact.

[Sidenote: The heroism of the men who tried the first submarine.]

The chief of staff was the youngest captain in our navy; a man of hard
energy and keen insight; one to whom our submarine service owes a very
genuine debt. His officers were specialists: the surgeon of the vessel
had been for years engaged in studying the hygiene of submarines, and
was constantly working to free the atmosphere of the vessels from
deleterious gases and to improve the living conditions of the crews. I
remember listening one night to a history of the submarine, told by one
of the officers of the staff; and for the first time in my life I came
to appreciate at its full value the heroism of the men who risked their
lives in the first cranky, clumsy, uncertain little vessels, and the
imagination and the faith of the men who believed in the type. Ten years
ago, a descent in a sub was an adventure to be prefaced by tears and
making of wills; to-day submarines are chasing submarines hundreds of
miles at sea, are crossing the ocean, and have grown from a tube of
steel not much larger than a lifeboat, to underwater cruisers which
carry six-inch guns.

Said an officer to me, "The future of the submarine? Why, sir, the
submarine is the only war vessel that's going to have a future!"

[Sidenote: The submarines are moved alongside.]

On the night of my arrival, once dinner was over, I went on deck and
looked down through the rain at the submarines moored alongside. They
lay close by, one beside the other, in a pool of radiance cast by a
number of electric lights hanging over each open hatchway. Beyond this
pool lay the rain and the dark; within it, their sides awash in the
clear green water of the bay, their gray bridges and rust-stained
superstructures shining in the rain, lay the strange, bulging,
crocodilian shapes of steel. There was something unearthly, something
not of this world or time, in