GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF A TRIP ON A SUBMARINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF A TRIP ON A SUBMARINE.

A graphic description. of a trip on a submarine is given by a writer in the Globe. In the open sea (he says), clear of the breakwater, \ she begins to plunge, bows on, into the heavy sou'-westerly swell. Her nose dips . down into a wave, the water races up -over her hull, rushes aft to the conning-tower, and comes up against it with a . resounding : thud ; .. a shower of spray hurls high into the air, and much of it finds its way inside the bridge - screen. Again and again she plunges into ■• the waves; sometimes when she strikes an unusually heavy sea the water comes green over. the bridge screen ; for a moment she is entirely buried beneath the waters, then she- slowly shakes herself free, the bridge once more rises clear, with the two halfdrowned, dripping figures still clinging to stanchions "to prevent themselves being washed overboard.: Presently the captain has had enough of it, and orders her speed to be reduced; so she plunges on, now right out of. sight and now rising clear of the sea. After a couple of hours' severe buffeting they reach their goal, a comparatively calm stretch under the lee of a headland.

Her engine is stopped, and a number of figures crawl up out of the conning-tower and begin to clear away all her deck hamper. Bridge screen and stanchions are stowed down below, and tho flying bridge is unshipped and lowered down flush with the deck. In less than five minutes everything moveable has disappeared ; one by one the seamen crawl down below again, and the captain, going last, closes down tho conning-tower hatch after, him. From the outside she appears utterly deserted; everything'is stripped ruthlessly bare, ana she shows no sign of life. As one watches she begins to sink by almost imperceptible degrees. ; The • lowlying hull becomes awash, email waves break over it, then ripple awhile, and the upper deck lias disappeared. Her conningtower still stands out boldly, yet it, ; too, is gradually being submerged; foot by foot she ; goes down, until only a. few inches remain. Rising, perhaps, twenty feet out of her tower comes her periscope.