"A TERRIBLE LIFE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16234, 20 May 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

"A TERRIBLE LIFE."

TRIALS OF A U BOAT COMMANDER, The United Press of America publishes the following from their correspondent, Mr. William G. Shepherd, from Messina : —

John McDowell, captain of the Greek steamship Atromites, answered the summons of a submarine to stop. The undersea boat, an Austrian, drew up 100 ft distant, and McDowell sent over a boat to bring the submarine captain to his ship. "He was a tall man, and so thin and yellow-looking that I felt sorry for him," said McDowell. "My ship was only a small one, but he seemed delighted when he put his feet on deck, and he looked about him and sighed with pleasure. He was yellow with the poisonous fumes of gasolene.

""I've been in that submarine six months,' he told me, ' and I have put my foot on shore only once for a few hows at Trieste in all that time. It's a terrible life. Every minute, night and day, an awful death stares us in the face. _ "' Our finishwe are always looking for it—may come any second; we get no letters from home, and we write none, for we have no chance to post them. Our nerves don't stand the strain, and we can't help quarrelling among ourselves on the smallest provocation. ."'l've read of the test put on good nature on Polar expeditions, but it's no such test as we undergo. A Polar explorer can walk alone in the snow at least. In our submarine there's no place to hide We arte always in sight of one another.' " When a storm comes up," the Austrian told McDowell, "we drop down 40ft, and remain until the sea subsides We don't feel the waves at that depth no matter how high they mav be at the surface. They never rock our boat. Our main difficulty, however, is to tell when the storm is over. We have no way of knowing, so our journeys to the surface to poke our periscope above water are full of peril."