THE SUBMARINE DESTROYER

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 5, 2 February 1910, Page 49

THE SUBMARINE DESTROYER

BY

MORGAN ROBERTSON

I. O / F T dock and at anulor in the f | navy-yards of the world lay the J JI armored leviathans., stripped of tooth and claw, preserved from rust .by layers o.f paint and tallow, grim reminders of a barbarous past when men fought with twelve-inch guns. And abroad on all the seas roamed the craft that had stripped and banished theme the .submersible,’ the logical development of the early submarine—a fast surfaceboat able to submerge and, like her parent, to strike out of the dark and the distance with a weapon as invisible as (herself. But on the postulate that men cannot fight in the dark, the submersible could not fight its fellow; so war upon the sea had come to an end, and in each navy rank above the .grade of lieutenant iwas abolished, while the navy itself became an adjunct of the consular service—Japan only, among the maritime Powers, by building submersibles larger and faster than the others, maintaining a show of naval strength. But as submersibles were not designed to fight each other, this did not matter. The Angel of Peace hovered above and the nations ceased to fear each other, attending to internal affairs. The United States was deporting her negroes—a ten years’ task, now nearly done; but meeting unexpected and strenuous objection from the remnant of her black population to being sent to the crowded and undeveloped African coast, she gathered up the last free and enlightened brother, his women and his young, and, including in the round-up every Celestial below the rank of diplomat, sent the consignment westward on the traditional course of empire—or, to be exact, 'the Great Circle course from San Francisco to. Shanghai. Japan notified the United States that if the transports approached within the three-mile limit of the Chinese coast she would construe it as an act of war. The United t.Sates, busy with a presidentiil election, and happily rid of the Dark Danger and the Yellow Peril at one

move, delayed response, and Japan recalled her ambassador, while the transports were still in mid-ocean. Uncle Sam mustered his navy, and from all ports cif the world the submersibles flocked to join the fleet. , 11. This was the situation when the U.S.S. Vacquero, despatched from Hono-

lulu, caught up with the licet of transports off the Saddle Islands on the Chinese coast, and found herself the first lighting-era ft to join them. She was a standardized craft, differing in no esseur

tials from other ships of other navies—• about two hundred feet long, spindleshaped, but with a flat deck for about a third of her length amidships, railed in and containing her conning-tower, peris-cope-tube, search-light, hatches, and ex-hau.-ls from the gasoline and liquid-air turbines beneath. Funnels she had none, and but one non-corrosive saluti.ng-gun

forward; yet with the kowledge in mind of six submerged pivoted torpedo-tubes hidden in her underbody, she was a peculiarly murderous-looking craft, skimming along at twenty five knots; and young jßoss, the lieutenant in command, was in no way surprised at the enthusiasm he aroused as he charged up the line of steamers, crowded with black and yellow humanity. Each ship welcomed him with hoarse, inarticulate cheers merging into a continuous roar of approval. Ross went on: the mouth of the Yangtze was still two hundred miles away, and there was scouting to be done. Numerous craft of his own type and flag appeared during the day, all Hying numbers interior to his own, and. as ranking o Ulcer. he sent these back to accompany the licet. During the years of naval degeneracy tacti ■» hid been neglected. Rank by number and a wireless signalcode were the only aids to mr-thod; but cognizance by eyes and ears had not been aboli-hed, and one craft, No. 23, rounded to alongside, and her commander hailed: ••I've been close in. Have you seen ’em? Thou* are twenty and more, mustered in the South Channel.'’ •’Are they light, or in diving trim. - ’ asked Ross. •‘Light—'though I’m’-ure I saw a perib<ofH* about iirtv mile-' ba k. It followed me awhile. Something big, and fast, had submerged. It made fully twenty knots.” “All right. I'm going in. Go 'back ami wail.*’ A periscope is a rigid, perpendicular tube extending upward from the interior

of a submerged eraft, with a prismat* lens in the end to catch ;wid refleet downward a picture of what goes on above. An hour later Ross saw the periscope report to him, also the big and fast ‘•something” beneath it—a round, glistening, steel hull capped by a slant-sided running- tower, from the centre of whieh rose the tube. It seemed like a huge globe, its curvature indicating a diameter of at least eighty feet: but it moved through the water, on a course to intercept the Va-cquero. at a spcinl almost incredible im a ball-shaped hull. There was nothing to betray its nationality, but as it evidently wished to the Varquero. Ross manned his forward tube, filled the ballast-tanks, ami when submerged to the diving condition, headed, for the stranger and. still keeping the deck, slowed down and stopped. The stranger stopped with an unusual suddenness, and a head and shoulders rose out of the conning-'tower— those of a youngish man. with an alert, boyish face, ami lino white teeth, much in evidence when he smiled. “Hello there, lieutenant!” he called when the Vacquero hail crept up to hint, “(lot any oil—more than you need this trip?” “Plenty of medium grade, if that will do.” ans/wered Ross doubtfully. “But who are you. and what have you there - a submarine?” “Well, it’s a periscope, as you see, and for the rest, it’s a centrifugal pump vto

a high-speed rotary. My oil’s too thick and it heats up. That’s about all 1 can tell you, now.” “Hardly enough, considering the situation. What’- your nationality?’' “Ini an American.” He smiled and showed his teeth. “But your boat?” asked Ross impatient !y. “Depends upon what she ran do tomorrow, and which country buys me out.” “Are you an armed craft? Then you are a pirate if you meddle with the affairs uf nations.” I am not armed or armoured, and the affairs I meddle with will go to the bottom. The other side won’t care.” “Don’t quibble with me. 1 am a Government officer with a tube rained upon you now.” “You couldn’t hit me with every torpedo you've got. lieutenant.” said thd - ranger, smiling again. “You’l have to strike a horizontal knife edge with tin 1 ! tiring-pin of your tor|>cd.», ami it’s Ono chance in a million. You can t aim in a vertical plane.” Ross puzzled over the statement, and the stranger went on. •I’ve neither rudder nor screw to catch a torpedo. 1 can get thirty live knots in live m i onds. I can -top as quickly. L might—though I’m not sure—-run away from a torpedo.” ••Nonsense,” sail Ross. “It’s Ix-yofnl the power of machinery.” For answer the stranger ducked into the conning tower, eloped the divided hat< h: then, throwing a sipoon shaped bheet of water high ovvrivad. the curved

object darted a-bout a hundred yards to starboard, stopped almost instantly, and darted back to its (former position. (Ross's eyes opened at the exhibition, and when the stranger again rose out of the hatch, he cried: “What in the name of Heaven have you got? How do you get that speed in a. ball? I should say it was forty knots an hour.” °No, thirty-five, or a little less. It’s twenty under water. I can catch and destroy any submersible afloat or sul>anerged.” “If you are unarmed, how can you destroy anything, even though, as you claim, you are invulnerable to attack?” “Watch out to-morrow. Keep your colours hoisted, even when sulmierged. I want to make no mistakes. I have a fluorescent search-light, but it is none of *the. best.” “You are not a benefactor of humanity,” said Ross, with a slight shudder. “But, if your oil is any good, and my engine don’t heat up, I*ll prevent the

<rovvning of several thousand people tomorrow. Jt all depends upon the oil. Now, let's have it, lieutenant, and I’ll credit the Government when 1 sell out.” The round craft moved back alongside, find a rope thrown by her commander iwas ibont to a small keg brought up from 4/hc engine-room. “You see, lieutenant,” Baid be, as he hauled the floating keg of toil up the curved incline, “it’s a combination engine, cool enough under liquid air, but hot under gasoline.” “I sec,” answered Ross, with a smile. , do you know, you've told me most of your ‘features.” . “All but my motive and offensive power. Well, puzzle it out, and you’re welcome. And remember —keep your fcolours up, all of you. Good-by.” lie sank down the hatch with the keg, Closed it from below, and the craft slowly settled and buried all but about three feet of the periscope-tube. Then, with a fnvish of water, 'this tube darted away and was lost to sight in the distance. ißoss emptied his tanks, rang the “jingle.r," ami went on. “Liquid air submerged, and gasoline for surface, of course,” he mused. “Unarmoured, yet invulnerable. Unarmed, yet able to destroy. No screw nor rudder, yet faster than a turbine-boat. •Phroresnmt search light. Ball-shaped too. A centrifugal pump. What for?” lie had (forgotten one feature named, and assumed one not named. HI. From information derived from the rraf't lie met and sent ’back that day, Hoss learned that the six ranking officers of the navy, who might sujjersede him should they arrive, were too far nway to take part in the (‘vents of the morrow; so he formed his plans with regard to his own judgment and orders. (About midnight he made the ilxdl-buoy nt the outer bar of the Yang-tse-Kiang, nnd stopped his engine. Then at daylight he saw the Japanese fleet, a line of large black craft ex'ltmding from the shallows on the southern s’noio far to the north. Somewhere among that line •was the flag ship, and, hoisting the ensign, Rosm signalled in the International Code, asking the intentions of the .Japanese fleet. The reply was to the point; the first tiuinsport to pass the line of .ships was ta be considered aa within the three*

mile limit and would be immediately torpedoed and sunk. Ross replied that the transports would make the attempt, and that, while his orders bound him to remain strictly on the defensive, the first submergence of any Japanese craft in this contingency would be considered a hostile act. To this no reply was given, and he turned back to join the transports, fully awake to the responsibilities of his position. There were no precedents to guide him. Since the destruction of the Japanese battleships by the early submarines years before, the torpedo had never been used in war. The tactics of the past were useless in a battle fought in the dark, illumined only by the short, scant light of individual search-lights. A battle fought wholly on the sunface was net to be considered, for a craft of either side, hard pressed, would submerge for safety. So, having regard to the utter futility of any defensive action not involved in high speed, and the fact that a periseope-tirbe above- water

could be seen farther,than the whole hull neath, Ross decided io keep hij fleet on the surface until driven below.' To this end he reformed the transports into four columns of five ships each, gave the submersibles a numerical place—he had sixteen beside bis own boat —and directed them to divide and flank the transports in, but’, if hostilities began, to charge around the square at full speed, and torpedo every enemy that gave signs of its presence. And so instructed, the six columns of ships crept in close to the Japanese line—now a. row of dote; for they had sunk to the diving condition, and showed nothing above water but their circular conning-towers. Down in quiet compartments below the water-line, isolated from one another, and each adjusted in wave-length to a fellow on some other ship of the navy, were the transmitters and receivers ot •the underwater, wireless-telegraph system adopted by the Government. The sixteen “attuned” to those in the craft under Ross were manned, and the pneumatic tubes that brought the messages to the conning-tower were tested; but until tite boats submerged, signalling was to be by flags! With this prearranged and understood, Ross a little surprised when there popped into the conning-tower a cylinder containing a message from No. 5 of his fleet, with which boat he was even then in communication by Hags. Jt was a meaningless jumble of letters, only one cluster of which formed a word; and that word was “Fulton.” “Fulton?” said Ross to his aid. “Ono of the first submarines bore that name. The Russians bought her in 1904.” “1 read up on those boats lately,” said the ensign. “They could stand on their iieads, or tails—almost, couldn't they?” “Yes, but they vvrre no good. Slow, and with but one tube. Sec what Five lias to say.” Asked by Hags, No. 5 denied having telegraphed; and concluded that it was an untranslatable message caught from some synchronous machine in the Japanese fleet. Ross put the matter from his mind. With the American ensign firing from every mast and jack-staff, the groat fleet moved slowly in, and when the Vacqncro, ahead and in the centre, had passed through the Japanese line, the latter's formation changed. Like the swinging of two huge, hidden gates, half the line drew to starboard, half to port, and both closed in, forming a wide lane

of dots through which the fleet’ would have to pass. Then the four leading transports and the flanking protectors entered the lane, and the two lines of dots sank out of sight. Ross signalled “full speed ahead,” and rang his jingler; but' what followed was beyond his cognisance and control. The Japanese had taken bearings, and submerged for a rush. From the transports arose a hoarse buzzing sound, the combined effect of many thousand human voices raised in prayers and shrieks of terror. It rose and fell, but increased on the whole, and attained a volume that prevented Ross from hearing t’he usual muffled boom of underwater explosion. But he could see, with harrowing distinctness, the results of that hidden rush. Hound after mound of lifted water arose alongside of the doomed transports, which, bursting like huge bubbles, released clouds of black and yellow smoke. Here and there among them could bo seen a cloud of white, attesting to shattered boilers; but the sound of the steam

could not be heard above the buzzing. It was soon over. The outer '.ships suffered first; but they had hardly begun to heel -and settle before t the mounds and clouds lifted beside the inner columns :• of ships. Nothing could be done for them, and when a message of one word “torpedoed,” came from No. 4 of his fleet, Ross was glad of an excuse to submerge, not only to shut out the agonising sights and sounds, but to meet the enemy on more even terms, and fight. “Where,” asked the ensign, “is that invincible ball, that was to prevent al) Ulis?”

Ro.-;s shook his head; but the questrOß called to his mind the admonition of the stranger, and with the signal to submerge he ordered all ensigns to be left flying at the staffs. Then he rang bells and pushed buttons, the engine-room responded, and in fifteen seconds they were ia the dim gray of the undersea with only the telegraph to connect them with the fleet, and only the picture on the periscope table to remind them, to the last detail of reeling mast and crowded boat, of the utter annihilation of the transports. IV. In that day's battle beneath the sea it was proven that men will fight in the dark, provided they are willing to die, and that the submarine can fight its fellow, provided that fellow gets within, range of its search-light. It was an underwater melee; there was no possibility or cognisance, evasion, or intelligent direction. Two crafts could detect each other’s presence by their telegraph-receivers, could approach and flash their search-lights at close torpedo-range. If friends, they- could pass on and look for others; If enemies, slip their torpedoes, and also pass on—or down. In quick succession Ross passed two, snore by chance than through any advantage of seamanship or skill, meeting them head on at full speed, and launching at each a broadside torpedo, while dodging the return fire by quick, use of the horizontal rudder. All foa torpedoes missed, and with eyes Hasting with excitement in the new f gam of life and death; Ross ground the wheel to port, to take another chance at two to one; but he saw dimly in the lessening glow of his search-light that only one was returning—the other passing on—-and he chose a course back that would leave it to starboard. op< V to his unexpended broadside. Baek he went at. full speed, and at equal speed came the enemy, a black and growing blur behind a long , shaft of light. As the ill-defined blur took form and outline, he let fly the starboard torpedoes, one after another, then ground down the diving-wheel to avoid similar messengers of death. But whether any were sent he never knew. Hardly had the two rushing craft come abreast when there was an explosion- -vet with none of the spectacular effects of an explosion in air—no flare or red, and hurling of fragments, and sailing away of thinning smoke —only a dull, booming report, a physical concussion, and a blotting out of the black boat by a milky cloud. Thrown off his feet by the concussion, and anxious for - the safety of his own craft, Ross had just time to throw his search-light downward and catch a fleeting glimpse of the shattered fragment of hull wabbling toward the bottom before it was hidden! from view by the anole r-.f !-> ■ o u hull. Then came a call from the en-

grne-room saying that the horizontal Steering-gear and the stern torpedo tube air-valve were damaged. With all broadside tubes empty, and the sterntube and steering-gear out of order, Ross decided to avoid chances for a time, and with men at work reloading, repairing, and coupling up the hand-gear, he went on in the darkness with search-light shut off and the boat slow’ly lifting to the surface from the reserve buoyancy, unchecked by the diving-gear. And now there was time to read the messages piled up under the end of the pneumatic tube from the telegraph-rooms. He had counted twenty-six of the enemy when the long line of dots had changed to a lane before submerging at the beginning. He had entered this fight with sixteen craft beside his own. Of these, nine had been destroyed, and had sent their last messages while on the way to the bottom. How many had gone down unable to signal he could not guess. But of the twenty-six Japanese boats, eleven had been reported sunk, and there was the same doubt of the unreported.

Further fighting would involve the loss of more boats—the death of more men. Ross had done enough for prestige. So he signalled to his fleet to muster on the surface ten miles due east, and swung his boat to the course. And now. out of the grey sea to starboard came something big, black, and indefinable at first, then taking form—a curious form for a craft of any kind, surface or submarine. It resembled two salad-bowls with edges together, convex above and below’, concave near the edges, which extended sharply and horizontally for about twenty feet from the termination of the convex curve. It was circular in a lateral plane, without rudder, propeller, or any visible means of propulsion; and it darted up close to the Vacquero and stopped with a suddenness which, with its spherical upper body, identified it as the strange craft interviewed the day before. As Ross viewed it through the headlights, the search-lights of two pursuers flooded it; then both quivered as two slim splindles darted out of the tubes and into the effulgence. They came on quickly, one behind the other,

Straight for the big steel bowl that, at equal speed, was now accompanying the Vacquero as if inspecting her. The first torpedo struck just above the circular knife-edge that girdled the craft, but. the blunt bulge of the nose slid upward on the long concave, and the torpedo passed on overhead. The other repeated the performance, but struck below the edge, going downward and on. Then the bowl became a shadow, its outlines lost in the rapidity of its rush backward out of the path of •light. With nothing to lose now, Ross turned on his own search-light, and caught the stranger just in time to sec it gently and glanchigly touch on the port-bilge of the nearest pursuer. Then, whirling like a great top, it darted away, returned across the stern of its victim, and gently brushed up against **the second. Both craft, bounded by that sharp, circular knife-edge, dived slowly downward, their paths illumined for a time by their own search-lights. “It’s he.” said Ross, as he motioned his aid to shift the. wheel. “And we’ll go back with him. We’ve done enough running away.” ‘‘But what’s his motive power?” asked the ensign, whirling the wheel. “It’s unearthly—just as he. said, no Screw nor rudder.” “Don't know,” answered Ross, squinting through the sights of the azimuth at the dim shadow receding in the gloom; “but his motion seems all lateral— that is, in any horizontal direction at torpedo-depth.” V. With searchlights sweeping from starboard to port, they changed back on the l>earing taken by Ross, and on a long, rising incline, that soon brought •the light of day into the conningtower. by which time tubes were loaded, and the hand diving-gear was in readiness; they might have steered down again, but the light suggested to Ross what, in the excitement, had not occurred to him since the first submergence—to inspect the periscope, the optical instrument that reproduces on a table a moving picture of sea and sky above. And there on the surface ahead <»f the Vacquero was a column of black craft steering east that Ross had no ditlieulty in recognising as the Japanese fleet. There were twelve of them, and the height of their bow-waves indicated full surface-speed. The ensign joined floss at the table, and their eyes met. “Three more of them on the list of the unrecorded,” said Ross; “but the one that gets our signals is Mill at work. They’re going out to intercept us. Cut out that instrument and signal all the rest to disregard rendezvous.” “It’s No. 2,” answered the young oflicer. with a final glance at the moving picture on the table. “Look, look!” he exclaimed. “The two ahead—they're submerging—they're diving. How’s that?” “They’re sinking.” said Ross, after a moment’s inspection. “They submerge on an even keel, as we do. That round fellow is meeting them. Semi the signal. JWe’ll get to the top.” The periscope had shown the two leading craft lifting their sterns and dipping their bows. When the water had dripped from the conning-tower deadlights, and they looked directly at the sight, those two had nearly disappeared, while the third was beginning to dip, and astern ©f her, rushing back to meet the fourth, .was that huge, glistering convex surmounted by the perioscope-tube. The two men threw open the deadlights for a (dearer view, while their boat in the “awash” condition, like the other, headed toward the rear end of the line and hurried, with all the power of her engines, to l>e “in at the death.” There was not time. Perhaps in the whole history of naval war a fleet was never sunk so quickly. The speed of the Japanese submersibles was at least twenty-five knots an hour, that of the destroyer thirty-five -a total rate of approach of sixty. The column was less than a mile long. In less than a minute, and before the leading craft had entirely disappeared, all had felt the touch of the sharp, circular knife, and were dipping. rolling or staggering, accord in*** to the nature and location of the wound. But something secerned to have happened to the invincible craft that had wrought the destruction. As Ross looked nt her, he noticed that she had stopped and was settling. Then he saw a black spindle rise l»eside her. curve gracefully tn the air, and dive into the sea. “Down we go,” he said, giving the Order to refill the tanks. “She’s bring

torpedoed. Something else is down there.” The round eraft soon disappeared, periscope and all, and not knowing her fate and not caring to approach too close to danger in his “half-and-half” condition, Ross stopped his engine until his boat was under control of the divingrudder, and watched the spot for some sign of the mystery beneath. Soon he was rewarded. Not a hundred yards away on the starboard bow a black, curving hull with a short superstructure deck ami dome-shaped conning-tower, rose from the depths to show for a few seconds, then, porpoise-like, dived out of sight. But in those few seconds there could be seen a name in white letters on the slanting side of the superstructure. Then, out of the eddies left by the diving craft, rose a fan-shaped stream of water, and, following it, what seemed to lie the broad nose of a huge, shovel-nosed shark, until, with the shutting oft' o f the fan-shaped jet and the rising into sight of a familiar conning-tower, it resolved into the circular, knife-edged hull of their preserver. As the leading edge dipped beneath the surface, the opposite edge rose, and now from this edge came, the fan of water, a powerful stream that slanted upward for fifty feet before it shattered into a deluge of falling drops. Then the hull disappeared and the fan became an uplifting mound that in a moment gave way to the eddies. “Down we go!” said Ross, excitedly, as the engine-room called that tanks were full. He ground down the diving-wheel and whirled the. steering-wheel to port. “That’s his motive power—a .horizontal jet from the circular edge and a centrifugal pump. Remember—he spoke of it ?” “Yes,” said the ensign, “and that fellow he’s chasing—that’s the ” “The Fulton—l saw her name plainly —the old, obsolete little Fulton, with her one tube and seven knots.” “But she's a diver—she can stand on her head and tail. She’s dangerous to that fellow.” “And that’s what the message meant. The Japs captured her years ago and have resurrected her. They must have known of this new cr-aft.” At full speed the Vacquero went under, and after a few circles Ross picked up the combatants with the search-light —the big, round destroyer poised about thirty feet down, canted at an angle of forty-five degrees, but motionless except for a slow, upward drift; and far dow’n and in the direction indicated by that canted edge, the Fulton, a short, stumpy shape in the dim glow of Ross’s light, turning in a wide circle to head back and upward at the quiescent enemy, at which her Own small pencil of searchlight was directed. “Something’s wrong with him,” said the ensign, as the Fulton bravely charged upward. Ross looked at the round craft; the knife-like girdle had assumed a horizontal position, while the hull as a whole went steadily upward. “He’s helples!” he exclaimed. “We must stop the Fulton —both starboard torpedoes.” He threw the diving-wheel hard down, and rang full speed to the engine room. Torpedoes are gauged to find and maintain a fixed depth—usually twenty feet »<> matter what their submergence when fired. ’The latter-day submersibles were not designed to withstand more than two atmospheres of pressure. The early submarines could bear ten. It was a dangerous experiment that Ross essayed—to dive into the depths and torpedo a craft able to dive deeper—to hit her with a self-propelling missile whose immediate tendency was to deflect itself upward. But he felt that something was required of him, if not due him, to offset the work of that wonderboat and her commander, and with the plates of his craft creaking like barrelstaves, he steered down on a path almost parallel to that upward pencil of light. The Fulton came on, her bow-port lifted to the semblance of an angry upper lip, her futile little search-light still held on her enemy; but at the psychological moment, when she was slightly ahead, slightly above, and a hundred feet away, Ross pushed a button. There was a cough and a thud, and a torpedo went its way. He pressed again, and a second convulsion marked the going out of another. Then ho ground the diving-wheel hard up, and the straining, groaning A acquero answered it, shooting up to safety on an incline steeper than that of her descent. But her search-light now played on the inert craft above. For, just before he had fired, a short torpedo had shot nut from under tin angry upper lip. and was travelling up-

ward on a long line ot beauty. Ross shortened the focu; and included it in his light, watching it with what attention he could spare from his own boat. He saw it curve upward, almost beneath the round hull, then assume a straight line directly towards its centre, then reverse its curving path, and he knew that the danger was past—-that the line of beauty would become a horizontal straight line, beneath and away from its target. Then there was a convulsion of the sea, a dull report from beheath, a physical shock, then a second convulsion, report, and shock, and the Vacquero, rocking like a row-boat in a tide-way, lifted a quarter of her length out of the water, and sank to an equilibrium. And Ross, trembling from reaction, also knew that far down in the depths the little, obsolete Fulton, struck by two torpedoes, was rolling to the bottom. He emptied his tanks, and when his deck was clear of water, headed back for the strange craft, now on the surface, with her young commander’s face again rising out of the conning-tower hatch. But it did not look so young as before, though the fine teeth were more in evidence than ever. The lips grinned, rather than smiled, and the eyes were a little sunken. Ross, somewhat haggard himself, stepped out and hailed him. “We are deeply indebted to you, sir,” he said. “Hello, lieutenant. Same here. That little devil might have done for me. How d’you feel, now that it’s over?” “Shaky'.” “Same here. What made you run ?” “Damaged diving-gear. What’s wrong with you ” “Same thing that kept me back at the first of it. Say, lieutenant ” “Well ?” “Your blamed old oil’s no good.”