Freed of the dead weight of many tons of sea water blown from her ballast-tanks by compressed air, the submarine rose to the surface like a balloon. Ventilators and hatch-covers were thrown open and we swarmed up on deck to fill our grateful lungs with the good sea air. Three motor-boats from the tug throbbed up alongside with the four torpedoes we had discharged.
“Those boats wait, one this side of the target, one near it and the third over on the far side, to mark the shots and catch the torpedoes after they rise to the surface at the end of their run,” said Lieutenant Scope. “We very seldom lose a torpedo nowadays. They tell a story about one that dived to the bottom and was driven by the force of its own engines into forty feet of soft mud, where it stayed till it happened to be dug up by a dredger.”
The four torpedoes were hoisted aboard, drained of the sea water that had flooded their air-chambers, cleaned and lowered through the torpedo hatch forward down into the magazine. By this time the bridge and railing were again in place and the flags fluttering over the taffrail as the _X-4_, her day’s work done, sped swiftly up the coast to home and mother-ship.
The following submarines, with all or part of their crews, have been accidentally lost in time of peace:
_Date_ _Name_ _Nationality_ _Men Lost_ March 18, 1904 A-1 British 11 June 20, 1904 Delfin Russian 26 June 8, 1905 A-8 British 14 July 6, 1905 Farfadet French 14 October 16, 1906 Lutin French 13 April 26, 1909 Foca Italian 13 June 12, 1909 Kambala Russian 20 July 14, 1909 C-11 British 13 April 15, 1910 No. 6. Japanese 14 May 26, 1910 Pluviôse French 26 January 17, 1911 U-3 German 3 February 2, 1912 A-3 British 14 June 8, 1912 Vendémiaire French 24 October 4, 1912 B-2 British 15 June 8, 1913 E-5 British 3 December 10, 1913 C-14 British none January 16, 1914 A-7 British 11 March 25, 1915 F-4 American 21
The _A-1_ was engaged in manœuvers off Spithead, England, when she rose to the surface right under the bows of the fast-steaming Union Castle Liner _Berwick Castle_. Before anything could be done, the sharp prow of the steamer had cut a great gash in the thin hull of the submarine and sent her to the bottom with all her crew. This was in broad daylight; her sister-ship _C-11_ was rammed and sunk by another liner three years later, at night. The _Pluviôse_ of the French navy escaped the bow of an on-coming cross-channel steamer when the submarine came up at the entrance to Calais Harbor, only to have her topsides crushed in by a blow from one of the paddle-wheels. Collisions like these are less likely to happen nowadays, for the navigating officer of a modern submarine can take a look round the horizon through the periscope from a depth sufficient to let most steamers pass harmlessly over him, and in case of darkness or fog, he can detect the vibrations of approaching propellers by means of the Fessenden oscillator or some similar device. Yet the frequency with which submarines have been intentionally rammed and sunk in the present war shows that they would still be liable to rise blindly to their destruction in time of peace.