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Show fftiE FRINGES OF THE FLEET" By Rudyard Kipling. (Copyright, 1915, by Rudyard Kipling.) The ekips await us above And ensnare us beneath. We rue. we lie down, and we move In the shadow of death. The ships have a thousand eyes To mark where we come And the mirth of a 6eaport dies WLen our. blow gets home. I was honored by a glimpse into this veiled life by a boat which was merely practicing between trips. Submarines are like cats. They never tell with whom they were last night, and they sleep as much as they, can. If you board a submarine sub-marine off duty you generally see a perspective of foreshortened fattish men laid all along. The men say that except at certain times it is rather an easy life, with relaxed regulations about smoking, calculated to make a man put 0.1 tlesh. One requires well-padded nerves. Many of the men do not appear on deck throughout the whole trip. After all, why should they if they don 't want lo? They know that they are responsible in their department for their comrades' lives as their comrades are responsible for theirs. What's the use of flapping about) Better lay. in some magazines and cigarettes. SOME COMFORTING THOUGHTS. When we set forth there had been some trouble in the fairway and a mined neutral, whose misfortune all bore with exemplary calm, lay over on a sandbank near by., "Suppose there are more mines looset" I asked. "We'll hope there aren't," was the soothing reply. "Mines are all .loss. You either hit 'em or you don't. And if you do they don't always go off. They scrape alongside." "What's the etiquette then?" "Shut off both propellers and hope." We were dodging various crafts down the harbor when a squadron of trawlers -" eravagani rate ot speed winch unlimited govern ment coal always leads to. They were headed by an ugly, upstanding, black-sided buccaneer with twelve-pounders. "Ah! That's tho king of the trawlers. Isn't he carrying dog, too! Give room! " one said. SALT SEA PLEASANTRIES. We were all in the narrowed harbor together. "Here's my youngest daughter. Take a look at her!" someone hummed as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very near bridge. "We'll fall in behind him. They're going over to the neutral. Then they'll sweep. By the bye, did you hear about one of the passengers in the neutral yesterday. yes-terday. He was taken off, of course, by a destroyer, and the only thing he said was: "Twenty-five time I ave insured, but not this time. 'Ang it." The trawlers lunged ahead toward the forlorn neutral. Our destroyer nipped past us with that high-shouldered terrier-like pouncing action of the newer boats and went ahead. A tramp in ballast, her propeller half out of water, threshed along through the sallow haze. "Lord! What a shot,-" someone said enviously. The men on the little deck looked across at the slow-moving silhouette. One of them, a cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a companion. DIVING IN A SUBMARINE. Then we went down not as they go down when then are pressed (the record I believe is fifty feet iu fifty seconds from top to bottom), but genteelly to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, roarings and blowings, and after the orders, which come from the commander alone, utter silence and peace. "There's the bottom. We bumped at fifty Fifty-two! " ' "I didn't feel it." ' 1 We'll try again. Watch the gauge and you '11 soe it flick a lii tie. ' ' (Continued on Page Two.) I 'The Fringes of the Fleet" j (Continued from Page One.) It may have been so, but T was more interested in the faces, and, above all, the eyes, all down the length of her. It was to them, of course, the simplest of maneuvers. They dropped into sear as no machine could; but the training of years and the experience of the year leaped up behind those steady eyes unde' the ! electrics in the shadow of the tall motors, between the pipes and the curved hull, or -lued to their particular g-auges. One forgot the bodies altogether, but one will never forgot 'he eyes or the ennobled faces. One man 1 remember in particular. On dock his was no more than a grave, rather striking countenance, cast in the unmistakable petty officer's mold. Below, as I saw him in profile pro-file in charge of n vital control, he looked like a Poge of Venice; the prior of some hardly-ruled monastic order; an old-time pope anything that signified trained and stored intellectual power utterly and ascetically devoted to somo vast impersonal imper-sonal end. And so with a much younger man, who changed into such a young monk as Frank Dicksee used to rtaw. Only a couple of torpedo men, not. being gear for the moment, read an illustrated paper. Their time did not come, till we went up and got to business, which meant firing at our destroyer, and, I think, keeping out of the light of a friend's torpedoes. CZAR OF SUBSEA EMPIRE. The atiack and every thin ronnected with it is solely the eontmaudcr 's af,t'air. lie is the only one who gets any fun at all, sinoe he is the eye. the brain and the hand of the whole this single figure at the periscope. The second in command heaves sighs and prays that the dummy (there is less trouble about real ones) will qo off all right or he'll be told about it. The others wait and follow the quirk run of orders. It is, if not a convention, a fairly established custom that the commander com-mander shall inferentially give his orld some idea of what is going on. At least, T only heard of one man who says nothing whatever, and doesn't oon wriggle his shoulders when he is on the job. The others soliloquise, etc., according to their temperain'ent, and the periscope is as revealing as golf. Submarines nowadays are expected to look out for themselves more than at the old practices when the destroyers walked eiremnspertly. We dived and circulated circu-lated under water for a while and then ro?e for a sight something like this: "Up a littlf up! I'p still! Where the deuce has he ah! (half a dozen orders as to helm and depth or descent, and a pause broken by a drumming noise somewhere above which increases and parses away). That's bettter! Up again! (This refers to the periscope.) Yes. Oh! No, we don't think! All right! Keep her down. L;imn it : L mm : J hat uiigiu to to nineteen Knots. i nnv itick . He's changing speed. No. he isn't. He's all right. Ready forward there! (A valve sputters and drips, the torpedo men crouch over their tubes and nod to themselves. Their faces have changed now.) Tie hasn't spotted us yet. We'll just (more helm and depth orders, but especially helm). Wish we were working a beam tube. Ne'er mind. Up! (A string of orders.) Six hundred. He doesn't see us! Fire!" The dummy left; the second in command cocked one ear and looked relieved. Up we rose; the wet air and spray spattered through the hat-'h. The destroyer swuug off to retrieve the dummy. OFFICERS SHIFTED TO CRUISERS. ''Careless brutes, destrgvprs are." aid one officer. "Tliat fellow nearly walked over us just now. Hid you notice?" The commander was playing his game out over again stroke by st rnk "With a beam tufc I'd ha' traf'd him amidshij, " he concluded. "Why didn't you. thn'' I a-ked. There wore everal excellent reasons which reminded me that vte wre at nar and cleared for action, and that the interlude had been merely plav. A com- panion rose alongside and wanted to know whether we had seen anything of her '. dummy. I was rather annoved. because I had seen that particular daughter of destruction de-struction in the stocks only a shnrt time ao. and here she w:t- gron up an j talking about her mi-iug children. in the harbor again, one found more of them, a' I pattern and make and sizes, with rumors of yet mure and larger to follow. Naturally their mm ay that we are only at the beginning of the jsiibmai inc. W't shall have them preenlK for all purposes. Now, here is the mystery of the service. A man gets a boat whb-h for two years becomes his vpry e!f. His morning hop?, bis evening dream. His joy throughout the day. With him is a scrou'l :n command, a cox, an engineer and om other. 'U:ev till thev act, think and endure as a unit, in and with the boat. That commander is transferred to another boat. He trb-s to take with him if he can, whb h h can't. a manv of his other selves au po--ii'V. He pitches into a ittv type ti-e tre size of the old one with three times as manv gadget, an unexplored temperament and unknown lea nin g" After hi- fiot trip h corner ba-k clamoring for the head of her constructor, of1 his own serorid in command, his engineer, hi cr,i and a few other ratings. Thev, for their part, 'ih him dad on the beach, because last commission with So and So nothing ever went wrung anywhere. A fortnight later vou can remind the commander whnt hA said, and i!l smile, wide naw milei. She's not. he -avs, o very bad things considered, barring her five tun torpedo derricks, the abominations of her wire-U-s and the tropical temperature of her beer lockers. All of which -dgnifint that the; new boat ha found her mouI, an I her command1 would not change her for battle cruisers. Therefore, that lie may remember he is the -ervi'e and not a branch of it, he is after certain year hifted to a battle cruiser, where he lives in a Max.c of admirals and aiguile: tes rcpon-nhle for va,st decks and cathedral like flat-, a student of extended above-water ta-tic, thinking in tenn of thou-aioU of arH in Mead of his molcM but deadly three to twelve hundred. A COLD-BLOODED BUSINESS. And the man who takes h ii place straight way f oi get that he rver look ed down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bri'lge under the whole breadth of heaen, but crawls and climbs and dives down conning towers with thofse- --aiiie waes wet on his hec and when the cruisers pa him tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he is not as they arc and goes to bed Ireneath their diMiacted keels, for it is written: 11 How in all time of our diMre-s, And in our triumph, too, The game is more than the player of the game. And the ship more than the i-rew. ' ' " But hubmarine work is cold-blooded business. ' ' (This was at a little conference confer-ence in a green curtained ' ' wardrobe ' ' .-urn ow nr 's cabin.) "Then tli ere 's no t rut h in t he yarn t hat you can feel when I ho torpedo 's going to get home ? ' ' I asked. ''Not a word. Vou sec, it gets home or misses ns the case mav be. Of coune, it's never vonr fault, if it mi'V-s. It, 'h all your erond in command." 4 ' That ' true, too, ' ' sain1 t he. second. "I caf'h it, all n round. "That's what I am here for." ' ' A nd what, about t he t hird man?'' There was one aboard at. the I im. SUBMARINE FIGHTS A ZEPP. He generally eome from a wnallrr boat to pi' k up real work if he can sup-pics sup-pics his, intellect a no1 doesn't talk "iaM iomniiesion. ' ' The third hanrl promptly denied the posfeion of any intellect, and was quite dumb about his laM. boat. 1 ' A nd t he men ? ' ' ''Thev train 'hi, too. Thev train eaeh other. Vcs, one get.n to know 'cin about a, well as t hcv L'i't, to know iif.. I'p to t opside a man ca n take you in - -1 ke h iniKl f in tor month', for half the co nun is -ion p 'rapv. I low n below he can 't . 1 1 's u II in robl bloodnot. like at the front, where thev have something exciting all the " Then bum pi ng mine", isn 't excit ing !' ' " Not. one little bit. Yon can Iminp at. 'em. Km-ii with a. Xepp" . ''On. now and then," fine i rr term fit ed , ami t hey laughed nj t hey explained. ' 1 Ye, t hat was rat her funny. One of our bouts came up slap undernat h a low Zepp. I,orl er for the sk v, you' know, am couMn 't see anything except this fal, "hining beilv almost on top o! 'em. Luckily, it wasn't the Zepp 's Mingitig cud. .So : he w 'Tit to w i ml v. ai d and kept jo-1 a wa-h. There was a bit of a sea and the Zepp had to work again!, ihe wind. fThey don't, like that.) Our boat, wot, a man to the gun. He w a i pretty we) drowned, of course, but. he hung on and held his breath and got in mIioIs where he enuld. The Zepp was strafing I iorn rr. a no u t for all b- was wort h , and - who was it - Macn it ui'v , I think, was hitting a nd heavi n at. the quick - liter between l i es ami na t.u ra 1 1 v everyone uarited to look at. the per forma rice, ho about fl quarter of a ton of water flopped j down below a ml - oh, -thev had a ( ha 1 1 ie 4 ; ha pi in time of it ! Well, some now, Marart riev managed to rip the Zepp ft bit. and nlie went to b-eunrd with a list, on her. Wi-'uirA her a fortnight later with a pah-h on her port. side, oh, if Kril. onlv fought, - lea ii t here wouldn't be hall" a bad rdinw. Cut Frit, can 't, fight 'ra n. " PAYS RESPECTS TO THE FOE. "And we can't do what, he doei e en if wr, w ere a I lowed t r), " one -a id. 11 o, we can t. "I'i';n't, done. That's nil. We have to fidi Frit out of the water, ami we drv him and duM him ami give him cocktails and peipl him to fonn i ngl on Hall.'' ' ' A nd v. hat doe. I Vit . do ? ' 1 " lb' l- , , , t t.ers a nd click?', and bow . lie I ins all the correct, mot inn, you k now, bo t of course, when hi a pri-oner you can't. Oil him what, he rca I ly is. ' ' '"And do vou "uppo-e Frit, u nd'-nd mids any of it?1' f ndied, "No, or ho wouldn't, have ' Lin;i t a n ia ed , and then he wouldn't, have, been Frit,. This war wii-i hii tir.t. chance of ma! im; his name, ami ho chucked it, awav for the fmke of how in' olf as a sillv nm of a Cut 1 1 -1 ra t'rr. " And then thev tall ''d of that hour fit the niiht when fiibmariiies come to t he !,,. Ill e nicrma id'i' I o gel and gi'.e information; of boats whreie bii:unem it bi to fire I, i, nd "p!a di about a - a 'i re vi ' id i a - po't u ble. and of ol Iot mn t m who aoid Wl-t of di-da dumb boat'- watching and repeiine watch, nith their peri ' ,,,,,., (, y hi" life a ci o odi lc ' , e- e-t, ri t the bnrdi of hhunbi mid the mmil In ,, i-,;t him !". ssm-h: 7um rt king may Mutie d move nut. in proce-c-uon I o its doom. |