I had a good look at her through the foremost periscope in between the
waves, and it maddened me to see all that oil, doubtless from Tampico
for the Grand Fleet, going safely by. The destroyers were having a bad
time of it, crashing into the sea like porpoises, their funnels white
with salt, and their bridges enveloped in sheets of water and spray.
They little thought that, barely a mile away, amidst the tumbling,
crested waves a German eye was watching them!
There is no doubt these damned British have pluck, for it was the last
sort of weather in which one would have expected to find destroyers at
sea, and yet I suppose they do this throughout the winter.
After all, one would expect them to be tough fellows--they are of
Teutonic stock--though by their bearing one might imagine that the
Creator made an Englishman and then Adam.
Let's hope we get some decent weather to-morrow. I have just been
refreshing my memory by reading of what I wrote in the book, concerning
the day in the forest with the adorable girl. There is an exquisite
pleasure in transporting the mind into such memories of the past when
the body is in such surroundings as the present, if only I could will
myself to dream of her!
* * * * *
A fine day in every sense of the word. The weather has been and remains
excellent, and I have been present at my first sinking. It was absurdly
commonplace. At 10 a.m. this morning a column of smoke crept upwards
from the southern horizon.
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