Perhaps Von Weissman
read my thoughts, or else he remembered my remark concerning the man,
for he turned to me and in level tones said:
"Have you any doubt that he was dead?"
I hesitated a moment, and he continued:
"By my direction you have no doubt. He _was_!"
How brutal war is, and what a perfect exponent of the art the Captain
proves himself to be! To me a life is a life, a particle of the thing
divine; to him a life is a unit, and a half-maimed and probably dying
seaman is as nothing in the scales when the safety of a U-boat is at
stake. The seamen are numbered in their tens of thousands, the U-boats
in their tens. The steamer had hit us once, luckily only in the casing,
a second hit might well have punctured the pressure hull, and our fate
in these waters would have been certain. Therefore, having summed these
things up and balanced them in his mind, he dived and the sailor died.
Once below water Von Weissman seemed more his imperturbable self, and
unless I am mistaken he is never really happy on the surface, at least
when in action. He is a true water mole.
* * * * *
A day full of interest, though once again I have had to force myself to
absorb the horrors of War. I imagine that I am now going through the
experiences of a new arrival on the Western Front, who feels a desire
to shudder at the sight of every corpse.
At 10 a.m. this morning we sighted the topsails of a sailing boat to
the southwest. Closing her on the surface, we approached to within
about 6,000 metres, when suddenly Von Weissman ordered "Gun Action
Stations.
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