* * * * *
On the bottom in 28 metres and feeling none too comfortable, as there
would appear to be about a dozen destroyers overhead.
Last night, or rather early this morning, I participated in one of the
most extraordinary incidents that I have ever heard of.
It was pitch-black dark when I took over at 4 a.m., and a fresh breeze
had raised a lumpy sea, which covered the bridge with spray. We were
charging 400 amps on each, with the intention of laying one mine
directly there was sufficient light to get a fix from some of the buoys
which the English stick down all over the place here in the most
convenient manner possible. If only one could believe they never
shifted them. Alten says it never occurs to an Englishman to do a thing
like that, but I'm not so sure. However, we were proceeding along at
about five knots, crashing into the sea rather badly, when out of the
black beastliness of the night I saw a shape close aboard on the port
hand.
As I hesitated for a second as to my course of action, I was astounded
to see a large submarine which must have been British, on an opposite
course, not more than 25 metres away!
This sounds absurd, but it really wasn't further. I'm not ashamed to
confess that I was completely disorganized; it did not seem possible
that the enemy was literally alongside me.
I don't know how it struck the officer in the British boat, but I must
give him credit for doing something first, for he fired a Very's white
light straight at me as the two boats passed.
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