* * * * *
The boat has been rolling about on the bottom in the most sickening
manner the whole afternoon. We flooded P and Q to capacity, which gave
her 50 tons negative, but it seems to have little effect in steadying
her, and it is evident that a really heavy gale is running on top.
* * * * *
Surfaced at 10 p.m.; a very heavy sea running and impossible to do much
more than heave to. This weather has one point in its favour and that
is that the destroyers are driven in.
It got steadily worse all night, and at midnight we lost our foremost
wireless mast overboard; we have now (10 a.m.) been 48 hours without
communication. At dawn we could see nothing to fix by; not a buoy in
sight, nothing but an expanse of foam-topped short steep waves of dirty
neutral-tinted water; how different to the great green and white surges
of the broad Atlantic.
Under these circumstances Alten decided to risk it and return without
laying our mines; for once in a way I agreed with him, as it is better
not to lay a minefield at all than dump one down in some unknown
position which one may have to traverse oneself in the course of a
month or so. We are now slowly, very slowly, struggling back to
Zeebrugge.
A green sea came down the conning tower to-day, and everything in the
boat is damp and smelly and beastly. The propellers race at frequent
intervals and the whole boat shudders--I feel miserable.
Alten has started to drink spirits; he began as soon as we decided to
go back.
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