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He was much depressed, and did not immediately go back to the periscope. I asked if the head had been cut off or taken off by a steamer; he was afraid the latter, as a hand was gone, too. It was about eleven o'clock that night that the door-bell rang. It was Mr. Graves, with a small man behind him.
Within effective torpedo range a periscope, day or night, is visible to keen-eyed watchers, and all told not a dozen British and American sea fighters, of whatever class, were sunk as a result of submarine attack. In the battle of Heligoland Bight early in the war, as a matter of fact, a squadron of British battleships passed right through a nest of submarines and were not harmed.
Our guns lengthened range, and we saw shells fired by our warships in the Gulf of Saros bursting along the crest of Achi Baba. Through the periscope we watched the tin back-plates, worn by our men for the enlightenment of artillery observers, twinkling under the dust and smoke.
The observer sees a puff of smoke from the deck of a destroyer and a quick splash of water obscures the view momentarily. "They have seen us and are firing." But the steamship is now within a mile, within fairly accurate torpedo range. An order rolls into the torpedo-room and the crew prepare for firing. In the meantime a shower of shells explode about the periscope.
Officers on duty, hearing the cry of the lookout, called to him to repeat his message, which he did, with the added information that the submarine, as evidenced by the appearance of the periscope cutting the water, was approaching nearer, and with great swiftness.
With the periscope we worked from Kaba Tepe on the left clear across the ground in front of us to the north. Over in the west, by hazy Imbros, were five or six ships; there was another fleet in the north to-ward the Gulf of Saros, and little black beetles of destroyers crawled here and there across the blue sea floor.
This because they set pretty nearly as low as a submarine, and with their oil-burning propulsion give forth no telltale cloud of smoke. Other nets are hung from hollow glass balls, which the periscope cannot pick up against the sea water.
"What did you think they'd look like?" demanded another. "Something like a smokestack with a curlycue on the end of it," was the reply. Frenchy and Ikey were giggling immeasurably. The former said: "Isa Bopp couldn't beat that, could he?" "Oi, oi!" sighed Ikey ecstatically. "A periscope like a smokestack!"
Ahead, on either flank and at the rear, the torpedo-boat destroyers were scouting vigilantly, with gunners standing by ready to fire promptly at any periscope or conning tower of an enemy craft that might be sighted. "I don't suppose there'll be any band concert this afternoon," said Greg Holmes suddenly and ruefully. "And we have a mighty good band, too.
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