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Updated: May 12, 2025
The ballast-tanks are filled and the craft slowly descends to the sandy bottom of the sea. It is desirable that the crew go to sleep as quickly as possible, because when men are asleep they use less of the priceless supply of oxygen which is consumed when the boat is under water. However, the commander allows the men from half an hour to an hour for music and singing.
Her ballast-tanks were damaged, which accounted for a bad list. The explosions of the depth-bombs had hurled her to the bottom, where she retained sufficient buoyancy to catapult to the surface. As the conning-tower came into sight the Nicholson fired three shots from her stern gun. The U-boat then seemed to right herself, making fair speed ahead.
The ship buzzes like a hive. Then water begins to gurgle into the ballast-tanks, and U-47 sinks until only her periscope shows. "The steamship is a Dutchman, sir," calls the watch officer. The commander inspects her with the aid of a periscope. She has no wireless and is bound for the Continent.
This device controls the pumps which fill or empty the ballast-tanks, so as to keep the relation of the submersible to the water which it displaces constant, under which condition the vessel maintains a fixed depth.
So tanks were blown out and up she went to the surface again; and there, while she was resting like a bird on the water, ballast-tanks were suddenly filled and down she went. Down, down, down she went the long green finger on the broad-faced gauge walking around at a fine clip. Dropping so on an even keel, by the way she gave out no sense of action such as a man gets on an aeroplane.
Bridge appurtenances are housed also, and sailors dive down through the deck-holes. The commander follows. Water begins to gurgle into the ballast-tanks while the crew seal every opening. Down goes the U-47-1/2 until only her periscope shows, a periscope painted sea-green and white camouflaged. The eyes of the watch-officer are glued to the periscope. "She is a Dutchman, sir," he says at length.
So he can come up and is glad, because moving under the water consumes electricity, and the usefulness of a submarine is measured by her electric power. After fifty-four hours of waking nerve tension, sleep becomes a necessity. So the ballast-tanks are filled and the nutshell sinks to the sandy bottom.
"What's this!" said one observer to himself, and directed an interested eye toward the saint-like lad on the camp-stool. But it was only for a few feet. The indicator slacked up, fluttered, stopped dead. And then without the husky tank boy to lift a finger we heard the rumph-h and rumbling of the valve-seats as the sea-water was driven out of her ballast-tanks; and then up she started.
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