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It would be convenient to employ the same oil motor for underseas navigation, but such a machine has not yet been constructed, although various futile attempts of this kind have been made.
Save for that one glow everything looked as chill as underseas; the whitewashed walls of the out-buildings glimmered faintly, the heaped corn had paled to a greyish silver, the shadows were blue as quiet pools. The whole world seemed to have been washed clean by the moonlight.
"Oh, don't suggest such horrid possibilities," cried Jennie. "And they are only fooling you, Henri." "Look yonder!" exclaimed Captain Tom, waving an instructive hand. "Behold! Let the Kaiser's underseas boat come. That little tin lizzie of the sea is ready for it. Depth bombs and all!"
A well-drilled crew, off duty, is therefore expected to sleep at once, undisturbed by the noise around them, and their efficiency is all the greater when the time comes to relieve their weary comrades. We had a wireless operator on board whose duties ceased after submersion, and he had so well perfected the art of sleeping that he never cost us more than fifteen liters of air, hourly, underseas.
Calmly, but with great decision, the commander gives the general orders to submerge. The internal combustion engines, the oil motors which, during surface navigation are used to accelerate the speed of the boat, are immediately disconnected, as they consume too much air underseas, and electric motors are now quickly attached and set in motion.
But in any case, the vision underseas is of the shortest, and does not extend beyond a few meters; light objects and even the stem and stern of our own boat are invisible from the turret. We are unaware, therefore, of advancing ships, derelicts, or projecting rocks, and no lookout can preserve us from these dangers. The crew is entirely ignorant of their surroundings.
You have that within you, young brother, which is both a lack and a shield. True also that this underseas ship entered after you. Perhaps it has a shield as part of it; perhaps those from the stars have their own protection. But they can not reach the heart of what they wish, not unless we open the doors for them. It is your belief, younger brother, that they still strive to force such doors?"
It is well known that the French were the first to complete a type of submarine navigable underseas, and the English unwillingly, but with a sly anticipation of coming events, copied this type of boat.
As we advance underseas, unless passing through a school of fish, we seldom see any fish, for the noise of the propellers frightens them away; but when we lie at rest on the bottom of the ocean, the electric lights allure them, and they come and stare at us with goggling eyes close to the windows in the turret. The life, therefore, in our "cylinder" as we call it, offers a good deal of variety.
Taken altogether one can live comfortably underseas, although there is a certain discomfort from the ever-increasing warmth produced by the working of the electrical machinery, and from the condensation created by the high temperature on the surface of the boat plunged in cold water, which is more noticeable in winter and in colder regions.
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