An Awfully Big Adventure by Bartimeus — Read

There was a day, now happily past, when the submarine scourge was broadcast upon the seas; then the country turned for its salvation to the Navy, upon which, under the good providence of God, it had grown accustomed to rely in most of the crises of its history. Scientific and mechanical appliances, on a scale adequate to meet and checkmate the outrage of unrestricted submarine warfare, could not be produced by pressing a button. With workshops and laboratories yielding their output at highest pressure, the German submarine building yards were gaining in the race. Every day brought its sickening tale of sinking and burning and murder on the high seas, and in Whitehall offices men studied statistics and columns of figures with faces ever growing graver.

The irritable tension of those days is best forgotten now. Prices rose, ships sank, and the Navy said not a word. It was "doing its damnedest" in silence, according to its wont. And not even in forecastle or Wardroom did men so much as whisper what was afoot. To-day* the submarine remains merely as a stern corrective, curbing waste and extravagance, bracing the nation's nerve. The ingenuity of man is boundless, and science has not yet said her last word; human courage and devoted valour alone seem to have reached a point there is no transcending. It was these two factors which stemmed the flood at the moment of supreme crisis; on these the veil is at last lifted, and the tale now told in all simplicity and truth.