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[Page 17]
[AE 11 story continues]
expel the water in them against the pressure on the outside (at 100 feet there is a pressure of 45 lbs. to the square inch). We did not rise to the surface but shifted a little nearer shore thinking it best to remain on the bottom till night. We all settled down to try and sleep again. About an hour after this we heard a steamer passing over us. Everybody sat up and listened but the sound of her engines and screw slowly died away in the distance and we settled down again. In about 20 minutes we were awakened to the same noise again, but this time she seemed to circle round us twice. This was alarming as we thought it was probably a launch sweeping for us with an explosive sweep (an explosive sweep is a grapnel with a guncotton charge attached and connected to a battery in the boat, when the grapnel catches in anything and it is thought to be what they are sweeping for, the key is pressed making a circuit from the battery through the lead to the detonator in the guncotton charge, exploding same. This of course will blow up whatever the grapnel has caught in). We did not move and regularly every twenty minutes this launch passed over us sometimes circling round us. Once something struck the outside of the boat making a loud report in the stillness, but nothing happened. tho we did'nt need smelling salts to keep us awake.
At 10 p.m. we got underway to rise to the surface, After going ahead a few revolutions we stopped. A second [later] a loud swishing noise was heard outside the boat and then all was quiet again. At first we thought that a net or wires had been laid round us during the afternoon by the launch we had heard. We got under way again and stopping again as before exactly the same noise was heard again. We came to the conclusion that the noise was made by the wash on the shingle on the bottom. We then rose to the surface and found that nothing was wrong with us. It was quite dark and raining a little and as luck would have it, nothing was in sight. Previous to the Captain opening the conning tower hatch he warned us that we would feel a pressure on our ears, but not to take any notice of it. Immediately the conning tower lid was opened, a thick white mist rose off everything, owing to the bad air, for we had then been submerged 18 hours. As luck would have it nothing was in sight, so we immediately started our engines to charge our batteries. It was delightful to breathe some fresh air again and have a smoke. We were not allowed to smoke on the bridge as the smallest light would give us away to the enemy, so we had to smoke inside the boat at the bottom of the conning tower. It was not too bad as the Diesel engines were drawing fresh air down and aft to where they were situated in the boat, but slightly forward of the conning tower the air was so bad that a match would not burn for a fraction of a second.