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[Page 19]
motor boat which came off from shore and went to each ship. After these ships passed we came to the surface and commenced to steam round and at the same time, charge our batteries.
We steamed by very close to a pilot boat, with our ensign flying to show them what we were. The occupants seemed greatly alarmed holding up their hands, and crossing themselves. They were probably Greeks. That night we lay on the bottom so that everybody could have a good sleep after what we had gone through. All went well that night.
We got under way at daylight and came to the surface. It was not long before we sighted a big transport coming towards Gallipoli. We immediately prepared to attack. The foremost torpedo was got ready and fired, but luck seemed to be against us and the torpedo did not "run." The transport was escorted by two destroyers. Everybody was getting very disheartened having so many failures with the torpedoes. After this we came to the surface and spent the day steaming slowly round close to Marmora Island. In the afternoon we sighted three lighters being towed by a tug. We proceeded to within about 1000 yards of them and saw that they were full of soldiers. We could do nothing but watch them. How we were longing to have a three pounder gun mounted. We should have had some good sport.
That evening we "steamed' towards the Gallipoli Peninsula to send a wireless message to a ship in the Gulf of Saros waiting to receive a message from us. After that we "steamed" over to the Asiatic shore and lay about a mile from the shore. It was a moonlight night but was rather cloudy and misty making it very hard to see anything approaching us. All went well till about 11.30 p.m. when a destroyer was seen approaching us at full speed. All hands were immediately called and the wireless mast had to be got down before we could dive. However we got down in good time and remained down for about have an hour. When we thought all was safe we came to the surface and found nothing in sight, so we all settled down again excepting two men on watch. We were not allowed to rest long for a gunboat painted white had sneaked up in the mist and got to within about 200 yards of us. She immediately opened fire on us with three pounder guns. Needless to say we got under the surface in record time and without being hit. This was marvellous considering the short range the gunboat was firing at. This shows what sort of marksmen the Turks are. We came to the surface again but were not troubled again. The next day we spent slowly steaming round awaiting for any ships that might be coming from Constantinople to Gallipoli but nothing was sighted all day.