m*- w - Clpdigital.org

698 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
the bottled-up High
Seas Fleet.
The science of Germany
is helping them
in their "frightfulness".
H. G. Wells, the brilliant English
writer, puts in the mouth of one
of his characters these words:
"They are insane baboons with the
science of the world in their hands."
Of course, he meant that the me
chaiiical genius of Germany is
being linked to "frightfulness" by
Prussianism.
Let us see how that mechanical
genius has aided "schrecklichkeit."
One day in November of last year,
U-117 left Kiel. The German'Ac
miralty was more than interested
in this particular
trip of U-117. It wouk
await the homecoming
eagerly. The submarine
passed out into the North
Sea, charging its
electric batteries,
which it uses while
running submerged,
by the revolutions of
the oil engine that
propel it on the surface.
Not a merchant
ship was to be seen.
From the deck of a
submarine the range
of observation is not
as far as. for example,
from the
crow's nest of a merchantman.
German
science had decided
to lengthen this
range of observation
: over the horizon
unseen merchant
ships might be slipping
past. So a balloonette,
just big
enough to carry the weight
of one man, was inflated on
the deck of U-117. It was
held flown by a stout
steel cable wound round
a windlass. A sailor
got into the little basket.
The windlass,
connected up with the machinery
down below, began to turn, and the
balloonette climbed into the air. It
rose to a height of one thousand
feet. From that altitude, ships
unseen to the officers on deck were
visible to the sailor aloft. A telephone
wire led down, along the
cable, from the balloon basket to
the bridge of the submarine.
"Steamer smoke south southeast,"
the sailor telephoned.
The windlass began to turn,
the balloonette was pulled
down tu the deck, deflated.
and put in its proper
place inside the submarine.
The hatchways
of steel were
clamped tight and
U-117 changed its
course to south
southeast and came
upon a merchantman,
as the sailor in
the balloonette reported,
that otherwise
would have
slipped by. And
again the horror—
the torpedoed ship,
a few life boats,
swamped with men,
tossing on the heavy
seas, bodies floating
around, and U-117
gliding away in
search of more prey.
That is one of the
devices by which
German science has
made the submarines
mi ire effective. And
they have another
clever scheme. The
Germans have submarines which
while running submerged, cai