1 p.m.
The slightest effort was an agony . I bent down to take off my sea-boots , and cold sweat dropped off my forehead , and my pulse rose with a kind of jerk to a rapid beating , like a hammer . I left one sea-boot on . At 1 p.m. a deputation of the crew came aft , and in whispered voices implored me to surface the boat and make a last effort on the surface . A muffled report , as our implacable enemy dropped a depth-charge somewhere astern of us , added point to the conversation , and showed me that our appearance on the surface could have but one end . At 3 p.m. the second coxswain , who was working the hydroplanes , fell off his stool in a dead faint . At 3.30 p.m. the supreme crisis was reached : two more men fainted , and I realized that if I did not surface at once I might find the crew incapable of starting the Diesels .