midnight
I knew of nothing more to say to encourage them , and after a time their depression began to affect me also . Rather than watch them , I watched the water , and more than once I saw something I did not recognize , that nevertheless caused my skin to tingle and my breath to come in jerks . Sikh eyes are keen . It was perhaps two hours before midnight when the long spell of firing along the water-front began and I knew that my eyes and the dark had not deceived me . All the search-lights suddenly swept together to one point and shone on the top-side of a submarine -- or at least on the water thrown up by its top-side . Only two masts and a thing like a tower were visible , and the plunging shells threw water over those obscuring them every second . There was a great explosion , whether before or after the beginning of the gun-fire I do not remember , and a ship anchored out on the water no great distance from us heeled over and began to sink .