midnight
At 5 p.m. -LRB- approximately -RRB- I came up to periscope depth to have a look round , but quickly dived again as I discovered a trawler , steering on the same course as myself , about a thousand metres astern of me . This was the more disconcerting , as in the short time at my disposal it seemed to me that she was remarkably similar to the craft I had seen in the afternoon , and yet this hardly seemed likely , as I did not think she could have sighted me then . On diving , I altered course ninety degrees , and proceeded for half an hour at full speed , then altered another ninety degrees , in the same direction as the previous alteration , and diving to thirty metres I proceeded at dead slow . By midnight I had been diving so much that I decided to get a charge on the batteries before dawn ; I also wanted to be up at 1 a.m. to make my position report . I surfaced after a good look round through the right periscope , which , as usual , revealed nothing . I had hardly got on the bridge , when a flash of flame stabbed the night on the starboard beam and a shell moaned just overhead . I crash-dived at once , but could not get under before the enemy fired a second shot at us , which fortunately missed us .