When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will
do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some
sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy
English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly
and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of
Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them a placard or other memento
of their visit.
But the most hazardous exploit, according to gossip of American
forecastles, was a visit which Kelly made to Dublin, remaining, it is
said, for two days at one of the principal hotels, and later rejoining
his boat somewhere on the west coast.
His latest feat was to visit an Irish village and plant the German flag
on a rise of land above the town. One may imagine how the Irish
fisherfolk, who have suffered from mines, treated this flag and how
ardently they wished that flag were the body of Kelly.
But Kelly and his less humorously inclined commanders have been having a
diminishing stock of enjoyment at the expense of the Allied navies in
the past year. Senator Swanson, acting chairman of the Naval Committee
in Congress, said on June 6, after a conference with Secretary Daniels
and his assistants, that the naval forces of the Entente Powers had
destroyed 60 per cent of all German submarines constructed, and that
they had cut the shipping losses in half. Lloyd George in his great
speech last July, said that 150 submarines had been sunk since war began
and of this number 75 were sunk in the past 12 months.
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