The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-21
THIS SUBMARINE STORY ONE
 OF MANY SUCH INCIDENTS
Fly PATRICK o,FLAHERTY

for this little fishing village rounds out | it's days tasks with the same gossipy deliberacy with which "trusty' who has the rest of his natural life to do 1t in, gives the penitentiary office it's morning sweep-out. In fact, the upshot of the matter was that MT. MacManus' reputation suffered; no one had seen the gentleman of mystery but he, and not until the focal weekly published the following news item was MT. Mac Manus' story accepted as true, and the matter ended:
 MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 'In - last Saturday week, much in- terest was aroused by the appearance of a mysterious stranger at the door of MT. MacManus, in Eel Pie road, at a very late hour of the night. He had apparently sustained a boating acci-
 dent, his clothing being in wet and undesirable condition. He interrogated
 Mir MacManus concerning the location 1 of the barracks, but refused to explain i how he came or what misfortune he
 had sustained
 | So the episode closed.
 /; Ten days later when two fiat-nosed,
 dun wreckers of the Royal navy anch- ored mile off shore, alongside each other, mono of the fishermen who passed the two vessels on the way to
 their days fishing, paid more than pass l i'll heed. They paid more heed in the evenings to the two officers of the Roy
 al navy who suddenly appeared at the ! inn, and who were taken to and from I the two vessels in smart little 1 launch--the same little launch which
 kept fishing craft at a 50o-yard distance l from the two wraclxers.
 l For wreckers have not been uncom-
 mon sights here since the war began. Many a fishing vessel has been sunk l by gunfire in the comparatively shall I low water off the coast, and later sal vaged.
 l Nor was any heed paid to the dis appearance of the two vessels one night and the disappearance the same night of the two officers of his majes- 1 tvs navy from their rooms at the inn. 1 So a second and very minor episode 1 closed.
 l And it never occurred to the vil- lagers to connect the two episodes. 1 It never occurred to them that the "dull report" Mir. and Mrs MacManus heard at S.25 o'clock one Saturday eve- ming. was the muffled sound of one of Germany's biggest submarines, de- 1 stroyed by an internal explosion. It never occurred to them that the mysterious stranger" was the captain i of the German submarine and it's sole J survivor, who swan ashore and gave himself up to the police and was taken away by night to an officers prison camp. It never occurred to them that ! the two wreckers were engaged in 1 salvaging German submarine and
 they had no means of knowing that 37 dead bodies were taken from the l wrecked submarine when it reached a | certain dock yard of the Royal navy and later buried with full honors 1 For the war waters around the Brit | ish Isles are blanketed with secrecy. In l fact, this story-a true story in every | detail-would never have reached print l had not a stray newspaper man, gal loping over the British Isles, run across 1t by the merest accident. 1 Scores of episodes of similar trage- l dy every week are enacted in the 1 waters aroud the British Isles. Some where one of them is happening this
 morning, while you are eating your
 breakfast in peace and comfort. But 1 don't let that disturb you You go on with your breakfast.