LAND AND iV.ATEE, 
May 29, 1915. 
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of the angle of her course and speed. But the 
making of these estimates becoraes very much 
more difficult when the target is viewed through 
a periscope. Unless the water is perfectly smooth 
the view of the target cannot be continuous. In 
any case, visibility will be poor, and it will be 
exceedingly easy to make mistakes. So that even 
with a ship as long as the Lusitania speed adds 
very materially to the difficulty of hitting. 
But the main protective quality of speed is 
not the difficulties added to hitting when within 
a thousand yards range, but the difficulties it puts 
in the way of the submarine getting to within a 
thousand yards. If the reader will look at the 
two diagrams, he will see that in Figure 1 the 
submarine is supposed to see the Lusitania at a 
distance of 7,000 yards, in this sense, that it is 
not until she has come within 7,000 yards that 
Bhe is able to estimate the course she is on. He 
perceives that to get within a thousand yards he 
must take a certain course. It will be seen that, 
proceeding under water at eleven knots, he can 
get within 1,000 yards of the Lusitania, so long 
as she is going at 18 knots. But if, as in the 
second figure, the Lusitania is going 25 knots, he 
will not be able to get nearer than 2,900 yards 
before firing. It comes, then, to this. If sub- 
marines were placed five miles apart across a 
certain channel, no 18-knot ship whose course 
could be estimated by a submarine from a distance 
of 7,000 yards could get through this cordon 
without at least one of them being able to get a 
shot at her at a range of 1,000 yards less; but 
that a 25-knot ship could pass at an equal dis- 
tance between any two of them and neither be 
able to get a shot at less than 3,000 yards. The 
risk, therefore, has been enormously reduced. 
Speed is thus a double protection. It not 
only diminishes the chances of a favourably, 
placed submarine making a hit — still more 
greatly it reduces the submarine's capacity to 
place itself favourably. 
A GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
THE SNIPER. 
By W. L. GEORGE. 
SECOND-LIEUTENANT MARLOWES stared into 
the periscope. From time to time he shifted it a 
very little, so as to alter his field of vision. About 
him all was peace. It was morning and a pale sun, 
silvery rather than golden, made the moist air 
laminous. It had rained in the night, and every blade of 
grass carried on its tip a water jewel. In the trench some of 
the men slept; some wrote letters, while others, lazily pufiBng 
at pipes, read fortnight-old newspapers. And in the area he 
mirrored in the periscope all, too, was peace; across the ragged 
meadows a soft wind blew, curling tiie grass; a field-mouse 
■curried and startled him, for any movement now could shake 
the young man's nerves. Beyond that emptiness, beyond that 
silence, three hundred yards away, the Germans in their 
trenches skirted the wood, invisible and yet certain, silent, 
watchful, ever-present, ever-threatening. Marlowes heard 
a voice, the sergeant's: " Filling up again. Arie, go and dig 
that drain up a bit." He grew aware that a little water 
slooshed about his feet; no doubt the drainpipe was choked. 
He heard Arie's feet cloop in the mud; instinctively he 
dropped the periscope and turned. The big Wiltshireman 
.Mune towards him, careless, hands in pockets, obedient, but 
sulky. He stood well over six feet, and afc once MarlowM 
grew taut; he lost his temper. 
" You idiot ! " he shouted. " Keep down your " 
But before he could finish the phrase he heard a shot. 
Arie took another step forward, then two uncertain littl« 
stumbles. For a moment he swayed ou one leg, whirling his 
arms in the air. Then, with a long wet smack, he fell forward, 
shot just over the right ear. 
A mad fury rose in the breast of the young second- 
lieutenant: " Two to-day! Fools! They do it on purpose," 
he thought. And he reflected: "Two on Tuesday, one on 
Wednesday; Thursday we lost three like that. Damned 
idiots! And this is the second this morning." He heard 
them dragging the body in the traverse; he thought no more 
of what had been Private Arie. All his faculties were con- 
centrated on the sniper, somewhere in one of those trees, who 
had already cost his half-company eight men. As he stared 
into the periscope, striving to penetrate the green thicknsss 
of the leaves, he wondered about the sniper. He imagined him 
as some fat German shopkeeper who had made shooting into 
a hobby, who was very proud of the silver mugs and golden 
medals he had won on Sunday afternoons. Marlowes thought 
of tlie trophies; ho awora. '' It can't go on," he thought. 
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