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shut, and the bags are pumped out under pressure. Then the outer door is closedagain. Simple."
      "Yes." For some reason or other this odd contraption held a curious fascination for me. Days later I was to remember my inexplicable interest in it and wonder whether, after all, I wasn't becoming psychic with advancing years.
      "It's not worth all that attention," Benson said goodhumoredly. "Just an up-to-date version of the old rubbish chute. Come on, a long way to go yet."
      He led the way from the galley to a heavy steel door set in a transverse bulkhead. Eight massive clamps to release and then replace after we had passed through the doorway.
      "The for'ard torpedo storage room." Benson's voice was lowered, for at least half of the sixteen or so bunks that lined the bulkheads or were jammed up close to the torpedoes and racks were occupied and every man occupying them was sound asleep. "Only six torpedoes, as you can see. Normally there's stowage for twelve plus another six constantly kept loaded in the torpedo tubes. But those six are all we have just now. We had a malfunction in two of our torpedoes--the newest and more or less untested radio-controlled type-- during the Nato exercises just ended, and Admiral Garvie ordered them all to be removed for inspection when we got back to the Holy Loch. The _Hunley_--that's our depot ship--carries experts for working on those things. However, they were no sooner taken off yesterday morning than this driftstation operation came our way, and Commander Swanson insisted on having at least six - of them put back on right away." Benson grinned. "If there's one thing a submarine skipper hates it's putting to sea without his torpedoes. He feels he might just as well stay at home." -
      "Those torpedoes are still not operational?"
      "I don't know whether they are or not. Our sleeping warriors here will do their best to find out when they come to."
      "Why aren't they working on them now?"
      "Because before our return to the Clyde, they were working on them for nearly sixty hours non-stop trying to find out the cause of the malfunction--and if it existed in the other torpedoes. I told the skipper that if he wanted to blow up the _Dolphin_, as good a way as any was to let those torpedomen keep on working--they were starting to stagger around like zombies, and a zombie is the last person you want to have working on the highly complicated innards of a torpedo. So he pulled them off."
      He walked the length of the gleaming torpedoes and halted before another steel door in a cross bulkhead. He opened this, and beyond, four feet away, was another such heavy door set in another such bulkhead. The sills were about eighteen inches above deck level.
      "You don't take many chances in building those boats, do you?" I asked. "It's like breaking into the Bank of England."
      "Being a nuclear sub doesn't mean that we're not as vulnerable to underwater hazards as the older ships," Benson said. "We are. Ships have been lost before because the collision bulkhead gave way. The hull of the _Dolphin_ can withstand terrific pressures, but a relatively minor tap from a sharpedged object can rip us wide open like an electric can opener. The biggest danger is surface collision, which nearly always happens at the bows. So, to make doubly sure in the event of a bows collision, we have those double-collision bulkheads--the first submarine ever to have them. Makes fore and aft movement here a bit -difficult, but you've no idea how much more soundly we all sleep at night."
      He closed the after door behind him and opened the for'ard one. We found ourselves in the for'ard torpedo room, a narrow, cramped compartment barely long enough to permit torpedoes to be loaded or withdrawn from their tubes. Those tubes, with their heavy hinged rear doors, were arranged close together in two vertical banks of three. Overhead were