I was sitting on the conning tower smoking a cigarette. Then the splash of a wave soaked it. I tried to draw another puff. It tasted loathsome and frizzled. Then I became angry and threw it away. I can see my reader's surprised expression. You had expected to read a serious U-boat story and now such a ridiculous beginning! But I know what I am doing. If I had once thrown myself into the complicated U-boat system and used a bunch of technical terms, this story would be shorter and more quickly read through, but you would not have understood half of it
