Sea-Hounds Part 3

"When I saw it was the first lieutenant that seemed to be directin'

things, I took it the captain was done for, an' that was what everyone thought till, all o' a sudden, he come wrigglin' out o' the wreck o' the bridge--all messed up an' covered wi' blood, but not much hurt otherways--an' began carryin' on just as if it was 'Gen'ral Quarters.'

Some cove wi' the stump o' his hand tied up wi' First Aid dressin' was sent up to relieve me on the lookout, an' I was put to fightin' fires an' clearin' up the wreck 'bove decks. As there ain't much to burn on a 'stroyer if the cordite ain't started, we were not long gettin' the fires in hand, even wi' havin'--cause the hoses an' the fire-mains was knocked out--to dip up water in buckets throwed over the side. Wi' the wreckage, the most we could do was to dig out the dead an' wounded an'

rig up for connin' s.h.i.+p from aft.

"It was a nasty job when we started in on the wreck o' the forebridge, for the witch-lights o' the short-circuit were still dancin' a cancan in the smashed an' twisted steel plates an' girders, an' it kept a cove lookin' lively to keep from switchin' some of the blue-green lightnin'

into his own frame by way o' his ax or saw. No one that had been on any part o' the bridge was wi'out some kind o' hurt, but the three dead was a deal less than was to be expected. There was also three very bad knocked up, an' on one o' them the surgeon--a young probasuner R.N.V.R.--performed an operashun in the dark. It was a cove he was 'fraid to move wi'out tinkerin' up a bit, an' he pulled him thro' all right in the end. One o' the crew of the foremost gun never turned up, an' we figured he must have been lost overboard when she rammed.

"Pois'nous as it was workin' on deck, that wasn't a circ.u.mstance to what it must have been carryin' on below. I didn't see nothin' o' that end o'

the show, thank Gawd, but every man as came out o' it alive said it was just one livin' bloomin' h.e.l.l, no less. There was a good number o' coves who did things off han' that saved the s.h.i.+p from blowin' up, or burnin'

up, or sinkin', an' three o' the best o' 'em was a engine-room artif'cer, a stoker P.O., and a stoker that was in the fore stokehold when the bridge was pushed back an' carried away that funnel. They ducked into their resp'rators, stuck to their posts a' kept the fans goin' till the fumes was all cleared away. Nothin' else would have saved the foremost boiler--an' wi' it the s.h.i.+p herself--blowin' up right then an' there. Same way, gettin' on the jump in backin' up Number 3 bulkhead--the one that was holding back the whole North Sea--was all that kept it from bulgin' in an' floodin' right back into the stokeholds. It was the chief art'ficer engineer that took on that job, an' it was him, too, that stopped up the gaps left by the knocking down o' the first and second funnels.

"Even after it at last seemed like we was goin' to keep her from sinkin'

or blowin' up, things still looked so bad to the captain that he ditched the box o' secret books for fear o' their fallin' into the hands o' the Hun. As we'd have been more hindrance than help to the Fleet, he did not try to rejoin the flotilla, but turned west an' headed for the coast o'

England on the chance of makin' the nearest base while she still hung together. All night she went slap-bangin' along, wi' the engines shakin'

out a few more rev'lushuns just as fast as it seemed the bulkhead was sh.o.r.ed strong enough to stand the push o' the sea.

"Mornin' found her still goin', but what a sight she was! My first good look at what was left o' her give me the same kind o' a shock I got the first time I had a peep at my mug in a gla.s.s after havin' small-pox in Singapore. She wasn't a s.h.i.+p at all, any more'n my face was a face. She was just a mess, that's all, an' clinkin' an' clankin' an' wheezin' and sneezin' an' yawin' all over the sea. An' the sea was empty all the way roun', wi' no s.h.i.+p in sight to pa.s.s us a tow-line or pick us up if she chucked in her hand an' went down.

"We had our hands so full keepin' her afloat an' under weigh, that it wasn't till four in the afternoon--more'n sixteen hours after we rammed the Hun cru'ser--that we found time to bury our dead. It was like gettin' a turribl' load off your chest when we dropped 'em over in their hammocks wi' a fire-bar st.i.tched in alongside 'em to take 'em down.

Nothin' is so depressin' to a sailor as bein' s.h.i.+pmates wi' a mate that ain't a mate no longer. Even the ol' _Firebran'_ 'peared to ride easier an' more b'oyant after the buryin' was over, as if she knowed the worst o' her sorrer was left behind.

"Luck took a turn against us again just after dark, for the wind s.h.i.+fted six or seven points an' started blowin' strong from dead ahead. We had to alter course some to ease off the bang o' the seas a bit, an' fin'ly the speed had to be slowed even slower'n before to keep the bulkhead from being driv' in. But she weathered it, by Gawd she did, an' next mornin' the goin' was easier. We made the Tyne at noon. It was just a heap o' ol' sc.r.a.p-iron so far as the eye could see, that they let into the Middle Dock the next day, but it was sc.r.a.p-iron that had come all the way from Jutland under its own steam, an' wi' no help from no one save what was left o' the lads as once manned a 'stroyer called the _Firebran'_.

"It hadn't taken long to reduce her from a 'stroyer to sc.r.a.p-iron, an'

it didn't seem like it took much longer--time goes fast on home leave--to turn that sc.r.a.p-iron back into a 'stroyer again. The ol'

_Firebran's_ got many a good kick in her yet, so they say, an' I'd ask for nothin' better'n to be finis.h.i.+n' the war in her."

I thanked Melton for his yarn, bade him good night, and was about to start picking my way to my cabin to turn in, when I sensed rather than saw that there was something further he wanted to say, perhaps some final tribute to his officers and mates of the _Firebrand_, I thought.

There was a shuffling of sea-booted feet on the steel deck, a nervous pulling off and on of woollen mittens, and it was out.

"I just wanted to say, sir," he said, "that I likes the Yankee Jackies very much; 'specially their candy an' chewin' gum. I was just wonderin'

if that last stick you give me was all----"

I emptied both pockets before I renewed my thanks to Melton and bade him a final good night. There are strange ingredients entering into the composition of the cement that is binding Britain and America together, and if there is any objection to chewing gum it certainly cannot be on the ground that it lacks adhesiveness.

CHAPTER III

"BACK FROM THE JAWS"

I had gone to the _Nairobi_, not because the rather routine stunt her flotilla was on promised any excitement, but rather because of the notable part she had played in the Jutland action and the fact that I had been a.s.sured that there was still in her an officer who was said to have figured prominently in the splendid account she had given of herself on that occasion. As luck would have it, however, this officer had been appointed to another destroyer only a day or two previously, so that no veteran of the great action remained in the ward room. A canva.s.s of the s.h.i.+p's company revealed that one of the stoker petty officers was a Jutland survivor, but before I could run him to cover some kind of a light cruiser affair had occurred down Heligoland Bight way which called for destroyer work in that direction, and the next two days, with the flotilla creasing up the brine at high speed and everyone at Action Stations most of the time, were not favourable for the "intimate reminiscence" I was bent on drawing out.

It was not until the flotilla, salt-frosted and low in fuel, was lounging along in the leisurely dalliance of half-speed on the way back to base that I cornered Stoker Petty Officer Prince in the angle between the foremost torpedo tubes and the starboard rail, and engaged him in serious discussion of the shamefulness of supplying worn-out films to the Depot s.h.i.+p kinema. The second dog watch was only half gone, but in the hour that elapsed before it was over there was no mention of Jutland, or anything else connected with the war for that matter, though the talk ran the full gamut from cabbages to kings. I mean this quite literally, for he began by telling me of what his mother had raised in her allotment at Ipswich, and was describing how, when he was on a cruise in the _Clio_ ten years before the war, he had once shaken hands with the King of Fiji, as eight bells went to call him on watch. It was a happy inspiration which prompted me to volunteer to go down and stand a part of his watch with him in the stokehold, for once on his own "dung-hill," his restraint fell away from him and he spoke easily and naturally of the things which had befallen him there and on the deck above.

There is little in the small, neat compartment from which the oil fires of a modern destroyer are fed and controlled to suggest the picture which the name "stokehold" conjures up in the popular mind. There is no coal, no grime, no sweating shovellers, no clanging doors. Under ordinary conditions two leisurely moving men do all there is need of doing, and with time to spare, and there are occasions at sea, in the winter months, when the stokehold is a more comfortable refuge than the chill fireless ward room. It was my remarking upon the grateful warmth of the stokehold after the cold wet wind that was sweeping the deck, which finally turned the current of Prince's reminiscence in the direction I had been vainly endeavouring to deflect it for the last hour.

"It's all comfy enough, sir, when she's loafing along at fifteen or twenty knots," he said, slipping aside a "flap" and peering in at his fires with the critical eye of a housewife surveying her oven of bread, "but just tumble in some time when, while she already plugging away at full speed, the engine-room rings up more steam. That's the time she's just one little bit of h.e.l.l down here, sir, with the white sizzle of the fires turning the furnaces to a red that shows even with the lights on, and the plates underfoot getting so hot that you have to keep dancing to prevent the soles of your boots from catching fire. Why, long toward morning of the night after Jutland----"

It didn't take much manoeuvring from that vantage to back him up to the beginning for a fresh start of the story of what is unquestionably one of the most remarkable, as it was one of the most successful, phases of the Jutland destroyer action. The fact that, during the daylight action between the battle cruisers, he had ample opportunity for observation (through his being on deck standing by in the event of emergency and without active duties to perform) makes him undoubtedly one of the most valuable witnesses of the opening phase of this the greatest of all naval battles. The story which I am setting down connectedly, he told me in the comfortable intervals of his leisurely fire-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and, once he was warmed up to it, with little prompting or questioning from myself. Much of it was punctuated with frequent stabs and slashes with one of the short-handled pokers which perform for the stoker of an oil-burner a service similar to that rendered his brother of the coal-burner by his mighty "slice" of iron.

"Big as the difference is between being on deck and in the stokehold at ordinary times," said Prince, turning round with glare-blinded eyes closed to narrow slits after cracking off the acc.u.mulating carbon from an oil-sprayer with his poker, "it is ten times more so when a fight is on, and I'll always be jolly thankful that it was my luck not to be caged up down here during the daylight part of the Jutland show. I had my turn of it at night, and it was bad enough then, even though I knew it was blacker'n the pit above; but, in daylight, with everything in full view outside, I'm not sure I wouldn't have gone off my chuck if I'd had to go 'squirrel-caging' on here with one eye on the fires and the other on the Kilroy. But I didn't. It was my luck to be off watch when the ball opened, so that my 'action station' was just loafing round the deck and keeping a stock of leak-stopping gear--mushroom-spreaders and wooden plugs--ready to use as soon as we got holed. Not having anything to do with navigating the s.h.i.+p, or signalling, or serving the guns or torpedo tubes--though I did get a bit of a chance with a mouldie as it turned out--I not only had time to see, but also to let the sights 'sink in' like. For that reason, when it was all over, I was probably able to give a more connected yarn of what happened than anyone else in the s.h.i.+p, not excepting the captain. They'll take a lot of forgetting, some of the things I saw that day."

Prince went over and settled down at ease on the steel steps of the ladder. "The worst grudge I had against Jutland--save for the way it whiffed out the lives of some of my friends in some of the other destroyers--" he continued with a grin, "was for making me miss my tea that afternoon. We left base the night before, and about daybreak joined up with the 'battlers,' which was our way of speaking of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, to which the flotilla was attached. It was a fairly decent day, and we were able to make good weather of it with the light wind and easy swell. I had stood the forenoon watch, had a bit of a doss in my hammock in the early part of the afternoon one, and had just gone down to tea before going on for the 'First Dog.' There had been some buzz in the morning about the Huns being out; but that was so old a story that no one paid much attention to it. I was just getting my nose over the edge of a mug of tea when I heard the bos'un growling 'Hands exercise action stations,' and tumbled out on deck to go through the motions of getting ready for a fight that would never come off, or leastways that was how we felt about it. The 'battlers' were speeding up a bit, but there was not even a smudge of smoke on the horizon to hint of Huns. After rigging the fire-hoses and getting out my 'plugs,' I stood by for 'what next,' but nothing happened. At the end of half an hour the order 'Hands fall out' was pa.s.sed, and, leaving everything rigged, down we went to tea again. The mugs we had left were stone cold by this time, and we were just raising a howl for a fresh lot when, 'Bing!' off goes the alarm bells, and up we rushes again, this time to find signs of what we had been looking and hoping for. A good many hours went by before we went below again, and all through the fight--when things would ease off a bit now and then--I would hear the 'matlos'

grousing about missing their afternoon tea.

"The old _Nairobi_ was nosing along under the port bow of the _Lion_ as I came up, and so close that we saw her guns--trained out abeam with a high elevation, right above us. We seemed to be speeding up to take station farther ahead. There was nothing at all in sight (from the deck, at least; though probably there was a better look-see from the bridge) in the direction the _Lion's_ guns were trained, and it was almost as if a bomb had been dropped from the sky when a sh.e.l.l came plumping down about half-way between our starboard quarter and her port bow. The fact is, having heard no sound of gunfire, I was so surprised that I foolishly asked someone if the _Lion_ hadn't blown out one of her tompions testing a circuit. The spout of foam should have told me better, but it goes to show what crazy things run through a man's mind when he can only see effect without the cause. A few moments later I saw unmistakable gun-flashes blinking along the skyline to south'ard and knew that at last we were under the fire of the Huns. The next two or three shots fell singly, and were plainly merely attempts to get the range. Following the first 'short,' there were one or two 'over,' and then a fair hit. This one, falling almost straight, struck the fo'c'sl'

of the _Lion_, penetrated the deck and came out on the starboard side. I don't think it exploded, and we were just far enough ahead to see past her bows to where it struck the water with a kind of spattery splash, not at all like the clean spout thrown by a sh.e.l.l which goes straight into the sea.

"Then there was a big spurt of flame from the _Lion_, and the screech of sh.e.l.ls reached my ears, even before the heavy crash of her four-gun salvo. Watch as I would, I could not make out the distant fall of shot, but the fluttering flashes of the Hun guns to the south'ard told where the target was. Firing opened up all along the line of our battle cruisers after that, and the racket from that and the fast falling enemy sh.e.l.ls increased till it was a steady unbroken roar. The Hun sh.e.l.ls were falling so straight that many of the 'overs' missed by only a few yards.

The hits, of which there were quite a number on the leading s.h.i.+ps, looked rather awful at the moment of exploding. There would be a wild gush of flame that seemed to be eating up everything it touched, and then, all of a sudden, it was gone, and only a few little fires would be left flickering on the deck. The sh.e.l.ls which struck against the sides seemed to nip on into the sea almost before they began to explode.

Neither these, nor even those which struck the decks and turrets, seemed to be doing much damage at this stage, and our own firing never slackened in the least. I think none of the destroyers were hit up to now, though there were a number of very near things from some of the 'overs.' Our turn was coming.

"This sort of a give-and-take fight had been going on for some time, when there was a sudden increase of the enemy's fire. From the way the fresh fall of shot came ranging up, it was very plain that new s.h.i.+ps were coming into action, while the fact that the splashes were higher and heavier than those from the first salvoes seemed to make it likely that some of the Hun battles.h.i.+ps had now arrived at the party. As it turned out, this was just what had happened, and, although we could not see them from the low decks of the destroyers, the first B.C.S. was soon under the fire of the whole Hun High Seas Fleet. It was to draw these on into action with our approaching Battle Fleet that Beatty now turned away to the north'ard.

"Right here was where the big moment of this part of the fight came. The Huns must have scented the chance of catching our battle cruisers on the 'windy corner' as they turned, for suddenly their fire slackened on the s.h.i.+ps down the line and concentrated on the point where that line began to bend. It must have been something like the barrage they make at the Front, for at times the water thrown up by the bursting sh.e.l.l made a solid wall which completely cut off my view of the s.h.i.+ps beyond it. The way it seemed to boil up and quiet down looked like there was some sort of general control over the bunched fire, though that sort of thing would be pretty hard to handle.

"The _Lion_ caught only a corner of the 'boil,' and left it on her starboard quarter, but the sh.e.l.l or two that struck her started a fierce fire burning 'mids.h.i.+ps, and I did not see the guns of that turret again in action. The 'P.R.'--the _Princess Royal_--turned in a quiet interval of the barrage, and seemed not to be hit, but the _Queen Mary_ steamed right into it, and just seemed to dissolve in a big puff of smoke and steam. I have no special memory of the noise or shock of the explosion, but the pillar of smoke shot up as sudden and solid as a 'Jack-in-the-box.' It was black underneath, but always with a crown of flame at the top, as though the gases were spouting up inside and taking fire as they met the air. Some of my mates said they saw big pieces of flying wreckage, such as plates from turrets and decks, but I only remember smoke and flame. I never saw a bit of the 'Q.M.' again. When the smoke cloud lifted she was gone completely, with nothing but a gap in the line to mark the place where she had been. The thing looked so impossible that the 'T.I.' (that was what we called the torpedo gunner's mate, because he was also torpedo instructor), who was standing beside me, kept saying over an over again, 'She's not gone up! She's not gone up!'

"Perhaps it was no more than a coincidence, but it has always struck me as being just a bit uncanny the way that barrage on the 'windy corner'

seemed to 'work by threes.' The 'Q.M.' was third in line, and up she went after the _Lion_ and 'P.R.' had pa.s.sed unhurt. Then the _Tiger_ and _New Zealand_ weathered the turn safely, but the poor old _Indefat_.--Number three again--got hers. She went up under a rain of sh.e.l.ls plumping down on her deck, just as the 'Q.M.' did, and I remember specially watching the top of a turret go spinning up into the air, till it almost disappeared, and then came slowly down again, till it was lost in the rising smoke of the explosion.

"The fire of the Huns began to be divided more equally among the four surviving battle cruisers now, and the _Nairobi_ was led a lively dance dodging about among the 'overs.' It was the big fire raging amids.h.i.+ps that turned my eyes to the _Lion_ again. One of the guns of the 'mids.h.i.+ps turret had a sickly droop to it, but the other three turrets were blazing away as merry as ever. We were close enough to see men on the bridge with the naked eye, and it suddenly occurred to me that one of the quietly moving figures there must be Admiral Beatty, who I knew hated to be cooped up in a conning tower in action. I could not be sure which he was, but everyone in sight looked no more concerned than if they had been steaming out for target practice. I didn't have time to think of it then, but every time since that I've felt surer and surer that no man since the world began ever showed more real guts than Beatty in that part of the Jutland show."

Prince stood up, and put a forty-five degree kink in his poker by slamming it over the steel rail of the ladder to emphasise his words, and then stopped talking for a minute or two while he worried it straight with a hammer.

"It was just about this time," he resumed, squinting approvingly down the straightened bar, "that the _Nectar_ hoisted the signal, 'Second Division prepare for torpedo attack,' and a few minutes later I saw the whole flotilla start streaming out, some ahead of the battle cruiser line, and some through it, toward the Huns. I also have some memory of seeing the ----th flotilla, smoking like young factory chimneys, coming out astern of the line, but I had no chance to see what became of them.

"The range between us and the Huns had been decreasing for some time, and the battle cruisers at the head of the line loomed up pretty big and awful as we started to close them. I've never made quite sure yet whether we were sent out to repel an attack of the Hun destroyers, or whether they were sent out to repel our attack. Anyhow, there they were, filtering out through their battle cruisers just as we had filtered through ours. We met and turned them back something more than half-way between the lines, but before we got to that point we had to pa.s.s, first through the fire of the Hun heavies, and then through a still hotter zone where their secondaries were slapping down a barrage that took some fancy side-stepping to avoid coming to grief in. The _Onward_ was the first of our division to fall by the wayside. She stopped a 'leven-inch sh.e.l.l with her engine-room, and got stopped in turn herself. Luckily it didn't explode, or she would have been blown out of the water then and there. I saw her fall out of line and disappear in a cloud of steam, and that was the last peep we had of her for many weeks. When she finally rejoined the flotilla, we learned that she and another cripple--the _Fencer_, I think it was--had limped back home together. I don't remember just where the _Wanderer_ got hers, but I think it must have been from the Hun's secondaries. Anyhow, the first thing I remember was that she was gone, and that the _Nectar_ was leading the _Nairobi_--all that was left of the division--on a course to cross the bows of the enemy battle cruisers. The Hun destroyers, which had no chance with us in a gun fight, had now turned tail and were heading back for the shelter of their battle line. Several of them appeared on fire, but I didn't see any sinking.

"I am not quite sure what orders were made to the flotilla at this time, but I rather think that after the Hun attack had been stopped the signal was hoisted to return to the battle cruisers. I think that is what the other divisions did do, but for our division--or what remained of it--things were looking too promising just then to turn our backs on. I was standing by the foremost tubes at the time, and all of a sudden the Hun line began to turn away, and I saw that the leading s.h.i.+p was being heavily hit and that she was afire in two or three places. As she turned she presented us a fine broadside target at about three thousand yards, and the order came from the bridge to 'Stand by foremost tubes and fire when sights come on.'

"The turning of the Hun battle cruiser line exposed us to the fire of a number of his light cruisers which had been seeking shelter behind it, and some smas.h.i.+ng salvoes from these began to plump down all around us just as we got ready to launch the torpedoes. Though there was not one direct hit, we were 'straddled' a dozen times, and the foam spouts tossed up by the sh.e.l.ls exploding on striking the water made a wall of smoke and spray that almost shut off a view of our target. Sh.e.l.l fragments were slamming up against the funnels and tinkling on the decks, and I believe two or three men were hit by them, though not much hurt. It was this sudden savage sh.e.l.ling that spoiled the only chance we had at the Hun big 'uns. Just as the sights were coming on to the leading s.h.i.+p a salvo came down kerplump right abreast of the foremost tubes, throwing a solid spout of green water all over them. I saw both mouldies start to slide out, but only one struck the water and began to run. A moment later I saw that the other, for some reason we never found out, but probably because it had been knocked sideways by the rush of water or perhaps a fragment of sh.e.l.l, was hanging by its tail to the lip of the tube, with its war-head full of gun-cotton trailing in the sea.

It cleared itself when the next sea slapped it against the side, and started diving and jumping about like a wounded porpoise, most likely because its propellers had been knocked out. Luckily, our speed carried us on before it had a chance to 'boomerang' back and blow up the old _Nairobi_. We could not watch the first torpedo run on account of the spouts from the falling sh.e.l.ls, but though it started right to cross the enemy's line, there was nothing to make us believe it scored a hit.

"Before there was time to grieve over losing our chance at the battle cruisers the 'T.I.' called me to give him a hand with the 'mids.h.i.+ps'

tubes, as one of his men had been knocked out. 'There's a light cruiser just going to bear for a shot,' he yelled from his seat between the tubes as I ran round to the breech; 'jump up and tell me what speed she's making. I can't see her fair from here.' The trouble was that the awful speed the _Nairobi_ was going at settled her down so low that, anywhere abaft the bridge, a man couldn't see over the bow wave from the deck. But, standing on top of the tubes, I was high enough to get a good look at the Hun, when he wasn't shut off by the spouts from the fall of shot. He was a small three-funnelled light cruiser, and every gun he had looked to be training on us. Another cruiser astern of him was also firing on the _Nairobi_, while two or three others were concentrating on the _Nectar_. She was getting it even hotter than we were, and all I could see of her--when one of her zigzags brought her to one side or the other so the bridge didn't cut her off from my view--was some masts and funnels sliding along in the middle of a dancing patch of foam fountains. Both _Nectar_ and _Nairobi_ were replying for all they were worth with their foremost guns; the after ones were too low down to fire at such close range with much effect. I saw one of our sh.e.l.ls bursting on the Huns, and why their shooting at us was so bad I have never quite understood. The fact we were settled so deep aft from our speed was plainly making a lot of sh.e.l.ls ricochet over what would otherwise have been hits, but, at the same time, the bows being so much higher out of the water offered all the more target for'ard. It was more 'Joss' than anything else, I suppose. Besides, the _Nectar_ was just on the edge of getting hers anyhow.

"I saw all these things out of the corner of my eye like, for my mind was centred on getting what the 'T.I.' wanted to know about his cruiser.

I knew just what this was to a 't,' for I'd taken many a turn of drill at the tubes. 'Parallel courses, thousand yards range, speed about twenty-five,' I shouted, jumping down again; 'and you'll have to slip her right smart or you'll miss your chance.' Right then the seas flattened down for a few seconds, and the 'T.I.', giving me an order of how to train her, set his sights and pulled the c.o.c.king lever. A moment later he fired, and the mouldie slipped out smooth and easy and started running straight and true for a point the Hun was going to arrive at about a minute later."

Prince had been poking away at a sprayer as he talked, with the fluttering light-mote from the fire in the heart of the furnace playing on one of his squinting eyes in a way that, with the other quenched in shadow, gave his face a look of Cyclopean fierceness. "I jumped up on the tubes again to follow our little tin fish on its swim," he resumed.

"There seemed to be a bit of a flap on the cruiser, for its next salvo fell a long way short of us. One of the sh.e.l.ls--a five-or six-incher--did not explode, but bounced off the water and came 'skip-jacking' along straight for us. It kicked into the water twice before it reached us, the second time right at the base of the wave that was rolling up and hiding our sunken stern, and that seemed to give it just enough of an up-flip to make it clear the _Nairobi's_ s.h.i.+vering hull. It came so slow that I caught the glint of the copper band round its base, and so low that the after superstructure blotted it off from my sight as it pa.s.sed over the stern. One of the after gun's crew told me he could have reached up and patted it as it tumbled along over his head. He said it was going so slow that he hardly felt any wind at all from it. Perhaps that was because he had his own wind up, though, for it was making a great buzz, and must have been carrying a big 'tail' of air in its wake.

"I lost track of our mouldie when I ducked--no, I don't mind admitting that's just what I did, though it missed me by a mile--and before I could get my eye on its wake again it had gone home. I think they must have spotted it coming on the cruiser, for I saw her begin to alter course away just about the time I figured it was due to arrive. If they were altering to avoid the mouldie, they turned the wrong way, for it only brought right abreast the funnels what'd 'a' been a hit somewhere about the bridge. I've got a picture in my mind of what happened that I'm dead certain is as true as a photograph, and the spout of water that went up must have been almost exactly amids.h.i.+ps. If the hit had been anywhere for'rard it would never have broken her back the way it did, and she might have got away. The funny part of it was that it was not the 'mids.h.i.+ps section of her, where the mouldie hit, that seemed to be lifted by the explosion. That part of her seemed just to go to pieces and begin to sink all at once, while the bow and stern halves started to come up and close together like a jack-knife. She must have gone down inside of a minute or two, but things were happening so fast I don't think I was looking when she disappeared."

Prince, engrossed in his story, forgot that the end of his poker had a sheet of flame playing upon it, and the heat which crept back from the rosy-red tip gave his palm a sharp singe as he clutched the handle preparatory to executing one of his sweeping gestures. From then on to the end of his narrative he paused frequently to lick with his tongue the blistered cuticle, the stoker's sovereign remedy for a slight burn.