"Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"
The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.
"They've bagged us, sir."
A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.
"Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.
The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.
The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.
"Claim-to-have-put-you-out-of-action," spelt the handflags. The Captain smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sunburnt face of the Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander. "But he needn't have torpedoed his own father," he said, as if in continuation of his last remark. "The penalty for marrying young, I suppose."
The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses clinked, and there was a gurgling silence.
"Not bad work," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "bagging your Old Man's ship."