At 10.30 the Königin Luise, a German mail steamer that had been fitted out as a mine-layer, was sighted. Chased by the destroyers Lance and Landrail, she was brought to action half an hour later. Then the destroyers Lark and Linnet joined in the chase, and by midday the other ships had come up. The enemy had evidently been badly damaged by our fire, for she was steaming away at a considerably reduced speed. At 12.15 she was in a sinking condition; so her crew abandoned her and jumped overboard. But her engines had not been stopped, and she still went on slowly until at last she turned round on her side and began to settle down. Out of the Königin Luise's complement of one hundred men, forty-three, some of whom were badly wounded, were picked up by our boats. Of these, twenty were taken into the Amphion.
The mine-layer had evidently been at work on the English coast, possibly even before the declaration of war; for at 6.35 on the following morning, August 6, the Amphion struck a mine. There was a violent explosion under the fore bridge. Every man on the fore mess-decks was killed, as were eighteen out of the twenty German prisoners in the ship. Captain Fox and the four officers on the bridge were stunned and badly burnt on hands and face. The Amphion now began to settle down by the head, and her sides forward were turning black as the result of the internal fires. For three or four minutes she continued to move slowly in a circle before the word could be given to stop the engines. The men all collected on the quarter-deck. There was absolutely no sign of panic. The boats were lowered quietly. The discipline was magnificent. Within a quarter of an hour after the explosion the boats from the destroyers were alongside the Amphion, and all the survivors were taken off.
After this had been safely effected, the fire that was raging under the fore mess-decks having reached the magazines, another terrific explosion occurred in the Amphion. This blew away a large portion of the fore part of the ship, and quantities of wreckage began to fall over the surrounding sea, causing several casualties in the destroyers. One shell fell on board the Lark, killing two men of the Amphion's crew and a German prisoner who had just been rescued from the Amphion. Thus this man, who had survived two disasters in the space of a few hours, now fell a victim to the accident of falling debris.
It is worthy of mention that one of the destroyers' boats, while passing through the floating wreckage, came upon an uninjured football that had come from the Amphion. The men were keen on salving it; so it was picked up and brought on board the destroyer, and it was used throughout the following football season whenever the ship was in port. The Hun prisoners, belonging to a race that professes to despise the British for their love of sport, were given food for thought by this incident.