“Let go!”
A light trembling shook the boat—the torpedo was on its way. Woe, when it was let loose!
There it was speeding, the murderous projectile, with an insane speed straight at its prey. I could accurately follow its path by the light wake it left in the water.
“Twenty seconds,” counted the mate whose duty it was, with watch in hand, to calculate the exact time elapsed after the torpedo was fired until it exploded.
“Twenty-two seconds!”
Now it must happen—the terrible thing!
I saw the ship’s people on the bridge had discovered the wake which the torpedo was leaving, a slender stripe. How they pointed with their fingers out across the sea in terror; how the captain, covering his face with his hands, resigned himself to what must come. And next there was a terrific shaking so that all aboard the steamer were tossed about and then, like a volcano, arose, majestic but fearful in its beauty, a two-hundred meter high and fifty-meter wide pillar of water toward the sky.
“A full hit behind the second funnel!” I called down into the “Centrale.” Then they cut loose down there for joy. They were carried away by ecstasy which welled out of their hearts, a joyous storm that ran through our entire boat and up to me.
And over there?
Landlubber, steel thy heart!