"The shooting was very accurate, far too accurate to be pleasant."
Page 310.
Shell from modern heavy guns can drive their way through the armoured sides of a battleship, but they will pulverise a destroyer into mere powder. There are no bombproofs, no funk-holes, no armour, not even a conning-tower—not that it would be used if there were. The officers and the men at the guns and torpedo-tubes are all on deck and in the open, while those below in the engine and boiler rooms have nothing between them and the deep sea but a steel skin barely thicker than a substantial biscuit-tin. Moreover, the greater portion of the hull is crammed with machinery, ammunition, and explosives; and, however much of a safeguard a destroyer's speed and small size may be, she must always seem very vulnerable to those who serve in her. I say 'seem' advisedly, for it is surprising how much hammering the tough little craft can withstand without being knocked out; while, as any gunner who is used to the game will tell you, she is not a very easy target to hit. But, for all that, one lucky shell may do the trick, in which case every man-jack of her crew may be killed or drowned. There is never much chance of escape if once the ship goes, and any man who says he relishes being under heavy fire in a T.B.D. is either a born hero or an Ananias. It is easy to make light of things after they have happened, but no words can adequately portray the inner feelings of the ordinary mortal while the ordeal is still in progress. They are indescribable.
But by some miraculous intervention of Providence the Mariner and her sister-ships escaped practically scot-free. According to people who witnessed the withdrawal from a distance, people who well knew the range and accuracy of the coast guns, the odds were a thousand to one that they would never escape, for at times they were hardly visible in the spray fountains leaping up all around them. They were literally buried in the splashes, but still they came on—and escaped.
It was not until afterwards that the men thoroughly realised how lucky they were. At the time, whatever they may have felt in their hearts or minds, there were no suggestions of fear in their faces, no trace of nervousness in their demeanour. They behaved just the same as usual—jeered uproariously when a shell fell a few feet short and deluged them with spray, and made facetious remarks when projectiles from 'Fractious Fanny,' as some one adroitly christened a particularly obnoxious 11·2, lumbered gracefully over their heads and exploded merrily in the sea a hundred feet or so beyond them. Perhaps they were a little more talkative than usual; perhaps their laughter was sometimes a little forced; but, for all that, they behaved as British bluejackets always do.
'I wouldn't 'a missed that there show fur a lot,' said Pincher Martin after supper the same evening.
'I reckons we kin think ourselves lucky ter git outa it,' Billings murmured with his mouth full. 'It's orl right lookin' back on it w'en once it's orl over; but it takes a bloomin' 'ero not ter 'ave a cold feelin' in 'is stummick wi' them there guns a-pluggin' at 'im.'
'Did you 'ave a cold feelin' in yer inside, Josh?' M'Sweeny queried anxiously.
'Course I 'ad. I wus cold orl over. I ain't no bloomin' 'ero. But, orl the same, Tubby boy, I reckons it's done us orl good ter 'ave a bit of a shake up like this 'ere. Makes us a sort of understan' 'ow every bloke aboard 'as 'is own job ter do; don't it?'