"How far are you away?" asked the Luckenbach. "Code books thrown overboard. How soon will you arrive?"
"In two hours," answered the Nicholson.
"Too late," replied the Luckenbach. "Look out for boats. They are shelling us."
"Do not surrender!" radioed the Nicholson.
"Never!" answered the Luckenbach.
It was after eleven o'clock when smoke was seen and the ship headed towards the destroyer to lessen the distance. Then that shell exploded in the engine-room, and put the engine out of business. As the Nicholson approached, her guns were loaded and pointed, the torpedo-tubes made ready, and the crew prepared for action. The watch-officer in the foretop reported that he could see the ship, smoke coming out of her hull and shells splashing around her.
Then he sighted the U-boat far away, but almost dead ahead. "Train and fire!" ordered the captain. "Boom!" went the gun. The U-boat risked another shell or two at the steamer. But when the destroyer's third shot landed close by, the "sub" quickly submerged, and hurried away. The U-boat had fired 225 rounds, the Luckenbach 202. When the destroyer reached the scene, the enemy was gone, hidden under water, leaving hardly a trace.
The Nicholson sent her surgeon and senior watch-officer to the damaged steamer. They dressed the wounds of the injured nine. Two armed guardsmen were found lying under a gun, seriously hurt. The third, hit in three places by shell fragments, was walking around the deck, his cap cocked over his ear, proud as a game rooster. Not stopping after he was first hit, he was carrying ammunition to the gun when he was struck again in the shoulder. As he laid his projectile on the deck, another fragment of flying shell hit him. Then he really got mad. Shaking his fist toward the "sub," he shouted, "No damned German's going to hit me three times and get away with it." Grabbing his shell off the deck, he slammed it into the breech, and yelled to the gun-pointer, "Hand it to 'em, Joe!"
The ship's engineer had two ribs smashed, a piece of shrapnel in his neck, and part of his foot shot away. He was lying down, "cussing" the Germans. "Put me on my feet, men," he asked, and two oilers set him up. For ten minutes more he poured out a steady stream of denunciation of the "blankety-blank" U-boats. After he had expressed, in all the languages he could command, his full and free opinion of the whole German nation, he went to work, repaired the engine, got up steam and the Luckenbach began to move.
Some of the men were so seriously wounded that the Nicholson's doctor was left on the steamer to care for them. Soon afterward he found he was the senior naval officer aboard, and all looked to him for orders. He was a doctor, not a navigator. The ship was bound for Havre, going alone through the submarine-infested zone. Running without lights in a locality where vessels were numerous was a risky business, which increased in danger as they neared the coast. The skipper was not sure of his course. He had never made a port in France before, and knew nothing of the tides. The mates were equally uncertain.