the good which probably made all the difference between success and failure. But that is quite characteristic of destroyer work; more than in any other class of ship, you are called on to decide for yourself, to jump out on your own.
“The first thing I saw was the dim blur of a small merchantman taking shape in the mist, and as the image sharpened, the splash of falling projectiles became visible. She was throwing out a cloud of smoke and zigzagging in a panicky sort of way in an endeavour to avoid the shells which were exploding nearer and nearer at every shot. As she caught sight of the Flash she altered course and headed straight up for us, and, busy as my mind was at the moment, I could not help thinking how like her action was to that of an Aberdeen pup I used to own when he saw me coming to extricate him from his daily scrap with a neighbour’s fox terrier.
“It was just at the moment that the merchantman turned up to get under our wing that the sharpening gun-flashes began revealing the conning-tower of a submarine. We had gone to Action Stations at once, of course, and I am practically certain that the opening shot of the fo’c’sl’ gun was the first warning Fritz had that his little kultur course was about to be interrupted. Under the circumstances, the fact that he effected his disappearing act in from thirty to forty seconds indicates very smart handling; too smart, indeed, to
give us a fair chance to get in a hit with a shell, although the gunners made a very keen bid for it. Their turn came a few moments later, however.
“Once Fritz had passed from sight there was only one thing to do, the thing we tried to do to-night—depth-charge him. And there really was no difference in what we did on the one occasion and what we did on the other—nothing, I mean to say, except the result. Estimating his course from the point of submergence, I steered directly over where I judged he would be and let go one of those very useful type ‘——’ charges. Well,”—the captain smiled in a deprecatory sort of way—“the depth-charge isn’t exactly what you’d call a ‘weapon of precision,’ and so it follows that when you hit what you are after with one it must be largely a matter of luck. Judgment? Oh, yes, a certain amount of it, but I’d rather have luck than judgment any day. At any rate, this was my lucky day. Within fifteen seconds from the moment I felt the jolt of the detonating charge Fritz’s conning-tower was breaking surface on my starboard beam. Helm had been put hard-a-port as the charge was dropped, so that all the starboard guns were bearing on the conning-tower the instant it bobbed up. This was right on the outer rim of the ‘boil’ of the explosion—just where it would be expected—and, of course, it presented an easy target. To say it was riddled would be putting it mildly. One shot alone from the foremost six-pounder would
have made it out of the question for it to dive again, even had other complications which had already set in left it in shape to face submergence.
“A second or two more, and the whole length of our bag was showing, riding fairly level fore-and-aft, but with a slight list to starboard. We had now turned, and from our position on the submarine’s port quarter could plainly see the crew come bobbing out of the hatch on to the deck. Each of them had his hands lifted in the approved ‘Kamerad’ fashion, and took good care to keep them there as long as they noticed any active movement around the business ends of our guns. As a matter of fact, as there had been no colours flying to strike, those lifted hands were the only tangible tokens of surrender we received. As we had her at our mercy, however, they looked conclusive enough for me, and I sent a boat away as quickly as it could be lowered and manned.
“It was not until this boat returned that I learned of the two British merchant marine officers who had been aboard her through it all. The Huns had crowded them out in their stampede for the hatches, so that they had been the very last to reach the deck. Mr. X——, who was in charge of the whaler, compensated as fully as he could for this by taking them off first. The experiences they had been through had been just about as terrible as men could ever be called upon to face; and yet, when they clambered aboard Flash, they were smiling,
clear of head and eye, and altogether quite unshaken. You’ve certainly got to take off your hat to these merchant marine chaps; they’ve fought half the battle for the Navy.
“The story they had to tell of what they had seen and heard during their enforced cruise in the U-boat was an interesting one, but on the final act—largely because the curtain had been rung down so quickly—there was little they could add to what had passed before my own eye. The shock from the depth-charge—which appears to have detonated just about right to have the maximum effect—was terrific. The whole submarine seemed to have been forced sideways through the water by the jolt, and just as all the lights went out one of them said that he saw the starboard side of the compartment he was in—it was what would correspond to the Ward Room, I believe, a space more or less reserved for the officers—bending inward before the pressure. Instantly the spurt of water was heard flooding in both fore and aft, and that alone was sufficient to make it imperative for her to rise at once. As it was only a minute or two since she submerged, everyone was at station for bringing her to the surface again, so that not a second was lost in spite of the inevitable confusion following the sudden dive and the explosion of the depth-charge.