“The captain had just made a shaded lamp signal to the Flip, calling attention to the ships and their supposed character, when the white, black-curling bow-wave of the two leaders caught his eye and made him suspect they were warships. The alarm bell clanging for ‘Action Stations’ was the first intimation I had that anything was afoot. In the Adriatic, as everywhere else, everyone in a destroyer turns in ‘all standing’; so it was only a few seconds until I was out of my bunk and up to my station on the bridge. It was not many minutes later before I found myself in command of the ship.
“It was now clear that the force sighted consisted of two enemy light cruisers and four destroyers, the latter disposed two on each quarter of the rear cruiser. They were closing on us at high speed at a constant bearing of a point or two abaft the beam. It was up to the Flip, as senior ship, to decide whether to fight or to run away on the off-chance of living to fight another day, something which was hardly likely to happen in the event we closed in a real death grapple. The disparity between our strength and that of the enemy would have entirely justified us in doing our utmost to avoid a decisive fight, had it been that the cards on the table were the only ones in the game. But this was hardly the case. Out of sight, but still not so many miles distant, was another subdivision
of our destroyers, while overwhelming forces would ultimately be hurrying up to our aid in case the enemy could be delayed long enough. To close in immediate action was plainly the thing, and the Flip was turning in to challenge even as she made us a signal indicating that this was her decision. A moment more, and we were turning into line astern of her.
“Out of the moon-track now, the outlines of the enemy ships were indistinct and shadowy, and it was from the dull blur of opacity above the slightly phosphorescent glow of the ‘bone’ in the teeth of the leading cruiser that the opening shot was fired. It lighted her up brilliantly for the fraction of a second, and the ghostly geyser from the bursting shell showed up distinctly a few hundred yards ahead of the Flip. Both the sharpened image of the cruiser in the light of the gun-fire and the time of flight of the shell helped us with the range, and the fall of shot from the Flip’s opener looked like a very near thing. We followed it with one from our fo’c’sl’ gun, which was a bit short, and the next, if not a hit, was only slightly over. At this juncture, all six of the enemy ships came into action with every gun they could bring to bear, and the Flip and the Flop did the same. For the next few minutes things happened so fast that I can’t be sure of getting them in anywhere near their actual sequence.
“We began hitting repeatedly, and with good
effect, after the first few shots, and the Flip also appeared to be throwing some telling ones home. The enemy were hitting the both of us about the same time, however, and, of course, with many times the weight of metal we were getting to him. At this juncture the skipper of the Flip, evidently figuring that the Austrians, now that they were fully engaged and had a good chance of polishing us off, would not break off the fight, turned southward with the idea of drawing them toward the other forces which we knew would be rushing up in response to the signal we had sent out the instant the character of the strange ships was evident.
“The Flip, like a big squid, began smoke-screening heavily as she turned, the Flop following suit. The sooty oil fumes poured out in clouds thick enough to walk on, but unluckily, neither our course nor the state of the atmosphere was quite favourable for making it go where it would have served us best. Possibly it was because the Flip was making a better screen than the Flop, or possibly it was because they were concentrating on the ‘windy corner’ just as we were rounding it. At any rate, trying to observe through our rather patchy smoke the effect of what appeared to be a couple of extremely well-placed shots of ours on the leading cruiser, I suddenly became aware that all four of the destroyers and the second cruiser were directing all of their fire upon the poor little Flop. I don’t recall exactly whether I twigged this
before we began to feel the effects of it or not, but I am rather under the impression that I seemed to sense it from the brighter brightness—a gun firing directly at you makes a more brilliant flash than the same gun laid on a target ahead or astern of you—of the flame-spurts even before I was aware of the sudden increase of the fall of shot.
“They had us ranged to a yard by this time, of course, and the captain turned away a couple of points in an endeavour to throw them off. I recall distinctly that it was just as the grind of the ported helm began to throb up to the bridge that a full salvo—probably from one of the cruisers—came crashing into us. My first impression was that we were blown up completely, for of the two shells which had struck for’ard, one had brought down the mast and the other had scored a clean hit on the forebridge. There was also a hit or two aft, but the immediate effects of these were not evident in the chaos caused by the others. This was absolutely beyond description.
“The actual shock to a ship of being struck by a shell of even large calibre is nothing to compare with that from almost any one of these seas that are crashing over us now. But it is the noise of the explosion, the rending of metal, and the bang of flying fragments and falling gear that makes a heavy shelling so staggering, to mind if not to body. Of course everyone on the forebridge was knocked flat by the explosion of the shell which hit it, and