“There was one little thing I neglected to tell you about,” he said presently, “and that was the part the Smack played in that show. Although the Whack got all the kudos for the sinking, there is a decided possibility that a bit of a stunt the Smack brought off before ever we came up may have been largely if not entirely responsible for us getting the chance we did.
“Smack, you see, was near at hand when the Amperi was torpedoed, and the instant her Captain
saw the spout of water shoot up in the air, he altered course and drove at full speed for the point he reckoned the submarine would be most likely to be encountered. He reports that he had the good fortune to hit it, while it was still submerged, and that the shock was severe enough to throw men off their balance. Shortly after that a periscope appeared, and it was this that gave the Whack her chance to drop her depth-charges.
“Now, not unnaturally, the Captain of the Smack had good reason to believe that his striking the U-boat, even if he only grazed her, had something to do with her reappearance on the surface at a moment when she must have known a strenuous hunt for her was in progress. Unluckily, for his claim, however, the bows of the Smack, when she came to be docked, did not show sufficient evidences of having been in heavy collision to warrant the conclusion that the U-boat had been enough damaged to have gone to the surface from that cause alone. Under the circumstances, therefore, there wasn’t anything else to do but give the credit for bringing her up to Whack’s depth-charges, while of course, the fact that it was also the Whack that rammed her was obvious enough. The consequence was, as I said, that we got all the kudos.”
He gazed for a few moments at the back-curling bow-wave, before resuming. “Yes, we got all the kudos,” he said slowly; “but, all the same, I’ve never been able to figure why Fritz didn’t douse his
periscope and try to dive deeper when he saw the Whack rounding toward him, if it wasn’t because there was something pretty radically wrong with him already. I can’t help thinking that the old Smack had a lot to do with starting that Fritz on his downward path, even if it was the Whack that gave him the final shove.”
It was very characteristic, that last little explanation of P——’s. If there is one thing more than another that has impressed me in hearing these young British destroyer officers tell the “little games they have played with Fritz,” it is the fine sporting spirit in which they invariably insist in sharing the credit of an achievement with every other officer, and man, and ship that has in any way figured in the action. It was the fault of the Hun that we could no longer treat the enemy as we would an opponent in sport; but that only makes it all the more inspiring to see the fellow-players still keeping alive the old spirit among themselves.