“The first I saw of the ships which turned out to be the enemy was some masts and funnels to the north’ard and about a couple of points on the starboard bow. They were making very little smoke,
probably because they were oil-burners. As we were steering on practically opposite courses, we closed each other very quickly, and they must have been about four miles off when the captain, evidently becoming suspicious of their appearance, challenged. As there was no reply, fire was opened immediately afterward by the foremost gun, the course at the same time being altered a point or two to starboard, so that the other two guns would bear. The rest of our firing was, I think, by salvoes, or rather, it was until all but the after gun were knocked out by the Hun’s shells.
“Our first shots, fired at about 7,000 yards, were short; but as the salvoes which followed began to fall closer to their targets, I saw the Huns alter to a course more or less parallel to ours, but plainly veering away so as to open out the range. This gave me the first silhouette view I had, and I did not need a glass to recognize them at once as German, the three straight funnels and the ‘swan’ bows being quite unmistakable. Some of our shots fell close, but I saw nothing I could be certain of calling a hit.
“However, I knew that it was not the guns the captain was counting on, but that he was trying to close to a range and bearing that might offer a chance to get home with a torpedo.
“Why the Huns did not open fire before they did I have never quite been able to figure out, unless it was that they hoped to avoid an action and so be
free to pursue and sink the leading ships of the convoy—the faster ones the Mary Rose had been escorting—without interference. If that is so, Captain Fox’s sacrifice was not in vain, for all of these ships escaped destruction and reached port in safety. Even as it was, they had no stomach for an action at any range close enough to give us any chance to damage them either with gun-fire or torpedoes. Their plan—proper enough in its way, I suppose—was simply to pound us to pieces with the shells of their powerful long-range guns, and not to close to finish us off until all our guns and torpedo tubes were out of action. As one good salvo from either of them was more than enough to do the job, there wasn’t much hope of our getting in close enough to do them serious harm. It was a bold bid the captain made for it, though.
“The course we were now on brought the seas more abeam than ahead, so that we had been able to shake out several more knots of speed, and this the captain tried to use to shorten the range. We were actually closing them at a good rate (though I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were putting on all their speed to avoid it), when the Huns began firing their ranging shots. By this time we had reached a position from which there was a very fair bearing to launch a mouldie, and we were busy getting one ready to slip while the fall of shot came bounding nearer and nearer to us. I remember, in a vague sort of way, that the first salvo was short by
a long way, that the second was much nearer, and that the third, closely bunched and exploding loudly on striking the sea, threw up smoke-stained spouts which fell back into each other to form a wall of water which completely blotted out the enemy for a second or two. Then we turned loose the torpedo, and at almost the same instant two or three shells from a ‘straddling’ salvo hit fair and square and just about lifted the poor little Mary out of the water.
“All in a second the ship seemed to disappear in clouds of smoke and escaping steam, and it is only natural that my recollections of the order in which things happened after that are a good deal confused.
“I seem to have some memory of receiving from the bridge the order to fire that torpedo, but if that was so, it was the last order I did receive from there, for the explosion of one of the shells carried the voice-pipe away (though I did not twig it at the time), and from then on it was mostly the sizzle of spurting steam that came to my ears.