Her youthful lieutenant-commander, in his zeal, had but one thought—to smash the submarine's hull with the destroyer's knife-like stem before the former could fire her torpedo at the increasingly favourable target that the Rebound was momentarily presenting.
In vain the battleship signalled to her to stand clear and destroy the periscope by means of gunfire and then finish off the blinded submarine with depth-charges. All on the destroyer's bridge had eyes for nothing but the hostile periscope.
The Rebound could do nothing, Already the destroyer was masking her quick-firers. A warning blast from the syren did attract attention, but only when it was too late.
The destroyer's bows hit the periscope fairly and squarely. There was no rending of steel, no release of air and oil from the submarine, for the simple reason that there was no submarine there. The periscope was a dummy, but to it were attached two mines by means of long spans of wire.
Five seconds later, the mines, swung inwards by the strain upon the spans, exploded simultaneously on either side of the destroyer. Before the upheaval of smoke and spray had dispersed, the luckless destroyer had vanished, leaving half a dozen men swimming aimlessly in an ever increasing pool of oil.
Up dashed another destroyer, the survivors were picked up, and the little craft hurried on ahead of the battleship, with paravanes towing in order to detonate any other mines that might be in the vicinity.
The lesson, obtained at a price, was not thrown away. It proved that the Rioguayans had not resolved to defend the river by means of submarines, otherwise they would not have indiscriminately sown mines which would prove a menace not only to the British surface craft but to their own submarines.
"Ain't ours a nappy 'ome?" inquired Cavendish, as the two lieutenants surveyed the remains of their cabins, which before the action had adjoined each other. Now they were knocked into one. That saved the trouble of Cavendish having to open two doors when he wanted to "kag" with his chum; but the removal of the bulkhead did not end the damage. Both cabins had been completely gutted. Although the blackened débris had been cleared away, the nauseating smell of burnt corticene hung about persistently. Scuttles and dead-lights had disappeared, and although the ragged apertures where they had been were covered with iron plates bolted to the side, there was a distressing lack of light and fresh air. Neither officer possessed any clothes other than those he stood up in, and they were showing considerable evidence of the ordeal through which their wearers had passed. Until the Rebound put into port, the chums would have to depend upon the generosity of their brother-officers for the replacement of deficiencies in their wardrobe; and as almost every officer on board had suffered loss of personal gear, there looked like being a stupendous famine in the clothing line before very long.
A visit to the bathroom revealed an equally unsatisfactory state of affairs, no other washing arrangements being available than a metal hand-basin and a meagre supply of cold water.
But in less than ten minutes, Corbold and Cavendish, with most of the dirt and grime removed, were sound asleep on strips of canvas laid upon the floor of their respective cabins.