I don't suppose I can tell you which boat either, if the authorities won't. You do not know any one on board of her, however. They saw it coming, jammed on full speed, and nearly cleared it. It took them just at the stern and blew off about 30 feet as neatly as son would bite the end off a banana. The submarine heard the explosion, of course, from below, and came to the surface to see the "damned Yankee" sink, only to find the rudderless, sternless boat steaming full speed in a circle with her one remaining propeller, and to be greeted by a salvo of four-inch shells that made her duck promptly. The man killed saw the torpedo coming and ran aft to throw overboard some high explosives stowed there—but he didn't quite make it.
Damaged destroyers somehow get back to port.
Our destroyers are really wonderful boats—you can shoot off one end of them, ram them, cut them in two, and still they float and get to port somehow.
Some time ago, on a pitch-dark night, one of them was rammed by a British boat and nearly cut in two. Was there a panic? Not at all. As she settled in the water, they got out their boats and life-rafts, the officers and a few selected men stayed on board, and the rest pulled off in the darkness singing, "Are we downhearted? No!" and "Hail, hail, the gang's all here." She floated, though with her deck awash; the boats were recalled, and they brought her in. She is fixed up and back in the game again now.
October 25.
British destroyers fight raiders.
The Admiral strict as a Prussian.
Where did you hear that about two destroyers being sunk off the coast of Ireland on September 3? False alarm. Of course, you have read in the papers about the convoy destroyed in the North Sea by German raiders. The two British destroyers with the convoy stood up to them and fought as a bulldog would fight a tiger—and with the same result. Somebody was arguing with the Admiral, our boss, to the effect that it would have been better for them to have saved themselves, trailed the raiders, and sent radio, so that the British cruisers could have intercepted and destroyed them. Said the Admiral, "Yes, it would have been better, but I would court-martial and shoot the man that did it." He's a wonder to serve under, as grim and strict as a Prussian, but very just, and runs things in a way that secures all our admiration—though we may fuss a bit when, expecting two or three comfortable days in port, we get chased out on short notice into a raving gale outside.
A British Dock Yard, November 4.
A friend on hospital duty.