The voice of the man at the range-finder again took up the refrain: ‘15,000—14,500—14,000.’
The hulls of the enemy ships were now plainly visible, but the range was still too great for the secondary armament to be of any value against the thickly armoured sides of the German ships. Would they never come any nearer? As if in reply to his question, he suddenly saw a line of low black hulls emerge from behind the enemy ships and come tearing in a line diagonally towards him.
Here was work at last! Seizing the navyphone, he shouted down to the captain: ‘Destroyer attack on the port bow. Request permission to open fire.’ The reply came back: ‘Open fire at 10,000.’
Dropping the navyphone, he picked up the voice tube and commenced the orders to the transmitting station which would let loose six thousand six hundred pounds of shell per minute at the rapidly approaching enemy.
‘Destroyer. One mast, two funnels.
‘Range 9500. Deflection 16 right. Rate 550 closing.
‘Load with lyddite. Salvoes.
‘Shoot!’
Anxiously he gazed at the leader of the approaching destroyers. Good shooting, but a little to the left. Undoubtedly she was hit or, at least, badly spattered, as she altered course a little. Correcting this, he shouted down: ‘Shoot!’
Again the deadly hail smothered the little vessel in foam. From the top the men on her decks could be clearly seen training the torpedo tubes and getting ready to fire. As she approached, the order was given: ‘Down 400! Shoot!’