"Yes, I've got leave now, and Cairnley's in hospital; he had a couple of
splinters in him, and they packed him off, though he wanted to get
leave and treat himself. The old packet's got to be just about rebuilt
from the deck up, and he's certain to get a bigger one instead. He's
going to take me on with him,--good thing for me,--as I'll be pretty
young to be Number One of one of the Alpha class ships. I tell you, it
was a devilish funny show, and all over in a second. It came on absolute
pea-soup at four and we had only heard the guns in the action. Never saw
a thing. We had been out away from the line four hours. Had nothing but
wireless touch to tell us they had got into a mix-up. We went to
stations at full speed trying to close on them, and we'd hardly got
ready when the Hun showed up four hundred yards off. My word! she was
smart on it. She was only a cruiser, but in the fog she showed up like
the _Von der Tann_, and she was going all of twenty-four. She let fly at
the moment we saw her, and she spun round and charged right off. We let
go too as she fired, but her turning to ram saved her. We turned too and
bolted, and she just cut every darned thing down from the casing up.
The mast went on the first salvo, one funnel and most of the guns. The
shooting was just lovely, and if it hadn't been such close range we'd
have been shot down in one act. As it was, they just shaved us clean as
if we'd gone full speed under a low-level bridge. At six hundred yards
we could only see her gun-flashes, and we yanked round across her bow
and opened out. The skipper gave her five minutes and then levelled up
on the same course we had been on before, and eased a bit to keep
station on her beam. We did a bit of clearing up and he sent for me. He
was on the bridge--which had damn little left on it, bar him,--it was a
proper wreck--and told me to arrange hands to shout orders to the
engine-room if required, as the telegraphs were gone. The wheel was all
right--or at least the gearing was,--the wheel itself had only a bit of
rim and two spokes on it. He told me to get what fish we could fire set
for surface, and that he was going to go for her again and fire at
twenty-five yards. I thought he was mad, but I went down and got 'em
ready. (The gunner was killed.) I shouted up to him when I had done, and
had mustered a tube's crew, and we whacked on full bat again and began
to close. You see we had crossed her bow once, and Cairnley reckoned
then that she would have altered back to her original course of East, so
he had kept on her port beam at about a mile, going the same speed. I
did not get what he was driving at till afterwards. At the time I
thought he was just going to do it again, because he thought he ought to
make another effort. We saw her first this time as we were closing on
the opposite side, and the skipper told them to poop off the bow gun,
which was all we had, to wake them up. They woke up all right, and we
got the same smack from all along her side we'd had before. She was just
abaft our starboard beam going the same course, and I was wondering what
the deuce he'd meant by telling me to train the tubes to port, when we
went hard a-port and came round all heeled over and shaking. I just
thought to myself, Well, if the Hun keeps on and doesn't try to ram,
we're going to look damn silly, when I saw her again and she _was_
ramming. Her guns did no good then,--the change was too quick for any
sights to be held on. He banged away all right, and I believe he put
more helm on--but he couldn't get us. The skipper had said twenty-five
yards, but it looked to me like _feet_. He was going all out, and so
were we, and I pulled off as his stem showed abreast the tubes--all
spray and grey paint--and those fish hit him abaft the second funnel.
Eh? Well, perhaps it was a few yards, but it's the closest I've seen to
going alongside a gangway. Well, that's all I knew about it for half an
hour. The bang put me out. Skipper said he turned back and searched for
her, but it was so thick then he couldn't have found an island except by
mistake. We'd been hit below water too and couldn't steam much. We got a
tow home. Good egg! Here's St Pancras, and there's a flapper--thirty if
she's a day--Good old blinkin' London!"