ES ON SHIPS

"When we had partly formed and were very much bunched together, making a
fine target, suddenly out of the mist arrived five or six shells from a
point not 150 yards away. We gazed at whence they came and again five
or six stabs of fire pierced the fog, and we made out a four-funneled
German cruiser of the Breslau class.

"Those stabs were its guns going off. We waited fifteen seconds and the
shots and noise of its guns arrived pretty well from fifty yards away.
Its next salvo of shots went above us, and I ducked as they whirred
overhead like a covey of fast partridges.

"You would suppose our captain had done this sort of thing all his life.
He went full speed ahead at once, upon the first salvo, to string the
bunch out and thus offer less target. The commodore from the Arethusa
made a signal to us to attack with torpedoes. So we swung round at right
angles and charged full speed at the enemy like a hussar attack.

"Our boat got away at the start magnificently and led the field, so all
the enemy's firing was aimed at us for the next ten minutes, when we got
so close that debris from their shells fell on board. Then we altered
our course and so threw them out in their reckoning of our speed, and
they had all their work to do over again.

"Humanly speaking, our captain by twisting and turning at psychological
moments saved us. Actually, I feel that we were in God's keeping that
day. After ten minutes we got near enough to fire our torpedo. Then we
turned back to the Arethusa. Next our follower arrived just where we had
been and fired its torpedo, and of course the enemy fired at it instead
of at us. What a blessed relief!

"After the destroyers came the Fearless, and it stayed on the scene.
Soon we found it was engaging a three-funneler, the Mainz, so off we
started again, now for the Mainz, the situation being that the crippled
Arethusa was too tubby to do anything but be defended by us, its
children.

"Scarcely, however, had we started when, from out of the mist and across
our front, in furious pursuit came the first cruiser squadron of the
town class, the Birmingham, and each unit a match for three like the
Mainz, which was soon sunk. As we looked and reduced speed they opened
fire, and the clear bang-bang of their guns was just like a cooling
drink.

"To see a real big four-funneler spouting flame, which flame denoted
shells starting, and those shells not at us but for us, was the most
cheerful