the funnels, boats, cowls
and men away as a gale blows dead leaves before it. Then the Cruiser
swung clear and vanished into the darkness, pursued by the remainder of
the Flotilla, and leaving the Destroyer reeling among the waves like a
man that has been struck in the face with a knuckle-duster by a runaway
thief. In the direction where the Cruiser had disappeared five minutes
later a column of flame leaped skyward, and the Flotilla, vengeance
accomplished, swung off through the darkness in search of a fresh
quarry.

All night long the disabled Destroyer rolled helplessly in the trough
of the sea. The dawn came slowly across the sky, as if apprehensive of
what it might behold on the face of the troubled waters; in the growing
light the survivors of the Destroyer's crew saw a crippled German
Cruiser trailing south at slow speed. Only one gun remained in action
onboard the Destroyer, and round that gathered the bandaged remnant of
what had once been a ship's company. They shook hands grimly among
themselves and spat and girded their loins for their last fight.

The German Cruiser turned slowly over and sank while they trained the
gun....

A dismasted Destroyer, with riddled funnels and a foot of water
swilling across the floor plates in the engine-room, bore down upon
them about noon and took her crippled sister in tow. They passed
slowly away to the westward, leaving the circle of grey, tumbling sea
to the floating wreckage of a hundred fights and the thin keening of
the gulls.

The afternoon wore on: five drenched, haggard men were laboriously
propelling a life-saving raft by means of paddles in the direction of
the English coast that lay some hundred odd miles to the west. The
waves washed over their numbed bodies, and imparted an almost lifelike
air of animation to the corpse of a companion that lay between them,
staring at the sullen sky.

Suddenly one of the paddlers stopped and pointed ahead. A boat manned
by four men appeared on the crest of a wave and slid down a grey-back
towards them. The oarsmen were rowing with slow strokes, and
eventually the two craft passed each other within hailing distance.
The men on the raft stared hard.

"'Uns!" said one. "Bloody 'Uns.... Strictly speakin', we did ought to
fight 'em.... Best look t'other way, lads!"

His companions followed his example and continued their futile
mechanical paddling with averted heads.

The bow-oar of the German boat, who had a