was no one else free to attempt the
trick, tackled it himself. But it was a case of the spirit being willing
and the flesh weak. With every ounce of nerve in him he tried to make
his almost useless hands work the forebridge firing-gear. The chance
passed while he still fumbled frantically but vainly to release the one
little messenger--a mouldie--that would have been enough to square
accounts, and with some to spare. It was the hardest thing of all--not
being able to take advantage of that opening.

"It was twenty minutes before the helm was of any use at all, and the
Austrians had only their lack of nerve to thank for not putting us down
while they had a chance. It must have been because they were afraid of
some kind of a trap, for there were a half-dozen ways in which a force
of their strength could have disposed of a ship as helpless and
knocked-out generally as was the _Flop_. The _Flip_ had also been hard
hit, and when I had a chance for a good look at her again it appeared
that her mast, like ours, was trailing over the side. She was still
firing, however, and it was she rather than the enemy that was trying to
close. We were quite cut off from wireless communication, as all
attempts to disentangle the aerials from the wreckage of the mast had
been unsuccessful; but it was evident that help was coming to us, and
that the Austrians had in some way got wind of it. At any rate, our
immediate responsibilities were over. We had prevented the enemy from
reaching his objective, and possibly delayed him long enough for some of
our other ships to have a chance at harrying his retreat. It was now up
to us to limp to port on whatever legs we had left.

"We were still a long way from being out of action even now, but with
the fires continuing to burn fiercely in the fore magazine and
shell-room, with the helm threatening to jam every time course was
altered, and with a considerable mixture of water beginning to make its
presence felt in the oil, there was no telling what complications might
set in at any moment. As one of the Italian bases in Albania was rather
nearer than any port on the other side of the Adriatic, it was for that
we set our still erratic course.

"Our troubles were not yet over, however. Just as the moon came down and
sat on the sea preliminary to setting, squarely against the round yellow
background it formed I saw the silhouette of the conning-tower of a
U-boat. At almost the same instant the helm jamm