uickest thinking and acting I was ever responsible for
pulling off. If he stayed up, it flashed to my mind, there was just the
chance I might ram him; while if he ducked down, there would probably be
a good opening for a depth-charge. I rang up full speed at the same time
I was shouting orders to cast off the fire-raft, and to bash in one end
of the starboard 'tilting-tank' with an axe. We had considered the
possibility of this emergency arising, as much as we hoped it wouldn't,
so that no time was lost in meeting it. The fire-raft, boom and all, was
cast off clean, and quickly left astern. In scarcely less time was the
tank emptied, though the sudden flood from it--it was on the upper deck,
understand--came very near to carrying overboard the man who broached
it. With motors, of course, we were running all out in 'two jerks,' and
she was doing several knots over twenty when, with helm
hard-a-starboard, she began rounding on the startled Fritz.

"There was no doubt about the fact that he _was_ startled, let me tell
you. And, when you think of it, it must have been a trifle disconcerting
to see the blown-up and burning boat he had come up to gloat over, and
perhaps loot before she went down, suddenly settle back on an even keel
and come charging down on him at twenty-five knots. The 'moony' fat
phizes that showed above the rail of the bridge were pop-eyed with
surprise--yes--and indecision, too, for there were several valuable
seconds lost in deciding whether to come on up--she had risen to the
surface with only an 'awash' trim--and make a fight with her gun, or to
dive.

"I don't think it would have made a great deal of difference in his own
fate which he did, but you can bet it made a lot of difference to me. I
don't mind telling you that I was never gladder about anything in my
life--at least anything since the rain that came at the end of a
three-months' drought to save my corn-crop a few years back--than when
those moon-faces went into eclipse and I saw him begin to submerge.
Although it had never formed a part of any plan I had ever worked out, I
give you my word that I fully intended to ram him, and that would have
meant--well, about the same thing as one airplane charging into another.
I should almost certainly have finished him, while at the same
operation--but I don't need to tell you that a match-box like this was
never made for bull-at-a-gate tactics. I've never heard of one of this
class of M.L.s getting ho