t yet. The captain
ordered the helm to be steadied, and rang up 'Full speed ahead' to the
engine-room. We passed the periscope ten yards on the port side, and
when the stern was just coming abreast it, two charges were released
together. As they were both set for the same depth it is probable that
the one staggeringly powerful explosion we felt was caused by their
detonating simultaneously. The shock was as solid as though we had
struck a rock, and I could feel a distinct lift to the ship before the
impact of it. There was something so substantially satisfying about that
muffled jar that it seemed only in the natural course of things that it
effected what it was intended to. The bow of the U-boat broke surface
almost immediately, the fact that it showed before the conning-tower
proving at once that she was hard hit and heavily down by the stern.
Indeed, the deck of her from the conning-tower aft was fated never again
to feel the rush of sea air.

"She was now less than a hundred yards right astern of us, and heading,
in a wobbly sort of way, like a half-stunned porpoise floundering away
from the 'boil' of a depth-charge, on just about the course the _Whack_
had been on when she kicked loose her 'cans.'

[Illustration: THE LOOK-OUT ON A DESTROYER AND PART OF HIS VIEW]

"The skipper put the helm hard-a-starboard, with the idea of turning to
ram, at the same time ordering me to open fire with the port
twelve-pounder. That was what I had been waiting for. The gun-crew was
down to three--through the others having been detailed for boat work in
connection with picking up the survivors from the _Amperi_--but that
didn't bother a good deal in a short and sweet practice like this one.
The ship was bobbing like a cork from the seas, in addition to her heavy
heel from the short turn and the vibration from the grind of the helm.
But neither did any of these little things matter materially, for
we'd always made a point of carrying out our target practice under the
worst conditions.

"The first round, fired at three hundred yards, was an 'over' by a
narrow margin, but the second, at two hundred yards, was a clean hit on
the conning-tower, carrying away the periscope and the stays supporting
it. The explosion of this shell appeared to split the whole
superstructure of the conning-tower, from the bridge to the deck. I did
not see anyone on the bridge at this moment, and if there had been he
must certainly have been killed. The fact