preading film
of oil and a tangle of torn wakes slowly dissolving in the wash of the
driving seas marked the scene of the action. It had lasted something
over ten minutes.

"The _Whack_ suffered considerable damage from the impact with the
submarine, though not enough to give us serious worry, even in so heavy
a sea. The stem was bent over to port, like a broken nose, and the
buckling plates caused her to make quite a bit of water. We had no
trouble coping with this, however, and made port, with the survivors of
the _Amperi_ aboard, without difficulty. There we soon had the--well,
not unmixedly unpleasant--news that the _Whack's_ wounds were of a
nature somewhat comparable to what the Tommy in France calls a
'Blighty.' Without having any real permanent harm done her, she was
still enough banged up to need a special refit, the period of which, of
course, the most of us would be able to spend at home on leave. Yes,
indeed," he concluded, grinning pleasedly, "that was a ripping piece of
ramming in more ways than one."

P---- went over and bent above the shivering "Gyro," for a moment, took
a long look through his glasses at the last of the now receding convoy,
and then came back and rejoined me by the rail.

"There was one little thing I neglected to tell you about," he said
presently, "and that was the part the _Smack_ played in that show.
Although the _Whack_ got all the _kudos_ for the sinking, there is a
decided possibility that a bit of a stunt the _Smack_ brought off before
ever we came up may have been largely if not entirely responsible for us
getting the chance we did.

"_Smack_, you see, was near at hand when the _Amperi_ was torpedoed, and
the instant her Captain saw the spout of water shoot up in the air, he
altered course and drove at full speed for the point he reckoned the
submarine would be most likely to be encountered. He reports that he had
the good fortune to hit it, while it was still submerged, and that the
shock was severe enough to throw men off their balance. Shortly after
that a periscope appeared, and it was this that gave the _Whack_ her
chance to drop her depth-charges.

"Now, not unnaturally, the Captain of the _Smack_ had good reason to
believe that his striking the U-boat, even if he only grazed her, had
something to do with her reappearance on the surface at a moment when
she must have known a strenuous hunt for her was in progress. Unluckily,
for his claim, however, the bows of the _