n, in a
quieter voice, took up the thread of the story again.

"That turn through sixteen points brought the seas, which we had been
running before all night, right ahead, and all in a minute she was being
swept fore-and-aft by every second or third of them. Anxious as the
captain was to drive her full speed (which would have been a pretty
terrific gait, let me tell you, for the 'Ms' are very fast), it was no
use.

"Plates and rivets simply wouldn't stand the strain of the green water
that anything like full speed would have bored her into, and she was
finally slowed down to about twenty knots as the best she could do
without flooding the decks and making it impossible to serve the guns
and torpedo tubes. As she was good for a lot more than this with two
boilers, I doubt very much if the third was ever 'flashed up.'

"The first I saw of the ships which turned out to be the enemy was some
masts and funnels to the north'ard and about a couple of points on the
starboard bow. They were making very little smoke, probably because
they were oil-burners. As we were steering on practically opposite
courses, we closed each other very quickly, and they must have been
about four miles off when the captain, evidently becoming suspicious of
their appearance, challenged. As there was no reply, fire was opened
immediately afterward by the foremost gun, the course at the same time
being altered a point or two to starboard, so that the other two guns
would bear. The rest of our firing was, I think, by salvoes, or rather,
it was until all but the after gun were knocked out by the Hun's shells.

"Our first shots, fired at about 7,000 yards, were short; but as the
salvoes which followed began to fall closer to their targets, I saw the
Huns alter to a course more or less parallel to ours, but plainly
veering away so as to open out the range. This gave me the first
silhouette view I had, and I did not need a glass to recognize them at
once as German, the three straight funnels and the 'swan' bows being
quite unmistakable. Some of our shots fell close, but I saw nothing I
could be certain of calling a hit.

"However, I knew that it was not the guns the captain was counting on,
but that he was trying to close to a range and bearing that might offer
a chance to get home with a torpedo.

"Why the Huns did not open fire before they did I have never quite been
able to figure out, unless it was that they hoped to avoid an action and
so be fre