e to pursue and sink the leading ships of the convoy--the
faster ones the _Mary Rose_ had been escorting--without interference. If
that is so, Captain Fox's sacrifice was not in vain, for all of these
ships escaped destruction and reached port in safety. Even as it was,
they had no stomach for an action at any range close enough to give us
any chance to damage them either with gun-fire or torpedoes. Their
plan--proper enough in its way, I suppose--was simply to pound us to
pieces with the shells of their powerful long-range guns, and not to
close to finish us off until all our guns and torpedo tubes were out of
action. As one good salvo from either of them was more than enough to do
the job, there wasn't much hope of our getting in close enough to do
them serious harm. It was a bold bid the captain made for it, though.

"The course we were now on brought the seas more abeam than ahead, so
that we had been able to shake out several more knots of speed, and this
the captain tried to use to shorten the range. We were actually closing
them at a good rate (though I wouldn't go so far as to say they were
putting on all their speed to avoid it), when the Huns began firing
their ranging shots. By this time we had reached a position from which
there was a very fair bearing to launch a mouldie, and we were busy
getting one ready to slip while the fall of shot came bounding nearer
and nearer to us. I remember, in a vague sort of way, that the first
salvo was short by a long way, that the second was much nearer, and
that the third, closely bunched and exploding loudly on striking the
sea, threw up smoke-stained spouts which fell back into each other to
form a wall of water which completely blotted out the enemy for a second
or two. Then we turned loose the torpedo, and at almost the same instant
two or three shells from a 'straddling' salvo hit fair and square and
just about lifted the poor little _Mary_ out of the water.

"All in a second the ship seemed to disappear in clouds of smoke and
escaping steam, and it is only natural that my recollections of the
order in which things happened after that are a good deal confused.

"I seem to have some memory of receiving from the bridge the order to
fire that torpedo, but if that was so, it was the last order I did
receive from there, for the explosion of one of the shells carried the
voice-pipe away (though I did not twig it at the time), and from then on
it was mostly the sizzle of sp