ve the
builder of a good little ship--she was making revolutions. The wreckage
hanging from her starboard quarter acted as a rudder, and so, instead of
going straight ahead, she began to go round in circles.

She continued to make circles, and her officers and men stood to
stations and waited for what next would happen. Destroyer people have it
that there are grades of U-boat commanders--some of nerve, some only
ordinary. The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack a destroyer is a
good one. He will bear watching; so what they expected was to see this
U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did come up and at the right
place to get another torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. So
they waited, some thinking one thing, and some another, but all agreeing
that the odds were against them.

The U-boat did show again. They saw her conning-tower slipping through
the water at about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343 was ready in so
far as he could be ready with his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun
stations, and that conning-tower had hardly got above the surface when
two of the 343's guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, the
fourth one pretty handy. But no more. She submerged to the
discouragement of one earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the breech
of his little 4-inch to say: "One more and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me
next month's pay that I get her if she shows for two shots again."

She did not show again, but her not showing did not end the 343's
troubles. They could steam in circles, but it was not getting them
anywhere. A few miles away was one of the roughest shores in the world,
the kind where green seas piled up against rocky cliffs--and a tide that
was already setting them toward it. A bad enough place in any kind of
weather, but with wind and sea making, and this time of year!

It was about two in the afternoon they were torpedoed. By dark they were
being driven by the tide and white-capped seas to the shore. They had
one hope left. Their radio operator had managed to keep the radio gear
in commission, and through all their troubles he had been sending out
S O S calls, though not with too great hope that anybody would come in
time. The U-boats had been pretty active thereabout, and it was not on
any main sea route. There was always the chance, of course, that some
war-ships would be somewhere near.

For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, six hours they drifted.
Their wireless k