e-boat thought so, too. He stepped to the ship's side
to look down. "That one, he should be put in the brig--scaring us all
like that!" I agreed with him heartily, only I thought he should be put
in a second brig after he got out of the first one. Some time later we
learned that it was the shock from the bomb dropped by the destroyer,
from which you can gauge what chance the submarine will have which
happens to catch one of those bombs on its back.

We carried two 5-inch guns in our bow and two astern. Those gun crews
had been standing by those guns from the first day out. For the last
three days they had been sleeping near them in their life-jackets and
taking their meals standing beside them. They were not going to be left
out of it. About a thousand yards away some one reported a floating
torpedo. Whether it was a live or a spent one made no matter. It was too
soft a target; besides, some ship in the hurry of manoeuvring might
run into it. Bang! went two of our 5-inch fellows, one from each end of
the ship and both together.

That was when we heard from our chief engineer. He had been below from
the beginning, and knew from the way the bells were coming down from the
bridge that there was something doing topside. When the destroyer
dropped her first bomb he wondered if the ship was torpedoed. He waited,
and his men, with their shovels and slice-bars and oil-cans--they
waited, every one of them, with one sharp eye to the nearest ash-hoist,
which reminded the chief that he would never leave home again--and this
time he meant it--without installing those four more ladders leading up
from the engine and fire-room quarters to the decks. No, sir, he would
not.

But nothing happened! And then those two 5-inch guns went off together.
War-ships are built to withstand impact, but merchant-ships--no. This
time the chief was sure she was torpedoed. His fire-room force were
mostly Spaniards. He used to talk at table about his fire-room gang.
"You would think, with your ship coming through the war zone and your
watch down in the bottom of her, that you would want to go up topside
when your watch was done, for, of course, if any U-boat got the ship, it
would be the fellows below who would first get the full benefit." But
that gang of his! "Doggone, they'd sit there when their watch was over,
six or eight of 'em, and play some cross-eyed Spanish card-game for a
peseta a corner. What d'y' know about them?"

The chief's gang could