Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/237

 swatting submarines for the trajectory of their shells was way too flat, that is it was not curved enough and with, possibly, two exceptions they struck the water and instead of sinking they ricocheted, that is they were thrown from it again on the same principle that a flat stone skips along on the water when you throw it nearly parallel to its surface.

Bill was right there with his semi-automatic and dropped a couple of shells on the deck of the Koln. In less time than it takes to tell it to you our commander had swung our submarine round so that one of her torpedo tubes was pointed directly at the Koln and gave the signal to the officer of the torpedo crew to shoot the torpedo. He turned on the compressed air which drives the torpedo from its tube and it shot out and into the sea. We watched it with all eyes as it traveled like a blue streak under its own power below the surface and dead on for the broadside of the Koln.

The German crew saw the white trail it left behind and they must have become panic-stricken for some of them jumped overboard, others manned the lifeboats and bungled the job so that two of the boats capsized before