Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/181

1917] to his men through the tubes, even joking them on their painful vigil.

"If you know a better 'ole," he would say, quoting Bairnsfather, "go to it!"

"Remember, lads," he would call at another time, "that the King has given this ship the V.C."

Every situation has its humorous aspects. Thus one gun crew could hardly restrain its laughter when a blue-jacket called up to Captain Campbell and asked if he could not take his boots off. He came of a respectable family, he explained, and did not think it becoming to die with his boots on. But the roar of the fire, which had now engulfed the larger part of the ship, and the constantly booming shells, which were exploding, one after another, like mammoth fire-crackers, interfered with much conversation. For twenty minutes everybody lay there, hoping and praying that the U-boat would emerge.

The German ultimately came up, but he arose cautiously at the stern of the ship, at a point from which the guns of the Dunraven could not bear. On the slim chance that a few men might be left aboard, the submarine shelled it for several minutes, fore and aft, then, to the agony of the watching Englishmen, it again sank beneath the waves. Presently the periscope shot up, and began moving slowly around the blazing derelict, its eye apparently taking in every detail; he was so cautious, that submarine commander, he did not propose to be outwitted again! Captain Campbell now saw that he had only one chance; the conflagration was rapidly destroying his vessel, and he could spend no more time waiting for the submarine to rise. But he had two torpedoes and he determined to use these against the submerged submarine. As the periscope appeared abeam, one of the Dunraven's torpedoes started in its direction; the watching gunners almost wept when it missed by a few inches. But the submarine did not see it, and the periscope calmly appeared on the other side of the ship. The second torpedo was fired; this also passed just about a foot astern, and the submarine saw it. The game was up. What was left of the Dunraven was rapidly sinking, and Captain Campbell sent out a wireless for help. In a few minutes the U.S. armed yacht Noma and the British destroyers Alcock and Christopher, which had been waiting outside the "prize ring," arrived and took off the crew.