; a
direct hit. Watchers on the freighter saw the shell strike its mark
fairly. A great geyser arose from the sea, and when it died there were
evidences of commotion beneath the surface. Then gradually foam and oil
spread upon the gentle waves.

There was no doubt about the hit. Lieutenant Ware knew before the shell
struck that the aim had been accurate. There was no guess-work about it.
It was a case of pure mathematics. The whole affair was over in two
minutes. The vessel did not stop to reconnoitre, but steamed away at
full speed, sending ahead wireless reports of the fight against the
undersea craft. The British naval officers who came bounding across the
waters on their destroyers were extremely complimentary in their praise,
and when the _Mongolia_ returned to New York there was a dinner in honor
of Lieutenant Ware, an expression of the lingering emotions which had
fired the nation when word of the incident was cabled to this country.
Since that fight the Germans, enraged, seem to have marked the
_Mongolia_; for in succeeding months she was set upon repeatedly by the
submarine flotilla, seeking revenge for her temerity in sending one of
their number to the bottom. But she is still afloat and ready for
anything that comes out of the sea.

None the less, the government began to feel that it would be wiser not
to mention the names of ships engaged with submarines, and thus when the
next good fight occurred the name of the vessel engaged was not given.
Aside from hoping thus to keep a vessel from being marked it had been
the experience of the British Government that when Germans had
identified captured sailors as having belonged to vessels that had sunk
or damaged submarines they subjected them to unusual severity. Our navy
wished to avoid this in the case of our men.

However, the name of the vessel which engaged in a fight on May 30, was
given out the day after the Washington report by the French Ministry of
Marine. It was the _Silvershell_, commanded by Captain Tom Charlton with
a gun crew commanded by William J. Clark, a warrant-officer from the
battleship _Arkansas_. The battle occurred on May 30, in the
Mediterranean and in addition to strength added by an efficient gun
crew, whose commander, Clark, had been a turret captain on the
_Arkansas_, the _Silvershell_ was an extremely fast ship. As a
consequence, when the submarine poked her nose out of the Mediterranean
blue, expecting easy prey, she found confront