r reaches the man to carry it out. This would be an
awkward enough expedient for a ship that is not under fire and fighting
for time and her life. What it is with the enemy's shell exploding about
you, and with your own guns firing, I will leave you to imagine. Well,
we had all this going on, and besides that a fire raging below that
always had the possibilities of disaster in it until it was
extinguished. Also, we were already short-handed from our losses in
killed and wounded. There wasn't anyone to spare to relay orders about
in any case. But what capped the climax was this: When the mast was shot
down, some of the raffle of rigging or radio fouled the wires leading
back to both of the sirens, turning a full pressure of steam into them
and starting them blowing continuously. It was almost as though the poor
maimed and mangled _Flop_ were wailing aloud in her agony.

"I didn't think of it that way at the time, though, for I had my hands
full wailing loud enough myself to make even the man at the wheel
understand what I wanted him to do. Luckily, the engine-room telegraph,
though somewhat cranky, was still in action, and orders to other parts
of the ship we managed to convey by flash-lamp or messenger. It was ten
minutes or more before they contrived to hush the sirens--it was cutting
off their steam that did it, I believe--and by then a new and even more
serious trouble had developed through the jamming of the helm. It was
hard over to starboard at that, so that the _Flop_ simply began turning
round and round like a kitten chasing its tail. This involuntary
manoeuvre had one favourable effect in that it seemed to throw the
Austrian gunnery off for a bit, though one shell which penetrated and
exploded in the after tiller-flat shortly after she began cutting capers
did not make it any easier to coax the jammed helm into doing its bit
again.

"Our 'ring-around-the-roses' course had resulted in our coming much
nearer to the enemy, who, seeing a chance to finish us off, was trying
to close the range at high speed. Our rotary course brought them on a
continually shifting bearing, and it was while they were coming up on
our port bow at a distance of less than a mile that it suddenly became
evident that the cruisers were about to present us the finest and
easiest kind of a torpedo target. The captain, who, in spite of his
wounds, was still trying to stick the show through, saw the opening as
soon as I did, and, because there