It must be remembered that the ship was now openly a man-of-war, flying the White Ensign, with guns unmasked. At 1.20 P.M., two hours and twenty minutes after first sighting the submarine, a torpedo struck the ship abreast the engine-room, hurling blazing wreckage and water in all directions. With far-seeing thoroughness of organisation this moment had been anticipated sooner or later for months past. Accordingly, at the order of "Abandon ship," the men previously detailed launched the remaining boat and a raft, and paddled clear of the doomed vessel. The Captain and crews of two guns and both torpedo tubes, the Navigator, Assistant Paymaster, and Quartermaster remained on board. For the ensuing eighty minutes, while the fire in the poop continued to blaze furiously, and the ammunition in the vicinity detonated like a succession of gigantic Chinese crackers, the periscope circled suspiciously round the ship and boats. At 2.30 the submarine rose to the surface in a position on which none of the guns on board would bear, and began once more shelling the ship and boats with vindictive fury. For twenty minutes the remnant on board endured this ordeal, lying face downwards and motionless on the splintered planking. It is recorded that during the hottest of the fire one of the foremost gun's crew requested, in a hoarse whisper, to be allowed to take his boots off. The officer in his vicinity inquired the reason for this strange request, to which the man replied that he didn't think he had much longer to live, and, on the whole, thought he'd prefer not to die with his boots on. He subsequently explained that he came of a respectable family. By means of the voice-pipe connecting him with the guns' control, the Captain cheered and encouraged his men through that long agony. Small wonder they loved an officer who exhorted them in such a pass to "keep merry and bright"; who quoted Bairnsfather to the boyish officer in the control when shells were bursting all about his head ("If you know of a better 'ole, go to it!"); who, when the wounded Navigator, blinded with blood at the opposite end of the bridge, called that he was done, replied: "You're all right! Hang on, 'cos we've got him cold!" and found time to steady the guns' crews with, "Remember the V.C. The King has given the ship, lads."