Events have brought our ship's company quickly to their stations. The chief officer stands, step on the ladder, awaiting orders. "Right! Lay aft! Cease fire, unless you have a sure target! Look out for the destroyers blanking the range!" He runs along, struggling through the mass of troops. The men are strangely quiet; perhaps the steady beat of our engines measures out assurance to them--as it does to us. Their white-haired colonel has come to the bridge, and stands about quietly. Other officers are pushing along to their stations. There is not more than subdued and controlled excitement in a low murmur. The men below crowd up the companionways from the troop-decks. In group and mass, the ship seems packed to overflowing by a drab khaki swarm; the light on all faces turned on the one cant, arms pointing in one direction, rouses a haunting disquiet. However gallant and high of heart, they are standing on unfamiliar ground--at sea, in a ship, caged! If-- Two destroyers converge on us at frantic speed, tearing through the flat sea with a froth in their teeth. As the nearest thunders past, her commander yells a message through his megaphone. We cannot understand. Busied with manoeuvres of the convoy, with the commodore's signal for a four-point turn, we miss the hail, and can only take the swing and wave of his arms as a signal to get ahead--"Go full speed!" The jangle of the telegraph is still sounding, when we reel to a violent shock. The ship lists heavily, every plate and frame of her ringing out in clamour with the impact of a vicious sudden blow. She vibrates in passionate convulsion on recovery, masts oscillate like the spring of a whip-shaft, the rigging jars and rattles at the bolts, a crash of broken glass showers from the bridge to the deck below! The murmur among the troops swells to a higher note, there is a crowding mass-movement towards the boats. The guard is turned to face inboard. The colonel is impassive; only his eyes wander over the restless men and note the post of his officers. He turns towards us, inquiringly. What is it to be? His orderly bugler is standing by with arm crooked and trumpet half raised. Our lips are framing an order, when a second thundering shock jars the ship, not less in violence and shattering impact than the first. A high hurtling column of water shoots up skyward close astern of the ship. We suppress the order that is all but spoken, stifle the words in our throat. We are not torpedoed! Depth-charges! The destroyers' work! At a sign, the bugler sounds out "_Still!_" and slowly the tumult on deck is arrested.