Strangely the movement seems to be all in our sweeping bow. The other vessel appears stationary, inert--set motionless against the flat background of misty cloud; our swinging head passes point upon point of the chequered camouflage on her broadside; subconsciously we mark the colours of her scheme--red and green and grey. We clear her line of boats, and sway through the length of her after-deck--waver at the stern-house, then cover the grey mounting of her gun-emplacement. In inches we measure the rails and stanchions on her quarter, as our upstanding bow drives on. Tensely expectant, our mind trembles on the crash that seems inevitable. It does not come. Our eye was right--we clear her counter! With some fathoms to spare we sheer over the thrash of her propellers, the horizon runs a line across our stem, we have clear yielding blue water under the bows! The illusion of our sole movement is reversed as the mass of the other vessel bears away from us. The unbroken sea-line offers no further mark to judge our swing; we seem to have become suddenly as immobile as a pier-head, while our neighbour starts from our forefoot in an apparent outrush, closing and opening the line of her masts and funnels like shutting and throwing wide the panels of a door. With no indecision now we pull the lever over hood of the telegraph. One case is cleared; there still remains the peril of the lurking submarine. The destroyers are busy on the chase, manoeuvring at utmost speed and exploding depth-charges in the area. We are now some distance from them but the crash of their explosion sends an under-running shock to us still. Our sheer has brought us broadside on to the position from which the enemy loosed off his torpedo. At full astern we bring up and swing over towards the receding convoy. If we are barred from carrying on a zigzag by the mishap to our helm, we can still put a crazy gait on her by using the engines. Backing and coming ahead, we make little progress, but at least we present no sitting target. Reports come through from aft that the broken chain, springing from a fractured link, has jammed hard under the quadrant; the engineers are at work, jacking up to release the links; they will be cleared in ten minutes! The chief asks for the engines to be stopped; sternway is putting purchase on the binding pressure of the rudder. Reluctantly we bring up and lie-to. In no mood to advertise our distress, we lower the 'not under command' signals, and summon what patience may be left to us to await completion of repairs. A long 'ten minutes!' Every second's tick seems fraught with a new anxiety. Fearfully we scan the sea around, probing the line of each chance ripple for sight of an upstanding pin-point. Anon, steam pressure rises and thunders through the exhaust, throwing a battery of spurting white vapour to the sky, and letting even the sea-birds know we are crippled and helpless.