’Can’t move her, sir, the turret’s jammed,’ the Gunlayer yelled. He sprang up through the sighting-hood—something red and slippery was dripping down through the holes in the top of the turret—and I followed him. Mr. Bigge wasn’t there, but the top was covered with the twisted rails and smoking burning planks of the projecting end of the bridge—I knew it was the bridge because the stump of the semaphore was still fixed to a rail. I didn’t really realise anything or know quite what I was doing. I burnt my hands trying to pull the wreckage away, but we couldn’t move it, and I had to keep my eyes down so as not to see the big ship firing—I couldn’t have stayed there if I had. I knew that Mr. Bigge must have been killed, and that I was now in charge. Then that awful thunder-clap sounded again, there was a terrific crash behind us, a huge mass of iron crashed down on the deck, and one of the men said quite calmly, ’The foremost funnel’s gone, sir,’ but I dare not look—I was too terrified. We couldn’t move that wreckage off the fore bridge, so I ordered the men inside the turret, and then tried to ring up the conning-tower, but couldn’t make the telephone work. I tried the telephone to the transmitting station, the room below the water-line, at the foot of the foremast, which passed all messages to us from the fire-control position, on the mast above it, and I heard the Fleet Paymaster’s voice at the other end. ’Please tell the Captain——’ I’d just got as far as that when the ship shook and trembled again, and we could feel something crashing and bursting inside her. I tried the telephone once more, but it wouldn’t work at all. I knew that I ought to tell the Captain and ask what should be done, so I bit my lips and crept out of the turret, down the rails at the back, and jumped down on deck, but it was all covered with burning bits of wood and twisted and torn, almost red-hot, iron plates. Smoke and steam was pouring up from where the foremost funnel had been, and flames from the boiler furnaces were licking the grey paint off, but the rest of our guns, on the starboard side, were still firing very fast. [Illustration: THE EFFECT OF THE SHELL]