Special arrangements had been made in the event of casualties. Thus, if the captain were laid out a certain officer was to carry on and take over command. Similar arrangements were made in the event of all officers on the bridge becoming casualties, an eventuality that was far from improbable. In fact, Captain Grenfell gave orders that if a shell burst on or near the bridge a certain officer was to be informed in any case; and if the latter did not receive word of this explosion he was to assume that everyone on the bridge was a casualty and he was to be ready to open fire at the right time. One of the possibilities in the preliminary stages of these attacks was always that owing to the hitting by the enemy’s shells, or, more likely still, by the explosion of his torpedo against the side of the ship, some portion of the screens or dummy deckhouses might have been damaged, and thus the guns be revealed to the enemy. So, while _Penshurst’s_ captain was busily engaged watching the movements of the submarine, the information as to this unfortunate fact might have been made known. It was therefore a standing rule that the bridge was to be informed by voice-pipe of such occurrences. Damage received in the engine-room was reported up the pipe to the bridge. Conversely there were placed three men at the voice-pipes—one on the bridge, one in the gunhouse aft, and one at the 12-pounder—whose duty it was to pass along the messages, the first-mentioned passing down the varying bearing and range of the submarine and the state of affairs on the bridge, and when no orders were necessary he was to keep passing along the comforting remark ‘All right.’ By this means the hidden officers and guns’ crews were kept informed of the position of affairs and able to have the guns instantly ready to fire at the very moment the screens were let down. Obviously victory and the very lives of every man in the ship could be secured only if the vessel came into action smartly and effectively without accident or bungling.