‘In the meantime we could not afford to be hit again, and the C.O. gave the word to open fire. Down went the bulwarks and round swung the guns, but where was the target? Hidden in the mist behind the sun’s path it was invisible to the gun-layers looking through telescopes, and they were obliged to fire into the gloom at a venture. The poor little 6-pounder was quite outranged, and it is doubtful if the shells went more than two-thirds of the way. The other guns had sufficient range, but it was impossible to judge the distance or observe the fall of the shots. However, they made a glorious and cheering noise, and Fritz dived as soon as he could. There is not the least reason for thinking that we hit him. The skipper, deceived by the low freeboard revealed when the bulwarks were down, at this stage quickly announced the conviction that she was sinking. Smoke was also pouring out of the hatches, and we had two wounded men to see to: Ryder, who was in the magazine and who was hit in the arm, sustaining a compound fracture, and Morris, also in the magazine, bruised in the back and suffering from shock. We were not, therefore, in a position to continue the battle, and things looked a bit blue. Fritz might be expected to be along in a few minutes submerged, and he would have little difficulty in torpedoing us, as we were very nearly a stationary target. We had no means of warding him off except by a depth charge. That might inconvenience him, but it would hardly delay him long, and he could then either torpedo us or retire out of range of our guns and pound us to pieces, as his gun had a range of about 5,000 yards more than ours. Sure enough he was soon after us, as we crawled along at our 4-knot gait, and raised his periscope right astern about 200 yards off.