"When I saw it was the first lieutenant that seemed to be directin' things, I took it the captain was done for, an' that was what everyone thought till, all o' a sudden, he come wrigglin' out o' the wreck o' the bridge--all messed up an' covered wi' blood, but not much hurt otherways--an' began carryin' on just as if it was 'Gen'ral Quarters.' Some cove wi' the stump o' his hand tied up wi' First Aid dressin' was sent up to relieve me on the lookout, an' I was put to fightin' fires an' clearin' up the wreck 'bove decks. As there ain't much to burn on a 'stroyer if the cordite ain't started, we were not long gettin' the fires in hand, even wi' havin'--cause the hoses an' the fire-mains was knocked out--to dip up water in buckets throwed over the side. Wi' the wreckage, the most we could do was to dig out the dead an' wounded an' rig up for connin' ship from aft. "It was a nasty job when we started in on the wreck o' the forebridge, for the witch-lights o' the short-circuit were still dancin' a cancan in the smashed an' twisted steel plates an' girders, an' it kept a cove lookin' lively to keep from switchin' some of the blue-green lightnin' into his own frame by way o' his ax or saw. No one that had been on any part o' the bridge was wi'out some kind o' hurt, but the three dead was a deal less than was to be expected. There was also three very bad knocked up, an' on one o' them the surgeon--a young probasuner R.N.V.R.--performed an operashun in the dark. It was a cove he was 'fraid to move wi'out tinkerin' up a bit, an' he pulled him thro' all right in the end. One o' the crew of the foremost gun never turned up, an' we figured he must have been lost overboard when she rammed. "Pois'nous as it was workin' on deck, that wasn't a circumstance to what it must have been carryin' on below. I didn't see nothin' o' that end o' the show, thank Gawd, but every man as came out o' it alive said it was just one livin' bloomin' hell, no less. There was a good number o' coves who did things off han' that saved the ship from blowin' up, or burnin' up, or sinkin', an' three o' the best o' 'em was a engine-room artif'cer, a stoker P.O., and a stoker that was in the fore stokehold when the bridge was pushed back an' carried away that funnel. They ducked into their resp'rators, stuck to their posts a' kept the fans goin' till the fumes was all cleared away. Nothin' else would have saved the foremost boiler--an' wi' it the ship herself--blowin' up right then an' there. Same way, gettin' on the jump in backin' up Number 3 bulkhead--the one that was holding back the whole North Sea--was all that kept it from bulgin' in an' floodin' right back into the stokeholds. It was the chief art'ficer engineer that took on that job, an' it was him, too, that stopped up the gaps left by the knocking down o' the first and second funnels.