"Even after it at last seemed like we was goin' to keep her from sinkin' or blowin' up, things still looked so bad to the captain that he ditched the box o' secret books for fear o' their fallin' into the hands o' the Hun. As we'd have been more hindrance than help to the Fleet, he did not try to rejoin the flotilla, but turned west an' headed for the coast o' England on the chance of makin' the nearest base while she still hung together. All night she went slap-bangin' along, wi' the engines shakin' out a few more rev'lushuns just as fast as it seemed the bulkhead was shored strong enough to stand the push o' the sea. "Mornin' found her still goin', but what a sight she was! My first good look at what was left o' her give me the same kind o' a shock I got the first time I had a peep at my mug in a glass after havin' small-pox in Singapore. She wasn't a ship at all, any more'n my face was a face. She was just a mess, that's all, an' clinkin' an' clankin' an' wheezin' and sneezin' an' yawin' all over the sea. An' the sea was empty all the way roun', wi' no ship in sight to pass us a tow-line or pick us up if she chucked in her hand an' went down. "We had our hands so full keepin' her afloat an' under weigh, that it wasn't till four in the afternoon--more'n sixteen hours after we rammed the Hun cru'ser--that we found time to bury our dead. It was like gettin' a turribl' load off your chest when we dropped 'em over in their hammocks wi' a fire-bar stitched in alongside 'em to take 'em down. Nothin' is so depressin' to a sailor as bein' shipmates wi' a mate that ain't a mate no longer. Even the ol' _Firebran'_ 'peared to ride easier an' more b'oyant after the buryin' was over, as if she knowed the worst o' her sorrer was left behind. "Luck took a turn against us again just after dark, for the wind shifted six or seven points an' started blowin' strong from dead ahead. We had to alter course some to ease off the bang o' the seas a bit, an' fin'ly the speed had to be slowed even slower'n before to keep the bulkhead from being driv' in. But she weathered it, by Gawd she did, an' next mornin' the goin' was easier. We made the Tyne at noon. It was just a heap o' ol' scrap-iron so far as the eye could see, that they let into the Middle Dock the next day, but it was scrap-iron that had come all the way from Jutland under its own steam, an' wi' no help from no one save what was left o' the lads as once manned a 'stroyer called the _Firebran'_. "It hadn't taken long to reduce her from a 'stroyer to scrap-iron, an' it didn't seem like it took much longer--time goes fast on home leave--to turn that scrap-iron back into a 'stroyer again. The ol' _Firebran's_ got many a good kick in her yet, so they say, an' I'd ask for nothin' better'n to be finishin' the war in her."