"We were out on convoy," he said, speaking the first words slowly between the teeth which held the string of the tobacco sack from which the gently manipulated paper in his hand had been filled. "It was some kind of a slow convoy--probably a collier or an oiler or two--and there were only two of us on the job--the _McSmall_ and the _Sherill_. It was just the usual ding-dong sort of a drudge up to about four in the afternoon of the first day out, when the _McSmall_ made a signal that she had sighted a submarine on the starboard bow of the convoy, distant about five miles, and immediately stood off to the west to see if anything like a strafe could be started. She was more than hull-down on the horizon when I saw, by the way the angle of her funnels was changing, that she was manoeuvring to shake loose a few 'cans' into the oil-slick she had run into, but I remember distinctly that I felt the jolt of the under-water explosions stronger than from many we had kicked loose from the _Sherill_, and which had detonated only a hundred yards or so off. It's just a little trick the depth-charge has. The force of it seems to shoot out in streaks, just like an explosion in the air, and you may feel it strong at a distance and much less at fairly close range. So far as we ever learned, this opening salvo did not find its target. "Meanwhile the _Sherill_ was escorting to the best of her ability alone. Or at least we thought we were alone. About half an hour after the _McSmall_ had laid those first 'cans,' however, one of the quartermasters reported sighting a periscope on the port quarter of the convoy, about five hundred yards distant, and headed away. We signalled its presence to the convoy, turned eight points to port, and drove at full speed for the point where the wake of the moving finger had pinched out. "We had received a report that morning to the effect that two submarines were operating in these waters, and there is just the chance, therefore, that this was a joint attack. Everything considered, however, we have been inclined to believe that the Fritz we were now starting to make the acquaintance of was the same one which the _McSmall_ was still assiduously hunting some miles off to the westward. It was a mighty smart piece of 'Pussy-wants-a-corner' work, shifting his position like that under the circumstances; but it was quite possible if the Fritz only had the guts for it, and that I think you'll have to admit this particular one had.