"The rest of us were only shaken up or no more than slightly wounded by this particular shell, but the one which brought down the mast added not a little both to casualties and material damage. The radio aerials came down with the mast, of course, and it was some of the wreckage from one or the other that fell on the captain, wounding him severely in both arms. Dazed and shaken, he still gamely stuck to the wreck of the bridge, but the active command now fell to me. "This damage, serious as it was, was by no means the extent of that inflicted by this unlucky salvo. A third shell, as I shortly learned, had passed through the fore shell-room and into the fore magazine. In which it exploded I could not quite make sure, but both were set on fire. This fire got to some of the cordite before it was possible to get it away, and the ensuing explosion killed or wounded most of the supply parties and the crews of the twelve-pounders. It was brave beyond all words, the fight those men made to save the ship down in that unspeakable hell-hole, and it was due wholly to their courage and devotion that the explosion was no worse than it was. This trouble, luckily, was hardly more than local, but a number of good lives was the price of keeping it so. "There was one other consequence of that salvo, and though it sounds funny to tell about it now, it might well have made all the difference in the world to us. In the bad smashing-up of the bridge of any ship by shell-fire the means of communication with the rest of her--the voice-pipes, telephones, telegraphs, etc.--are among the first things to be knocked out. This means, if there are no alternatives left, that directions have to be relayed around by shouting from one to another until the order reaches the man to carry it out. This would be an awkward enough expedient for a ship that is not under fire and fighting for time and her life. What it is with the enemy's shell exploding about you, and with your own guns firing, I will leave you to imagine. Well, we had all this going on, and besides that a fire raging below that always had the possibilities of disaster in it until it was extinguished. Also, we were already short-handed from our losses in killed and wounded. There wasn't anyone to spare to relay orders about in any case. But what capped the climax was this: When the mast was shot down, some of the raffle of rigging or radio fouled the wires leading back to both of the sirens, turning a full pressure of steam into them and starting them blowing continuously. It was almost as though the poor maimed and mangled _Flop_ were wailing aloud in her agony.