"It was twenty minutes before the helm was of any use at all, and the Austrians had only their lack of nerve to thank for not putting us down while they had a chance. It must have been because they were afraid of some kind of a trap, for there were a half-dozen ways in which a force of their strength could have disposed of a ship as helpless and knocked-out generally as was the _Flop_. The _Flip_ had also been hard hit, and when I had a chance for a good look at her again it appeared that her mast, like ours, was trailing over the side. She was still firing, however, and it was she rather than the enemy that was trying to close. We were quite cut off from wireless communication, as all attempts to disentangle the aerials from the wreckage of the mast had been unsuccessful; but it was evident that help was coming to us, and that the Austrians had in some way got wind of it. At any rate, our immediate responsibilities were over. We had prevented the enemy from reaching his objective, and possibly delayed him long enough for some of our other ships to have a chance at harrying his retreat. It was now up to us to limp to port on whatever legs we had left. "We were still a long way from being out of action even now, but with the fires continuing to burn fiercely in the fore magazine and shell-room, with the helm threatening to jam every time course was altered, and with a considerable mixture of water beginning to make its presence felt in the oil, there was no telling what complications might set in at any moment. As one of the Italian bases in Albania was rather nearer than any port on the other side of the Adriatic, it was for that we set our still erratic course. "Our troubles were not yet over, however. Just as the moon came down and sat on the sea preliminary to setting, squarely against the round yellow background it formed I saw the silhouette of the conning-tower of a U-boat. At almost the same instant the helm jammed again. Then it worked free for a few seconds, but only to jam presently, just as before. This continued during two or three minutes, and just as it was wangled right and we began to steady again I saw the wake of a torpedo pass across our bows. Half a minute later another one missed us in the same way, and by about the same distance. I have always thought that nothing but that providential jamming of the helm just then saved us from intercepting both of those mouldies. "The fires in the fore shell-room and magazine were eventually got under control by flooding, and we were fairly cushy when we dropped anchor at base a little before daybreak." K---- lurched over to the starboard rail and counted the dark blurs that represented the units of the straggling convoy. He was wiping snow and spray from his face as he slid back on the roll to our stanchion. "Fine place, Southern Albania," he muttered. "Plenty of heat and dust and sunshine and----"