"Officially," he said with a laugh, "she probably represents the Kaiser, or Von Tirpitz, or whoever stands sponsor for the Huns' 'ruthless' submarine war. That signal refers to a U-boat, not to any of the craft playing in our little game." He paused for a moment as a detonation of terrific force rumbled distantly, and a shock like that of a blow from a mighty wave shook the ship from bow to stern, and then resumed with a grim smile: "But if that charge came anywhere near her, by this time she probably represents--well, a tired lily folding up and going to sleep for the night would probably be about as near it as anything in Nature." Eight or ten times, with short intervals between, those thunderous under-sea detonations--each followed by its own shuddering jar--came over and through the water to us. Whitish perpendicular bars, dimly guessed in the mist, revealed what might have been high-tossed foam-geysers four or five miles away, but it was almost inconceivable that explosions at that distance could reach us with such staggering force. Indeed, I have since talked with officers from a number of different squadrons--seasoned veterans of many big gun battles, all of them--who, experiencing the shocks from 'tween decks, felt certain that their own ships had been mined or torpedoed. While the muffled booms of the depth-charges were still sounding we saw one of the "enemy" ships--apparently a battleship of the "Queen Elizabeth" class--which had been manoeuvring for a position from which she could deliver an effective "broadside" at us, suddenly alter course eight points to port and head directly away at right angles to our extended line. As the raking this would have exposed her to was about the last thing in the world she would have risked had she been still playing the "make believe" battle, it hardly needed the far-borne and faint but still unmistakable shriek of a syren to tell us there was another game afoot. Presently she altered back to her original course, and all we ever heard of what happened was a signal, received shortly afterwards, saying that the _Valiant_ had attempted to ram the periscope of a hostile submarine.