It was now 4.28; the fight had taken no more than eighteen minutes from first to last, and ten minutes later the U-boat sank. Her crew had opened the sea valves and nearly paid the penalty, for they were all in the water before they could be got off to the destroyer, and one who could not swim was rescued by two chivalrous Americans. They jumped into the dark, cold sea for him, forgetting all about the German rules of war, and were disappointed when he died on deck. The account given by the survivors was full of interest. They were forty-one in number, including a captain-lieutenant, a first-lieutenant, a lieutenant and a chief-engineer. The boat had come straight from her base for the express purpose of attacking this particular convoy, and had been lying in wait for two days, paying no attention to any other ships. She carried twelve torpedoes, and she carries them still, for not one had been fired when she went down. The first depth-charge from _Fanning_ had been practically a direct hit; it had wrecked her motors, diving gear, and oil leads, and sent her diving entirely out of control to a depth of 200 feet. The commanding officer thought at first that he would never be able to stop her, and that she would go on until the deep-sea pressure burst her sides in. He had only one possible course--he blew out all his four water-ballast tanks at once. This stopped the dive but brought the boat back to the surface with a rush and made her unmanageable. One witness in the destroyers says that she ‘leaped clear of the water like a breaching whale.’ It was then that _Nicholson_ overtook her and dropped the second depth-charge; but even without this the end was inevitable, for in her porpoise-like gambols she could have been shot or rammed with certainty. Given a sufficient supply of patrol boats and depth-charges in the submarine chase there will be but few and evil days for the hunted. The American naval authorities have grasped this truth at once and founded a building policy upon it. The boats will be provided in any number, and if they are handled as the _Fanning_ and _Nicholson_ were handled, the U-boat will spend her short life in dodging a perpetual bombardment.