"When we rose," he said, "we saw two German destroyers travelling at a speed of some 30 knots. Our commander was at the periscope, and ordered the forward tubes to be fired." They then rose to the surface, and the commander said: "Look at her; the beggar is going down." Then they saw the German rise perpendicularly, and men rushed up to her stern and dived into the water. The submarine then submerged and made her way back. "I don't want to boast," continued the narrator, "but we got our 'rooties'[86] home. It was not a bad performance."[87] Again, a smart little action was fought on the afternoon of 17th October between the light cruiser _Undaunted_, commanded by Captain Fox, who was blown up in the _Amphion_--with the destroyers _Lance_, _Lennox_, _Legion_, and _Loyal_, and four German destroyers, all of which were sunk. "We steamed out of Harwich," wrote an officer who was engaged, "with all the ships' companies jubilant and eager to get into the danger zone, as it was reported that a 'certain amount of liveliness' prevailed in the North Sea.[88] All was quiet till two o'clock, when, heading up northwards and skirting the Dutch coast-line, we sighted the smoke of four vessels. Our captain immediately cleared for action, and signalled the order to chase. We steamed at top speed, with two destroyers disposed on either side of us. It was a never-to-be-forgotten sight--nerves strained to their utmost tension, and everybody as keen as mustard. Sea and spray flew all over us, and covered us fore and aft. The German destroyers turned about and fled, but we had the advantage in speed, soon got within range with our 6-inch bow gun, and opened fire.... Once within effective range our 4-inch semi-automatic guns blazed away, the destroyers acting independently. The Germans, seeing themselves cornered, altered course, with the intention of obtaining a better strategic position. Most of their shooting was aimed at the destroyers. Lusty cheers rang from our ships as the first German destroyer disappeared. A 6-inch lyddite shell struck her just below the bridge. She toppled over on her beam-ends like a wounded bird, then righted herself level with the surface, and finally plunged, bow first, all in about two minutes. [Illustration: "MISSED!"; THE HELM THE BEST WEAPON AGAINST TORPEDOES This picture illustrates an incident which has frequently occurred in the patrol flotillas when destroyers have been hunting down submarines and the latter have retaliated by firing torpedoes. Clever manoeuvring in combination with good gunnery is the war-ship's best protection against attack by submarine.]