I took my position at the gun, broke open a box of ammunition, and laid hands on a shell. The doctor came rushing aft with a handful of cotton which he told us to stuff in our ears. Then we were all set to be torpedoed. I wasn’t scared—I was too busy, I guess—but I was a little bit jumpy. I looked at my watch and it was just five minutes of two. I wondered how long it would take our yacht to sink after the torpedo hit us. The transports, as I have said, were making no headway and were all grouped together like a flock of frightened sheep, while the destroyers were just getting into motion. This was one of the prettiest sights I ever saw. No sooner had the transports halted than the destroyers, six in all, darted out in a fan-shaped formation and then worked back and forth, looking for all the world like greyhounds on a scent. And maybe they didn’t make knots! We were moving at top speed ourselves, but those destroyers gave us the impression that we were standing still. Zoom, one would cut across our bow at about thirty knots, then another would flash astern at the same rate. For a time we could discover nothing else out of the ordinary. Then suddenly the captain of Number Four gun gave a yell and pointed astern. “There she goes!” he shouted. “It’s a torpedo as sure as you live, or I never saw one.” We all rubbered astern with our eyes sticking out like onions, and there, sure enough, was a wake foaming along at tremendous speed about fifty yards away, but it was not heading in our direction, thank goodness. I don’t know whether it was a torpedo or not. I have never seen one, but our regular Navy men swore it was. The paymaster was sure it was, although he had never seen one either, and he dashed up and down the deck, clapping his hands and loudly exclaiming, “Oh, it is a torpedo! It is a torpedo!” This relieved the strain considerably. We all laughed until we almost cried. The officer upon the after deck-house suddenly cried out, “Stand steady, boys. Don’t get excited. A school of porpoises is coming toward us.” We saw them, and I imagine there would have been a heavy mortality in that bunch of porpoises if the keen-eyed officer had not warned us in time. That was about all I saw of the submarine attack, but I heard other stories from the deck and bridge. The explosion at the outset had been caused by the dropping of a depth charge from a destroyer, quite close aboard the _Corsair_. No wonder I thought somebody had banged a hatch cover over my head! The firemen below thought we had been torpedoed and were all for erupting on deck for a breath of fresh air. That depth charge was powerful. Our men said they saw the destroyer’s stern lift high in air while a great spout of water leaped just astern. We saw oil smeared over the water and I hope the destroyer was given official credit for sinking a submarine.