The Tecumseh, after firing the two first guns, as stated above, had turned her turret from the enemy and loaded again with steel shot and the heaviest charge[30] of powder. Intent only upon the Tennessee, she steamed quietly on, regardless of the fort, a little ahead of the Brooklyn, the other monitors following her closely. As they drew near the buoy, Craven from the pilot-house of his ship saw it so nearly in line with the beach that he turned to his pilot and said, "It is impossible that the admiral means us to go inside that buoy; I cannot turn my ship." At the same moment the Tennessee, which till that time had lain to the eastward of the buoy, went ahead to the westward of it, and Craven, either fearing she would got away from him or moved by the seeming narrowness of the open way, gave the order "Starboard" and pushed the Tecumseh straight at the enemy. She had gone but a few yards and the lockstring was already taut in the hands of an officer of the enemy's ship, Lieutenant Wharton, waiting to fire as they touched, when one or more torpedoes exploded under her. She lurched from side to side, careened violently over, and went down head foremost, her screw plainly visible in the air for a moment to the enemy, that waited for her, not two hundred yards off, on the other side of the fatal line. It was then that Craven did one of those deeds that should be always linked with the doer's name, as Sidney's is with the cup of cold water. The pilot and he instinctively made for the narrow opening leading to the turret below. Craven drew back: "After you, pilot," he said. There was no afterward for him; the pilot was saved, but he went down with his ship.