Rapidly the Sub took in the situation. Morpeth's idea was to "cross the tee" of the approaching line of torpedo boats, which had changed their course so that the rearmost boat was now leading the flotilla. The demolition of the steering-gear, and Morpeth being knocked out of action, had temporarily thwarted the manoeuvre, but there was yet time to mend matters. The steady pulsations of the motors showed that below decks the badly battered vessel was still making good. For'ard a solitary gun was barking at wide intervals, keeping up a sullen and determined show of defiance. Otherwise the whole length of deck resembled, as far as the eddying smoke permitted, a gaunt and hideous charnel-house. "Fritz has got to have it in the neck," thought Meredith. "Here goes!" Conning the still swiftly moving Q-boat, he made straight for the leading German vessel. The latter held stubbornly on her course, at the same time masking the fire of her consorts astern. It was a tense moment. Approaching at a speed of about sixty miles an hour, the two vessels, British and German, were heading to mutual destruction. With telescoped bows and interlocked framework, they would assuredly founder together in a common and awe-inspiring dissolution. But almost at the last moment the nerve of the German commander failed. He ported his helm in a vain attempt to avoid the despairing act of a mad Englishman. He was too late. Meredith held on. It was true that the kapitan-leutnant of the V 199 saved the bows of his boat from being telescoped, but by giving the vessel starboard helm he had neglected the important fact that the stern would swing to starboard more rapidly than the bows would turn to port. Almost before he was aware of the fact, the bows of Q 171 bit deeply into the German torpedo boat's quarter. The shock was lighter than the Sub expected: it was the tortional wrench that hurled him sideways against the disabled quick-firer. Then, swinging outwards under the way carried by her opponent, Q 171 literally levered the partly severed stern away from the rest of the rammed torpedo boat. With a gurgling sound, audible above the hiss of steam from the flooding engine-room, the after-part of the Hun boat sank, leaving two-thirds of the hull floating almost motionless and kept afloat solely by the badly strained bulkheads. Freed from the interlocking embrace, Q 171 drifted clear, but she was no longer under control. Both her propellers had fouled some of the wreckage, and the bosses were stripped clear of their phosphor-bronze blades. The gallant mystery ship, with the White Ensign flying from her stumpy mast--how it withstood that tornado of hurtling metal was little short of miraculous--was doomed.