“Within five seconds I had called the battery, given them a range of 2,000 yards, swung the guns on to the enemy and loosed three shells—the first shells which I had seen fired in any action. They all went over for I had not allowed for our height above the water. Then the Boche did an extraordinary thing. If he had gone on swinging round and dashed away, he might have reached cover in the haze before I could hit him. But his Officer of the Watch was either frightened out of his wits or else was a bloomin’ copper-bottomed ’ero. Instead of trying to get away, he swung back towards us, rang up full speed, and came charging in upon us so as to get home with a torpedo. It was either the maddest or the bravest thing which I shall ever see in my life. I ought to have been frightfully thrilled, but somehow I wasn’t. I felt no excitement whatever; you see, I was thinking all the time of directing my guns and had no consciousness of anything else in the world. The moment the destroyer charged, zig-zagging to distract our aim, I knew exactly what to do with him. I instantly shortened the range by 400 yards, and gave my gunners rapid independent fire from the whole battery. The idea was to put up a curtain of continuous fire about 200 yards short for him to run into, and to draw in the curtain as he came nearer. As he zig-zagged, so we followed, keeping up that wide deadly curtain slap in his path. There was no slouching about those beautiful long-service gun-layers of ours, and you should have seen the darlings pump it out. I have seen fast firing in practice but never anything like that. There was one continuous stream of shell as the six guns took up the order. Six-inch guns are no toys, and 100-lb. shells are a bit hefty to handle, yet no quick-firing cartridge loaders could have been worked faster than were my heavy beauties. Every ten seconds my battery spat out six great shells, and I steadily drew the curtain in, keeping it always dead in his path, but by some miracle of light or of manœuvring the enemy escaped destruction for a whole long minute. On came the destroyer and round came our ship facing her. The Officer of the Watch was swinging our bows towards the enemy so as to lessen the mark for his torpedo, and I swung my guns the opposite way as the ship turned, keeping them always on the charging destroyer. Away towards the enemy the sea boiled as the torrent of shells hit it and ricochetted for miles.