If it was appalling below deck it was more than appalling above. The _Bluecher_ was under the fire of so many ships. Even the little destroyers peppered her. "It was one continuous explosion," said a gunner. The ship heeled over as the broadsides struck her, then righted herself, rocking like a cradle. Gun crews were so destroyed that stokers had to be requisitioned to carry ammunition. Men lay flat for safety. The decks presented a tangled mass of scrap iron. In one casement, the only one, as they thought, undestroyed, two men continued to serve their guns. They fired it as the ship listed, adapting the elevation to the new situation. The _Bluecher_ had run her course. She was lagging, lame, and with the steering gear gone was beginning slowly to circle. It was seen that she was doomed, but still the gunfire from the British kept up with relentless, incessant fury. Some of the men on board were rendered deaf. The ship quivered and rocked under the recoil of her own guns. The deadly British broadsides made her reel. The guns were torn from their settings and whole gun crews hurled to destruction. Men hurtled down from aloft, bruised, bleeding, dead. Men were swept from the deck like flies from a tablecloth. Everywhere blood trickled and flowed. It was a fever of excitement. Men found blood pouring down their legs, but could not locate their wounds. Men in authority lost their heads and confusion reigned. Their nerves could not stand the strain. A shell would burst in the interior of the ship in a halo of flame and fire would arise from the deck, though there was nothing on the deck apparently that could burn. During the fight one of the sailors noticed the captain pull up his trousers and search for a wound; no one could then say whether he was wounded or not. It has been generally believed that a ship fighting end-on stands the smallest chance of being hit. That is what our naval textbooks teach us. But that is no longer the case. The effective target presented by an armored ship end-on is really much greater than when she is broadside-on, besides, in the former position, losing whatever protection might be afforded by her vertical side armor. This is one of the unexpected lessons taught by the ill-fated _Bluecher_. We knew we had more than a hundred miles to go before we would reach the protection of our mine fields, and we knew that the _Bluecher_ had the poorest chance of any of the German ships, as she was the slowest. Desperate efforts were made to keep the _Bluecher_ at her maximum speed, but no matter how hard we tried to get away we saw the big English ships steadily overhauling us.