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“This is the end for us,” I said. I knew that there would be no relief from the outside; we had sent no wireless for assistance before the action had begun, and that had been the first to go. “It’s no good surrendering.” I could see the wreckage of the boat astern.

The snotty had wriggled on his stomach to the hawse-hole. “She’s running slow ahead,” he whispered. “She’s coming round on to the beam.” I wriggled up beside him. The submarine was running slowly across our bows, submerged but for a portion of the conning tower, and the twin periscopes; occasionally, as the waves swept over her, we could see the gun. Then she went down entirely but for the periscopes, and began to travel slowly down the port beam, distant perhaps five hundred yards from us. She was examining her handiwork. Then she got on to the quarter and the smoke hid her from our gaze. We lay motionless upon the deck.

Ten minutes later we saw her again on the starboard quarter, approaching us from the direction of the boat. She came close up to us this time, the periscope passing up the vessel’s side not fifty yards away. If we had had a depth-charge thrower left we might have got her then, but all that stuff had gone.