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[page 45]
87
(7).
glasses to my eyes but my friend the Commander who is already preparing to fire the next salvo, tells me that there is no hurry. And he was right. The range was known so was the velocity of the shot and just before the shot should reach its mark some wonderful machine sounds a hooter in the foretop at which everybody directs his glasses at the target just in time to see eight geysers rise up on the horizon nicely round that speck of a target. By this time all the ships are sending off broadsides at the rate of two in less than a minute and the target is frequently obscured by the columns of water rising when the shot strikes. The ships turn about and round go the guns still pouring in their broadsides. Which splashes belonged to which ship I couldn't tell but there is an observer on that trawler who knows and within an hour each ship will receive a chart shewing exactly where each shot fell. Five minutes after the last salvo was fired I was drinking tea with the Gunnery Commander in his cabin - his work was over, it was the duty of someone else to take the ship back to harbour.
On another occasion we were out for a bit of work in repelling night attacks of submarines and other torpedo craft. Again targets were provided, and the ship had to find them with her searchlights and strafe them with her smaller armourment, all of which she did to satisfaction.
An invitation to go out in a destroyer doing her 24 hours patrol in the North Sea didn't appeal to me. I don't mind being seasick when it is necessary, but I don't hanker after looking for it. Nevertheless I had ample opportunity to see the destroyers at their work both in conjunction with the battle squadrons and at their own evolutions and I must say that to a layman like myself the work of the destroyers possesses more thrills than that of the