"'Alternate the screws!' Ames yelled. 'I'm busy with these guns.
We'll fight as long as she floats!'

"The speaking tubes existed no longer. I stationed a man at the hatch
-- and another below and transmitted my orders to the engine room by
them. First we drove ahead with one screw, then with the other, to get
a zig-zag course; next we backed first with one propeller and then the
other. Each time we backed farther than we went forward, for I wanted
to get out of the mess if possible. The crazy course threw the enemy
gunners off somewhat.

"Suddenly I heard a yell from Ames. We'd put one of the German
destroyers out of business. The other one was steaming toward us, but
she was a long ways off,

"The men were cheering. I looked at the second destroyer, thinking we
must have finished her, too, but she was still firing. Then I glanced
around to see what the men were yelling about.

"Right into that hail of fire steamed a little mine sweeper. She
looked for all the world like a tugboat. She had a single gun mounted
in her bow, and one or two amidships. She had no armor and a rifle
bullet probably would have pierced her sides with ease, but she pounded
straight toward us; the water around her was beaten to a foam.

"Far out on the prow stood a man with a coil of rope. Ames sent a man
to our stern. The sweeper had come close. The man in the prow swung
his rope and let the coil fly. It fell across our stern. There wasn't
much left to make it fast to, but we did it somehow and the sweeper