To Risks Unknown by Douglas Reeman

crouched along the sagging bulwark and several inert shapes scattered around a crater where the wheelhouse had stood before one of Shannon’s shells had found its mark.
    Wemyss yelled, ‘Those poor devils will be cut to bits!’
    Crespin flinched as splinters clanged against the steel plates beneath his elbows and screamed away into the returning darkness. The E-boat’s commander was no fool. He had been taken completely by surprise by the
Thistle
’s sudden onslaught, but provided the corvette maintained her course and furious speed he was better off to stay where he was.
    The flare was almost gone, and to fire another Shannon would have to stop using his gun for its true purpose. By the time he reopened fire
Thistle
would be past and she would cross directly over the E-boat’s bows and her waiting torpedoes.
    Wemyss could stand the hammering of gun-fire and the merciless business of killing, but he was no torpedo-boat officer. Crespin knew far better than he what would happen if the E-boat was allowed to unleash her salvo against the
Thistle
’s unprotected flank.
    A bell jangled and a man called hoarsely, ‘Depth-charge ready, sir!’
    The flare vanished, but the intermingling tracers were more than enough to pick out the scene. Somewhere aft a gun had jammed and from below the bridge a man was sobbing, ‘Oh, God, help me!
Help me!
’
    Crespin gripped the screen, feeling the sweat running in his eyes and across his spine. He saw a man on the fishing boat holding up a shirt like a white flag, and another, it looked like a boy, leaping overboard in a pathetic effort to save himself.
    Wemyss murmured, ‘God forgive me!’
    Crespin dropped his hand. ‘Fire!’
    There was a brief thud, and some of the watching men saw the depth-charge hurtle from its thrower before splashing almost gently within yards of the fishing boat and the madly thrashing figure alongside.
    The depth-charge sank to a distance of fifty feet only before exploding.
    Crespin had carried out such attacks against small surface craft several times, but at thirty knots he had been well clear before the explosion came. This time it seemed to be almost alongside. It was more of a feeling than a sound, and Crespin found himself falling against the voice-pipes as the deck gave a convulsive leap and then swayed right over away from the blast. But even then it was possible to see the towering column of water which appeared to rise higher and higher until it hung over the ship like a towering iceberg. Then with a hissing roar it subsided, while the reeling bridge became a blind, coughing wilderness of struggling men and a cascade of water which seemed to taste of charred wood.
    Crespin hauled himself back to the screen. There were several small islands of fire swirling around in a great maelstrom of seething water, and what appeared to be the bows of the fishing boat. There were faint patches of white joining in the grotesque dance, which looked like dead fish, but Crespin knew they were fragments of men.
    Shocked and dazed the gunners scrambled back to their weapons and the tracers reached out astern, further tormenting the grisly remains and lighting up the bridge and funnel so that they looked red hot.
    Crespin shouted, ‘Cease firing!
Cease firing!
’
    But the guns continued to fire, and he heard his men yelling and calling to each other like maniacs.
    As he threw himself on the bellpush below the screen he saw Scarlett’s face shining in the flashes. He was laughing, or shouting, Crespin could not tell in the din around him. But as he found the button he felt Scarlett’s fingers on his wrist like steel and heard him yell, ‘Let them shoot if they want to! It’ll do ’em good!’
    Crespin tore his hand away and pressed the button hard. As the cease-fire gong rang tinnily around the ship first one, and then reluctantly, the rest of the guns fell silent.
    Crespin hardly trusted