This boat came out of the Bight and back to Harwich at slow speed on the surface and with a large part of her forward buoyancy destroyed. The luck that watches over the competent took her back unmolested by the enemy. There is a case where the run back of a damaged boat was performed over a yet greater distance through enemy waters.
On the 21st June 1915 submarine "S 1" (Lieut.-Commander Kellett) was ten miles north of Heligoland. She dived during the day on several occasions, owing to sighting one Zeppelin, one seaplane, nineteen trawlers (sweeping in lines), and she also attacked, fired at, and missed a destroyer. Her port engine then broke down completely. On the 22nd, by Hiorn's Reef Light-vessel, she sighted a Zeppelin and a Parseval. She worked on engine defects all day while diving.
On the 23rd the starboard engine broke down completely, and she continued to work on defects. A Zeppelin was in sight nearly all day. On the 24th she captured the German trawler _Ost_. She put a prize crew of five hands with Lieutenant Kennedy on board, passed a tow-rope over, and started back to Yarmouth. On the 25th the trawler's engine broke down. "S 1's" crew refitted the HP piston, crossheads and crankhead bearings, and at four knots speed the strange procession proceeded on out of the Bight. On the 26th they stopped to refit the trawler's L.P. cylinder (they must have been by this time thoroughly sick and tired of engines and all to do with them), and proceeded. On the 27th June they made a triumphant arrival.
There seems to be a special providence that watches over people who won't admit defeat. I don't know about faith moving mountains, but (I'm sorry to have to use the word, but my vocabulary is limited) it was "guts" that brought "H 8" and "S 1" home safely.
Getting back to the question of depth-charges--one may pass over the little explosive sweep-charges used by the Germans early in the war. They were more like squibs than anything else. The Zeppelin bombs were noisy, but burst on the surface only, and so were innocuous to a boat below 30 or 40 feet depth. Later on, in 1917, the Germans began to use depth-charges in their destroyers and patrol boats; but these weapons were not only too light for useful results to be expected from them, but were also dropped too vaguely and inaccurately for our boats to have much respect for them.