The lid was unfastened from within. He pushed it aside and slid in, feet foremost. The round steel box was filled with fumes. Through them he perceived several bodies stretched out upon the floor. He stumbled over one of them, and the handkerchief over the man's face slipped aside. It was the commander. He heard the voice of one of the gunnery-lieutenants at a telephone communicating with a fire-control station, followed by rapid orders to the electricians turning the handles of the range indicators. At another telephone a man was making frantic but ineffectual efforts to get a reply from the wireless room. A junior officer at the steering wheel gave him a slow strained grin, almost like an expression of pain. The captain glared at him with eyes in which there flamed a Berserk madness.
"Well!" he shouted, sticking his red beard into the lieutenant's face.
The navigating lieutenant gave his information, staggering with the heavy lurches of the ship. It flashed on his mind while he spoke that she no longer rose so buoyantly to the waves. The captain listened, his face twitching insanely, puckering his fierce eyes. When the lieutenant spoke of the blur of smoke on the horizon he sprang round and peered out through the narrow slit between the wall and the roof. Then he turned with a cry of panic.
"They are all round us! Starboard your helm! West-by-north-west!"
The ship came round on her new course with a wallowing roll. The captain peered again through the observation slit.
Suddenly there was a fearful shock, a deafening roar, and the slit was vividly illuminated. The conning-tower had been again struck. The captain toppled backward on his heels, an object of sickening horror. The top of his head was gone. The gunnery-lieutenant sank quietly to his knees and slid over sideways. The officer at the helm was leaning over the wheel, motionless and staring. A splinter had gone through his brain. Lieutenant Bielefeld sprang to take his place. Three men beside himself, rangetakers and electricians, were left alive in the conning-tower. They seemed in a stupor, dazed by the shock.
"Telephone to Lieutenant von Waldkirch that he is now in command!"
An electrician roused himself, attempted to obey, and reported: