about noon
Only one gun remained in action onboard the Destroyer , and round that gathered the bandaged remnant of what had once been a ship 's company . They shook hands grimly among themselves and spat and girded their loins for their last fight . The German Cruiser turned slowly over and sank while they trained the gun ... . A dismasted Destroyer , with riddled funnels and a foot of water swilling across the floor plates in the engine-room , bore down upon them about noon and took her crippled sister in tow . They passed slowly away to the westward , leaving the circle of grey , tumbling sea to the floating wreckage of a hundred fights and the thin keening of the gulls . The afternoon wore on : five drenched , haggard men were laboriously propelling a life-saving raft by means of paddles in the direction of the English coast that lay some hundred odd miles to the west . The waves washed over their numbed bodies , and imparted an almost lifelike air of animation to the corpse of a companion that lay between them , staring at the sullen sky .