Her 6-inch guns now began to strike the
German ship, and soon a fire broke out aboard her. She could have
ended the German vessel by keeping a fire upon her while remaining
too distant to be within range of the _Nuernberg's_ 4-inch guns,
but dusk was gathering and an evening mist was settling down upon
the water. Consequently the _Kent_ drew nearer to her adversary.
The firing of the _Nuernberg_ was then effective and more than twenty
of her shells took good effect on the British ship. It was only
through prompt action on the part of her crew that her magazine was
kept from exploding, for a shell set fire to the passage leading
to it.
By seven o'clock in the evening the _Nuernberg_ was practically
"blind," for the flames from the fire that was raging on her had
reached her conning tower. A member of her crew hauled down her
flag, and the _Kent_, thinking that the fight was over, came close
to her. While within a few hundred yards of her, however, she was
greeted with new firing from the German cruiser. But this ceased
under a raking from the _Kent's_ starboard guns, and once again
the flag of the _Nuernberg_, which had been run up on resumption
of shooting, was hauled down. Members of her crew then had to jump
into the sea to escape death from burning--the fire was quenched
only when she went down at half past seven. The overworked engineers
and stokers of the _Kent_ were rewarded for their hard work by being
permitted to come on deck to watch the _Nuernberg_ go down, and
all were soon engaged in helping to save the lives of the German
sailors in the water.
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