Buckley, F. R. "Childhood of Miss Churt."

Another Buckley World War 2 era short story, probably written up during the time of the “Phony War” given its curiously jocular tone and somewhat even-handed portrayal of a British merchant vessel crew and their adversaries in a German U-boat. The Miss Churt in question is a young kitten, darling of the freighter MALVERN’s crew, who is inadvertently left behind after the ship has been abandoned after having struck a derelict vessel. The MALVERN’s 1st Officer, Mr. Wharton, returns to retrieve the kitten just in time to endure a shelling from a just-surfaced German submarine. When he erroneously believes the Germans to have killed the kitten Mr. Wharton mans the MALVERN’s 4.7 gun and shoots off the top of the sub’s conning tower.