Altmark turns the encounter into a warship action

At first the Royal Navy was visibly the violator, driving into a neutral fjord to reach a German vessel protected by Norway. Altmark then used searchlights to blind Cossack's bridge and tried to crush the destroyer against the side of the fjord. That resistance looked more like the action of a warship than of a peaceful merchantman and changed the practical terms of the encounter. British sailors crossed with rifles, pistols, swords, and other edged weapons, forced control of the bridge, and answered an attempted German counterattack with the ship's own machine guns. They liberated the captive merchant crews and transferred them to the destroyer before leaving.