Torpedoed

I

THE first torpedo struck us at a few minutes past ten o’clock in the morning. I was down below in the saloon with E—. We had both kept a boatwatch during the night and were the last officers to come to breakfast.

The saloon was a fine large place, with lots of glass and tables and whitejacketed stewards. Above, on the decks, the men and most of the officers had fallen in at dawn and were to remain alert during our passage through the danger zone. A couple of Japanese destroyers, one to port and one to starboard, formed our escort. Our course was a series of zigzags at fourteen knots per hour by day and rather more at night.

E—and I ate our bacon and eggs and drank our coffee. The steward waiting on us was a clean-shaven little fellow who looked much like a low comedian. When the torpedo struck, there was no mistaking it for anything else. E—and I laughed, as much as to say, ‘Here she is!’ Then I put on my cork belt, asked myself whether any part of me had suffered in the explosion, and received a confident answer, and next I leaped up the three flights of stairs that led to the liner’s deck and my own boat-station.

E—raced with me. I have never seen him since. He had a lovable habit of mothering people. I dare say it cost him his life. There is something specially tragical about this officer’s disappearance. He was the last of three brothers. Two had died gallantly in France, and so that one of her boys might be spared to the bereaved mother, E—had been taken out of the trenches and given a ‘safe’ job at the base. Yet even so the Fates had followed him!

The stewards and cooks raced with us too. There was something theatrical and cinema-ish about that picture — so many white jackets and blue uniform trousers and white overalls.

All this time—it might have been a couple of minutes — the greater part of me was so active that I have no recollection of any instant devoted to fear. Crude and horrible as it may sound, there was a large portion of my consciousness which was most vividly and delightedly enjoying itself. I will try to explain why.

Firstly, the torpedo had come, and with it an end to our suspense. A weight seemed lifted. I have crossed the Channel five times, the Mediterranean twice and a fraction — I call the last effort a fraction — during this war; and much of these twenty-three nights and seventeen days one was waiting. The Channel crossing is nothing. You turn in, go to sleep, and wake in safe waters. But from Saloniki to port, or from Europe to Saloniki, you are at the mercy of your digestion, your nerves, and, especially in my own case, an incorrigible imagination. I am a writer, and therefore have not spared that faculty. Well, the torpedo had come at last, and now farewell to fond imaginings.

Secondly and chiefly, the whole thing was so terrible as to be quite unreal. In that way it defeated itself. I, for one, simply could not believe in it. ‘ Such things are done at the “ pictures ” or at Drury Lane; they are not done in real life.’ I was arguing something like that, very swiftly no doubt, very sub-consciously. I am not aware that I argued, but I do know that at the outset the whole thing seemed like an exciting, wonderful adventure, and withal quite unreal.

Just picture us, on a great liner, cosy as a grand hotel. Everything was remote from war and death, as I have seen them so constantly on land these last three years. No mud, no dirt, no continuity. And we were all at ease and leading civilian lives, with bathrooms, linen sheets, and even an American bar! I don’t know why, but I had imagined it all quite differently.

As one rushed upstairs one thought of things one had valued yesterday,— two brand-new pairs of boots, one’s field-glasses, some money,—they seemed now so utterly of no account. Providence must have been with me, for, arrived on deck, I stood flush before my boat, Number 13. I stood there and took charge. To left of me the right people were busy with our sixty-six sisters. These ladies were part of the staff of a new hospital unit. Safely they were put into their boats, safely lowered, and safely rowed away from us. We cheered them as they left, and they cheered back. Then Tommy, lined on deck, struck up a song. He always does in moments of emotion.

I had filled my boat as full as it would go. All was ready. I stepped on board and gave the signal. Then slowly we descended. Above our heads one of the ship’s officers was seeing to it that we went down all right. Immediately below us was another boat. It pushed off at last, and now we were free to hit the water. Before we pushed off I took on five of the crew who had helped to lower us. They swarmed down the ropes and reached us safely. Then I refused to take anybody else and we got the oars out and rowed away. Only then did I notice that the ship had stopped dead. She looked perfectly steady, like a ship anchored.

On leaving her I had thought of the two other officers wffio should have been with me, and of the long rows of men I had seen drawn up on the decks. A moment I had hesitated, feeling very like a rat, but it was my duty to leave them and I had no choice. Three more boats were waiting to follow mine. I pointed this out to the men I had to leave behind. And still I felt rather like a rat. Now, with a fuller knowledge, I am glad I went.

I was the only officer in our boat. All my fifty companions were ‘other ranks’ or else members of the crew. Straightway I took command. It seemed a relief to the men, and it was certainly a relief to me. I heard shouts of ‘Listen to the officer,’ and all those fifty pair of eyes I knew would judge me, and, if I were worthy, trust me. I had no cap, but I had my tunic and its rank badges for all to see.

Within me I knew that I was an absolute novice, as green as the green waters on which we now moved and had our being. ‘Row away from the ship,’ was my first order. Six or eight boats and numerous rafts were already floating on the water. They had put a safe distance between themselves and the ship, and I thought it right to do the same. One had heard stories about ‘suction’: how a sinking vessel draws down other craft with it. So away we rowed, very crowded and jammed together. When we had gone a couple of hundred yards, I turned to our professional sailors. Two were young negroes; the other three were white; but all five seemed to know little more than I. They were probably stokers or kitchen hands. In any case, I speedily realized that they could help me very little and that I must rely on my own judgment.

So we floated, one of many little units, on those waters; and for a long time we were kept passionately interested by what we saw. Speaking for myself, I have never lived through moments so tense, so big, so charged with all extremes and textures of emotion.

The big ship — she was near to 15,000 tons — stood like an island, and as if she could stand forever. While one of our destroyers went away on an unknown quest, the other drew alongside. We saw the little khaki figures swarm into her, and, to be frank, we envied them. Then the destroyer manœuvred, and there was a flash and an explosion. A second torpedo had struck and the Japanese commander had just dodged it. We now saw that his mast was broken and his wireless installation was sagging. But still the great ship stood there like an island. ‘She’s beached!’ shouted some one; and for quite a while there were many of us who felt that this was likely.

Our next diversion came from the destroyer. Some one on board was signaling us to get out of the way, and some one else on board was firing the forward gun straight past us. We were in the line of fire and an obstruction. And so we rowed away from there, getting clear. Five or six shells were fired. We heard later that the target was a sailing boat which the submarine had used to screen her periscope. Personally, I saw nothing of sailing-boat, submarine, or periscope.

I imagine that I must have been uncommonly busy. The sea was now nursing a little fleet of boats and rafts, and some of my own men wanted comforting. One flash of the Comic Spirit cheered us all. He was a fat, baldheaded soldier on a raft, probably a quartermaster-sergeant. He sprawled at his ease, lying face to the sun, just like a man on a holiday. A pipe stuck in that calm and florid face would have perfected the picture. I hope his sublime coolness has been rewarded.

A similar raft, quite empty, floated by, and it is with a twinge of shame that I admit that I would gladly have swum to it. We were overcrowded, some of us had to be suppressed, and one or two of us were terrified. As an officer I was doing my duty, but as an individual I was not altogether happy! I envied the leisure, the spacious ease, the care-free dignity of that fat man with a whole raft to himself.

That moment passed, as did many another. I remember especially seeing another boat with only five men on board, four rowing gayly past us, the fifth baling. It seemed to us a horrible injustice, and several of my men said so aloud. I negatived the proposition, however, that we should get alongside and in part transfer. We seemed all right, and it struck me as best to leave well alone.

There followed next the most dramatic period of that spectacle. So far the great ship had stood firm, as if anchored. We noticed now that she had a definite list to starboard. The angle grew steeper, and then suddenly her bow dropped, her stern lifted, and next she slid to the bottom like a diver. It was as though a living thing had disappeared beneath the waves. We watched her, open-mouthed, a tightness at our hearts. We missed the comfort of her presence, we felt the tragedy of her surrender. In her death and engulfment there was a something more than human. So might a city built by countless hands and quick with life pass suddenly away. From somewhere in the middle of her bled a great puff of smoke, and I noticed that her deck as she stood on end, one half of her submerged, was bare and naked. It might have been a ball-room floor. We said nothing, but it was evident that most of us felt and thought alike. We turned now a more searching eye upon the strange shores that lay some five miles distant, and upon the strange city whose central monuments fixed our attention. What kind of people lived there, and would they send us help? we seemed to ask. But already the latter question was answered. A small steamer, apparently a tug, was evidently the forerunner of rescue.

You must picture us now on an empty sea; for with the going of our ship, although some thousands of us were floating, struggling, and, alas, drowning, we made no great impression on that immensity. We felt very small and we felt very much alone and neglected.

II

So far, absorbed by the larger drama of those hours, I have hardly done justice to our own personal worries and hesitations. To begin with, either our boat leaked, or we had omitted to replace the plug which is part of a boat’s equipment and the absence or presence of which regulates the escape of rainwater from a boat as it hangs on its davits. We leaked, and a rising sea added to this danger; for, besides taking in water from below, the big waves, when we met them broadside on, drenched us and filled us still more. To remedy this latter evil, and after discovering also that we were rudderless, I constituted myself coxswain of the boat. I stood up and shouted, ‘Right,’ or ‘left,’ as the case might be, and the men pulled bravely. Thus, by using our oars, — and though we lost one or two there were always sufficient, — we were able to keep our boat head on to the waves and rise or sink with them instead of meeting them sideways.

The leakage from below, however, was a far more serious matter. At first we tried to hold our own with an iron bucket which we had found aboard. This helped matters, but still the water was gaining on us. We sat in it and watched it climbing. Then one of the men baling dropped the bucket over the side. It was gone. I called him a particular kind of fool, in which opinion he certainly concurred; and then a happy inspiration caused me to remember a couple of fresh-water casks and a couple of hatchets that I had noticed in the boat during my second watch at daybreak. We fished for the casks and found one, and we fished some more and found a hatchet. We stove in the cask, emptied it, and began to bale. Then I had the luck to discover the second cask, and soon we had both going as hard as willing arms could fill them and throw the water back into the sea.

I shall never forget the sigh of relief that went up from most of us as gradually we obtained the mastery over that relentless foe. From our waistline, the water sank little by little to below our knee; and I thanked God for it. We felt safe again. Now there were only two things to bear in mind: firstly, we must keep her head on to the waves, and, secondly, we must keep on baling.

During this critical period I made a closer acquaintance with my comrades.

I had never seen any of them before, so I did not know their names or anything about them. Mentally, I described the more marked characters to myself, and even went the length of inventing nicknames. There was the Pop-Eye Man, for instance. He was a sailor or, rather, a member of the crew. He was so terrified that he shouted wild things at us and his eyes seemed to pop out of his head. What he yelled I neither knew nor cared. He made me realize that there are such things as cowards, and once or twice I caught myself wondering what it was that made him so afraid of death, so tenacious of life. Was it wife, children, or beer that so unmanned him? He had a beery look and rather a brutal, bullying manner. He is saved and is now probably lying hard about his confounded heroism. That type usually does.

Then there was the Cocoanut-Shy Man. At village and other English festivals there are men who keep up a continual shouting in a hoarse and blatant voice. They must have lungs of brass, and as often as not, they are attached to a cocoanut-shy outfit. I had one such man on board. He was probably shouting to keep his own courage up as much as ours.

‘Three more strokes to the shore, boys! he yelled. ‘Three more strokes! Now all together!’ And so on; and so on. He had a voice like a bull and made the welkin ring with encouragement and exhortation. Of course, not three nor three thousand strokes would have taken us to the shore. The sea, the wind, and our own dead weight were all against us. But, still, the Cocoanut-Shy Man, whether it was rowing or baling, worked like a man and encouraged others to work, and was a good fellow.

There was the Man-who-Nodded. He was a sailor in the stern. I faced him, and whenever I ordered the boat’s head to be kept on to the waves, he nodded approval and seemed satisfied.

Other figures come back to me, other faces. One poor Tommy broke a tragic silence by crossing over to me, and, all tremulous, confessing, ‘I have n’t got my belt, sir.’ Nor had he. I put him to baling —and bale he did! He was easily our champion.

Beside me all the time was a boy of about eighteen, fresh from home, a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He nestled beside me, with large trustful eyes, like a little dog, and whatever I asked him to do he did quickly and implicitly. If I have any touch of vanity it must have been tickled by that dear lad’s faith in me.

There were two negroes — stokers,

I believe — in the boat. They sat quite still, moving neither hand nor foot, a picture of resignation. Their passive silence was monumental. A fair young fellow, probably a shop assistant before the war, and, I believe, a corporal or sergeant in the Army Service Corps, worked well and always with intelligence and coolness. And there was a plucky middle-aged man in the stern, who simply oozed calmness and confidence, though he once had me puzzled by telling me that the rudder was there and working as it should do. He admitted later that he had said this to cheer up the waverers.

Now, as to the waverers, they were mostly boys, and I think all of them were seasick. It is very difficult to be a hero when you are seasick. One or two whom I urged to row or bale replied, ‘I’m done, sir.’ And done they were, I suppose, poor beggars.

I, too, though smiling in the face of events, had a lengthy period of doubt, and even went so far as to loosen my soaked boots as a precaution. It was when the water threatened to sink or overturn us. I remember a few of the thoughts that criss-crossed with more practical reflections. Chief and foremost was the recognition that I had had forty-seven years of life and a d—d good time, all things considered. Friendships, love, books, pictures, music, I had had; and I had seen a good deal of the world and its adventures. And as I thought of these, it occurred to me that I had done pretty well everything except die, and that, after all, Barrie was right. In Peter Pan, you will remember, he makes his hero say that death is the greatest adventure of the lot. I probably misquote him, but that is the gist of it. Now, I had always thought that sentiment unreal and a piece of clap-trap. And so it was in a way. When I heard it, I was fresh from the Russian Revolution of 19051906. The audience who applauded struck me as about the last people in the world who wanted to die; in fact, London, after Russia, seemed a place where people wanted to go to offices, make money, and live forever, and Barrie’s audience more so than any of them. But as I stood in the boat and contemplated the possibility and even probability of this last great adventure, it occurred to me that Peter Pan was right — exactly right.

It also annoyed me to think that the two books I have lived for all my life and have not yet written might get drowned. This annoyed me very seriously. They seemed such wonderful, splendid books, now that there was a chance of their going under! Parallel with these diversions was the discovery of the two fresh-water casks and their prompt utilization. I baled away myself and made others bale.

The sea now, or at about this period, held five good hopes for us. There were the two original Japanese destroyers, one Italian destroyer that was picking people up, and two Italian tug-boats. The submarine seemed to have finished for the day. My men, even earlier, had in part seemed to think that we were the only people who mattered. They had waved and yelled, and they had let off flares. These flares were to me a mystery and rather a source of laughter. Probably they formed part of our boat’s furniture, but in broad daylight they could be of no real use and it was like setting fireworks off at midday. I had advocated patience and suggested that lots of people were far worse off than we were, which was indeed the case.

Now, although there were five authentic steamboats going and coming on the waters, the whole area in sight seemed so enormous and everything human on it so small, that I felt that help would take some time in getting to us. As a matter of fact, we survivors must have flecked a good many square miles of that vast carpet. We were a thin sprinkling, and we covered a considerable area. Hence it was largely a matter of luck who came first and last. And so I was content to wait our turn. It came at length in the shape of a Japanese destroyer. She was taking in a boatload of survivors not fifty yards from us. And so, with hearts considerably lighter, we pulled toward her. We were on the wrong side at first, and wind and sea would have made our rescue from that quarter dangerous. But speedily we turned and came round her; she threw us a line which we caught and clung to; then came a rope, and our main adventure was over.

The first man to get aboard was the poor devil without a life-belt. He did not wait to be asked. Then all my men scrambled up the shallow side of the destroyer, helped by the strong brown arms of square-built little sailormen. Those Japs were all helpfulness and smiles of welcome. One or two of my own men paused to say, ‘Thank you, sir,’ before they left. It was nice of them, but I did not feel that they owed many thanks to me. I was the last to quit our boat, and we left it drifting. God only knows where it is to-day. It was Number 13; and in Italy, where we landed, 13 is a lucky number.

On the destroyer, now crowded with the rescued, I was welcomed by several of my brother officers. We even shook hands and made pretty speeches — a thing we rarely do. My gray hair and middle age seemed to make some of them think that I was more ‘ done in ’ than was actually the case. As a matter of fact, I was pretty fit and anxious only to get a smoke. It must have been shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon, and I had had nothing to eat since ten o’clock that morning. We were about four and a half hours in the boat. It did not seem as long as that; in fact, the time had gone rather quickly. To my companions, perhaps, free from responsibility or shaken by seasickness, it may have seemed longer.

Before I return to the destroyer, I would like to record a psychological experience which must be common to many men who ‘live dangerously,’ but which I have never seen stated in print or heard by word of mouth. I have lived much for sport, and have occasionally done things which the newspapers describe as ‘brilliant.’ Every athlete has done the same. These are almost ‘impossible’ things; but a perfect physical fitness makes them possible. You are praised for doing them, and youreceive such praise almost with a certain disdain; for you did not really risk your neck or a split head; or even if you did, what of it? Most men, on their day, have physical courage. I personally do not value it at a tenth of the price I put on moral courage — the courage of the great artist, for instance, or the courage of the junior officer who stands up to a rascally or cowardly senior. These men are the heroes for my money. And I remember still how, when all that strain was over and I was free to leave our little boat, a touch of that old disdain humbled me. Most men who are praised for doing their job must feel as I felt, even — to compare small things with great—our most decorated and be-paragraphed.

III

Naval warfare is, I take it, a thing of contrasts. We retained two impressions of that particular Japanese destroyer: the first, fierce and catlike; the second, all smiles and willing helpfulness. I had seen it spit its shells, its battle-flag gleaming like a bloodshot eye. The red and white streaks of Japan’s naval ensign had floated out on the breeze with an almost human intensity — a single splash of color, and that the absolutely right one. Now the same ship was moving hither and yon, intent on its work of rescue, picking up men in batches of two, or three, or four.

Ours had been the last boatload of fifty souls or so to be taken aboard. The destroyer next dealt with the flotsam and jetsam that had held out on rafts, real or improvised. We huddled together on the narrow deck, and it was now our turn to watch — we, who a few moments before had ourselves provided the spectacle. In little groups we dragged them in. A line would be thrown, and, if it went true the first time, caught and held by eager hands, and the sturdy Japs would have our men on deck in a twinkling. Sometimes it missed, and then there followed a second shot that did the trick. Once a too-anxious Tommy made us shake with laughter.

‘Hold tight!’ he cried from the deck to a man on a raft who had caught a rope-end. As if that man would not hold tight!

Every now and again we passed the floating bodies of the drowned, their faces hid in the life-belts that made them bob so pathetically — as if they too were made of cork. Cold, seasickness, exhaustion, had made them give way; a man under these circumstances is as strong as his vitality.

We cruised for perhaps an hour, drenched with spray. A dry cigarette was treasure-trove to us. We shared those we had, taking our turns at them. I had at least four sucks at a fat Abdullah, Number 14: it was very good. Débris from the ship floated past us, noticeably a beautiful writing-desk, complete. It was there for anybody to take; I wonder what became of it. Two hydroplanes, part of our deck cargo, in enormous packing-cases, rode the waves, looking for all the world like huge Noah’s Arks. As we watched we swapped stories, and those of us who were too cold drifted aft to the shelter of the ward-room. Our hosts passed round biscuit, and every now and then an officer on the bridge would chalk up some piece of information on a slate which he held aloft. It was thus we learned that we were bound for S—, a port in Italy. We could already see its churches, towers, and factory chimneys. But the warm heart of it we could not see; in fact, we were dubious, wondering what kind of a reception we should meet from these strangers, among whom, so nakedly and so unexpectedly, we were presently to descend. They did not leave us long in doubt. Some of us had been in Italy before, as tourists; to-day we were her guests. Red Cross sisters had erected stalls on the quay and were active with hospitality. I drank coffee, wine, and beer indiscriminately, ate bread and biscuit, and smoked cigarettes.

Every available motor-car from far and near was there to fetch our wounded and our dead. There were men who had been hurt in the two explosions, and men who had jumped from ship to destroyer and broken a leg. On our destroyer’s deck I now saw the body of Major B—. I had learned that he was lost; but I was yet to hear that he had reached a safe place on a raft, which, trusting to his powers as a swimmer, he had yielded to two men less able than himself. They were saved, but the cold of a long immersion had proved too much for Major B—. He was a partner in the famous bank which bears his name, a brave man who had died as unselfishly as he had lived.

I was hungry now, — in fact ravenous, — so I stepped into one of the motor-cars that were going inland. Half a dozen of us were packed in it, and we drove through long lines of excited people who cheered us, wept over us, pelted us with flowers, and made much of us generally. We cheered back, and when we were hoarse and had left the crowd behind, our car drew up at a large building on a hill. We discovered that it was a hospital. Half of us remained there, the other half explained that what we wanted was a square meal and a place where we could dry our clothes. So downhill we went again, and on to the portals of the best hotel. There I ate the first real meal that I had had that day (it was between four and five o’clock in the afternoon). And afterwards I got into a bed and warmed myself and asked the chambermaid to dry my clothes.

We spent the best part of a week in Italy, among a population that no single one of us can ever thank sufficiently. High and low, rich and poor, there was nothing they would not give us or do for us. Many of us were taken to homes, and I have heard of poor working-people who went without food so that some British Tommy who was their guest might eat his fill.

The military authorities looked after our clothing, and we were really a sight one cannot readily forget. In bersaglieri fez and tassel we roamed about, in capacious gray cloaks, in gray peaked caps, in every shape and make of Italian uniform. We hardly recognized one another, and when we did, it was to stop and laugh and laugh again.

On the Sunday S—gave the first twenty of our ship’s company who had died or whose bodies had been washed ashore a public funeral. It was the most impressive funeral I have ever seen. In a procession fully a mile long we streamed away to the Campo Santo. The whole town and countryside were there to watch us, on sidewalks, crowded balconies, even on the house-tops. Many of the women were weeping as they stood there, thinking of their own men-folk away on the two fronts.

To the Italians the most interesting members of this stream of mourners were ‘Le donne,’ as they termed our own brave sisters. In scarlet and gray, those who had saved their uniforms marched gallantly down the long road that led to the cemetery. The whole sixty-six were present, many dressed in hats, skirts, and blouses provided by the ladies of S-. We were proud of our women — but that is an old story.

With the Italian and British troops marched the sailors of Japan, smart and workmanlike. I had never seen them in a body before, and I observed them closely. I may be mistaken, but to me they seemed as formidable as any seamen in the world. Physically and morally they impressed me deeply. One little thing won my particular regard: instead of machine-turned decorations, they wore real jewels, the work of a craftsman. It is a small matter, but a people that will do this will do much else. The Japanese officers were obviously men of breeding, and on more than one face I seemed to read a supreme disdain (which many of us share) fora civilization which expresses itself in mechanics and explosives.

‘You Westerners have forced us to take a hand in this,’ they seemed to say; ‘very well then, we will take a hand, till, sooner or later, you reach our level of civilization, and then we can scrap all these toys and devilments and so go on with the realities that lead to God.’

Perhaps I imagined this; yet without those quiet figures whose pride it was to stand there as though carven, and from another world, I could not have imagined anything of the kind.

I had seven days in Italy. They are indeed unforgettable, but, before I am done with them, their light can support the shadow cast by the little spy. He is among the meanest of creatures, and he came to me snake-like, in the guise of a friend and comforter. But he spoiled his game by being far too eager, and so he is now in a place where his German friends cannot even pay him the thin rewards of his disgusting trade.

We had met on the quayside. There he was very conspicuously free with Red Cross cigarettes and comestibles — a generous lad and a charitable. Later on he invited me to his ’house.’ He was a great though wholly transparent liar and braggart. His ‘house’ turned out to be a mean room in a back street. When we arrived there, he put the usual questions, and I rewarded his confidence by giving him full particulars as to how many men we had lost, our destination, and the names of the various units that had embarked. In exchange I received two pocket handkerchiefs and a much darned pair of socks — both of which I needed badly.

I am afraid that this young man now regards me as less of a fool than I appeared.

IV

Before closing this paper I would like to repeat a few of the stories told me by my brother officers.

There was Second Lieutenant F—, a boy of twenty. This young gunner had gone down with the ship. After a long descent, he had started to come up. In a few moments this upward movement ceased. F— now found himself in a place where he could breathe, but so utterly dark that he concluded he was trapped in some watertight section of the ship many fathoms below sea-level. In this horrible solitude he waited. Death had but delayed a stroke which was worse than drowning. So he argued during minutes that seemed hours. After a while he began to feel around him. He could see nothing, but his groping hands at last reached a place where the walls of his prison gave way to water. He made up his mind to dive and chance it. He came up immediately into broad daylight. Two friends were perched astride the upturned boat whose dark interior he had so terribly misunderstood. They pulled him up beside them. Second Lieutenant P— I found in hospital with a badly bruised head. He too had gone down with the ship, and, ascending like a cork, had got his head jammed between two boats. He was taken on board one of these, insensible. Lieutenant S—had gone down with the ship. His best friend Captain C—and he had gone down together. S——, caught and held by some cruel piece of wreckage, had never been seen again; C—was safe. Captain B—of the R.A.M.C. went down with the injured men whose broken limbs he was bandaging. He escaped without difficulty. The swimmers I swapped stories with had suffered from cold and exhaustion; they had been rescued in the nick of time.

Summing up the whole matter, one may conclude: first, that it is inadvisable to leave the ship till she has stopped dead. The few men who jumped overboard at the first explosion, moved by a nervous impulse beyond their control, were left, behind, and, it is believed, drowned. Secondly, when you jump and swim for it, get clear of the ship; for one may get caught in cordage or other tackle, and, bobbing up, one may bang one’s head against something hard. A cork life-belt shoots a man up to the surface which, of course, is strewn with wreckage, rafts, and other hard materials. Thirdly, more than anything else it is advisable to keep a cool head on one’s shoulders. Excitement is contagious and only leads to confusion.

Before we reëmbarked I ‘censored,’ as in duty bound, the letters of many of our rank and file.

‘We’ve met with a bit of an accident,’ wrote one, ‘but it’s no use grumbling; what I’m thinking about is Charlie Luck’s new potatoes.’

If any German comes across this paragraph he may begin to understand that he is wasting both U-boats and torpedoes.