[Illustration: THE BELGIAN REFUGEE TO HIS DUTCH BROTHER
“I, too, always voted against any increase of my Army.”]
The “Falaba”
Amongst my most treasured possessions is a photograph taken on board
the lost _Invincible_ after the battle of the Falkland Islands was
over. Three-quarters of a mile away _Inflexible_ is silhouetted against
the evening sky, and between the two ships lies the flotsam of the
_Gneisenau_, with 200 or more German sailors clinging to wreckage or
swimming for their lives. A few steam pinnaces and cutters are picking
up these poor drowning fellows as fast as they can. The fighting navy,
having conquered its foe, is engaged upon the task, always dear to it,
of saving life. It is an added pleasure to befriend those who have
fought gallantly.
I do not know whether Raemaekers has ever seen this photograph,
but this drawing shows the drowning people, the wreckage, exactly
reproduced. But here the only boat has itself been smashed by a shot,
so that the last hope of safety of those in the water has been taken
from them. And the ship that sinks is not a fighting ship, and the poor
souls struggling for their lives are not fighting men. Can these men in
the foreground be the sailors of a fighting navy?
For the officer of this submarine is not content to warn the _Falaba_
and give its people a chance to save themselves before sinking her.
He has, indeed, warned her, but, with a refinement of cruelty, has
torpedoed the ship while the women and children were being hastily got
off; and, not content with this, has fired on and sunk the boats in
which his terrified victims hoped to escape.
There is here no artistic exaggeration. The picture is horrible just
because it is photographically accurate.
It is a hideous negation of all that the word “navy” has stood for in
every country that has ever possessed one. In nothing does Raemaekers
show his Dutch blood more than in his savage anger at this gruesome
perversion of the sea tradition. For the Dutch have a great naval
history and know the meaning of a seaman’s honour.
The true sailor is great in his bravery because he is still greater in
his chivalry. What will history say of these debauched brutes who revel
in their hangman’s task?