The first night on board the German raider which had sunk the _Georgic_
(when we were hurled into a sea alive with swimming, drowning horses)
was hell. That is the only way to describe it, if you will pardon the
expression. At 9 o'clock all lights were put out. Even the tiny bulb
that illuminated the compass on the navigating bridge was shielded and
not so much as a match was allowed to be struck on the decks.
We were shut up in the forecastle, and we either had to go to bed or
sit around in the dark. The ship rolled heavily and the propellers
raced and pounded as her stern occasionally lifted out of the water
because of the high speed at which she was constantly pushed. Nobody
knew where we were nor where we were going.
With the others, I lay down on a hard, thin mattress, stuffed with
excelsior, in the middle of the floor, and envied the men who had bunks
or hammocks. Each of us had a shoddy blanket which was as damp as it
was dirty and smelly. My bones ached from the cold when at last what
seemed an endless night was over.
A sailor who had been detailed as a steward for us brought a mixture
masquerading under the name of coffee and more of the black bread and
beet jam. There seemed to be no end of bread, and Dr. Snider, who had
been surgeon on the _Voltaire_, ate chunk after chunk of it.
"How can you swallow all that stuff?" I asked him.
"When you've been on this d---- ship as long as I have, you'll know,"
he said. And before I got out of Germany I did.
I had no sooner eaten a few scraps of breakfast than the coffee
nauseated me as it had the night before, and my frugal meal and I
promptly parted company. As I returned to the quarters where the other
men were I started to "beef" about my troubles. Immediately they all
broke into song. The tune was that of the hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy," and
the words were:
"Growling, growling, growling!
You're always bally well growling.
When you're dead and in your grave
You'll bally well growl no more!"
I didn't quite sense the meaning of it at first, and when they were
through singing I started to explain once more that I couldn't stand
the coffee out of that infernal, sickening receptacle, looking very
much like a wash basin. I hadn't got six words out of my mouth when the
song broke out again, and this time the men in the adjacent forecastle
room joined in, and I think every English-speaking voice on board the
ship was roaring those words. I knew then what it meant, and never
after that did I utter one word of complaint. If anybody did, the song
was sure to drown his voice. That song might serve a purpose here.
At 10 o'clock in the morning we were led to a washroom, four men at a
time. All we had was running salt water and no soap. It drove the dirt
in further, but nevertheless it was refreshing.
Many of the men who had been on the raider for a long time were
utterly despondent. The treatment to which they had been subjected
in the vile-smelling compartments, the lack of decent food and the
uncertainty of everything had broken their spirit. Little groups sat
about the deck when we were up for our morning airing, their heads in
their hands and their shoulders bent and hunched like those of aged men.
A few tried to keep up the spirits of the others. I will never forget
Chief Officer Evans of the Voltaire. He had been very stout but he was
losing weight at an alarming rate. His features were pinched and his
skin hung in folds, yet he was always joking and singing and cheering
up the men. It was enough to crack nerves of steel.
Picture us. Some of us have nothing to our backs but pajamas and
overcoats in which we left the _Georgic_. Some of my horsemen have
nothing but shirt and trousers, even their socks having been left
behind because they were working on the main deck which was awash when
the raider fired into us.
None of us expects to reach home! The raider is heavily armed and her
officers are brave men. They will tackle anything. Sooner or later it
is inevitable we will encounter a British or a French cruiser--and then
we will die. We won't be fighting like men. Down there in those rat
traps with steel doors bolted against us, we will drown while others
are fighting. The fellows who sit around the deck with their heads in
their hands moaning, sometimes even sobbing, are not cowards. All they
would ask is a chance to die like men. A man doesn't want to go like a
drowned rat.
After our little breath of fresh air in the mornings, it seemed worse
than ever to go back to that hole--the forecastle. There was just one
doubtful cause for thankfulness. We officers, as I was rated, were not
in quite as bad a situation as were the men. About 430 of them in all
were packed below decks in a hold that smelled to the high heavens
with air so laden with soggy, stale tobacco smoke that you could cut
it with a knife. The mattresses, which most of them spread on the
floor for beds, were made of old cotton waste, and they absorbed filth
and dampness like sponges. As for food, the men got sea biscuit for
breakfast instead of the black bread--and they were some biscuits. They
were as hard as the decks we slept on. For this noon-day meal they were
given noodle soup, such as we received, only thinner, and more watery
if possible, but they seldom got meat, although we had it nearly every
day with a very tasty gravy poured over it.
For the first two days this noon-day meal was the only one I could
retain, and I think it was because there was none of that abominable
coffee with it. Our manner of eating was somewhat difficult too, for we
were given spoons and forks but no knives.
"That's so, you can't file them down and make daggers," explained one
of the German sailors. "We aren't taking any chances with neutrals
or belligerents either." They weren't. We could readily see that. Of
course one of the first things the Germans had done when we went aboard
was to take away every firearm or weapon of any character and whatever
might have been used to flash a signal to a vessel the raider might
pursue or try to elude.
The commander's order was:
"Any man found with firearms or heliograph will be shot summarily."
Nobody tried to hold anything out on him after that. The Germans mean
what they say.
Every neutral was given a white band to wear around his left arm, and
this allowed us more liberty than the other men and officers enjoyed.
The belligerents were all obliged to take their air and exercise on the
well deck aft, while we were allowed to go up on the head while on
deck. I talked to many of the German sailors, and it was one of them
who told me how the _Georgic_ had been taken.