The hospital had already been established in Furnes for ten
days, and even in that time we had once had to escape to
Poperinghe before the German advance, when, after a short
visit to England, I left London to rejoin my friends on the last
Friday in October. Crossing to the Continent is not at any time
pleasant, and the addition of submarines and mines scarcely
adds to its charms. But Government had certainly done their
best to make it attractive, for when we arrived at Dover on
Friday night we found a comfortable boat waiting to take us
over in the morning. We spent the night soundly asleep in her
cabins, without the anxiety of feeling that we might miss her if
we did not get up in time, and after an excellent breakfast we
felt ready for anything. We were late in starting, for the Anglo-
Belgian Ambulance Corps was going over, and their ambulances
had to be got on board. We watched them being neatly picked
up in the slings and planted side by side on deck. At half-past
eight they were all on board, and we started off.
There was a moderate sea running, but our three screws made
light work of it, and in an hour we were half-way over to our
destination, Dunkirk. We were sitting in our cabin talking when
suddenly the engines stopped, and there was considerable
commotion on deck. We looked out to see what was the matter,
and there met our eyes a sight which we are likely to remember
--a huge man-of-war sinking. She was down by the stern, so
far that every now and then the waves broke over her, and it
was evident that she would soon go under. A submarine had
attacked her an hour before, and struck her with two torpedoes.
The first destroyed her screws, and she was then an easy prey;
the second entered her saloon in the stern. She was the
Hermes, an old vessel, and of no great value at the present
day, but it was tragic to see a great cruiser expiring, stabbed in
the dark. Thanks to her buoyancy, she was only sinking slowly,
and there was ample time for the whole of her crew to escape.
Very different would be the fate of an unarmed vessel, for the
explosion of a torpedo would probably blow such a large hole in
the thin steel plates that she would go to the bottom like a
stone. To torpedo a merchantman simply means the cold-blooded
murder of the crew, for their chances of escape would be almost
negligible, whilst it is impossible to find words to describe the
attempts which have been made to sink hospital ships. About
the last there is a degree of callous inhumanity remarkable even
for Germany, for how could doctors and nurses make any efforts
to save their own lives when it would be impossible for them to
do anything to all at save the lives of their patients? And yet
these things are not the unconsidered acts of a moment; they
are all part of the .campaign of frightfulness which has been
so carefully planned for years, the consummation of the
doctrines which learned professors have proclaimed for so
long and with such astonishing success.
The order was given for our boats to be lowered, and down they
went all six of them, manned partly by the crew and partly by
the Ambulance Corps. We were surrounded by torpedo-boats,
British and French, and most of the crew of the Hermes had
already been transferred to them. A few minutes later there was
a cheer, and we saw the Captain step down into one of the
boats, the last man to leave his ship. Our boats had picked up
twenty or so of the men, and the problem now was to get them
on board again. A moderate sea was running, but it required all
the skill of our sailors to haul them up without mishap. Standing
by as we were, the ship rolled considerably, and several times
one of the boats was within an ace of being broken up against
her side. To get a boat out from a big liner in a heavy sea must
be an almost miraculous feat, whilst to get her back again must
be a sheer impossibility. As it was, it took us at least an hour to
get those six boats on board. All this time four torpedo-boats
were racing in circles round and round us, on the lookout for the
submarine, and ready to cut it down if it should appear. Indeed,
a report went round that a torpedo was actually fired at us, but
passed underneath the ship on account of her shallow draught.
Standing at rest, we would have been an easy target, and but
for our friends the torpedo-boats we should very likely have
been attacked. It is not a good plan to hang about in the
Channel just now.
Meanwhile the Hermes was steadily sinking. By the time all her
crew were off her stern was awash, and in another half-hour
she had a very marked list to port. She slowly, almost imperceptibly,
listed more and more, and then the end came with startling
suddenness. With a slow and gentle roll she heeled over till
she was completely on her side and her great funnels under
water; she remained there for a moment, and then slowly turned
turtle and gradually sank stern first. For a long time about
twenty feet of her nose remained above water, then this slowly
sank and disappeared. It was all so quiet that it seemed like
some queer dream. The fires must have been drawn with great
promptness, for there was no explosion as her funnels went
under, though we were standing some way off to be clear of
flying fragments. She had been stabbed in the dark, and she
passed away without a murmur.
There is something very moving in the end of a great vessel. It
is so hard to believe that a thing of such vast bulk, and with
organs of such terrific power, should be so utterly helpless
because of a mere hole in her side. It is like watching the death
of a god. We make such a turmoil about the end of our puny
lives, and that great giant slides away into darkness without a
murmur. Ah, but you will say, a man is of far more value than a
ship. Is he? Is any single man in this world worth as much as
the Titanic? And if so, how? He can make wealth, but so could
she. He could bring happiness to others, and so could she. I
have yet to find any ground on which any man can be put up in
competition with that vessel in sheer worth to the world, and I
am not speaking in any low sense of values. For I suppose the
greatest man who ever lived might feel that his life was well
spent if he had brought two continents nearer together. It was
for that that she was created. The hard fact is that there are
very few indeed of us, in spite of all the noise we make, who are
worth to the world a thousand pounds, and if she could sell the
bulk of us for that she would be positively drunk with fortune.
But, you will say, a ship has no soul. Are you quite so sure
about that? Most people will maintain that their bodies contain a
soul, and then they proceed to build up these same bodies with
bread and bacon, and even beer, and in the end they possess
bodies constructed without any shadow of doubt out of these
ingredients. And if ten thousand men have toiled night and day,
in blazing furnace and in dark mine, to build a mighty vessel, at
the cost of years of labour, at the cost of pain and death, is not
that vessel a part of them as much as their poor bodies, and do
not their souls live in it as much as in their flesh and blood? We
speak of the resurrection of the Body, and superior people
smile at an idea so out-of-date and unscientific. To me the body
is not mere flesh and blood, it is the whole complex of all that a
man has thought and lived and done, and when it arises there
will arise with it all that he has toiled for on earth, all that he has
gained, and all that he has created by the sweat of his brow and
the hunger of his soul. The world is not the dust-heap of the
centuries, but only their storehouse.
It was late when we reached Furnes after a freezing drive in the
dark, but all our thoughts were overshadowed by the tragedy
we had seen. We felt that we had been present at the burial of
a god.