A Nurse’s Graphic Personal Narrative of the Wanton Destruction of the
_Sussex_
On a clear day with the sea a perfect mirror reflecting the blue sky,
the French Channel Steamer _Sussex_ left Folkstone harbor on its
fateful trip for Dieppe, March 24, 1916. Among the passengers was an
English nurse attached to a French hospital, who was returning to
duty from a month’s leave of absence in England. The _Sussex_ was a
small but finely built, stout passenger boat, unarmed. She left harbor
at 1.30 in the afternoon, and in a short time encountered in the
Channel thousands of floating bags of a jettisoned cargo. A group of
passengers, standing by the rail, began to discuss the possibilities
of torpedoing. A British officer, who had braved dangers at Undros,
laughed, saying that it was not submarine weather, the Germans being
afraid to show themselves in a calm sea. Soon the others of the group
strolled off leaving the nurse alone watching a Belgian officer
exercising his dog on the deck. Presently they went away, and the
nurse turned to look out at the sea and watch for a periscope.
What followed the nurse tells, as her personal experience, in an
article published in _Blackwood’s Magazine_:
“It grew cold, and I was beginning to think of going back to my
sheltered chair to roll myself up in my rug, when in a moment the whole
earth and heaven seemed to explode in one head-splitting roar. In the
thousandth part of a second my mind told me ‘Torpedoed—forward—on my
right’—and then the sensation of falling, with my limbs spread-eagle,
through space.
[Illustration: The _Sussex_ Beached
This channel ferryboat was torpedoed at night while carrying a large
number of distinguished passengers. The force of the explosion broke
her amidships.]
“When I came to myself again I was groping amid a tangle of broken
wires with an agonizing pain in my back and the fiercest headache I
had ever known. My hair was down, and plastered to my chin with blood
that seemed to be coming from my mouth. There was more blood on my
coat-sleeve. I was conscious that I was bleeding freely internally
with every movement. My first definite thought was, ‘If only it is
all a ghastly nightmare!’ But I remembered. My next thought was a
passionately strong desire not to die by drowning—then. I crawled free
of the wires that were coiled all about me and stood up.