Despite all warnings, rumours, and alarms, no dire peril known to
passengers disturbed our voyage. The nearest approach came on a morning
when the ship was two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland.
The steamer was making a letter S and constantly zigzagging, when
suddenly the lookout called down that there was a rowboat dead ahead.
With instant decision the officer changed the ship's course and we
passed the life-boat a half mile upon our right.
The usual rumour started up and down the deck that there were dead
bodies in the boat, but the petty officer answered my question by saying
that it was 2,000 lives against one possible life that every drifting
boat must be looked upon as a German decoy; that if the steamer stopped
to send sailors with a life-boat to investigate it would simply give a
German submarine a chance to come up with torpedoes. At that very moment
one of the men beside the gun sighted a periscope and a moment later the
gun roared and then boomed a second time and then a third. Because the
object disappeared, all passengers said it was a submarine, but the
officers said it was a piece of driftwood, tossed up on the crest of a
wave.
That night, on deck, a close friend of the purser came for an hour's
walk around the deck. The memory of those three shots rested heavily
upon his mind.
It seemed that some months before he had been a purser on an East Indian
liner. On the home voyage, twenty-four hours after they left Cairo, when
well out into the Mediterranean, this officer went below for an hour's
rest. Suddenly a torpedo struck the steamer. The force of the explosion
literally blew the purser out of his berth. Grabbing some clothes, he
ran through the narrow passageway, already ankle deep in rushing water.
The great ship carried several thousand soldiers and a few women who
were coming home from India or from Egypt. Despite the fact that all
realized the steamer would go down within a few minutes, there was no
confusion and the soldiers lined up as if on parade.
The boat went down in about eight minutes, but every one of the women
and children had on their life-preservers and were given first places in
the life-boats that had not been ruined by the explosion.
The purser said that he decided to jump from the deck and swim as far as
possible from the steamer, but despite his struggles he was drawn under
and came up half unconscious to find himself surrounded with swimming
men and sinking rowboats that were being shelled by the German
submarine. Suddenly a machine-gun bullet passed through his right
shoulder and left an arm helpless. For half an hour he lay with his left
arm upon a floating board, held up by his life-preserver. The submarine
had disappeared. At distances far removed were three of the ship's
boats and one raft. It was plain that there was no help in sight.
Near him was a woman, to whom he called. The purser told the woman that
he had been shot in the right arm and could not help her nor come near
to her. She answered that it was good to hear his voice.
The water was very cold. He began to be alarmed and reasoned as to
whether the cold water would not stay the bleeding. From time to time he
would call out to the woman to keep up hope and courage and not to
struggle, but at last he saw she was exhausted. With infinite effort,
swimming with his left arm, he managed to draw near to her.
"Is drowning very painful?" the woman asked.
"No," answered the officer. "Once the water rushes into the lungs one
smothers."
To which the English girl answered, "Then I think I will not wait any
longer. Good-bye! Good luck!"
Utterly exhausted she let her head fall over and in a moment the
life-preserver was on the top and that was all that he saw.
"The next thing I remember," said the officer, "was waking up to find a
nurse trying to pour a stimulant down my throat."
A destroyer had come up in response to the signals for help and picked
up the survivors.
For months he was in the hospital before he could be carried to England.
Even now he was not able to lift a hat from his head with his right arm,
but he could write a little. This was his first voyage to test his
strength to prove to the Government that he could take his old task as
purser.
"How did you feel, purser, when you heard that cannon roar this morning
against that submarine?"
You should have seen the fire flash in the man's eyes.
"How did I feel?" answered the officer. "I felt like a race-horse
snuffing the battle from afar. Let them sink this ship--I will take
another. Let them sink every steamer, I'll take a sailing vessel. Let
them sink all our sailing vessels, we will betake ourselves to tugs.
"We have 5,000 steamers that come and go between any Sunday and Sunday.
Some are old cattle-boats, some are sea tramps and some are ocean
hounds. They have carried 10,000,000 men and 20,000,000 tons of war
materials, and 8,000,000 tons of iron ore and $3,000,000,000 worth of
goods.
"We have lent six hundred ships to France and four hundred ships to
Italy. Our ancestors smashed the Spanish Armada. Our grandfathers
baffled Napoleon and their sons defy the Hun and his submarine.
"When I go down my son will take my place. When Germany beats England
there will not be an Englishman left to tell how it happened."
Then, leaning over the railing of the ship, the officer pointed to the
setting sun, and lo, right out of the sea, sailing into our sight, came
a fleet of English merchantmen, laden with wheat, and the purser said:
"By God's help, England shall not starve."