Ninety-two passengers of the _Lusitania_ who formed part of that
pitiful handful of maimed, dead and dying brought ashore with the
survivors of the disaster that followed the attack on the vessel by a
German submarine were buried with services that have no parallel in
history. Under a sky in which not a single cloud floated and to the
strains of hymns played by British soldiers they were laid to rest two
miles behind Queenstown in a cemetery bursting with spring greenery and
tucked between hills flaming with gorse. The services at the graves
began at four o'clock, and at half-past four the sod of Ireland was
being shovelled upon the coffins.
Queenstown sensed the full horror of the _Lusitania_ disaster. Up
to the time that the long stream of coffins began to disappear over
the hill behind the town there was about the affair, what with the
continued searches for survivors and the bustle about the morgue,
something of the unusual and theatric. But when the funeral started the
realization came that each of these cheap coffins held a body and that
in the Atlantic, less than twenty miles away, there were more than a
thousand in addition, all victims of a German submarine.
The townsfolk stood hatless nearly all forenoon as the coffins were
conveyed to the cemetery on carts. This process required hours, and
it was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that the funeral
procession proper left the Cunard offices at the waterfront. There were
only three bodies, one each in a hearse, in this cortège, the other
eighty-nine already having been placed in the graves.
With the British army band playing Chopin's "Funeral March" the funeral
procession marched through the crooked streets past the cathedral,
which stands on the highest point of the town, and then took its
course along an undulating country road, now rising and now sinking
between green hills. Along this road country folk were clustered for
the most part, perched on stone fences behind the soldiers who guarded
the road the entire two miles from the cathedral to the cemetery.
Those waiting in the graveyard first heard, borne faintly on the soft
breeze, the notes of the funeral march and then the sound of muffled
drums. A moment later the sun flashed on the band instruments and the
cortège took form in the distance. Not for more than an hour, however,
did it reach the lane bordering the cemetery, which it entered in the
following order:--
A major of the Royal Irish infantry on horseback, five members of the
Irish Constabulary and a group of Protestant churchmen, then in black
robes came thirteen priests, and behind them were the hearses, draped
with British flags, to the rear of which trudged the mourners, among
them several American survivors of the disaster.
The sailors from the steamship _Wayfarer_, which was recently torpedoed
but was able to make port, came next, and behind them the members of
the Corporation of Cork, headed by the Lord Mayor. A company of marines
followed and then came sailors of the various British ships in harbor.
The British officers, numbering a hundred odd, marched erect but slow.
Next in line were captains Miller and Castle, Attachés of the American
Embassy in London. Both were dressed in khaki uniforms. A party of
British naval officers and Admiral Sir Charles Coke, of Queenstown,
followed them. The Most Reverend Robert Browne, Bishop of Cloyne, rode
in a carriage.
The procession was a full hour in passing into the cemetery. There
soldiers guarded the walls as six other soldier pallbearers lifted
the coffins from the hearses and set them beside the graves. The
three coffins rested beside separate graves. The other eighty-nine
had previously been placed in three great pits--sixty-five in one, in
layers two deep, and twelve each in the other two. Conducted by Bishop
Browne, the Catholic service was held first, the choir boys bearing
incense, appearing from a cluster of elms and coming to the graveside.
The Church of Ireland service, that is, the Protestant Episcopal,
followed, and finally the non-conformist rites were performed. As the
last words of this service were spoken the muffled drums rolled and the
familiar hymn, "Abide with Me," swelled forth. Sailors who had replaced
the soldier pallbearers then lowered the coffins into the small graves,
and simultaneously the earth began to thud on the coffins in all the
graves. The crowd, nearly all with eyes wet, slowly left, some to
take jaunting cars, but most of them to trudge across the fields of
the city. As they reached the crest of the hill immediately above the
harbor flashed into view and in it the flag of every vessel fluttered
at half mast.
Many children and little babies lie in the morgues like so many dolls.
The townspeople covered them with flowers yesterday and it is probable
these little ones will be placed in a grave together.