THE SINKING OF THE SHIP

Crash!—Bang!—Cr-r-r-ash! I woke with a start, and sitting up in my hammock gazed around to see what had so suddenly roused me. Some of the midshipmen were already standing on the deck in their pyjamas—others, like me, were sitting up half dazed with sleep. A party of ship’s boys crowded up the ladder from the gun-room flat, followed by three officers; one of these, a sub-lieutenant R.N.R., called out: “Keep calm, and you’ll all be saved.”

Up to that moment it had never dawned upon me that the ship was sinking, and even then I thought it improbable until I noticed that we were already listing to starboard. Then I got up and walked up the hatch to the quarter-deck. The ship was now heeling about five degrees to starboard, and I climbed up to the port side. It was nearly pitch dark. A seaman rushing to help lower the boats charged into me, and I turned and swore at him.

Gradually a crowd gathered along the port side. “Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy!” they yelled; but, as the ship listed more and more, and there was no sign or sound of any approaching vessel, the men’s voices seemed to get a bit hopeless. The Commander was urging on a gang who were trying to get some heavy timber overboard; but, as we listed further and further over, they found it impossible to get it up on the port side and couldn’t get round to starboard, as the capstan and the Captain’s hatch and skylight were in the way. At last they gave it up, and going to the side joined their voices to those of the crew, who were trying to attract the attention of any vessel that might be in the vicinity.

Inside the ship everything which was not secured was sliding about and bringing up against the bulkheads with a series of crashes. Crockery was smashing—boats falling out of their crutches—broken funnel-guys swinging against the funnel casings. She had heeled over to about twenty degrees, then she stopped and remained steady for a few seconds. In the momentary lull the voice of one of our officers rang out steady and clear as at “divisions”: “Keep calm, men. Be British!”

Then the ship started to heel rapidly again, and I felt sure there was no chance of saving her. I turned to jump overboard. The Commander, who was standing a few paces away on my right, went over a second before me. Raising my arms above my head I sprang well out board and dived. Just before I struck the water my face hit the side of the ship. It was a horrid feeling sliding on my face down the slimy side, and a second later I splashed in with tremendous force, having dived about thirty feet.

Just as I was rising to the surface again a heavy body came down on top of me. I fought clear and rose rather breathless and bruised. I swam about fifty yards away, to get clear of the suction when the ship went down; then, turning round and treading water, I watched her last moments. The noise of crashing furniture and smashing crockery was continuous. Slowly her stern lifted until it was dimly outlined against the deep midnight sky. Slowly her bows slid further and further under until, with a final lurch, she turned completely over and disappeared bottom upwards in a mass of bubbles.

She had been our home for nearly ten months—she was gone—vanished—in less than four minutes.

Turning over and swimming a slow side-stroke I made for H.M.S. Cornwallis, which I could discern faintly silhouetted against the sky about two-and-a-half miles distant. Suddenly something touched my leg, and the thought of the sharks we had watched from the bridge the previous afternoon flashed shudderingly across my mind—but it was only a floating potato! Soon the shrieks of the drowning grew faint in the distance and I swam on with three others near me. When I had been in the water for about twenty minutes I looked up and saw what I thought to be a boat. I shouted out, “Boat ahoy!”—and turning on my side swam for some time a fast side-stroke. When at last I rested and looked for the imagined boat, which ought to have been quite near by now, I discovered that I had somehow misfocussed the Cornwallis, and so come to imagine she was a small steamboat quite close instead of a battle-ship a mile and a half away. However, I felt quite confident of reaching her if only I persevered, so I continued to swim a slow side-stroke. Soon after this my pyjama jacket came undone, and I took it off as it hindered me. A few minutes later I sighted a huge spar about twenty feet long, probably the topgallant mast or lower boom from our ship. It must have been thrown a tremendous way by the force of the explosion to be so far down the channel. The current was very strong, and of course that was a great help to those who were swimming. I hung on to the spar for a minute or two to get my breath back a bit, and rubbed myself all over in order to restore the circulation, as by that time I was getting very cold. After a short rest I started off again to try and reach H.M.S. Cornwallis. Presently it seemed to me that I was not approaching her as rapidly as before, and almost at the same moment she switched on her searchlights, when I saw by their light that she was out of the main stream of the current, and that to reach her I should have to swim half a mile absolutely unaided by the flow of the tide. I tried to get in the beam of her searchlight, thinking she would be sure to have some boats out and that they would see me; but I found I was unable to manage this, and after about five minutes I gave up trying. Then I turned round and looked about for some other ship to essay and make for. About a quarter of a mile behind me, and slightly up stream, I saw another ship with all her searchlights going and I determined to try and reach her. I swam towards her, and presently saw two steamboats push off from her bow and make off up stream for the scene of the disaster, but they were too far off to hail. Five minutes later I heard the welcome plash of oars, and looking to my left saw a cutter approaching with a man in the bows sweeping the surrounding water with a hand lantern. I yelled out, “Boat ahoy!” and back came the cheering answer: “All right, we’re coming. Hang on!”

A minute later the lantern flashed in my face, a pair of strong arms grasped me by the shoulders and hauled me clear of the water.

I must have fainted then, for I remember nothing more until I became dimly conscious as in a dream that I was in the stern sheets of a boat lying alongside some other vessel. A man’s voice said, “Here’s a midshipman, sir,” and next moment I was picked up and set down on the deck.

Barely conscious as yet of my surroundings, I was taken into a sort of cabin, where I was given some neat rum. It was very fiery and nearly choked me, but it bucked me up a bit all the same. Then I was conducted down to the boiler-room, where some one stripped off my pyjama trousers (my one remaining garment), and I sat down on a locker before the furnace and soon got a degree of warmth back into my body.

Presently I heard the voice of one of our lieutenants speaking up above, and called out to him to know how he’d come off. Then I was helped up the gangway again and into a small sort of saloon in the stern. Here I was given some more rum, a very large sweater, and a pair of blue serge trousers belonging to one of the crew, and when I had put them on I lay down in a bunk and immediately fell asleep. About an hour later I woke up and found the saloon full of officers and men.

The Lieutenant to whom I had spoken in the boiler-room was sitting at the table. He was dressed in a jersey and a seaman’s duck trousers. Two other survivors, a marine and an armourer, were also at the table, and across the saloon in the bunk opposite mine lay a gunner’s mate. I asked the Lieutenant what time our ship was struck. He said his watch had stopped at 1·29 a.m., when he jumped into the sea, and so he presumed we were torpedoed at about 1·27, as the ship only took three and a half minutes to go down. She had been struck on the starboard side by three torpedoes fired from a Turkish torpedo-boat, which had drifted down the straits keeping close inshore, and thus eluded our destroyer patrol. To give the enemy his due it was a jolly smart piece of work.

It was now somewhere about 3·30 a.m., and, as I did not feel inclined to sleep any more, they gave me some hot cocoa and some bread-and-cheese. I drank the former, but the bread-and-cheese was more than I felt equal to just then. About 6 o’clock the Lieutenant was transferred to another ship for medical treatment, as his back was badly bruised by drifting wreckage; and half-an-hour later the rest of the survivors were reembarked in H.M.S. Lord Nelson’s cutter, the same that had picked us up; and leaving the trawler she took us to the Lord Nelson.

When we got on board I was at once taken down to the gun-room, where I found four more of our “snotties” who had also been rescued. One more was reported as having safely swum ashore; but there was no news of the other three, and subsequently it transpired that they had been lost.

The survivors were mostly sleeping—the sleep of exhaustion. We had all had a pretty tough fight for it, and I realised then how uncommonly lucky we had been in escaping not only alive, but for the most part uninjured. Cunninghame had a nasty cut on his head, but the rest of us were only suffering from minor bruises, and of course to a certain extent from shock.

One of the Lord Nelson’s middies kindly lent me some old uniform, and after I had dressed I made a parcel of the clothes I had been lent on the trawler and took them to the ship’s corporal, and asked him to see that they were returned to their owner.

I remembered, with an odd sense of unreality, that the last time I had been in the Lord Nelson was at the manoeuvres the previous July!

On my way up to the deck I met three more of our lieutenants, and we exchanged accounts of our experiences. From them I learned that our Commander had been saved, and was also on board; but there was no news of the Captain. Some days later I heard that his body had been picked up, and it was thought that he had been killed by the falling of the pinnace when the ship turned over just before she sank.

At 7·30 we put to sea and proceeded to Port Mudros. On the way, and after divisions, the lower deck was cleared, the whole ship’s company, together with the survivors from our ship, mustered on the quarter-deck, and then took place a mournful ceremony, which poignantly brought home to us the fate we had so narrowly escaped.

Through the battery—very softly—came the sound of muffled drums, growing gradually louder as the band advanced. Then appeared a procession of seamen from our lost ship, headed by the Lord Nelson’s chaplain, and carrying three stretchers, on each of which lay a body covered with the Union Jack. The first was that of our Fleet paymaster, and the other two those of a seaman and marine respectively. The bodies were lifted from the stretchers and laid reverently on a platform slanting towards the water, which had been erected on the port side. Clearly and solemnly the chaplain recited the beautiful Burial Service, and as he uttered the words “we therefore commit their bodies to the deep,” the staging was tilted and the weighted corpses slid feet foremost into the sea.

The service ended with three volleys fired over the side and then the long sobbing wail of the “Last Post” rang out across the still waters in final farewell.

When we were dismissed we went below in silence, awed by the solemnity of this last committal to the deep of those with whom we had lived and worked side by side for ten long months.