There have been many harrowing stories of the experiences of survivors thus turned adrift. Under the auspices of the British government, Rudyard Kipling wrote a book detailing the agonies which the practice inflicted upon helpless human beings, including many women and children. Some of the survivors have told in graphic story the record of their actual experiences. Among these one of the most vivid is from the pen of a well-known American journalist, Floyd P. Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. He was saved from the British liner, Laconia, sunk by a German submarine, and thus tells the tale of his sufferings and final rescue:
I have serious doubts whether this is a real story. I am not entirely certain that it is not all a dream and that in a few minutes I will wake up back in stateroom B. 19 on the promenade deck of the Cunarder Laconia and hear my cockney steward informing me with an abundance of "and sirs" that it is a fine morning.
I am writing this within thirty minutes after stepping on the dock here in Queenstown from the British mine sweeper which picked up our open lifeboat after an eventful six hours of drifting, and darkness and baling and pulling on the oars and of straining aching eyes toward that empty, meaningless horizon in search of help. But, dream or fact, here it is:
The first-cabin passengers were gathered in the lounge Sunday evening, with the exception of the bridge fiends in the smoking-room. Poor Butterfly was dying wearily on the talking-machine and several couples were dancing.
About the tables in the smoke-room the conversation was limited to the announcement of bids and orders to the stewards. This group had about exhausted available discussion when the ship gave a sudden lurch sideways and forward. There was a muffled noise like the slamming of some large door at a good distance away. The slightness of the shock and the mildness of the report compared with my imagination was disappointing. Every man in the room was on his feet in an instant.
I looked at my watch. It was 10.30.
Then came five blasts on the whistle. We rushed down the corridor leading from the smoking-room at the stern to the lounge, which was amidships. We were running, but there was no panic. The occupants of the lounge were just leaving by the forward doors as we entered.
It was dark when we reached the lower deck. I rushed into my stateroom, grabbed life preservers and overcoat and made my way to the upper deck on that same dark landing.
I saw the chief steward opening an electric switch box in the wall and turning on the switch. Instantly the boat decks were illuminated. That illumination saved lives.
The torpedo had hit us well astern on the starboard side and had missed the engines and the dynamos. I had not noticed the deck lights before. Throughout the voyage our decks had remained dark at night and all cabin portholes were clamped down and all windows covered with opaque paint.
The illumination of the upper deck, on which I stood, made the darkness of the water, sixty feet below, appear all the blacker when I peered over the edge at my station boat, No. 10.
Already the boat was loading up and men and boys were busy with the ropes. I started to help near a davit that seemed to be giving trouble, but was stoutly ordered to get out of the way and get into the boat. We were on the port side, practically opposite the engine well. Up and down the deck passengers and crew were donning lifebelts, throwing on overcoats, and taking positions in the boats. There were a number of women, but only one appeared hysterical....
The boat started downward with a jerk toward the seemingly hungry rising and falling swells. Then we stopped and remained suspended in mid-air while the men at the bow and the stern swore and tusselled with the lowering ropes. The stern of the boat was down, the bow up, leaving us at an angle of about forty-five degrees. We clung to the seats to save ourselves from falling out.
[Illustration: Permission of Scientific American.
Salvaging H-3, View I.]
[Illustration: Permission of Scientific American.
Salvaging H-3, View II.]
[Illustration: Permission of Scientific American.
Salvaging H-3, View III.]
"Who's got a knife? A knife! a knife!" bawled a sweating seaman in the bow.
"Great God! Give him a knife," bawled a half-dressed, gibbering negro stoker who wrung his hands in the stern.
A hatchet was thrust into my hand, and I forwarded it to the bow. There was a flash of sparks as it crashed down on the holding pulley. Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side of the ship and we sagged down again, this time smacking squarely on the billowy top of a rising swell.
