The Sussex Still Afloat
“Looking around I saw our steamer riding quite happily on the water with her bows clean gone. Afterwards I learned that the torpedo had cut off her fore-part, to within an inch or two of where I had been standing, and that it had sunk. I saw another full boat being rowed away from the ship, and an overturned one with two people sitting on her keel. I saw a man seated on a grating. All were convinced that help would be forthcoming speedily. And still the Sussex floated. Four times I remarked—by way of a ballon d’essai—that it seemed as if she were not going to sink, and always there was an outcry to row, and get away from her. The Belgian and the Belgian soldier evidently thought as I did. They proposed that we should return before we were swamped ourselves. Once again a hysterical outburst. One man jumped to his feet and shrieked, and asked us if it were to hell that we intended returning? I began to be afraid that he and those who thought as he did would throw us others into the sea, but common-sense told me that to remain all night in that overcrowded half-swamped boat would be to court death.
“We saw at last that the other boat was returning. This was our chance. Example is a wonderful thing in dealing with mob hysteria. Tentatively the two Belgians and I proposed that we should go as close to the steamer as prudence permitted, and ask the Captain if she were going to sink. If his answer were favorable, those who desired should go on board, and any who liked could go off again in the boat. If his answer were unfavorable, we would stand off again. The maniac still shrieked his protests, but the rest of the boat was with us. But no one seemed to know how to turn the boat. As soon as we told one to backwater, the other two did likewise. It seemed hopeless. Finally, we let the other two oars pull, and I myself tried to induce my vis-à-vis to ‘ramez au sens contraire,’ which was the nearest approach I could get to ‘backwater’ in French. He was too dazed to understand, so I simply set my teeth and pulled against him, and in about fifteen minutes the boat gradually came round in a wide circle. How I longed to be whole again so that I could take his oar right away and cox that mad boat! With my injured back and inside I could only just compass what I did. The pain kept me from collapsing, and the exertion from freezing.
“It looked as though we were to be swamped, after all, within ten yards of the Sussex’s gaping bows, for our crew, in their excitement, had forgotten to bail for some minutes. As we floated in under her sides I made a final appeal, which a young Belgian put into more forcible French, for everybody to keep calm and not upset the boat at the last.