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Updated: June 17, 2025
I went home to dress for the night, having arranged to go in the lifeboat. Meantime the bell was rung, and the usual rush was made to get the life-belts. So keen were the men that the launch was made before the time agreed upon, and the lifeboat rushed down the beach just as I got in sight of her to my great and sore disappointment and soon disappeared in the night.
The thought of a brush-up put dash and daring into them; they had the boats cleared, the water-barrels filled, and the life-belts free, with an activity that was remarkable.
A moment before the men had been joking about the life-belts, according to the story told by Mrs. Vera Dick, of Calgary, Canada. "Try this one," one man said to her, "they are the very latest thing this season. Everybody's wearing them now." Another man suggested to a woman friend, who had a fox terrier in her arms, that she should put a life-saver on the dog.
John Furby, the coxswain, with a sturdy crew of volunteers twelve in all were ready for action, with cork life-belts and oilskin coats on, when the team of four stout horses came tearing along the sands dragging the lifeboat after them, assisted and cheered on by a large crowd of men and boys. No unnecessary delay occurred.
When it was realized that we might all be presently in the sea with nothing but our life-belts to support us until we were picked up by passing steamers, it was extraordinary how calm everyone was and how completely self-controlled. "One by one, the boats were filled with women and children, lowered and rowed away into the night.
The life-belts were being given out, and there came to him a horrid vision of the people round him as they might be an hour hence, drowned, heads down, legs up, done to death by those monstrous yellow bracelets which they were now putting on with such clumsy, feverish eagerness. He was touched on the arm, and a husky voice, with which he was by now familiar, said urgently, "Mr.
They were all conscious of the pleasant rhythm of the great engine, to which no music in the world was comparable. Over Vollstedt's waltz, Lustige Brüder, the company with a sense of relief was still discussing the danger they had safely escaped. "We hoisted distress signals." "Rockets were shot off." "They were already getting the life-belts and life-boats ready."
And the dark shapes of the destroyers and the other transports momentarily revealed by gaps in the scudding clouds, the gleaming wake of the ship, and the faint white of the life-belts, that showed dimly where little groups of two or three stood or sat together, made a fitting scene for such an orchestral accompaniment. Thus we reached France.
We were obliged to wear our life-belts night and day, and if I looked as funny to the others as they did to me, I don't see how they ever got their faces straight. Most of our waking hours were spent in looking for "subs," and every one that saw a bottle or stock on the water was sure he had sighted a periscope.
All hands were still turning in with life-belts handy, and most of them with clothes on, but there was a feeling that now it was up to these new escorts. Before we reached France on this run we were in a U-boat fight, which I shall tell of later.
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