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Updated: June 17, 2025
This was promptly done, and the raft was sufficiently far advanced in the course of an hour to admit of the emigrants being placed upon it. It was during the formation of this raft that the great value of the life-belts became manifest. While the spars were in a loose and half-fastened state, the men were obliged to work in the water.
There is even "Tipperary," a snatch, a ghost of "Tipperary," intermingled with many others, rising and falling, no one knows why, started now here, now there, and dying away again after a line or two. It is a draft going out to France for the first time, north countrymen, by their accent; and life-belts and submarines seem to amuse them hugely, to judge by the running fire of chaff that goes on.
With its verandah, that was polished like a deck, and its spotless life-belts and brilliant port-hole windows, it had the air of a ship which had been exiled to land but was trying to bear up; and so, too, had the three old captains, spruce little men, with sea-reflecting eyes and pointed, grizzled beards, whom Richard brought out of the club after he had got the boathouse keys.
The first time we heard that call we had gone jumping, but after the third or fourth time we moved more leisurely. Some took their life-belts from their rooms and started up. Every soldier, of course, grabbed one from where they were piled up in the passageways and went at once. They had no option. Their officers would get after them if they did not. I thought I would finish sharpening my pencil.
The ship's officers gradually faded from the decks and the passengers, after standing around foolishly for a time, disappeared one by one into their cabins and bloomed out again with their life-belts moulted! That was the last we heard of the boat-drill or the life-belts. The French are just that casual.
The passengers stood about, aimless, perhaps terror-struck, but now for the most part quiet and self-contained. Some of them had life-belts. That was the sum of my observations. A rocket streamed upwards into the sky, and another and another, then one caught the rigging, and, deflected, whizzed down again within a few feet of my head, and dropped on deck, spluttering in a silly, futile way.
The whole of the mail was saved, the purser bringing it into the cabin, whence it was fished out and taken on board the tug. The passengers were all in bed when the ship struck, and were roused first by the bumping of the hull, and next by the cry that rang fore and aft for every man and woman to put on life-belts, of which there was a plentiful store in hand.
It was a hard fight to avoid the rocks, but the life-belts made the task easier, and Tom Jeffs swam and was carried on shore-ward, to where a dozen fishermen were on the look-out with ropes, one of whom ran in from the sands to the coxswain's help, and dragged him in to safety; but, in spite of all his efforts, the Skipper was insensible.
"You see, half the paddle-wheel was knocked off, and when that sank, of course the port side rose out of the water. I believe those paddle-wheels weigh a deuce of a lot." "Are we going to sink?" "Don't know. Can tell you more in half an hour. I've got two life-belts hidden under a seat. They're rather a nuisance to carry about. You're shivering, Lottie. We must take some more exercise.
As the disconcerting movements of the ship increased, the Anglo-German element, pale-faced and dejected, assembled amidships, and forming a small, huddled group, hastily commenced to put on their cork jackets and life-belts, evidently preparing for the expected impact of the dreaded torpedo.
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