“I saw three other women in the boat. They sat together, white and silent, in the stern, nor ever moved. They were French women. Some one noticed that the water was increasing and there was a wild hullabaloo of alarm. A Belgian—the man who had pulled into the boat the man whose knee I held—called for hats with which to bale, setting the example with his. But we were so tightly packed that no one could get at the water, whereupon the Belgian climbed overboard on to one of the gratings I have already mentioned, and a young Belgian soldier followed his example on the other side. They held on to our gunwale with their fingers. This somewhat relieved the congestion, enabling us to bail. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._ Brigadier-General Leroy Eltinge Deputy Chief of Staff, G. H. Q., A. E. F.] “Sometimes the people in the boat bailed furiously, sometimes they stopped and stared stupidly about them. Some shouted ‘Ramez! Ramez!’ Others equally excited yelled ‘Mais non! Videz l’eau! Videz l’eau!’ I apologized to my immediate neighbors for that I had no hat to lend, and for that I was too hurt to stoop, but I put my hands on the erring oar the young Frenchman was feebly moving across my knees, and did my best to guide his efforts. As often as not he put it flat on the water, and sometimes he merely desisted altogether, and gazed vacantly in front of him. The Belgian asked for a handkerchief, and groping in the water at the bottom of the boat, found a hole and caulked it as best he could. Thereafter the bailers kept the water from increasing, but did little to reduce it. 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.