I was commissary. That meant I had charge of the cook and bought supplies and dished out food and made up the bill of fare. But I might as well have saved myself the trouble of that, because every little thing tasted alike. Why wouldn't it, with eighty-three barrels of oil on board? None of us wore our uniforms. What was the use? We were saving them for London or Paris, and it's lucky we did! Instead, we slapped on our overalls--"dungarees," we call them in the navy. We looked like a crowd of rough-necks, instead of a crew of snappy bluejackets. We left some time in September, and steamed up to Nova Scotia, then across. We had a speedy ship, all right. Eight knots was the best she was known to make. Say, did it give you the jumps! It sure did! I could walk a heap faster than that old tug could steam at full speed. It seemed as though every raider and submarine in the Zone would line up in a row and take a shot or two at us--it was too easy to miss. We had rough weather all the way. That and grease are about all that happened until we hit the Zone. There we met our convoy--a British flagship, a number of merchantmen, and a flock of torpedo-boats. My pal was a fellow from Newark, New Jersey, Bill Willsie. He was out for excitement. "I certainly hope something will break before we land," he'd say, "so that I can have a real yarn to spin for the folks back home." He got his wish. It was the fourth day in the Zone, at five twenty-seven in the afternoon. I was on deck sniffing air that wasn't full of grease. Suddenly I saw the red flag go up to the mast. . . . Danger! . . . Gee, I sure did wish Bill hadn't wished for trouble out loud. I wondered which one of us would get it--the British flagship ahead of us, or the merchantmen behind. It all happened in the fraction of a minute. I saw scudding across the water the black nose of a torpedo. You've heard of men having a premonition of death, but how about seeing it coming straight toward you at the rate of thirty miles an hour! My God! I'll never forget it! I thought my heart had stopped beating. I gripped the railing and waited. She struck the flagship and sank her in seven and a half minutes. To this day I can see her going down--the explosion--the roar--the sudden list--the boats lowered, and, on the bridge, two figures pacing--pacing--the captain and the admiral. Do you think they left their ship? Not they! Up and down--up and down--those two paced. Oh, I tell you the British are a great people, but I wished to God, as I stood there, that I had never had to see it proved to me that way. Up and down they walked, talking together as though nothing out of the way were happening. I saw the ship settle for her last heave. No, they didn't leave her bridge. Why not? They were true British naval officers, that's the answer. They sank with her.