A ship's carpenter on board the _Aboukir_ had a similar experience. He was on board all the three cruisers when they were torpedoed. When the _Cressy_ went down he swam to a raft, which towed him along for some distance, until a ship's boat picked him up. * * * * * A middy of the _Cressy_, a lad of sixteen, named Cazalet, commanded a whaler which was engaged in the work of rescue. He was actually the means of saving some eighty-eight lives. Altogether he picked up three boatloads of men, and not until there were no more survivors in sight did he seek refuge on board a Dutch trawler. A fifteen-year-old drummer boy of the Marines managed to keep his head above water for about four hours. An empty rum cask floated by him, and he seized it and clung on to it until he was rescued. Strange to say, he suffered no harm from his long bath in the stormy sea. [Footnote 85: Named after the Prussian general August von Goeben (1816-80). He commanded the 8th Army Corps in the Franco-German War, and distinguished himself at Gravelotte and elsewhere.] [Footnote 86: Emperor William the Great.] [Footnote 87: U stands for _Unterwasserboot_--under-water boat.] [Footnote 88: The various classes of British submarines are indicated by a letter of the alphabet. Boats of the oldest class constructed are lettered A.] [Footnote 89: Seaport, military station, and capital of German East Africa, fifty miles south of Zanzibar.] CHAPTER XXII. THE BATTLE OF HELIGOLAND BIGHT. In the first few days of the war there were rumours that a big naval battle had been fought in the North Sea, and that the bulk of the German fleet had been sent to the bottom. The wish was father to the thought. Most British people expected that there would be big sea fights, and they had no doubt of the result. We already know that the Germans had no intention of coming out in force to meet Sir John Jellicoe's ships. Their policy was to stick close to their own coasts, and try to wear us down by mines and torpedo attacks. As day after day went by and there was no startling news, impatient people began to ask, "What is the Navy doing?"