Alas! the moment the Hogue stopped she became an easy mark. The German submarine gave her two torpedoes in quick succession, and in about five minutes the Hogue had gone to the bottom and the sea was covered with men, some swimming for dear life, others clinging to tables, stools, chairs, planks, etc., which had been thrown off the ship. Not immediately, but soon afterwards, the Cressy was torpedoed and sank. The brotherhood of the sea is very strong, and British seamen are always generous in their appreciation of an enemy’s bravery. They admired the daring of the German submarine, but they could not help being sorry for the fact that it meanly advanced under cover of a German trawler which had hoisted the Dutch flag. Further, one regrets to have to add that the trawler made no attempt to save our drowning seamen, in this forming a very great contrast to the British tars who always do their very best to rescue their drowning enemies. But there came up two trawlers, which were really Dutch, the Flora and the Titan, and their captains and crews worked like heroes to save the lives of our men. They took many hundreds to Holland, where the British seamen were most kindly treated, being fed and clothed and sent back to England after resting. Some of our poor fellows died of the cold and exposure in the sea, and these the kindly Dutchmen buried with all honour and reverence. The mishap was a sad blow to the nation, all the more because it was seen that the Hogue and the Cressy really met their doom owing to their efforts to save the crew of the Aboukir. But everybody drew comfort from the splendid gallantry shown by all our seamen, from the captains downwards. Yet many as were the stories of brave deeds which came to light, we may be sure that at least as many more will never be known, the eye-witnesses having all perished. I will give you a few examples of deeds which did come to light. Do you remember the cool, brave surgeon on the Arethusa? There was one equally brave and resourceful on the Cressy. Together with four men, he was clinging to some wreckage, and he instructed his comrades to rub each other’s legs with their naked feet alternately, and so keep their blood circulating. They hung on for two or three hours, and finally all were rescued, no doubt owing to the surgeon’s clever idea. One survivor wrote after his awful ordeal: “The best thing I saw was the coolness of a little cadet. Not more than fourteen he looked. He drifted near me, he and a seaman clinging with their hands and elbows on the same bit of wood. I never saw anything so calm as that lad! He was talking to the seaman with him. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve got to carry on like this, and if we die we shall die game.’ And with that he begins to talk about everyday things on the sunken ship. ‘What’s the new chief engineer like?’ he says, and chats about little incidents in the mess. Only fourteen, a little light-haired boy. I hope he was saved.”