Part 26

Alfred Vanderbilt I saw standing outside the grand entrance of the saloon, looking quite happy and perfectly composed. He was holding a jewel case for a lady, for whom he was apparently waiting. I did not see Charles Frohman until I saw his body in a mortuary. His was the most peaceful face among all those I saw there. There was no trace of agony, and unlike others his features were not disfigured in any way. Frohman was none too well on the voyage, and was hardly able to walk, so he remained in his cabin most of the time, where, I believe, he was when the ship sank. Elbert Hubbard and his wife I also believe went down in their cabin.

The first two boats from the port side were manned principally by officers. The slow speed gave the Germans an absolutely pointblank shot. They couldn't miss. Only God's fair weather and daylight brought us ashore. If the _Lusitania_ had been convoyed or had put on speed she would have been here now.

The wireless operators were still sending out calls from their emergency apparatus, the main wireless room having been disorganized. The ship was now listing badly to starboard, and, taking a swivel chair which an operator offered to me, I slid down into the water and to a boat which was still attached to the davits and which was

## partly covered with water. We cleared the boat not a moment too soon,

for we had hardly done so when the vessel went down on the starboard side, one of the funnels grazing our heads. In the twinkling of an eye the monster vessel disappeared amidst the cries of those who had been caught. It was one long indescribable scene of agony. There was floating debris on all sides and men and women and children clinging for dear life to deck chairs and rafts which littered the water. Many were entangled in wreckage, and one by one they seemed to fall off and give themselves up.

About the last thing I saw happen on the boat was the chief Marconi operator taking a photograph when the vessel was listed to 45 degrees, but the pictures were spoiled by the water. We rowed around for three and a half hours before we were picked up.

IV--STORY TOLD BY GEORGE A. KESSLER, AN AMERICAN PASSENGER

I saw the wake of the first torpedo the moment before the _Lusitania_ was struck. I was on the upper deck. Looking out to sea, I saw all at once the wash of a torpedo, indicated by the snakelike churn on the surface of the water. It was about thirty feet away. Then came the thud as it struck the ship. Mr. Berth and his wife, of New York, first class passengers, were the last persons I spoke to on the ship. About this time all the passengers in the dining saloon had come up on deck. The upper deck was crowded, and the passengers were wondering what was the matter, few really believing that the ship had been torpedoed. They began to lower boats. I saw Berth help his wife into a boat. I fell into the same boat and we were shipped down into the water.

About a minute after the boat struck the water, I looked up and cried out: "My God! The _Lusitania_ is gone!" We saw her entire bulk, which had been almost upright just a few seconds before, suddenly lurch over away from us. Then she seemed to stand upright in the water and the next instant the keel of the vessel caught the keel of our boat and we were thrown into the water. There were only about thirty people in the boat and I should say that all were stokers or third class passengers.

When the boat was overturned I sank fifteen or twenty feet and I thought I was a goner. However, I had my lifebelt around me and I managed to rise again to the surface. There I floated for possibly ten or fifteen minutes, when I made a grab at a collapsible lifeboat, to which other passengers were clinging. We managed to get it shipshape and clamber in. There were eight or nine in the boat. It was partly filled with water, and in the scramble which occurred the boat overturned, and once more we were pitched into the water. This occurred, I should say, eight times, the boat righting itself each time. Before we were picked up by the _Bluebell_ six of the party of eight or nine were lying drowned in the bilge water in the bottom of the boat. It was cold-blooded, deliberate murder and nothing else--the greatest murder the world has ever known.

V--STORY OF CHARLES T. JEFFREY, AN AMERICAN PASSENGER

I was in the smoking room when the explosion took place. It shook the whole ship, just as a train would shake if the locomotive suddenly stopped and backed into it. I did not, of course, know what it was, and it did not occur to me that we had been torpedoed. I thought it might be a mine, or that we had run upon a rock, but it simply did not occur to my mind to imagine anything so horrible as that this defenseless ship with its helpless passengers would be torpedoed without warning.

I left the smoking room and went out on deck to look over the side at the spot where the ship was when the explosion took place. It was about 300 feet away. The ship began to take a list to starboard, but very slowly. There was no panic, either then or at any other time. Many other passengers came out and looked over the side, just as I did, but there were no signs of alarm or any rushing about.

I went down to "A" deck to see what was happening there, but there was no commotion, any more than there was on the upper one, to which I returned. But the ship was listing more and more. The lifeboats had been swung out the previous day, and I saw women and children being put into them by sailors. There was no rushing for the boats, no struggling for places; everything was being done with perfect calmness and orderliness. I went down to my cabin, meeting many people in the alleyways with lifebelts and others going for them.

I made my way aft, and seeing no one on the navigating bridge, scrambled up there, where I could observe everything that was happening along one side of the ship. The ship now heeled over so much that the passengers were clinging to the deck rail. It was a terrible sight; their helplessness, with the great ship steadily going down under us.

Suddenly there came a terrific rumbling, roaring noise; the huge ship trembled as her funnels went over, and she just slid under the waves by the head. Then she seemed to be suddenly checked, as though her bow had struck something, but it was only momentary, and in another moment she disappeared under the water. I went down with her, but came to the surface again very quickly. All around me I saw great numbers of persons struggling in the water. Presently there floated near me a rectangular sheet metal can, like the air tank of a lifeboat, and I clutched it. I waited for a rescuer, but there was none in sight. Then two men came along, hanging on to a barrel with handles on each end, so I brought my tank over and caught on to it for company. We were hanging on for some time, when a man of seventy-five and a boy of seventeen came along on a plank. The boy could not swim. We caught them and added them and their plank to our party.

After another twenty minutes or so we saw in the distance what looked like a raft, so we swam toward it, pushing our supports. It took us nearly half an hour to reach that raft, and it turned out to be a collapsible boat.

We were in this boat some time, and were taking in water steadily, when a man weighing perhaps 250 pounds floated by, without any life preserver. He was all in, but we got him aboard. Next a foreigner, who could speak no English, got in with us. Then a woman floated along with a deck chair and an oar, and we took her aboard, but it was doubtful how long we could remain afloat, so one man took the can I spoke of and pushed off on his own account.

At last, at 6.10, after four hours in the water, the trawler took us in. We were stiff and cold, and went down to the engine room to dry our clothes. We were tended with the greatest care by the crew. It was an experience no man would like to face again, and those who went through it will have a lasting memory of its horror. Why, I remember on the voyage over remarking that I never saw so many babies and young children on any ship.

VI--STORY TOLD BY DR. DANIEL V. MOORE, AN AMERICAN PASSENGER

After the explosion quiet and order were soon accomplished by assurances from the stewards. I proceeded to the deck promenade for observation and saw only that the ship was fast leaning to starboard. I hurried toward my cabin below for a lifebelt and turned back because of the difficulty in keeping upright. I struggled to D deck and forward to the first-class cabin, where I saw a Catholic priest.

I could find no belts and returned again toward E deck and saw a stewardess struggling to dislodge a belt. I helped her with hers and secured one for myself. I then rushed to D deck and noticed one woman perched on the gunwale, watching a lowering lifeboat ten feet away. I pushed her down and into the boat, then jumped in. The stern of the lifeboat continued to lower, but the bow stuck fast. A stoker cut the bow ropes with a hatchet, and we dropped in a vertical position.

A girl whom we had heard sing at a concert was struggling and I caught her by the ankle and pulled her in. A man I grasped by the shoulders and I landed him safe. He was the barber of the first-class cabin, and a more manly man I never met. He showed his courage and his will later on.

We pushed away hard to avoid the suck, but our boat was fast filling and we bailed fast with one bucket and the women's hats. The man with the bucket became exhausted and I relieved him. In a few minutes she was level full. Then a keg floated up and I pitched it about ten feet away and followed it. After reaching it I turned to see the fate of our boat. She had capsized and covered many. Now a young steward, Freeman, by name, had approached me, clinging to a deck chair. I urged him to grab the other side of the keg several times. He grew faint, but harsh speaking roused him. Once he said: "I am going to go," but I ridiculed this and it gave him strength. By stroking with our legs we succeeded in reaching a raft.

We were in the water about one hour and a half. At this time I suffered from violent vomiting. Then followed appalling chills, but by beating myself I restored my energy and was soon handling an oar. Freeman collapsed, but recovered after reaching the patrol boat _Brock_. There were about twenty-three persons on the raft. They worked nobly in picking five of us up after what seemed an eternity.

The good boat _Brock_ and her splendid officers and men took us aboard. I went to the engine room and stripped to the skin. Here and in the room above I cared for men and women as they were rescued. Little ten-year-old Frank Hook had his left thigh bone fractured. This I reduced and splinted, and in a short while Frank asked, "Is there a funny paper on the boat?"

At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the water seemed dotted with bodies. Only a few of the lifeboats seemed to be doing any good. The cries of "My God!" "Save us!" and "Help!" gradually grew weaker from all sides and finally a low weeping, wailing, inarticulate sound, mingled with coughing and gurgling, made me heartsick. I saw many men die. Some appeared to be sleepy and worn out just before they went down, others grew gradually blue and an air of hunger gave their features a sardonic smile.

There was no suction when the ship settled. She went down steadily and at the best possible angle. The lifeboats were not in order and they were not manned. Most of the people rushed to the upper decks.

I did not hear a second explosion. There is no more horrible or pitiable sight possible than the sight of the faces of mothers and babies and girls here in the morgues.

Weighing all the facts soberly convinces me that it was only through the mercy of God that any one was saved. I sailed from America that I might offer my services as a surgeon. I have visited the Valley of Death and am heartsick.

VII--STORY OF FUNERAL OF "LUSITANIA'S" DEAD--TOLD BY AN EYE-WITNESS

Ninety-two passengers of the _Lusitania_ who formed part of that pitiful handful of maimed, dead and dying brought ashore with the survivors of the disaster that followed the attack on the vessel by a German submarine were buried with services that have no parallel in history. Under a sky in which not a single cloud floated and to the strains of hymns played by British soldiers they were laid to rest two miles behind Queenstown in a cemetery bursting with spring greenery and tucked between hills flaming with gorse. The services at the graves began at four o'clock, and at half-past four the sod of Ireland was being shovelled upon the coffins.

Queenstown sensed the full horror of the _Lusitania_ disaster. Up to the time that the long stream of coffins began to disappear over the hill behind the town there was about the affair, what with the continued searches for survivors and the bustle about the morgue, something of the unusual and theatric. But when the funeral started the realization came that each of these cheap coffins held a body and that in the Atlantic, less than twenty miles away, there were more than a thousand in addition, all victims of a German submarine.

The townsfolk stood hatless nearly all forenoon as the coffins were conveyed to the cemetery on carts. This process required hours, and it was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that the funeral procession proper left the Cunard offices at the waterfront. There were only three bodies, one each in a hearse, in this cortège, the other eighty-nine already having been placed in the graves.

With the British army band playing Chopin's "Funeral March" the funeral procession marched through the crooked streets past the cathedral, which stands on the highest point of the town, and then took its course along an undulating country road, now rising and now sinking between green hills. Along this road country folk were clustered for the most part, perched on stone fences behind the soldiers who guarded the road the entire two miles from the cathedral to the cemetery. Those waiting in the graveyard first heard, borne faintly on the soft breeze, the notes of the funeral march and then the sound of muffled drums. A moment later the sun flashed on the band instruments and the cortège took form in the distance. Not for more than an hour, however, did it reach the lane bordering the cemetery, which it entered in the following order:--

A major of the Royal Irish infantry on horseback, five members of the Irish Constabulary and a group of Protestant churchmen, then in black robes came thirteen priests, and behind them were the hearses, draped with British flags, to the rear of which trudged the mourners, among them several American survivors of the disaster.

The sailors from the steamship _Wayfarer_, which was recently torpedoed but was able to make port, came next, and behind them the members of the Corporation of Cork, headed by the Lord Mayor. A company of marines followed and then came sailors of the various British ships in harbor. The British officers, numbering a hundred odd, marched erect but slow. Next in line were captains Miller and Castle, Attachés of the American Embassy in London. Both were dressed in khaki uniforms. A party of British naval officers and Admiral Sir Charles Coke, of Queenstown, followed them. The Most Reverend Robert Browne, Bishop of Cloyne, rode in a carriage.

The procession was a full hour in passing into the cemetery. There soldiers guarded the walls as six other soldier pallbearers lifted the coffins from the hearses and set them beside the graves. The three coffins rested beside separate graves. The other eighty-nine had previously been placed in three great pits--sixty-five in one, in layers two deep, and twelve each in the other two. Conducted by Bishop Browne, the Catholic service was held first, the choir boys bearing incense, appearing from a cluster of elms and coming to the graveside. The Church of Ireland service, that is, the Protestant Episcopal, followed, and finally the non-conformist rites were performed. As the last words of this service were spoken the muffled drums rolled and the familiar hymn, "Abide with Me," swelled forth. Sailors who had replaced the soldier pallbearers then lowered the coffins into the small graves, and simultaneously the earth began to thud on the coffins in all the graves. The crowd, nearly all with eyes wet, slowly left, some to take jaunting cars, but most of them to trudge across the fields of the city. As they reached the crest of the hill immediately above the harbor flashed into view and in it the flag of every vessel fluttered at half mast.

Many children and little babies lie in the morgues like so many dolls. The townspeople covered them with flowers yesterday and it is probable these little ones will be placed in a grave together.

WITH THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS ON THE FIELDS OF FRANCE

_Personal Experiences Direct from the Front_

This is a series of personal narratives and letters from the American soldiers with Pershing in France. This great American army "captivated the French imagination." Our boys who have gone across seas to fight with the Allies carried the American flag into new glories and triumphs that will become epics of valor in the annals of mankind. These letters have been collected by the _New York Sun_, with whose permission they are given permanent historical record. They give a clear insight into the American soldier's life in the first days of Pershing's army in France.

I--STORY OF LIFE OF THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

(Told by Private Joseph A. Deegan, of the Eleventh Railway Engineers)

_The daily life of the American soldiers and their relations with those of other nations is an intimate and interesting phase of the war concerning which little has been published. Here is a description of them among the French, the Chinese laborers and Hindus and the German trenches:_

Fine is no name for the way I feel. The climate in the part of France we have finally settled in is just betwixt and between. It is lukewarm. Over in England it was rain, rain, rain. Everything was wet and muddy. We slept and ate in mud right up to our mustaches. However, the blooming little isle had its good points, so I ought not to knock it. London gave us a royal welcome, and I now have a few good friends there. A live time also awaits me if I ever go back to Exeter, Aldershot or Folkestone.

But turning the film back to La Belle France, here we have nice climate, an exciting war, excellent champagne and a set of girls that would make the boys back home green with envy. What more could a man ask? The only trouble with the French people is their unfailing habit of trying to overcharge us. However, we are getting on to their curves now and take discounts off every price they ask. For instance, when I go into a candy shop the proprietress will exclaim: "Ah, _bon Americain_." Then she will proceed to quote me one and one-half francs for a bar of five-cent chocolate. After a little hesitation and figuring on my part I slip her half a franc, and even at that she is making a 75 per cent profit. She accepts the slight reduction with a deprecating air, and probably mutters to herself: "Those Yankees are as stupid as foxes." Aside from our little monetary differences we and the French are the most affectionate of comrades.

Somewhere in France we camped next door to a Chinese labor camp. There was a small army of them. The Mongolians are the best pals we have run into yet. They were so honored by the attention paid to them by the whites that they broke their necks to please us. When I said to a Chink: "Gimme a cigarette, Charlie," he would run a quarter of a mile to his tent and come back with a fistful. Some of the Chinks even wanted to lend money to our boys. Unfortunately, however, our bunch got to selling them, at exorbitant prices, gold rings that after a rainstorm resembled the Irish flag, and wrist watches with the small item of works entirely missing. The English soldiers sort of wised up the Yellow Perils to our tricks and before we parted company with them they became noticeably cool toward us. Well, they were Coolies, anyhow. That's a cool joke.

Lower down in France we were camped directly opposite a tribe of Hindus--you know, the kind with knotted Turkish towels for hats. These birds bury and pick the pockets of all soldiers killed on the front, so you cannot sell them trinkets. They have carloads of them. The Hindus are surlier and dirtier than the Chinese gentlemen, and we did not mingle with them so freely. If you want to get them drawing knives just holler, "Buddha _no bon!_" They are fanatics on religion. About a week ago we visited their camp and they immediately challenged us to a tug of war. They had about twelve on one end of the rope and we had only seven. Evidently, however, they are not over strong, because we pulled them almost up to the firing line. They are hard losers, and might have drawn their bowies, but I think they suspected we were Irish, so they remained peaceable.

The guns play a constant tattoo at night, and I am getting used to them now. The other day a few other fellows and myself made a tour of inspection among some recently deserted German trenches up near the line. In them we found feather beds, a box of cigars and, last but not least, a beautifully toned organ. The feather beds were wet and coated with mud, so we couldn't bother with them. You will say "Impossible" when I say I left the cigars there also. This I did, however, as the Germans have a playful habit of poisoning such dainties. The organ was badly warped and too far below the ground to attempt to salvage, but we stayed there for a while and I made the subterranean passages echo to the strains of "Ragging the Scale."