Part 8 (1/2)

There they all were, some 800 men, survivors of a company numbering thirteen-odd hundred, in the water, out of sight of land, not a s.h.i.+p in sight--and twelve life-boats among them, cheering, singing, exchanging badinage and words of good hope.

The _San Diego_, which was one of the crack shooting-s.h.i.+ps of the navy, and had made seven round trips to France in convoy work without ever having seen a submarine, was on her way from the Portsmouth, N.H., navy-yard, where she had been completely overhauled in dry-dock and coaled, to New York, where her crew were to have had short liberty, preliminary to another voyage to France. She carried a heavy deck-load of lumber which she was to take to France for the Marine Corps. She had in her bunkers some 3,000 tons of coal.

On the morning of July 19, the cruiser, shortly after 11 o'clock, had reached a point about seven miles southeast of Point o' Woods. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly, but the coast-line was veiled in a heavy haze.

There was a fair ground-swell running, but no sea. The _San Diego_ was ploughing along at a fifteen-knot clip, not pursuing the zigzag course which it is customary for vessels to follow in enemy-infested waters.

No submarine warning had been issued, and, as the vessel was only seven miles offsh.o.r.e, there may be no doubt that the officers of the war-s.h.i.+p did not consider the trip as any more hazardous than the hundreds of journeys she had made along our coast from port to port. The crew were engaged in the usual routine, with the added labor of getting the vessel s.h.i.+p-shape after the grimy operation of coaling at Portsmouth. The explosion came without warning at 11.15 o'clock. It was extremely heavy, accompanied by a rending and grinding of metal and by the explosion of the after-powder magazine, which destroyed the quarter-deck and sent the mainmast, with wireless attached, cras.h.i.+ng overboard. The torpedo, or whatever it was, wrecked the engine-room, demolished the boilers, and put the electric dynamos out of order.

The thunderous explosion was followed immediately by the insistent whine of bugles and the clanging of alarm-bells, calling the crew to battle-stations. And the crew went quietly, without the slightest disorder. Down in the bunkers, four decks below, was an officer, with a party of seamen, setting things to rights after the coaling. As the explosion occurred and the vessel heeled, these men, as though instinctively, formed into a line, and then without excitement or hurry climbed the four upright steel ladders to the deck, the officer, of course, following last of all.

On deck the 6-inch starboard and port batteries were blazing away, not only at objects that might turn out to be periscopes or submarines, but in order to call a.s.sistance; for the wireless was out of commission, and there was not a sail or a hull in sight.

After a few minutes, the bugles sounded the order ”Prepare to abandon s.h.i.+p.” This applied to every one but the gun crews, who had to remain at their stations for at least five minutes after the process of abandonment was put into operation. The post of one of the gun-crew officers was in the fighting-top of the basket-mast forward, his duty being that of spotter of his crew. As he hurried along the deck to his station the crew lined up along the port rail with life-preservers and were jumping into the sea as ordered.

There were comrades who had been killed or maimed by the s.h.i.+fting deck-load of lumber; there were comrades who, in jumping into the sea, had struck their heads against the steel hull, breaking their necks, and yet there the rest stood in line, waiting for the orders that would send them overboard.

”Isn't this a crime,” laughed one of the seamen, ”just after I had got on my liberty blues and was all set for the high spots in New York!”

”Gripes! My cigarettes are all wet! Who's got a dry one?”

”Look out there, kid; be careful you don't get your feet wet.”

Twelve life-boats were overside, set adrift in the usual manner to be filled after the men were in the water. Then, of course, the sea was littered with lumber and all sorts of debris which would keep a man afloat.

While the abandonment of the s.h.i.+p was under way, the officer who had been in the bunkers, and whose station was in the fighting-top, hurried upward to his post. The port guns were still being served, but their muzzles were inclining ever downward toward the water. In his battle-station this officer directed the firing of the port guns until their muzzles dipped beneath the surface of the sea. There were three officers with him in the fighting-top and three seamen. Below they saw the perfect order which obtained, the men stepping into the sea in ranks, laughing and cheering.

Presently this officer sent one of the seamen down the mast to get life-belts for the group of men in the spotting-station. By the time he returned the bugles were ordering the total abandonment of the vessel.

So the little group made their way, not to the deck, which was now straight up and down, but to the starboard side of the hull, upon which they could walk, the vessel then being practically on her beam ends.

Trapped at their stations on the port side were members of the 6-inch port battery. One of them was seen by a comrade just before rising waters shut him from view. The sinking man nodded and waved his hand.

”Good-by, Al,” he said.

As the officer who had been in the fighting-top jumped clear into the sea, the vessel began to go down, now by the head. Slowly the stern rose, and as it did so, he says, the propellers came into view, and perched on one of the blades was a devil-may-care American seaman, waving his hat and shouting.

The vessel, the officer says, disappeared at 11.30 o'clock, fifteen minutes after the explosion occurred. There was some suction as the _San Diego_ disappeared, but not enough, according to the calculation of the survivors with whom I talked, to draw men to their death.

In the course of another hour, Captain Christie had collected as many of his officers as he could, and the work of apportioning the survivors to the twelve boats and to pieces of flotsam was carried on with naval precision. One man, clinging to a grating, called out that he had cramps. A comrade in one of the boats thereupon said the sailor could have his place. He leaped into the sea and the man with cramps was a.s.sisted into the boat.

While this was going on a seaplane from the Bay Sh.o.r.e station pa.s.sed over the heads of the men in the water. The seamen did not think they had been seen, but they had been, and the aviator, flying to Point o'

Woods, landed and used the coast-guard telephone to apprise the Fire Island coast-guards of the disaster. From this station word was sent broadcast by wireless. In the meantime, Captain Christie had picked two crews of the strongest seamen and had them placed in No. 1 and No. 2 life-boats. These men were ordered to row south-west to Fire Island and summon a.s.sistance.

In one boat thirteen men were placed; in the other fourteen. As the captain got the boat-crews arranged, his barrel began to get waterlogged and became rather precarious as a support; whereupon a floating seaman pushed his way through the water with a ladder.

”Here, sir,” he said, ”try this.”

Thus it was that Captain Christie transferred to a new flag-s.h.i.+p.

The boat-crews left the scene of the disaster at 12.35, and they rowed in fifteen-minute relays from that hour until quarter past three. Before they had gone four miles merchant s.h.i.+ps were rus.h.i.+ng to the spot, as set forth in the wireless warning. These merchantmen got all of the men afloat in the water--or a vast majority of them--and took them to the naval station at Hoboken.