her people's welfare, whilst working at a speed
mere electricity could never attain.

Thus with James Thorogood, Lieutenant, Royal Navy, when he--together
with his bath, bedding, clothes, and scanty cabin furniture, revolver,
first-aid outfit, and all the things that were his--was precipitated
through his cabin door across the aft-deck. The ship heeled violently,
and the stunning sound of the explosion died away amid the uproar of
men's voices along the mess-deck and the tinkle and clatter of broken
crockery in the wardroom pantry.

"Torpedoed!" said James, and was in his conjecture entirely correct.
He emerged from beneath the debris of his possessions, shaken and
bruised, and was aware that the aft-deck (that spacious vestibule
giving admittance on either side to officers' cabins, and normally
occupied by a solitary Marine sentry) was filled with figures rushing
past him towards the hatchway.

It was half-past seven in the morning. The Morning-watch had been
relieved and were dressing. The Middle-watch, of which James had been
one, were turning out after a brief three-hours' spell of sleep.
Officers from the bathroom, girt in towels, wardroom servants who had
been laying the table for breakfast, one or two Warrant-officers in sea
boots and monkey jackets--the Watch-below, in short--appeared and
vanished from his field of vision like figures on a screen. In no
sense of the word, however, did the rush resemble a panic. The
aft-deck had seen greater haste on all sides in a scramble on deck to
cheer a troopship passing the cruiser's escort. But the variety of
dress and undress, the expressions of grim anticipation in each man's
face as he stumbled over the uneven deck, set Thorogood's reeling mind,
as it were, upon its feet.

The Surgeon, pyjama clad, a crimson streak running diagonally across
the lather on his cheek, suddenly appeared crawling on all-fours
through the doorway of his shattered cabin. "I always said those
safety-razors were rotten things," he observed ruefully. "I've just
carved my initials on my face. And my ankle's broken. Have we been
torpedoed, or what, at all? An' what game is it you're playing under
that bath, James? Are you pretending to be an oyster?"

Thorogood pulled himself together and stood up. "I think one of their
submarines must have bagged us." He nodded across the flat to where,
beyond the wrecked debris of three cabins, the cruiser's side gaped
open to a clear sky and