andoning ship had been to follow the old sea rule of
saving the women and children first. Or rather, we put the women off in
our only boat; the baby, I won't need to tell you, was somehow
'overlooked.' The boat was lowered in full view of the Hun, who was
about fifteen hundred yards distant at the moment, and there was a
little unrehearsed incident in connection with it that must have done
its part in convincing him that what he was witnessing was a genuine
piece of 'abandon.' One of the girls--it was the blonde 'Brunnhilde,' I
believe--not wanting to miss any of the fun, started to hang back and
tried to bluff them into letting her stay by swearing that she'd rather
face the Hun than desert her child. As a matter of fact, the
'Gainsborough' had more claim on the kid than 'Brunnhilde,' for she--I
mean he--had cadged its clothes from a sweetheart who worked in a
draper's shop. If I had been there personally, I'm afraid
'Brunnhilde's' little bluff would have won through, for a man whose wits
are keen enough to spring a joke at a crisis has always made an especial
appeal to me. To the bo'sun, however, orders were orders, and his answer
to the recalcitrant blonde's insubordination was to rush her to the rail
by the slack of her middy jacket, and to help her over it with the toe
of his boot.

"The 'K----'s' low freeboard made the drop a short one, and, luckily,
'Brunnhilde' missed the gun'nel' of the whaler and landed gently in the
water, from where she was dragged by the ready hands of her sisters a
few moments later. They do say, though, that she turned a complete
flip-flop in the air, and that there was a display of--well, if a Goerz
prism binocular won't reveal the difference between a pair of blue
sailor's breeches and French lingerie at under a mile, all I can say is
that we've much overrated German optical glass. As I learned later,
however, the Huns, observing only the fall and missing the revealing
details, merely concluded that the Englanders were jumping overboard in
panic, and dismissed their last lingering doubts and suspicions.

"The girls were already instructed that they were to lie low and keep
their peroxide curls out of sight as long as they were within a mile or
so of the submarine, so as not to tempt the latter to follow them up for
a look-see at closer range. The boat had orders to pull astern for a
while, and then, if the Hun was observed to come alongside the '----' as
hoped, to turn eight or ten poi