hed to kindling-wood, there was nothing
to it but to take to the Carley Floats, and the first thing I did after
hearing the order to abandon ship was to see to cutting one of these
loose. On account of our oilskins and life-preservers, neither myself
nor any of the three or four lads from the after gun's crew that ran to
the float with me could get at our clasp-knives. Luckily, one of the
Ward Room stewards came to the rescue with three silver-plated
butter-knives from the pantry, and with these we finally managed to
worry our way through the lashings. Then we pitched the little webbed
'dough-nut' (as the Carley Floats are called) over the settling stern
and jumped after it. Four or five minutes later, after heeling slowly to
port through fifty or sixty degrees, she gave a sudden lurch and went
down, turning completely over as she sank, so that her bottom showed for
a few seconds. The captain, who could have followed us just as well as
not, seemed to make no effort to save himself, and must have gone down
with her. I can't help believing that was the way he wanted it to
happen.

"We had clambered into the float as fast as we could, and I think some
one must have said something about the danger of being caught over an
exploding depth-charge, for we were paddling (all of these floats have
short-handled paddles lashed to their webbing) away from the ship as
fast as we could when she went down. Someone remembered that one of the
'ash cans' had been set on the 'ready' when we went to 'Action
Stations,' and no one recalled seeing it thrown back to 'safe' before we
went overboard. It was an anxious moment, waiting after she ducked under
the sea, for we had not been able to paddle more than a hundred yards,
and the detonation of a depth-charge had been known to paralyse men
swimming in the water at twice that distance. Luckily, this particular
charge must have been set for a considerable depth, and it is also
possible that the hull of the ship absorbed or deflected some of its
force. At any rate, the shock of it, when it came, though it knocked us
violently against each other and left a tingling sensation on the skin
of all the submerged part of one's body, did not do anyone serious
injury.

[Illustration: SHE CAME BOWLING ALONG UNDER SAIL]

"When we came to count noses, there turned out to be eight of us on the
float--two sub-lieutenants, the captain's steward, myself, and the
remnants of the crew of the after gun. A few mi