of war. It made the
warship a target for any hostile submarine lurking around, but it seemed
impossible to believe that a 6000-ton liner, with probably several
hundred human beings on board, could have been so completely
obliterated, and to the commander of the sloop the risk seemed
justified.

Other ships might have intercepted the S.O.S. call and reached the scene
of the disaster earlier, but the sloop's wireless, although put into
action, could not confirm this, and so the search was continued.

On and off during the bitter night the white beam of light flashed out
through the snow. For a few seconds it swept the sea close around and
was then shut off. In the pall-like blackness which followed ears
listened intently, but could distinguish nothing except the lash of the
sea.

The sound-deadening qualities of falling snow would have cut short the
range of any cry, for the human voice at its strongest, and with the
atmospheric conditions favourable, can seldom be heard more than 1000
yards distant. So hour after hour of numbing cold went by with nothing
to show except the occasional pathway of light on the grey slopes of sea
and the low moaning wind.

The snowing ceased, and in the cold stillness which so often precedes
daybreak in the north a faint cry came from the sea, at first so
indistinct and mingled with water noises that it would never have been
heard at all if the engines of the sloop had not been shut off, as they
had been at frequent intervals during the night, to enable those on
board to listen. The cry was quickly followed by the "snore" of a boat's
fog-horn. A few turns of the sloop's propellers and in the grey light of
the December dawn a large ship's life-boat could be dimly seen, away to
starboard, when it rose on the bosom of the swell.

Careful manoeuvring placed the warship alongside the boat-load of
half-frozen castaways and the work of rescue commenced. It was a sad
task. Amongst the thirty-two survivors there were twelve women and
children, seven of whom had died of cold and exposure during that bitter
night. One, a young Canadian wife coming home to her wounded soldier
husband, had been crushed by the explosion of the first torpedo and
suffered agonies in the open boat before sinking into the peace of
death.

To dwell here on the suffering caused by intense cold, exposure, hunger,
thirst, untended wounds, and the mental agony of suspense, often to
delicate women and children, when cast a