then the
Cressy was torpedoed.

The Cressy appears to have seen the submarines in time to attempt to
retaliate. She fired a few shots before she keeled over, broken in two,
and sank. Whether she sank any submarines is not known.

The men of the Aboukir afloat in the water hoped for everything from the
arrival of her sister cruisers, and all survivors agree that when these
also sank many gave up the struggle for life and went down. An officer
told me that when swimming, after having lost his jacket in the grip of
a drowning man, his chief thought was that the Germans had succeeded in
sinking only three comparatively obsolete cruisers which shortly would
have been scrapped anyway.

Twenty-four men were saved on a target which floated off the Hogue's
deck. The men were gathered on it for four hours waist deep in water.

The rescued officers unite in praising the skill and daring of the
German naval officers, and, far from bearing any grudge, they have
nothing but professional praise for the submarines' feat.

"Our only grievance," one said, "is that we did not have a shot at the
Germans. Our only share in the war has been a few uncomfortable weeks of
bad weather, mines, and submarines."

When I entered the billiard room of the hotel here sheltering survivors
and asked if any British officers were there, several unshaven men in
the khaki working kit of the Dutch Army or in fishermen's jerseys got up
from their chairs. Most of them had been saved in their pajamas, and
they had to accept the first things in the way of clothing offered by
the kindly Dutch. One Lieutenant apologized for closing the window, as
he had only a thin jacket over his pajamas. He gladly accepted the loan
of my overcoat while making a list of his men who had been saved.

While the survivors are technically prisoners in this neutral country,
to be interned until the end of the war, Muiden steadfastly refuses to
regard them as other than honored guests. The soldiers posted before
every building where officers or men are sheltered seem to be guards of
honor rather than prison warders, and every one in the place is
competing for the honor of lending clothes, running errands, or offering
cigars for the survivors.

When the Dutch steamer Flora arrived with survivors last night, flying
her flag at half-mast and signaling for a doctor, the Red Cross
authorities and the British Vice Consul, Mr. Rigorsberg, at once set the
machinery in motion, and soon