(c) was perfectly capable of holding on without anybody's support as long as was necessary.
The chain of occurrences that connected situation No. 1 with situation No. 2 was short enough in point of actual time, but so crowded with unexpected and momentous happenings that it had already assumed the proportions of a confused epoch in Cecily's mind. There were gaps in the sequence of events that remained blanks in her memory. Faces, insignificant incidents, thumbnail sketches and broad, bustling panorama of activity alternated with the blank spaces. The heroic and the preposterous were indistinguishable….
At the first sound of the explosion of the torpedo Cecily jumped to her feet, scattering the chocolates broadcast over the deck. The ship seemed to lift bodily out of the water and then heeled over a little to port. There were very few people on the saloon deck and there was no excitement or rushing about. The shrill call of the boatswain's mate's pipe clove the silence that followed that stupendous upheaval of sound.
A clean-shaven, middle-aged American, wearing a collar reminiscent of the late Mr. Gladstone's and a pair of pince-nez hanging from his neck on a broad black ribbon, had been walking up and down with his hands behind his back; he paused uncertainly for a moment and then began laboriously collecting the scattered chocolates. That was the only moment when hysteria brushed Cecily with its wings. She wanted to laugh or cry—she wasn't sure which.
"It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter!" she cried with a catch in her breath. "Don't stop now—we've been torpedoed!"
The American stared at the handful he had gathered.
"Folks'll tread on 'em, I guess," he replied, and suddenly raised his head with a whimsical smile. "A man likes to do something useful at times like this—it's just our instinct," he added as if explaining something more for his own satisfaction than hers. "I'm not a seaman—I'd only get in peoples' way messing round the boats before they were ready—so I reckoned I'd pick up your candies."
There were very few women onboard, and Cecily found herself the only woman allotted to the jolly-boat. She climbed in with the assistance of the very young and distressingly susceptible Fourth Officer. For a moment she found herself reflecting that his life must be one long martyrdom of unrequited affections. The stout American followed her with a number of other passengers. The Fourth Officer gave an order and the boat began to descend towards the waves in a succession of uneven jolts. The crew were getting their oars ready, and one was hammering the plug of the boat home with the butt of an enormous jack-knife. The stout American surveyed the tumbling sea beneath them distastefully.
"When I get to Washington," he said, "I guess I'll fly round that li'll old town till some of our precious 'too-proud-to-fight' party just gnash their teeth and shriek aloud 'How can we bear it?'"
He suddenly remembered that his pneumatic life-saving waistcoat was not inflated. Seizing the piece of rubber tubing that projected from his pocket he thrust it into his mouth and proceeded to blow with distended cheeks and his serious brown eyes fixed solemnly on Cecily's face.