Loxley knew what might happen to that ship if she stood by, as he had no doubt her officers would be prompted to do. Only a month or so before three British cruisers had been sunk in the North Sea, two of them through standing by to help the other. The Admiralty had issued an order that in such circumstances ships were not to attempt rescue work, but, as if to make assurance doubly sure, Loxley had given his signal; he wanted no risks to be run; he and his men were willing to take their chance of life and death without bringing others into danger. It is the spirit of the British Navy.
But if he would not allow others to help them, he used all his efforts to save his crew. There was no hope for the Formidable, he knew, and she would have to be abandoned. She was listing to starboard already.
“Out pinnaces and the launch!” was the order, and while the boat crews worked to carry it out there came another: “’Way barges 1 and 2!” Lieutenant Simmonds superintended the lowering of the boats, and by his fine work earned Loxley’s encomium, “Well done, Simmonds.”
Into one boat there scrambled seventy or eighty men, and she got away from the starboard side; soon after a second boat, with seventy men, pushed off from the port side, and, acting on instructions, she remained near the sinking ship for about an hour. All this time the gale had been blowing fiercely, and mountainous seas made the work of hoisting away the boats anything but easy. It was, indeed, found impossible to lower further boats, because the ship listed so much that only the starboard boats could be hauled out. One barge which they tried to launch slipped in the davits, and hurled her crew of sixty men into the water below. Dozens of men leapt overboard and swam to the two successfully lowered boats, and the captain, thinking of others all the time, told the boats to stand by and try to pick them up. The darkness, however, prevented this being done.
Meanwhile, on the Formidable was a strange scene. On the deck stood lines of men, naked many of them, calm all of them, puffing away at cigarettes or passing along a smoke to a comrade who had not brought his up from below. From somewhere there came the sound of a piano; a man sat playing breezy tunes to cheer his comrades in the face of death. In the stokeholds begrimed heroes stuck to their posts until, with a lurch, the ship knocked them off their feet and sent the fires rushing out at them; heroes who, when the word came, raked out the fires, while elsewhere engineers shut off the steam—all so that, when the ship sank, there should be no explosion.
Not a man lost his head. Their example was pacing the bridge, smoking, just as though the ship was riding in harbour with anchors down. “Steady, men; it’s all right!” he cried to them. “Be British! There’s life left in the old ship yet!”
But there was not much life; listing, she gave a sudden plunge, and all knew that it was the end.
“Every man for himself!” came the order; and those that could jumped as she took her final plunge. About half the company got clear of her; but the two boats could not take many, and in addition to those in the boats only seventy were saved—by a light cruiser which later came upon the scene.
Loxley went down with his ship, as did hundreds of the men, standing in line, saluting the Old Jack for the last time. “The last impression on my mind,” said a survivor, “was of a long line of saluting figures disappearing below the skyline.”
For the men in the two boats there now began an anxious time. Many of them had no clothes beyond vests and pants—some none at all, and these had to be wrapped in the few blankets that were in the boats. The night was bitterly cold, the gale was blowing its hardest, the sea was running high. The first boat that put off found her difficulties at once; she shipped water by the ton, and the men had to improvise bailers. Those who had boots on took them off, and used these; a blanket, held at each corner by a sailor, was also brought into play for the purpose; caps and coats, too—every man doing something to clear the boat of water. For hours they toiled, expecting every minute to be their last. All through the night, till early morning, they drifted whither the waves would take them, and when dawn came they found themselves out of sight of land, with never a ship in view.