REASSURED BY SHIP’S OFFICER
“We then saw our first glimpse of an officer, who came along the deck and spoke to Lady Mackworth, Miss Conner and myself, who were standing in a group. He said:
“‘Don’t worry, the ship will right itself.’ He had hardly moved on before the ship turned sideways and then seemed to plunge head foremost into the sea.
“I came up after what seemed to be an interminable time under water and found myself surrounded by swimmers, dead bodies and wreckage. I got on an upturned yawl, where I found thirty other people, among them Lady Allan, whose collar-bone was broken while she was in the water.
“Another passenger on the yawl, a man whose name I did not learn, had his arm hanging by the skin. His injury probably was due to the explosion which followed. His arm was amputated successfully with a butcher knife by a little Italian surgeon aboard the tramp steamer which picked me up.”
CHAPTER IV
A CANADIAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE LUSITANIA HORROR
[PERCY ROGERS, OF CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBITION, TELLS GRAPHIC STORY] — [PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST] — [OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA] — [A HEART-BREAKING SCENE].
Percy Rogers, assistant manager and secretary of the Canadian National Exhibition, who went to England in connection with the Toronto Fair, told a graphic story of his experiences after the Lusitania was struck. He undoubtedly owed his life to the fact that he was a good swimmer.