Just as I was rising to the surface again a heavy body came down on top of me. I fought clear and rose rather breathless and bruised. I swam about fifty yards away, to get clear of the suction when the ship went down; then, turning round and treading water, I watched her last moments. The noise of crashing furniture and smashing crockery was continuous. Slowly her stern lifted until it was dimly outlined against the deep midnight sky. Slowly her bows slid further and further under until, with a final lurch, she turned completely over and disappeared bottom upwards in a mass of bubbles.
She had been our home for nearly ten months—she was gone—vanished—in less than four minutes.
Turning over and swimming a slow side-stroke I made for H.M.S. Cornwallis, which I could discern faintly silhouetted against the sky about two-and-a-half miles distant. Suddenly something touched my leg, and the thought of the sharks we had watched from the bridge the previous afternoon flashed shudderingly across my mind—but it was only a floating potato! Soon the shrieks of the drowning grew faint in the distance and I swam on with three others near me. When I had been in the water for about twenty minutes I looked up and saw what I thought to be a boat. I shouted out, “Boat ahoy!”—and turning on my side swam for some time a fast side-stroke. When at last I rested and looked for the imagined boat, which ought to have been quite near by now, I discovered that I had somehow misfocussed the Cornwallis, and so come to imagine she was a small steamboat quite close instead of a battle-ship a mile and a half away. However, I felt quite confident of reaching her if only I persevered, so I continued to swim a slow side-stroke. Soon after this my pyjama jacket came undone, and I took it off as it hindered me. A few minutes later I sighted a huge spar about twenty feet long, probably the topgallant mast or lower boom from our ship. It must have been thrown a tremendous way by the force of the explosion to be so far down the channel. The current was very strong, and of course that was a great help to those who were swimming. I hung on to the spar for a minute or two to get my breath back a bit, and rubbed myself all over in order to restore the circulation, as by that time I was getting very cold. After a short rest I started off again to try and reach H.M.S. Cornwallis. Presently it seemed to me that I was not approaching her as rapidly as before, and almost at the same moment she switched on her searchlights, when I saw by their light that she was out of the main stream of the current, and that to reach her I should have to swim half a mile absolutely unaided by the flow of the tide. I tried to get in the beam of her searchlight, thinking she would be sure to have some boats out and that they would see me; but I found I was unable to manage this, and after about five minutes I gave up trying. Then I turned round and looked about for some other ship to essay and make for. About a quarter of a mile behind me, and slightly up stream, I saw another ship with all her searchlights going and I determined to try and reach her. I swam towards her, and presently saw two steamboats push off from her bow and make off up stream for the scene of the disaster, but they were too far off to hail. Five minutes later I heard the welcome plash of oars, and looking to my left saw a cutter approaching with a man in the bows sweeping the surrounding water with a hand lantern. I yelled out, “Boat ahoy!” and back came the cheering answer: “All right, we’re coming. Hang on!”
A minute later the lantern flashed in my face, a pair of strong arms grasped me by the shoulders and hauled me clear of the water.
I must have fainted then, for I remember nothing more until I became dimly conscious as in a dream that I was in the stern sheets of a boat lying alongside some other vessel. A man’s voice said, “Here’s a midshipman, sir,” and next moment I was picked up and set down on the deck.
Barely conscious as yet of my surroundings, I was taken into a sort of cabin, where I was given some neat rum. It was very fiery and nearly choked me, but it bucked me up a bit all the same. Then I was conducted down to the boiler-room, where some one stripped off my pyjama trousers (my one remaining garment), and I sat down on a locker before the furnace and soon got a degree of warmth back into my body.
Presently I heard the voice of one of our lieutenants speaking up above, and called out to him to know how he’d come off. Then I was helped up the gangway again and into a small sort of saloon in the stern. Here I was given some more rum, a very large sweater, and a pair of blue serge trousers belonging to one of the crew, and when I had put them on I lay down in a bunk and immediately fell asleep. About an hour later I woke up and found the saloon full of officers and men.
The Lieutenant to whom I had spoken in the boiler-room was sitting at the table. He was dressed in a jersey and a seaman’s duck trousers. Two other survivors, a marine and an armourer, were also at the table, and across the saloon in the bunk opposite mine lay a gunner’s mate. I asked the Lieutenant what time our ship was struck. He said his watch had stopped at 1·29 a.m., when he jumped into the sea, and so he presumed we were torpedoed at about 1·27, as the ship only took three and a half minutes to go down. She had been struck on the starboard side by three torpedoes fired from a Turkish torpedo-boat, which had drifted down the straits keeping close inshore, and thus eluded our destroyer patrol. To give the enemy his due it was a jolly smart piece of work.