dread marauders. We were young; we craved thrills, and God knows
we got them that day; yet by comparison with that through which I
have since passed they were as tame as a Punch-and-Judy show.

I shall never forget the ashy faces of the passengers as they
stampeded for their life-belts, though there was no panic.
Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose, also, and over the ship's
side, I saw not two hundred yards distant the periscope of a
submarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedo
was distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship--which,
of course, was not armed. We were entirely defenseless; yet
without warning, we were being torpedoed.

I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo.
It struck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel
rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano.
We were thrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above
the ship, carrying with it fragments of steel and wood and
dismembered human bodies, rose a column of water hundreds of feet
into the air.

The silence which followed the detonation of the exploding torpedo
was almost equally horrifying. It lasted for perhaps two seconds,
to be followed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing
of the men and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They were
splendid--they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud of
my nationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed
the torpedoing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost his
head or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.