The Land That Time Forgot | Page 5

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.
While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged and trained guns on us.
The officer in command ordered us to lower our flag, but this the captain of the liner
refused to do. The ship was listing frightfully to starboard, rendering the port boats
useless, while half the starboard boats had been demolished by the explosion. Even while
the passengers were crowding the starboard rail and scrambling into the few boats left to
us, the submarine commenced shelling the ship. I saw one shell burst in a group of
women and children, and then I turned my head and covered my eyes.
When I looked again to horror was added chagrin, for with the emerging of the U-boat I
had recognized her as a product of our own shipyard. I knew her to a rivet. I had
superintended her construction. I had sat in that very conning-tower and directed the
efforts of the sweating crew below when first her prow clove the sunny summer waters of
the Pacific; and now this creature of my brain and hand had turned Frankenstein, bent
upon pursuing me to my death.

A second shell exploded upon the deck. One of the lifeboats, frightfully overcrowded,
swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. A fragment of the shell shattered the bow
tackle, and I saw the women and children and the men vomited into the sea beneath,
while the boat dangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and at last with
increasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victims screaming upon the
face of the waters.
Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck was tilting to an
impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feet to keep from slipping into the
scuppers and looked up into my face with a questioning whine. I stooped and stroked his
head.
"Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship, dived headforemost over the
rail. When I came up, the first thing I saw was Nobs swimming about in a bewildered sort
of way a few yards from me. At sight of me his ears went flat, and his lips parted in a
characteristic grin.
The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time it was shelling the
open boats, three of them, loaded to the gunwales with survivors. Fortunately the small
boats presented a rather poor target, which, combined with the bad marksmanship of the
Germans preserved their occupants from harm; and after a few minutes a blotch of smoke
appeared upon the eastern horizon and the U-boat submerged and disappeared.
All the time the lifeboats has been pulling away from the danger of the sinking liner, and
now, though I yelled at the top of my lungs, they either did not hear my appeals for help
or else did not dare return to succor me. Nobs and I had gained some little distance from
the ship when it rolled completely over and sank. We were caught in the suction only
enough to be drawn backward a few yards, neither of us being carried beneath the surface.
I glanced hurriedly about for something to which to cling. My eyes were directed toward
the point at which the liner had disappeared when there came from the depths of the
ocean the muffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously a geyser of
water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies, steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam
of a liner's deck leaped high above the surface of the sea--a watery column momentarily
marking the