SEA SORROW : THE WRECK OF THE PERSIA.'
WHEN I read of the voyage of the ' Trevcssa's ' boats and the sufferings of the crew, the account brought back to my mind most vividly my own experi- ences when the P. & 0. s.s. ' Persia ' was sunk in the Mediterranean on December 30th, 1915.
After the ' Persia ' had foundered within five minutes of being struck, about 480 of us were left swimming in the water and only two undamaged boats were floating. When these two boats were filled with survivors the rest of us had to face being drowned quickly or slowly as the case might be. I will not tell again how, after hanging on to a signal locker, I managed eventually to swim to an upturned boat whose bottom planks were holed, and how thirty-three of us, sitting at first on the keel, were reduced by hunger, thirst, shock and exposure to eleven souls—three Europeans and eight Indians—when we were picked up thirty-two hours later. But I know what it is to sit still in a small boat knowing that death is certain eventually. Nearly every wave wetted us afresh. We had no fresh water and our one broken tin of biscuits was entirely spoiled by being saturated with salt water. We had no compass, no sails or oars and no rudder. Our gunwale was only about six inches clear of the sea, and there were four feet of water inside the boat. Before the end the dead lay in the boat as well as round us in the sea. We had no strength left to lift them out.
During the first night the sea, which had been rough, calmed down to an oily swell. I impressed on my com- panions, some of whom became light-headed after a few hours, the danger of drinking salt water. But many drank and all of these died. Others faded away from intense fatigue, and these drowned, after agonizing struggles, not in the sea outside, but in the water in the boat itself. When the second night came twenty-two of us had gone, and we survivors were all weakening rapidly. I thought as the turquoise faded into opal in the West that the glory of this sunset was the last I should ever see. My mind turned to home and all it meant— to the things left undone in one's life. The Mohammedan sailors prayed at intervals, turning to Mecca in the East, and I remembered the church at Beaulieu, with its grey, stone walls, overhung with ivy, where from my cradle one had learned of things spiritual. As my strength got weaker a tiredness of soul and body began to act like an anodyne. The world seemed fading away. But I never gave up hope, for something in me said, " It is not the end." At any rate, I would be the last to die, and then would do so deliberately. If any of the others remained and they could outlive me, as an example to my Indian companions it was one's duty to show that we Christians in the West knew how to endure and die as well as the fol- lowers of Buddha, Shiva or Mohammed. And I remember that, when thirst got beyond a certain point, it seemed to abate and hunger became merged in a feeling of general weakness.
But one's mind was clearer than ever. Senses seemed unnaturally acute. And so, when the s.s. Ningehow's ' masthead light came up like a star out of the East and one was certain that it was a ship's light and not a star, I felt there was not yet a certainty of life, but only a slender hope. I began to rally my fellow-sufferers, and the idea came to me to make them shout " Hitherao " (Hindu- stani for " Come here "), because I knew that no German in a decoy boat—and there were very many then in those seas—would cry out in Hindustani. Just as the `Ning- chow ' seemed to he going to run us down she stopped. After nearly an hour of cruising around us the great 7,000- ton ship came near, towering above us. The second officer had heard our cries, and I was able by shouting directions to her officers on the bridge, such as ".Go ahead and port your helm," to get the vessel so close that a rope was thrown to us and at last we were pulled up one by one in the bight of a rope. When I saw the last of my companions hauled on board and felt the bowline tauten round my shoulders, I looked down on the eggshell to which we had clung from 1 p.m. on the Thursday to 9.30 p.m. on the Friday night—New Year's Eve—and began to realize the miracle which had saved us. Even as one looked the cockleshell grated against the steel side of the ship and broke in two. And then came the reaction, for so much had one tuned one's mind and soul to die that the contemplation of living was curious and strangely hard. Could it be that' we were ever to see our homes again ?
No one can really understand what " sea sorrow," as Shakespeare calls it, means till they have endured an experience of this kind. Many have been wrecked in mid-ocean but few have been saved. The odds are thousands to one against a rescue in such circumstances. The sea may get up at any time and overwhelm a small boat, and no ship may ever pass near enough to help. And how long can human muscle, heart and brain last out, either with no food or water, as in our case, or with a pitiful ration as in the instance of the Trcvessa ' ? When the Trevessa's ' boats, by the exercise of superb sea- manship and courage, reached the coastline, we who have been through similar experiences can realize more than most what the officers and men in them were feeling. All that they and we felt cannot be put into words. If I have used the personal pronoun too much in this reminiscence, I ask forgiveness. It is difficult to recall a story like this and not be personal.
MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU. [Lord Montagu of Beaulieu need offer no apology for his deeply moving narrative. It is because it is so personal and so direct that it is so vivid. The author of the Odyssey, whoever he was, either by direct experi- ence or by absorption of the experiences of others, tells just such a tale of the very seas in which Lord Montagu's companions drank the salt wave and died* :-
"Even as he spoke a monstrous wave abaft Came towering up and crashed into the raft. And the raft reeled, and off it far he fell.
And in one whirling gust the hurricane Snapped the mast midway ; far into the main Fell yard and rigging.
Yet withal marking where the wrecked raft lay He plunged amid the waves and caught at it, And crouched amidships, keeping death at bay, While the raft helpless on the tideway spun."
ED. Spectator.]
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