15 boat, that is the boat which started an
hour after the doomed hospital ship. We were all told, however, that we
were not to cross by the said 12.15, or leave-boat, but must wait for
the P. & O. mail-boat. I rather kicked at this, but as all sorts of
generals and big wigs were placed under the same condemnation I saw it
was useless to protest, and went and had lunch. I can only presume they
had already had wireless news of the sinking of the hospital ship and
also of the steam collier, and wanted to be sure that there were no more
mines about. Accordingly we did not sail till 3.45, no one in the ship,
of course, knowing anything about the disaster. I only heard of it
coming up in the train to London, and then the news characteristically
came--not from a general with whom I was travelling--but from a
subaltern who had somehow picked up the news on the Folkestone quay....
It was curious to reflect that if anyone had offered me the opportunity
of going on a hospital ship as one of the sights, I should have closed
with it unhesitatingly. Luckily for me, however, I had not come across
any R. A. M. C. people, and therefore am still in a position to sign my
name to these notes.
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