The Winslow mail., 1914-10-03

dozen half drowned people aboard
whose boat had capsiZed near him, and
! he had three other boats in tow. He
was af1oat and somewhere between
| Amsterdam and Alkmaar, but he could
not tell where 1t was a day that was
still half night Gray waters stretch
ed in every direction under dark gray
sky, and out of the waves rose the up
per part of houses, in many cases
ruined, the tops of trees, windmills-in
fact, the upper third OF all the familiar
Dutch scenery-and on it there drifted
dimly seen fotilla of barges, small
boats, many overturned, furniture,
rafts, timbering and miscellaneous OBJ
jects.
The drowned were under water that
morning Only here and there did a
dead COW or stiff figure still clinging
StOutly to a box or chair or Suchlike
buoy hint at the hidden massacre II
was not till the Thursday that the
dead came to the surface in any
quantity. The view was bounded OIL
every side by gray mist that closed
overhead in gray canopy. The all
cleared in the afternoon, and then, fal
away to the west under great banks
of steam and dust, the flaming REQ
eruption Of the atomic bombs became
visible across the waste of water.
They showed fat and sullen through
the mist, like London sunsets. "They
sat upon the sea-" says Barnet, "lik'
frayed out water lilies of flame"
Barnet seems to have spent the
morning in rescue work along the
track of the canal, in helping people
who were adrift, in picking up derelict
boats and in taking people out of i'm
periled houses. He found other mill
tary barges similarly employed, and ii
was only as the day wore on and the
immediate appeals for aid were salts
fled that he thought of food and drink
for his men and what course he had
better pursue. They had little cheese.
but no water "Orders," that mysteri
Gus direction. had at last altogether
Disappeared He perceived he had now
to act upon his own responsibility.
Ones sense was of "A destruction so
farreaching and of world so altered
that it seemed foolish to go in any di
rectiOn and expect to find things as
they had been before the war began
sat on the quarter deck with Myius
my engineer. and Kemp and two others
Of the noncOmmisSioned officers, and
we consulted upon our line of action
We were foodless and aimless. We
agreed that our fighting value was ex
tremely small and that our first duty
was to get ourselves in touch with food
and instructions again Whatever plan
Of campaign had directed our move
ments was manifestly smashed to bits
Myths was of opinion that we could
take a line westward and get back to
England across the North sea. He cal
culated that with such a motor barge
us ours it would be possible to reach
the Yorkshire coast within four and
twenty hours But this idea | over
ruled because of the shortneSs of Oul
provisions and more particularly be
cause of our urgent need of water.
Every boat we drew near now hail.
ed us for water, and their demands did
much to exasperate our thirst. ! de
cided that if we went away to the
south we should reach billy country or
at least country that was not submerg-
ed and then We should be able to land,
find some stream, drink and get supplies
ANA news. Many of the barges adrift
IN the haze about us were filed with
British soldiers and had foated up
from the Nord See canal, but none of
them was any better informed than
of the course of events. Or
ders' had, in fact, vanished out Of the
sky"
Orders" made a temporary reap
pearance late that evening in the form
of megaphone hail from a British
torpedo boat. announcing a truce and
giving the welcome information that
food and water were being hurried
down the Rhine and were to be found
on the barge iotilla lying over the Old |
Rhine above Leiden, ,,