The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-26

fort to keep the timbers away from my head, knowing that they were my greatest danger at the moment. fought with all my strength, asking
 the man-I never found out who he was--to stay with me. He floated alongside for a littIe-and then he was gone. I don't know whether he was lost or not.
 The hessearchlights were playing bril- liantly over the whole scene. It was so pretty and so very unnatural The clouds high in the sky flew so fast | that there was a constantly changing panorama. Finally the searchlight 1 found me, and the sailors in the ap- preaching boat flung out an oar for me l to grasp. They pulled me into the boat, andsI felt actually cold for the l first time. l remember being tumb!ed l into the bottom of the boat and cov- cred with something-and then it was 1 all another blank.
 The next thing I knew was the scene way down in the depth of the French boat that had rammed us. The lights were dim, and the forms of the sailors threw great shapeless shadows across the walls and ceilings. Every thing was in sort of deathly quiet confusion. No one said much but peo- pie worked over those of us who had been brought in. with a voiceless speed
 
 right here l want to say, you can say all you wish about women being born nurses, but I defy anyone to find as efficient and as careful nurses as ! those-for the most part, old French sailors. They could hardly speak word of English. But they did every- thing. One just had to hold up fin ger-au through the long hours un- til they moved us upstairs to the cap- tains quarters--to bring them all sweeping about us with all the com forts imaginable They had told us that we were to dock in Brooklyn at about 3:30. This was afternoon In the meantime tug had arrived bring ing representatives of the steamship company who told us that they had made arrangements to have us taken to the New York hospital until we could notify our friends and relatives or make different arrangements Tney had arranged to have some Red Cross workers at & Staten Island post come to meet us at the dock and bring clothing, for of course none of the women had anything on but night dresses
 BRIDE OF A DAY
 The Red Cross nurses brought us clothing into which they bundled us and there were ambulances at the dock to take us to sthe New York hospital With me was a little bride of a day Her husbands business was in Mobile, Ala, and he had come north to carry her They had been married on Mon- day and had left immediately for their southern home, thinking that the trip taken by sea would be delightful, as or course it would havel other things being equal. And when I saw this little girl-she was such a slip of . girl to be a wid4ow-they had brought In ha~ 6nv ct~.. <ls nad no actual news other than that he had apparently gone down
 The ambulance hurried us to the New ork hospital, where we had been told arrangements were comp;oted for receiv- Ing us Apparently that was not so. for after dickering about in the courtyard TOT half hour we were finally told that we could not be admitted but that they would take us in at Bellevue That was the one surprising thing in the whole experience. l did not know that any hos pital would refuse patients for the sake Of formality, particularly when they were victims of an accident so horrible as what we had been through.
 Bellevue was crowded but they ad- mitted us and did everything for us. It was about midnight when they got us tucked into bed, and you can't know what feeling of rest and security stole over me as they gave me a dose of some quieting medicine and I realized fully that I was really saved from a death that had all but suffered. I had certainly been snatched back from the very edge of the grave.
 Then I began to think of Mr. Levy I asked them to notify him with a night letter so that he would have it on his arrival at the office in the morning soon as he saw the papers. But the Telegram office had already notified Mir Levy of the accident, and at 3:30 o'clock in the morning he appeared at the hos pital
 T never learned how to swim. I only knew how to float-and could not swim a stroke. But now I'll learn. Only, somehow I think it is perhaps just as well that didn't know how. The little bride and her husband, for instance, they both knew how to swim. And they tired themselves all out with swimming about all the time they were in the wa ter The little woman told me that she could see that her husbands strength was going and she stretched out her arm rigidly to help him to keep up. It did not save him, and her arm was so badly swollen when they pulled her out of the water that it was pitiful Her husband lost his grip from being so tired out and as far as we know he was lost. Nothing has beer heard from him. But I-well I didn't know now 10 swim, so l Just floated, and didn't get so tired out. The crash came at l clock and when I came to real consciousness in the bed on that cruiser, after they had put me through steaming hot tub and dosed me up. I asked one of the sailors what time it was. He held up his watch for me to see and it was just o'clock. So must have been in the water almost two hours. And If I had tried to swim all that time should probably have met the same fate that the young hus- band did.
 That's all there is to tell. know people are interested in hearing what actually happens at time like that. Even had only the yaguest notion of the horror which is necessarily attend ant at time when our transports sui fer disaster It gave me dreadfully keen impression of the horror that our boys are facing when they so across to do battle against this raging German And it makes it all the more clear to me how great the obligation for Americans to do all their respective bits in the great massed attack, both industrial and national. to queil this Prussian militarism that threatens the world" 1
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