DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

SUBMARINE WAEFAEE. 239
side of the ship and I seen I was wounded and blood
all over me. I ran around the forecastle and seen
Zimmerman wounded and started for aft again. The
Captain asked me to help throw two boats out. They
had shot the bottom out of our life boat, which was a
nice boat like a launch with seats all around the sides,
and we had her all fixed up for danger with bread and
water in her. The other boats were old and small and
more for decoration, just chained down to the deck and
we had to chop them off. I done the best I could and
got the boats off and we all rowed over to the submarine.
The Captain on the submarine ordered me and Zimmerman
on board and dressed our wounds and then
ordered us back into the row boats. On the submarine
two men spoke broken American and they told me that
they had sunk twelve ships in two days. The Captain
had a uniform on and the mate, too, with double rows
of gold buttons and blue caps with gold bands. The
Captain and the mate had moustache and chin beard
and the rest of the crew seemed to be young lads. The
man that dressed our wounds had high rubber boots.
The submarine was 80 or 90 feet long, I judge, and
under water all of the time, for we stood in water up
to our knees when the wounds was being dressed. The
Captain of the submarine told our Captain that the
submarine was Austrian but that the crew was German.
The submarine's mate and two men got into our boat,
taking our mate and rowed over to the Imperator. They
took the flag and the compass and then asked for all the
kerosene we had on board and poured it all over the cargo
and set it afire, first exploding a bomb in the forecastle.
Then they got out in the little boat again and the submarine
mate took a bomb or mine and blew it off, making a
hole in the side of the ship. Then they came back to the
submarine and tied a long rope to our two little boats
and towed us around the wreck which was burning, then
towed us out to sea about 15 miles and left us there
to float. We drifted about a half an hour bailing the
boats all of the time as they were full of leaks, when
we spied a Dutch boat which we signaled with a rain
coat on an oar. The Dutch boat started toward us
and we started to row to them. When within about
three quarters of a mile of them the submarine fired them
a shot to stop them. They stopped and went in a small
boat to the submarine with their papers. Then I thought
we were lost surely, as we could never have kept afloat
much longer in those little boats and a big wind was
coming up and the sea was getting rougher all the time.
But the submarine let them go and did not sink them and
they picked us up and brought us to Barcelona, and I was
taken to the Hospital Clinico, where I staid from April
13th to May 16th under treatment all the time. The
doctors thought at first they would amputate my thumb
and little finger of my left hand and at last they took
out the bone in the first joint of my thumb. I had a
deep shrapnel wound on my head, a gash on my cheek,