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[Page 24]
those who could not swim so well, were told to get into the dingey. Just as everybody was clear, submarine A.E. 11 sank beneath the surface at 12.15 p.m. on 30th April, 1915. She sank in about 250 feet of water so that would make it impossible to raise her again.
Chapter 11
A Rough Account Of Our Prison Life In Turkey
We were soon helped aboard the torpedo boat and after we had been mustered it was found that none of us were missing. We immediately took off our wet clothes and hung them up to dry. There were three German sailors and one German Officer on this boat. The Germans treated us very well, giving us their clothing to wear while ours was drying. They also gave us plenty of tobacco and cigarette papers which was very appreciable were much appreciated. Anything left in the pockets of our clothing was stolen.
After we got our wet clothing off we were all put down in the forecastle of the baot and we went full speed to Gallipoli 1.15 p.mp we went alongside a small hospital ship which was full of wounded soldiers. A few minutes after we fell in for inspection and the great German General Limen Von Sanders and staff came off to inspect us. He only remained a few minutes, after which we proceeded alongside a small steamer to take in coal to carry us to Constantinople.
During the afternoon we began to get very hungry, as we had had nothing to eat since early in the morning. One of the German Sailors could speak English very well, having put in twelve years in the British merchant service so we told him we would like some food. He said they had no food aboard but he would do his best to get us some. He gave us some raw eggs and afterwards brought down some hard mouldy biscuits and black olives, We managed to eat some, but with great difficulty.
About 7 p.m. they brought us off a good meal from shore or at least we found out afterwards that it was a good meal for Turkey. This meal consisted of two small loaves of bread each, two big dishes of stew having a very strong taste of garlic, two dishes of a kind of salad, & some sort of green stuff with oil. This had a horrible greasy bitter taste. After this we had two dishes of a kind of sweet