SPLENDID DISCIPLINE. 



65 



'that if they preserved order all would be saved. The men stood as at an inspection 

 -not one moved until ordered to do so. The boats of both ships were lowered. While 

 'the launching was going- on, the swell of the tide caused a lifeboat to surge against 

 the hull, and one of the crew had his finger crushed. This was absolutely the only 

 casualty. In twenty minutes the whole of the men were transferred to the Iron Duke, 

 .no single breach of discipline occurring beyond the understandable request of a sailor 

 once in awhile to be allowed to make one effort to secure some keepsake or article of 

 ^special value to himself. But the order was stern: "Boys, come instantly/' As "four 



THE "VANGUARD" AS SHE APPEARED AT LOW WATER. 



bells " (2 p.m.) was striking, the last man having been received on the Iron Duke, the 

 doomed vessel whirled round two or three times, and then sank in deep water.* 



It is obvious, then, that the discipline and courage of the service had not deteriorated 

 from that always expected in the good old days. Captain Dawkins was the last man to 

 leave his sinking ship, and his officers one and all behaved in the same spirit. They 

 endeavoured to quiet and reassure the men pointing out to them the fatal consequencer 

 of confusion. Captain Dawkins may or may not have been rightly censured for his sea- 

 manship; there can be no doubt that he performed his duty nobly in these systematic 

 efforts to save his crew. However much was lost to the nation, no mother had to mourn 

 the loss of her sailor-boy; no wife had been made a widow, no child an orphan: five 

 hundred men had been saved to their country. 



* Nineteen fathoms, or 114 feet. Her main-topmast-head was afterwards twenty-four feet out of water, 



