' Torpedoed in Spats '
The Hon. H. B. Hermon-Hodge
Tonight's speaker had the strange experience of going to the Grand National one day, and the following day, while still wearing the same spats that he wore at Aintree, of being torpedoed at sea. He was on board the Falaba, the first passenger ship to be torpedoed in the Great War, bound for West Africa where he held a Government post.
When the Fa/aba was struck,
Hermon-Hodge took the wise course of not entering one of her boats, a number of which capsized with great loss of life ; instead he took to the sea in his cork jacket, and, after a long icy swim, succeeded in attracting the attention of a passing drifter-this just as he was about to loosen the tabs of his jacket in order to drown the more quickly.