indistinguishable....

At the first sound of the explosion of the torpedo Cecily jumped to her
feet, scattering the chocolates broadcast over the deck. The ship
seemed to lift bodily out of the water and then heeled over a little to
port. There were very few people on the saloon deck and there was no
excitement or rushing about. The shrill call of the boatswain's mate's
pipe clove the silence that followed that stupendous upheaval of sound.

A clean-shaven, middle-aged American, wearing a collar reminiscent of
the late Mr. Gladstone's and a pair of pince-nez hanging from his neck
on a broad black ribbon, had been walking up and down with his hands
behind his back; he paused uncertainly for a moment and then began
laboriously collecting the scattered chocolates. That was the only
moment when hysteria brushed Cecily with its wings. She wanted to
laugh or cry--she wasn't sure which.

"It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter!" she cried with a catch in her
breath. "Don't stop now--we've been torpedoed!"

The American stared at the handful he had gathered.

"Folks'll tread on 'em, I guess," he replied, and suddenly raised his
head with a whimsical smile. "A man likes to do something useful at
times like this--it's just our instinct," he added as if explaining
something more for his own satisfaction than hers. "I'm not a
seaman--I'd only get in peoples' way messing round the boats before
they were ready--so I reckoned I'd pick up your candies."

There were very few women onboard, and Cecily found herself the only
woman allotted to the jolly-boat. She climbed in with the assistance
of the very young and distressingly susceptible Fourth Officer. For a
moment she found herself reflecting that his life must be one long
martyrdom of unrequited affections. The stout American followed her
with a number of other passengers. The Fourth Officer gave an order
and the boat began to descend towards the waves in a succession of
uneven jolts. The crew were getting their oars ready, and one was
hammering the plug of the boat home with the butt of an enormous
jack-knife. The stout American surveyed the tumbling sea beneath them
distastefully.

"When I get to Washington," he said, "I guess I'll fly round that li'll
old town till some of our precious 'too-proud-to-fight' party just
gnash their teeth and shriek aloud 'How can we bear it?'"

He suddenly remembered that his pneumatic life-saving waistcoat was not
inflated. S