The Foundering of the Troopship

Transcript

Sounding of a troop ship by the National Boat Avail Company, Edison Records. Bugler, sound the assembly. Attention!

Officers of Maine and the 74th Islanders, in a few minutes the ship will sink beneath the waves and we that are Maine have told you that the Queen will be no more. We have faced death together before on many a well-fought field without shrinking. And as our enemy now is not man but a carved elephant, it beholds us to meet the death that now faces us with the same indomitable courage as of yore.

We will battle, we will! Hope like gallant soldiers of Scottish history. Sergeant, why are you sobbing?

It's not for my shell I'm thinking, Colonel, but of my poor wife and the wee bairns I've left to see. May God protect her from all harm at once. We all say amen to that prayer, Sergeant MacDonald.

Let us now sing a verse from the old hundred. Now, my brave comrades, in a few more seconds we will be standing before the great judgment seat. We will go there in marching order.

Officers and men of the 74th, I call for three cheers for Her Gracious Majesty the Queen. Hip, hip! Hooray!

Hip, hip! Hooray! Hip, hip!

Hooray! 74th Islanders, attention! Hip, hip!

Hooray! Order arms! All salute!

Present arms!

Transcribed by AI from the recording above. These are noisy hundred-year-old cylinders, so expect misheard words and the occasional invented line — trust your ears over the text.