Here is how one of my officers afterwards described the scene:
'Day was breaking as Atlantis approached the enemy ship; the first rays of the sun shone on the gently heaving swell where the ship lay with a heavy list. She was the Zam Zam, 8,299 tons, previously known as a Bibby Line troop-transport under the name of Leicestershire and later as the British Exhibitor; for some years she had been serving the largest ship in the Egyptian merchant navy. Boats were drifting about everywhere, some fully laden, others floating keel upwards. People were clinging on to them. Some of the boats were only half full; thin brown men with terror-stricken faces were squatting in them---the Egyptian crew, who had rushed for the boats without bothering about the passengers. As the German motor boats moved towards the Zam Zam. they let out wild cries for help, but the Germans paid no attention, being intent on rescuing first the women and children and those who had been left on board the badly damaged ship.
'It was no easy task. The shark-infested waters were full of men and women swimming about. One mother. had taken off her life-jacket and put her little son on it; holding him on with her hands, she was struggling towards the boats. It was a miracle that nobody was drowned. The scene on board the Zam Zam was shocking. All the boats on the port side were hanging from the wrecked davits, riddled with shell-holes. The great mirrors in the dining-saloon and smoking-room had been shattered and the tables hurled in all directions. Big black holes gaped where the shells had exploded.
‘While in Trinidad, the Zam Zam had received orders in the British Admiralty to follow a prearranged course across the Atlantic. The master's request to be allowed to across with his lights burning at night because of the presence of women and children on board had been refused; the ship was carrying a British cargo and therefore had to conform to the regulations. Among the two hundred and two passengers were seventy-seven women and thirty-two children; one hundred and forty of them were American, the rest were nationals of Canada, Belgium and various other countries. Amazingly enough, our shelling had not caused the loss of a single life and with the exception of three serious casualties, no one was hurt. This miraculous escape was attributed to very different causes by the Christian missionaries and by those of the Moslem faith (Zam Zam is the name of a holy well in Mecca).
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