The Project Gutenberg eBook, The U-boat hunters, by James B. Connolly
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The U-boat hunters
Author: James B. Connolly
Release Date: November 23, 2007 [eBook #23601]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE U-BOAT HUNTERS***
E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker, Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(https://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 23601-h.htm or 23601-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/6/0/23601/23601-h/23601-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/6/0/23601/23601-h.zip)
THE U-BOAT HUNTERS
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY
Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
THE U-BOAT HUNTERS. Illustrated _net_ $1.50
RUNNING FREE. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
HEAD WINDS. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
SONNIE-BOY'S PEOPLE. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
WIDE COURSES. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
OPEN WATER. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
THE CRESTED SEAS. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
THE DEEP SEA'S TOLL. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
THE SEINERS. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
OUT OF GLOUCESTER. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
JEB HUTTON. Illustrated _net_ 1.20
THE TRAWLER. _net_ .50
* * * * * *
THE U-BOAT HUNTERS
by
JAMES B. CONNOLLY
With Illustrations
[Illustration: "Where you-all going?... Can't you-all see where you're
going? Keep off--keep off." [_Page 117_]]
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1918
Copyright, 1906, 1918, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Published June, 1918
Copyright, 1916, 1917, 1918, by P. F. Collier & Son, Incorporated
FOREWORD
What a great thing if we could do away with war!
But men are not cast in that mould. We shall continue to have wars; and
some day the world is going to have a war to which the present will
serve only as a try-out.
When that war comes our country will probably have to bear the burden
for the western hemisphere. In that war our navy will be our first line
of defense; and what we do for our navy now will have much to do with
what our navy will be able to do for us then.
Our navy to-day is made up of good ships and capable, courageous,
hard-working officers and men. There are some fuddy-duddies and
politicians among them, but most of them are on the job every minute.
Their highest hope is the chance to serve their country. The chapters in
this book which tell of their U-boat hunting only prove once more their
great qualities.
There are chapters in this book which have nothing to do with U-boat
hunting, but have much to do with the navy. Such are the two opening
chapters and the three closing chapters. The motive of four of those
chapters will probably be obvious; the chapter on the workings of a
submarine is included in the hope of interesting our young fellows in
that type of craft.
The need of such a chapter? Take this illustration of what people do not
know about submarines: Three years ago an admiral on the other side was
called into conference on the U-boat problem. When it came his turn to
speak he said: "Gentlemen, it is child's talk to say that the U-boats
will ever amount to anything! Disregard them utterly!" Only three years
ago that was, and that naval officer was considered for commander-in-chief
of the Grand Fleet! Three years ago, and last year the U-boats sank
6,600,000 tons of shipping!
Right now Germany probably contemplates, or is actually constructing,
U-boats with armor and guns heavy enough to engage on the surface any
war craft up to the battle-cruiser class. How far from that to fighting
the heaviest of surface craft--even to the battleships?
In the event of invasion--we might as well face that; refusing to think
about it certainly will not eliminate the possibility,--in the event of
invasion by a powerful foe our first line of defense will be our navy.
The navy will always be our first line of defense; and so the need
to-day of interesting in our navy young men,--progressive young men, who
will learn from the past but prefer to live in the future.
J. B. C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
NAVY SHIPS 1
NAVY MEN 12
SEEING THEM ACROSS 24
THE U-BOATS APPEAR 37
CROSSING THE CHANNEL 58
THE CENSORS 77
ONE THEY DIDN'T GET 92
THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 108
THE 343 STAYS UP 127
THE CARGO BOATS 142
FLOTILLA HUMOR--AT SEA 157
FLOTILLA HUMOR--ASHORE 172
THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER BOYS 186
THE MARINES HAVE LANDED-- 204
THE NAVY AS A CAREER 222
THE SEA BABIES 239
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Where you-all going?... Can't you-all see where
you're going? Keep off--keep off" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
She shoved out into the stream and kicked her way
down the harbor, and as she did so ... everybody
seemed to know 26
Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We
were getting near the spot 98
In the engine-room of a submarine 242
NAVY SHIPS
More than one-third of our naval force was being reviewed by the
President. A most impressive assembly of men-o'-war it was, in tonnage
and weight of metal the greatest ever floated by the waters of the
western hemisphere.
The last of the fleet had arrived on the night before. From the bluffs
along the shore they might have been seen approaching with a mysterious
play of lights across the shadowy waters. In the morning they were all
there. Hardly a type was lacking--the last 16,000-ton double-turreted
battleship, the protected and heavy-armored cruisers, monitors,
despatch-boats, gun-boats, destroyers, attendant transport, and supply
ships. Fifty ships, 1,200 guns, 16,000 men: all were there, even to the
fascinating little submarines with their round black backs just showing
above the water.
It was that chromatic sort of a morning when the canvas of the
sailing-boats stands out startlingly white against the drizzly sky and
the smoke from the stacks of the steamers takes on an accented
coal-black, and, drooping, trails low in a murky wake. Rather a dull
setting at this early hour; but not sufficiently dull to check the
vivacity of the actors in the scene.
The President comes up the side of the _Mayflower_ and, arrived at the
head of the gangway, stands rigid as any stanchion to attention while
his colors are shot to the truck and the scarlet-coated band plays the
national hymn. Then, ascending to the bridge, he takes station by the
starboard rail with the Secretary of the Navy at his shoulder. The
clouds roll away, the sun comes out, and all is as it should be while he
prepares to review the fleet, which thereafter responds aboundingly to
every burst of his own inexhaustible enthusiasm.
And this fleet, which is lying to anchor in three lines of four miles or
so each in length, with a respectful margin of clear water all about,
is, viewed merely as a marine pageant, magnificent; as a display of
potential fighting power, most convincing. No man might look on it and
his sensibilities--admiration, patriotism, respect, whatever they might
be--remain unstirred. To witness it is to pass in mental review the
great fleets of other days and inevitably to draw conclusions. Beside
this armament the ill-destined Armada, Von Tromp's stubborn squadrons,
Nelson's walls of oak, or Farragut's steam and sail would dissolve like
the glucose squadrons that boys buy at Christmas time. Even Dewey's
workman-like batteries (this to mark the onward rush of naval science)
would be rated obsolete beside the latest of these!
It was first those impressive battleships; and bearing down on them one
better saw what terrible war-engines they are. Big guns pointing
forward, big guns pointing astern, long-reaching guns abeam, and little
business-looking machine-guns in the tops--their mere appearance
suggests their ponderous might. A single broadside from any of these,
properly placed, and there would be an end to the most renowned
flag-ships of wooden-fleet days. And that this frightful power need
never wait on wind or tide, nor be hindered in execution by any weather
much short of a hurricane, is assured when we note that to-day, while
the largest of the excursion steamers are heaving to the whitecaps,
these are lying as immovable almost as sea-walls.
It is, first, the flag-ship which thunders out her greeting--one, two,
three--twenty-one smoke-wreathed guns--while her sailormen, arm to
shoulder, mark in unwavering blue the lines of deck and superstructure.
Meantime the officers on the bridge, admiral in the foreground, are
standing in salute; and in the intervals of gun-fire there are crashing
out over the waters again the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner." And
the flag-ship left astern, the guns of the next in line boom out, and on
her also the band plays and men and officers stand to attention; and so
the next, and next. And, the battleships passed, come the armored
cruisers, riding the waters almost as ponderously as the battleships and
hardly less powerful, but much faster on the trail; and they may run or
fight as they please. After examining them, long and swift-looking, with
no more space between decks than is needed for machinery, stores,
armament, and lung-play for live men, the inevitable reflection recurs
that the advance of mechanical power must color our dreams of romance in
future. Surely the old ways are gone. Imagine one of the old three-deckers
aiming to work to windward of one of these in a gale, and if by any
special dispensation of Providence she was allowed to win the weather
berth, imagine her trying, while she rolled down to her middle deck, to
damage one of these belted brutes, who meantime would be leisurely picking
out the particular plank by which she intended to introduce into her
enemy's vitals a weight of explosive metal sufficient in all truth to blow
her out of water.
After the cruisers passed the craft of comparatively small tonnage and
power follow--the gun-boats, transports, and supply ships; and, almost
forgotten, the monitors, riding undisturbedly, like squat little forts
afloat, with freeboard so low that with a slightly undulating sea a
turtle could swim aboard. And after them the destroyers, which look
their name. Most wicked inventions; no shining brasswork nor holy-stoned
quarter, no decorative and convenient companionway down the side--no
anything that doesn't make for results. Ugly, wicked-looking, with
hooded ports from under which peer the muzzles of long-barrelled weapons
that look as if they were designed for the single business of boring,
and boring quickly, holes in steel plate.
So the _Mayflower_ steams down the four long lines in review; and always
the batteries and bands in action, the immortal hymn echoing out like
rolling thunder between the flame-lit broadsides. From shore to shore
the cannon detonate and our fighting blood is stirred. On the pleasure
craft skirting the line of pickets like vaguely outlined picture boats
in the dim, perspective haze, the people seem also to be stirred. We
dream of the glory of battle; but better than that, the hymn which has
stirred men to some fine deeds in the past, and shall to just as brave
in the future, mounts like a surging tide to our hearts:
"Oh, say, can you see?"
it is asking. And we can see--no need of the glass--ahead, astern,
abeam, aloft, some thousands of them streaming in the fresh west wind,
and within signal distance of their beautiful waving folds a multitude
of men and women in whom the sense of patriotism must have become
immeasurably deepened for being within call this day.
The vibration of brass and pipe, the music and the saluting, one ship
and the next, and never the welcome of one died out before the tumult of
the next began. It was like the ceaseless roar of the ever-rolling
ocean, with never an instant when the ear-drum did not vibrate to the
salute of cannon, the blood tingle to the call of the nation's hymn. One
felt faith in ships and crews after it; and later, when in the cabin of
the _Mayflower_ the admirals and captains gathered, to meet them and to
listen was to feel anew the assurance that this navy will be ready when
the hour comes to do whatever may be deemed right and well by the
people.
* * * * *
The admirals and the _attachés_ having departed and dinner become a
thing of the past, it was time to review the electric-light display.
We were almost abreast of the first in line, and she was like a ship
from fairyland. Along her run the bulbed lights extended, and thence to
her turrets, and, higher up, followed the outline of stacks and tops and
masts, with floating strings of them suspended here and there between.
Most striking of all, her name in gigantic, flaming letters faced
forward from her bridge. Now one ship decked in a multiplicity of jewels
on this clear calm night would have been a beautiful sight--but where
there were forty-odd of them----!
It was a sailor of the fleet, lurking in the shifting shadows of the
bridge, that he might enjoy his surreptitious cigarette and not suffer
disratement therefor, who reviewed the illuminations most illuminingly.
"Man, but they do blaze out, don't they? They make me think of the
post-cards we used to buy in foreign ports. You held them up before the
light and they came out shining like a Christmas-tree. But no ships of
cards these--and that's the wonderful thing, too. Seeing them to-day,
with their batteries in view, 'twas enough to put the fear o' God in a
man's heart, and now look at them--like a child's dream of heaven--that
is, if we don't sheer too close and see that the guns are still there.
And, look now, the tricks they're at!"
Outlined in incandescents, the semaphores of a dozen ships were being
worked most industriously. "Jerk up and down like the legs and arms of
the mechanical dolls at the theatre, don't they? But these here could be
dancing for something more than the people's amusement if 'twas
necessary. And what are they saying? Oh, most likely it's 'The
compliments of the admiral, and will you come aboard the flag-ship and
try a taste of punch?' And 'With pleasure,' that other one is saying.
And they'll be lowering away the launch and no doubt be having a
pleasant chat presently. And they could just as easily be saying (if
'twas the right time), 'Pipe to quarters and load with shell'--just as
easy; and they could revolve the near turret of that one, and ten
seconds after they cut loose you and me, if we weren't already killed by
rush of air, would be brushing the salt water from our eyes and clawing
around for a stray piece of wreckage to hang on to. Just as easy--but
look at 'em now again!"
The search-lights were paralleling and intersecting, now revealing the
perpendicular depths beside the vessel, and now flooding the sky. Twenty
of them, simultaneously flashing, were sweeping the surface of the
Sound, one instant outlining the arbored Long Island shore, the next
betraying the beaches of Connecticut. One, beaming westerly, disclosed a
loaded excursion steamer half-way to Hell Gate, and, a moment later,
turning a hand-spring, picked up in its diverging path the Fall River
steamer miles away to the eastward.
"The torpedo-boats'd have the devil's own time trying to lay aboard
to-night, wouldn't they? And yet if 'twas cloudy 'twould be the
submarines! Did you see them to-day? Weren't they cute--like little
whale pups setting on the water--yes. They say they've got them where
they turn somersaults now. Great, yes--but terrible, too, when you think
they're liable to come your way some fine day. Imagine yourself, all at
once, some night when you ought to be sound asleep in your hammock,
finding yourself, afore you're yet fair awake, so high in the sky that
you can almost reach out and take hold of the handle of the Dipper! And
when you come down and get the official report, learning that one of
those cute little playthings had been making a subaqueous call.
"It's ninety-odd years since the American navy proved it could do a good
job; for, of course, none of us count Spain, who wasn't ready to begin
with, and wasn't our size, anyway. And yet, we mightn't make out so bad
'gainst a bigger enemy at that. Our fellows can shoot, that's sure.
There's a gun crew in this ship we're breasting now, and I saw them
awhile ago put eight 12-inch shot in succession through that regulation
floating target we use, and it was as far away as the farther end of
that line of cruisers there, and the target was bobbing up and down, and
we steaming by at 10 knots an hour. Not too bad--hah? And a hundred
crews like 'em in the navy. That's for the shooting."
He flicked the end of another fleeting cigarette over the rail. "Yes,
the American navy has fought pretty well, and this navy, no fear, will
fight too. There's more different kinds of people in it than ever
before, they say--though as to that I guess there were always more kinds
of people in the navy than the historians ever gave credit for. Now it's
all kinds like the nation itself, I suppose. And that ought to make for
good fighting, don't you think?"
NAVY MEN
The foregoing occasion was the first of several naval spectacles staged
by Theodore Roosevelt during his presidency to show the public that we
had a growing navy, and not too small a navy, and a navy that, ship for
ship, need ask for no odds in its equipment at least.
More than any President we ever had did Theodore Roosevelt work for a
big navy. To no President before him in our country did the prospect of
a great European war loom so near; a war which meant our participation,
not so much through any will of our people as by the pressure of
happenings from the other side.
Hence, the need of the country for as large a navy as we could get
together. With an eye for this future need President Roosevelt asked for
4 battleships a year. There were men in Congress who believed that to
talk of war was foolish; there would be no more war; so, instead of 4,
Congress gave him 2, and the famous "big stick" had to come into play
before they gave him even the two.
During these years I had the privilege from President Roosevelt of
cruising on United States war-ships--gun-boats, destroyers, cruisers,
battleships (later, through the good offices of Secretary Daniels, I
became acquainted with submarines and navy airplanes).
The war-ships were an interesting study, and the life aboard a war-ship
then was even more interesting, for after all, men, not materials, were
the chief thing. Almost any fairly well-trained bunch of mechanics will
turn out a pretty good machine to order. But there is no turning out
good men to order; only good-living generations can do that.
If it was a matter of machinery alone, then the Prussian idea would have
this war already won. But that alone cannot prevail, can never prevail
for the long run. It is the spirit which must win.
The personnel of the navy, officers and men, seemed always so much more
interesting to me, that for one hour I spent in looking over ship
equipment, I probably spent forty in observing the men; and when you are
locked up in ships for weeks or months with a lot of men you must, where
your heart and mind are not closed, come away in time with some sort of
knowledge of them.
And what sort are they?
Well, they are nearly all young--average age about twenty-one years; and
they come from anywhere and everywhere--from the farms, the prairies,
the corners of city streets; and they have been many things--farm-hands,
carpenters, mechanics, barbers, trolley-car men, clerks, street loafers,
college boys. Some are terribly sophisticated in worldly ways and some
so green, of course, that the wags have frequent chances to keep their
wits on edge. Some have come with the plain notion that if a fellow has
got to fight, why then the navy offers the most comfortable outlook for
a fellow--during this war it especially offers it--dry hammock every
night, no mud, no cooties, and three hot meals at regular intervals--but
many are there with the bright hope of some day pointing a 14-inch gun
and sending a relay of 1,400-pound shells where they will blow something
foreign and opposing high as the flying clouds.
Blowing up ships and people may have once seemed a terrible idea, but a
few weeks in the community of a war-ship with its matter-of-fact,
professional manner of discussing such subjects soon brings them around
to common, seagoing notions of the matter.
Four years ago at Vera Cruz our modern navy had its first taste of war.
It was only a light touch of war, and there was no doubt of the outcome;
but in little affairs men may be tried out, too. Through somebody's
blunder, for which somebody should have been jacked-up, our bluejackets
were sent up in solid sections to occupy a large open area on the Vera
Cruz water-front. Standing there in solid columns, not knowing just what
was going to happen, but feeling to a certainty that something stirring
was going to happen, and to happen soon, they stood there grinning
widely and waiting for the ball to open. It may have been their childish
innocence, it may have been their untutored ignorance, but when that
sheeted rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval College, and a
solid squad or two of our lads went down, and following that the snipers
began to get them in ones and twos and threes--when that happened there
was no distressing confusion in their ranks. When, later, it became
necessary for the _Prairie_ and _Chester_ to fire just over their heads
to batter the walls of that same War College, it made no difference. The
ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent--they knew it would be--and when
the shells went whistling through the walls of the second story, the
marines and bluejackets stood under the first story and let them
whistle. Plaster and bricks from the shaken walls came tumbling down
upon them. They ducked beneath the falling mortar, some of them, but
they all took their shells standing.
They are not the sailors of classic tradition, these battleship lads of
the twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in--it must be so.
The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk
as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great
seaport--Boston--and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the
harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the
pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from
long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short
liberty. Great-hearted men, who gave truth to the phrase--"and spending
his money like a drunken sailor"--and knowing, usually, but two
inescapable obligations--to do his duty aboard ship and to stand by a
shipmate in trouble ashore. Almost any of the old-time policemen of the
large seaports can tell you many fine tales of the riotous hours along
the water-front in the old days.
Such is the passing tradition. The present lad of the navy is creating a
new one. For one thing, he no longer gets drunk--that is, he does not
get drunk by divisions. To illustrate:
During that greatest steaming stunt in all maritime history--the cruise
of our sixteen battleships with their auxiliaries around the world--all
naval records were broken in the number of enlisted men allowed ashore.
Every day in large foreign ports saw 4,000 of our bluejackets and
marines allowed shore liberty. Now consider the case of the first
foreign port where liberty was granted, Rio de Janeiro in South America;
and what happened in Rio was what happened in other ports.
It was five weeks or more since leaving home, and during that five weeks
they had been for twelve days steaming along one of the hottest coasts
(Brazil) in all the world--the tropics--and it was summer-time once they
were south of the line; and in all that time no chance for an enlisted
man to get a drink of any kind of liquor--no beer or light wine even--no
matter what the intensity of the thirst which may have possessed him.
Now he is suddenly thrown ashore with his pockets full of money. He has
only to go to the paymaster and draw pretty much all he pleases. By
actual figures the men of the battle fleet--about 13,000--drew $200,000
in gold to spend ashore in Rio--about $15 a man. For five or six weeks
not a drop to drink, and all at once 4,000 of them thrown daily to roam
into the midst of 500 grog shops with their pockets full of money, and
no restrictions placed upon them, except one: they must be back to their
ship that same night!
I was a passenger with that battle fleet, and night after night I stood
on the great stone quay in Rio and watched them returning to their
ships. On no night did I see more than forty or fifty who might be said
to be "soused"; on no night did I see more than a dozen or fifteen who
had to be thrown into the accommodation barge with the "dead ones," the
helpless ones who were so far gone that they had to be carried up the
sides of their ships from the barge which made the last rounds of the
fleet.
Now I would like to make an observation; gratuitous, but perhaps of
human interest and pertinent right here: I think if we took 4,000
lawyers or doctors or authors or car-drivers or clerks--4,000 of almost
any sort from civil life--and locked them up so that for five or six
weeks in a warm or a cold climate they could not get a drink of any kind
of liquor, no matter how great their fancied or real need; and at the
end of that five or six weeks took the whole 4,000 of them, with their
pockets full of money, and suddenly threw them into the middle of all
the grog-shops of a great city--I do think that more than forty--that
is, one per cent of them--would be found "soused"--that is, if we had
means of locating them all at the end of the day.
The heroic sailor of tradition has passed--a sailor of another kind, but
just as efficient and just as heroic in another way--the way of his
day--is rapidly creating another tradition. The lad who in the lusty
days of his youth can thus hold himself in check is a pretty good
product of American development. He pretty generally passes up the
grog-shop, but he visits the art galleries, the museums, the cathedrals,
the K. of C.'s, and Y. M. C. A.'s ashore, takes books from the library
on shipboard, buys post-cards and mails them home to let his friends
know of the great things in the world. On that world cruise referred to
the men cleaned Rio de Janeiro out of 250,000 post-cards.
I doubt if many of them, on the first try, could lay out on a
topsail-yard in a gale of wind without immediately falling overboard;
but they don't have to lay out on topsail-yards nowadays. They do have
to shoot, however; and they can shoot. Lay a gun's crew of them behind a
big turret-gun and watch them make lacework of a target at 11,000 yards.
* * * * *
The main question is, Have we the spirit to-day? As to that, no man
having yet devised any apparatus wherewith to measure energy of soul and
mind, it is difficult to prove to whoever will not believe, or does not
in himself possess the germ, the existence of this thing that may not be
measured by foot-rule or bushel basket. The belching of powder and the
roll of drumhead do not prove it. We can always hire men to do that, and
to do it well. And yet, to be present at the review described in the
preceding chapter was to experience the thrill that may not be measured,
to note how the enthusiasm of the occasion seemed to be animating the
crews, to share in the feeling of pride which mantled all cheeks, and,
ship after ship slipping past, to feel that pride of fleet intensify,
until we echoed the cry of the Commander-in-Chief, whose enthusiasm for
all that is good for the nation is unquenchable. As the President said,
it was a glorious day.
No doubt of it. Men had met and there was kinship in the meeting. From
that auspicious opening in the morning when the clouds seemed to
dissolve for the express purpose of allowing a fresh-washed sky to enter
into the color scheme of the beautiful picture--blue dome, chalk-white
and sea-green war-ships, green and blue and white-edged little
seas--until that last moment at night when the last call on the last
ship was blown and to its lingering cadence the last unwinking
incandescent of the fairy-like illumination was switched off, leaving
the hushed and darkened fleet riding to only the necessary anchor lights
on the motionless, moon-lit sound--who witnessed it all might not doubt
the existence of that spirit which in conflict makes for more than
thickness of armor or weight of shell.
* * * * *
We went to war; and it was with an immense confidence in what they would
do that I heard of the sailing of our first group of destroyers for the
business of convoying ships and hunting U-boats on the other side. Ships
were up to date and officers and men knew their business; and there was
something more than knowing their business.
Other groups of destroyers followed that first one, and a lot of us were
wondering how they were making out. They had sailed out into the
Atlantic--that we knew; but what were they doing? We who knew them
believed they were doing well. But how well?
I thought it worth-while finding out. I went to Washington and from
Secretary Daniels and Chief Censor George Creel secured necessary
credentials, and through the War Department the word which would put me
aboard a troop-ship.
It is only justice to Secretary Daniels to say that he granted me all
aid even though I told him I would probably work for _Collier's_ on the
trip--for _Collier's_ which had been pounding him editorially.
What I learned of this game of escorting ships and hunting U-boats is in
the chapters which follow.
SEEING THEM ACROSS
He had been on what most anybody would agree was pretty trying sort of
work; and so, having an idea that a furlough was coming to him, he
applied for it, but did not get it. The department had other things in
view. Instead of going home, he took time to write a few letters,
printing the one to his little girl in big capitals, so that--being six
going on seven--she might, with mama's help, be able to read it.
They sent him to a ship that had been running between north and south
ports on our own coast, shifting in winter-time to tropical waters. She
was one of a group of thirty or forty that the department had on its
little list to be made over into transports. She was the handsomest
boat, but war makes nothing of beauty. Our officer ordered all her
gleaming black underpaint off, also her pure white topside enamelling
with the gold decorations here and there; then he swabbed her top and
bottom with that dull blue-gray which the naval sharps say does blend
best with a deep-sea background.
She had the prettiest little lounging-room. Our officers retained
that--for even in war officers must have some place aboard ship to
gather for a smoke and gossip--but they threw out the large, lovely fat
pieces of furniture. In case of submarine attack or an order to abandon
ship, the men might want to make a passage of that room in a hurry and
no time there--in the dark it might be--to be falling over chairs and
tables.
There was a sun-parlor, a large, splendid room with wide windows and the
deck on three sides. There were thick draperies, filmy laces, and many
easy chairs. In the old days cabin passengers used to sit there and
absorb the soft tropic breezes while digesting their breakfasts. An army
quartermaster-captain surveyed it with our naval officer. "Swell," said
the Q. M. C. "We'll haul down that plush and fluffy stuff, dump those
chairs and rugs over the side, plant my desk here, my chief clerk's
there, my other clerks' desks over there, open those fine wide windows
and let the north Atlantic breezes blow on our beaded brows while we're
doing our paper work. Fine!"
Our naval officer did that and a hundred other things to the inside and
outside of the beautiful ship and reported her fit for transport
service, or as fit as ever a made-over ship could be made to be,
whereupon he was ordered to take her to such and such a dock in such and
such a port--which he did. Then many large, heavy cases were lowered
into her hold, and troops and troops and more troops filed aboard and
took up what was left of the spaces between decks with themselves and
their war gear.
She lay then with her water-line a foot deeper than anybody around there
ever remembered seeing her in her swell passenger days; then she shoved
out into the stream and kicked her way down the harbor, and as she did
so, though there was not a single trooper's head showing above her rail,
everybody seemed to know. Passing tugs, motor-boats, ferry-boats blew
their whistles--every kind of a boat that had a whistle blew it--and
there was an excursion boat loaded down with women and children. Her
band had been playing ragtime, but it suddenly stopped and broke into
"Good-by, Good Luck, God Bless You," to the troop-ship bound for France.
There was a war-ship waiting below--not the biggest by a good deal in
our fleet, but big enough to have hope one day of firing her broadside
on the battle-line. But the great duty of a war-ship is to be immediately
useful. She was there, and smaller war-ships with her, to see that the
troop-ships got protection on the run across.
[Illustration: She shoved out into the stream and kicked her way down
the harbor, and as she did so ... everybody seemed to know.]
Our troop-ship, other troop-ships, every one in turn, steamed up,
reported her presence, and tucked into a berth under the wings of the
big war-ship; and there they stayed until night, until the signal came
to get under way. When it did, one after the other they up-anchored and
kicked into line. They had been warned to make no fuss in going, and
they made none. From somewhere ashore a great search-light swept our top
structure, swept every top structure as we filed out. Some one on each
top structure must have given the proper sign, for that was all.
All that night, and next day, for days and days thereafter, with
shifting formations and varying speeds, we steamed. All were good,
seaworthy ships, but little things will happen. There was one that was
always lagging. The flag-ship, meaning the war-ship of most tonnage,
inquired why. The answer came, whereat the war-ship of most tonnage
showed right there that she was fit to do something more than furnish
long-reaching guns for the fleet's protection.
The next thing the fleet knew they were ordered to shut off steam. They
did so. It was a perfect, calm day, and the ships lay, still as paint
between a clear blue sky and a deep-blue sea while a boat-load of
bluejackets from the big fighting ship rowed across a swell so gentle
that it seemed to be only serving to put life into a picture. The
lagging steamer had been short a few oilers or firemen or water-tenders.
The big ship had them to spare. After that the slow one picked right up.
Soon it was standard speed with everybody in proper alignment again.
Not often do seagoing people get the chance to see a fleet of merchant
steamers cruising the wide ocean. A full-rigged sailing-ship, a
steam-collier, a tramp steamer, all came out of their way in one day to
view the strange sight. As they did so, one of our smaller and faster
war-ships would trot over to have a closer peek in turn at the curious
ones; to ask them questions; probably also to tell them to keep their
wireless mouths shut, if they had any.
One day one big freighter did not answer signals promptly. Perhaps she
could not read them. In these war times it is not too easy to get crews
who are sea-wise in every detail--the expert signalman among the
officers might have been off watch and having a nap. Anyway, one of our
little fighting fellows went bounding after her. It was like watching a
sheep-dog at work. The war-ship moved up from behind, drew up, and then,
showing her teeth, headed the freighter the other way and held her
headed that way while she put an officer aboard and asked an explanation,
which was probably given and doubtless all right, for the officer came
back and the freighter resumed her regular course. Day in and day out
that was the way of it, every passing ship being viewed as suspect and
our own ships, of varying speeds and tonnage, trying to keep a good
alignment.
The weather generally was fine, but one morning we ran into a fog. A fog
has its virtues; a submarine cannot see you in a fog. But neither can
you see a submarine. And somewhere handy to you is a bunch of your own
ships, and no telling when one of them may come riding out of the mist
and climb aboard by way of your port or starboard quarter!
A whistle by day or a search-light by night would have been a great help
to our naval officer on the bridge during that fog, but he was denied
that. So he made out (as did every other commander on every other bridge
during the fog) with whatever other means he could devise. Nothing
happened to us.
The fog passed on, and then one day came a slaty gray sea and a slaty
sky. Gray seas look hard; white crests moving across gray seas look hard
too. Our naval officer took time to look around on them. Gray hulls were
smashing high bows into them, making boiling white water of the hard
gray sea and throwing it to either side in fine, high-rolling billows as
they pressed on. They were a fine sight then, with the smoke pouring out
and trailing low from some of them. They were not trying to make smoke,
but if a ship must make smoke, it will not be seen so far on a gray day.
Our naval officer held the bridge from early that morning to nine
o'clock that night. He had an idea that he might be able to sneak in a
couple of hours' sleep against the strain of the later night. It was not
bad weather when he left--a good breeze blowing and plenty of white
showing. It was dirty, but not bad weather. He got in one hour in his
bunk, turning in with his clothes on, when he was called to go on the
bridge again. Something had happened. He could feel the increasing wind
before he was fairly rolled out of his bunk.
As he stepped out on deck he could see that the lookouts had adopted
life-belts for the night. The lookouts were men from among the troops,
and now each man as he went off watch was handing over his life-belt to
the next coming on. They had had to use the soldiers for lookouts. In
these war days no merchant ship can supply from her regular crew
one-tenth of the men needed for lookout work in the war zone. The
soldiers were all right, but just then our naval officer felt sorry for
them. He had been having them up before him afternoons, lecturing them
on their duties as lookouts. That very afternoon he had had a bunch of
them before him while he explained a few new things. He had spent extra
time on the men who were to be on forward watch this very night, with
the men who were to go into the bow or into the forward crow's nest. And
now they were there, buried as the bow went smash into it, or--those of
them who had drawn the crow's nest--swinging a hundred feet in the air.
All right for old seagoers, but most of these boys had never in their
lives before been on an ocean-going ship. Some had never even seen a big
ship until they came to the seacoast for their trip. They had great
eyesight, some of these young fellows--men who had lain on the
bull's-eye at a thousand yards regularly were bound to have that--and
they made good lookouts once they got the idea, but climbing the last
twenty feet of that ladder to the crow's nest, leaning back under part
of the time with life-belt stuffed under their overcoats--they surely
must have been thinking that a soldier's duties were difficult as well
as various in these days of war.
A ship on tossing seas and the wind blowing a dirge through the
rigging--well, a man may be brave enough to fight all the Germans this
side the Russian line, but if he is new to sea life he is apt to see
things. Two soldiers were standing on deck when our naval officer came
out of his room. They were not on guard. They did not have to be
there--they were staying awake on their own account. One said to the
other: "There, there--look! Ain't that a submarine?"
It was a shadow as high as a house. "If that is a submarine," thinks our
officer, "then it is good night to us, for she's a whale of a one!"
It was no submarine. It was the shadow of one of their own ships which
had been driven out of column.
It was blowing hard when our officer made the bridge. He could not see
far, but far enough to see that the ocean was black, and that across the
black of it the white patches were flying--dead white patches leaping
high in the night.
The fleet was in direct column ahead, or should have been. Some were
surely having their troubles staying there. This steaming close behind a
ship, with another ship close behind you--and you have to be close up to
see from one to the other on such a night--made me think as I stood
under the bridge that night: "Give me all the submarines in the world
before this with a fleet that has not had a chance to practise
evolutions."
There was not a steaming light of any kind, not even one shaded little
one in the stern, which an enemy might see and, seeing, swing in behind
it. Rather than show even the smallest little guiding light, our fellows
preferred to steam this way in the night.
The glad morning came, glad for the reason that an almost warm, bright
sun came with it. The sun showed three ships gone from the column. There
was more than one of us who wished that we too had gone from the column
about six hours ago. We would have slept better. Still, it was a good
experience to have--behind you. Wind and sea went down; all hands felt
better--especially the lookouts. Those who came down from the crow's
nest looked as if the grace of God had suddenly fallen on them.
By and by we picked up the drifters. They were looking just as hard for
us as we were for them; and later that day we ran into our escorts from
the other side. Everybody at once felt as if the trip was as good as
over. The fact was that the worst part of the war zone was ahead of us.
All hands were still turning in with life-belts handy, and most of them
with clothes on, but there was a feeling that now it was up to these new
escorts.
Before we reached France on this run we were in a U-boat fight, which I
shall tell of later. What I want to say now is that the submarine fight
had an enjoyable side to it, but as for that night run of our troop-ships
in gale and sea--a big ship just ahead, a big ship just behind, big
high-bowed ships plunging down at fourteen knots an hour from roaring
waters in the dark--there was no fun in that!
Of the scores of devices the fleet used to beat the U-boats on that run
across, a man can say nothing here. But to get back: our naval officer
stuck to his bridge until one most beautiful morning he took his ship
into a most beautiful port on a most beautiful shore. I never before
heard anybody so describe that same port, but the general verdict says
it did look pretty good.
This story of our troop-ship's run across is given from the view-point
of the naval officer in charge. It could just as well have been written
from the view-point of the merchant captain or his officers aboard--all
on the job; or the chief engineer or his assistants--all on the job, and
who put in more than one hour guessing at what was going on above; or
from the view-point of the quartermaster captain, or his clerks, or the
oilers, or the firemen, or the water-tenders, or the cooks, or anybody
else, high or low, in the ship's regular service.
This transport service is one tough game. It is well enough for us who
have but one trip to make. But one trip after another! They had good
right to look a bit younger when they made the other side. But before we
can win this war we've got to get the million or two or three million
men across; and the millions of tons of supplies. Somebody has got to
see them across. These men on the troop-ships are doing it. May nothing
happen to them!
THE U-BOATS APPEAR
The soldier lookouts in the forward crow's nest had been especially
advised to have an eye out for the convoys which were to pick us up as
we neared the other side; and they were very much on the job.
One bright morning came: "Smoke three points off the port bow.... Smoke
broad off the starboard bow.... Smoke dead ahead.... One point off the
... Broad off the ..." and so on. Their excited calls rattled down like
rapid fire to the bridge; the thrill in their voices rolled like a wave
through the ship. That smoke, incidentally, meant that the strangers,
whoever they were, had already identified us and so were not afraid to
let us see them.
Everybody that was not already on deck came running up to have a look
for himself. It was our escort. Darting across our bows they
came--low-riding, slim, gray bodies. The ranking one reported to our
flag-ship; and all, without any fuss or extra foam, took position and
went to work as though they had been there for weeks. And as they did
our big war-ship and the little ones which had come across with her
wheeled about and went off. There was no ceremonious leave-taking. They
simply turned on their heels and flew. They might as well have said: "We
are glad to have met you and been with you, but we can do no more for
you, so good-by and good luck; we're going back home as fast as we can
get there."
A soldier watched them going and said: "The night before we left home I
went to a show, and a fellow sang: 'Good-by, Broadway! Hello, France!' I
thought it was great. I know what they're saying aboard those ships
there now. 'Hello, Broadway! Good-by, France!' is what they're saying.
And I betcher it'll be a straight line with no time wasted zigzagging
for them on the way back!"
He had it about right. They carried the most eloquent sterns that any of
us had seen on ships for a long time. The big one in the middle, the
others like chickens under either wing--away they went, belting it for
about sixteen knots good. In one half-hour all we could see of them was
a cloud of smoke to the west'ard. Just how far off the French coast we
were at this time does not matter here, or from what direction we were
approaching; but we were far enough off for that group of destroyers to
show how they went about their work of guarding the troop-ships. To comb
the sea about us was their mission; and they were attending to it every
minute. The fleet steamed on.
We proceeded under advices not to fall asleep with too much clothes on,
and never to get too far away from our life-belts. It may have been true
that some men slept with their life-belts on, but it is probably not
true that one man took his to the bathroom with him--not true because
about the time we got that far along the steward refused to prepare any
more baths. He had enough on his mind, he said, without fussing with
baths.
There was one place we looked forward to passing with lively feelings.
We may not name the place here, but here is how it was described: "Ever
been to that big aquarium in Naples? Yes? Well, remember those
devil-fish hiding behind the rock on the bottom? Along comes an innocent
young fish who is a stranger to those waters. Mr. Devilfish, hiding
behind, has a peek at it coming. He waits. Mr. Young Fish drifts by his
hiding-place, and then--Good night, young fishie."
That kind of talk in the watches of the night sounded like lively action
before us. We waited for--call it the Devilfish's Cave--and waited; and
the first thing we knew when we came to inquire further about it, we
were safely past it, with never a sign of any devil-fish, unless it
would be the one torpedo which went by the bow of one of us from some
distance one noontime. Some distance it must have been because it was a
clear day with a smooth sea, and under such weather conditions, with the
hundreds of wide-awake lookouts in the fleet, no U-boat could have put
up a periscope within any near distance and not be seen by somebody. As
for long-distance shots from submarines--there is small need to worry
about them. Subs like to get within a thousand yards or less. Those
three and four mile shots--it is like trying to hit a sea-gull with a
rifle. Amateurs try that kind of shooting, but the professional, who has
to reckon the cost of powder and shot, lets it pass. Not that the
Germans are sparing of the cost of war, but a sub which has to make a
voyage of three thousand miles to take on a fresh load of torpedoes is
not firing too many for the mere practice.
We drew near the coast of France, and still nothing had happened. We
were getting hails, of course, from the lookouts. There was one who
called it a dull watch when he did not see at least one periscope. He
had never seen a periscope in his life, but he had read about periscopes.
One night just at dark he stood us all on our heads by reporting one
just alongside. We all got a flash at it then, an ominous object, bobbing
under our port quarter, and then it went down into our wake. It bobbed up
again, and we all had another look. It was a beer-keg. The ship's first
officer, the one who had a gold medal as big as a saucer for saving life
at sea, eyed the keg, and then he eyed the lookout, saying: "An empty one
too! If you'd only report a full one, we might gaff it aboard."
When that same first officer was one day asked if he intended taking his
big medal with him in case we had to take to the boats, he replied: "With
twenty-eight persons in the boat! Good Lord, don't you think she'll be
carrying enough freight?"
We steamed along, dark night astern this time and the white morning
above our bow. The bridge--three naval and two ship's officers--had for
some time been using the glasses. From aloft forward came the sudden
yell: "Land ho!"
The bridge nodded that it heard. "Land ho!" repeated the lookout
stentoriously. "Two points off the port bow," and then, peering
doubtfully down at the bridge: "Am I right?"
"You are," said the bridge sweetly; "we've been looking at it for half
an hour." Which was rather rough, for to shore-going eyes land does at
first look like a low cloud on the horizon and, naturally, a fellow
wants to make sure.
Pretty soon we could most of us see it from the deck, and it did look
good. I once saw the flat, bleak Atlantic coast of Patagonia after ten
days at sea, and the high iron wintry coast of Newfoundland after
another period at sea, and I clearly recall that even they both looked
like fine countries. And the coast of France was neither bleak nor icy,
so you may guess that it was a pleasing sight on this summer morning. It
was a dream of a day, the sea like a green-tinted mirror, the sky blue
as paint, and the softest little breath of air floating off the land to
us. We were perhaps ten miles offshore.
The enchanted land lay before us and our troubles behind us--or so we
thought--and yet we were many of us disappointed. After our more than
three thousand miles we had not even caught sight of a U-boat.
Now, we probably did not want to see one, but we sort of had an idea
that we were entitled to have one pop up and then disappear. Something
to talk about, without anybody coming to harm through it--that was about
our composite idea.
However, there are compensations for all things; we could now prepare
peacefully for going ashore. I was in the lounge-room below sharpening a
pencil, and, there being no waste-basket handy, carefully shunting the
shavings into a writing-desk drawer.
The fire-alarm rang. That was the signal to hurry on deck with your
life-belt, take your station by your boat, and prepare to abandon ship.
But we had been doing that every day since we left home. The first time
we heard that call we had gone jumping, but after the third or fourth
time we moved more leisurely.
Some took their life-belts from their rooms and started up. Every
soldier, of course, grabbed one from where they were piled up in the
passageways and went at once. They had no option. Their officers would
get after them if they did not.
I thought I would finish sharpening my pencil. I thought I heard a blast
from a ship's whistle somewhere outside; but I was not sure. Then I
heard a blast from our own ship's whistle. Wugh-wugh-wugh! I did not
wait for any more. I did not finish sharpening the pencil. I did not
wait to shut the desk drawer. I did not do anything but move. There were
six blasts from the whistle, and six blasts meant U-boats.
There was a heavy-set officer coming down the passageway. He was heavier
by twenty pounds than I was, but I had more speed. I know I had. Not
since the winter's day on George's Bank a quartering sea chased me down
the cabin companionway of the _Charles W. Parker_ of Gloucester have I
moved so fast on a ship, and I was fifteen years younger then. We bounced
off each other. We did not stop to talk when we straightened out. He went
his way and I went mine, and if I looked anything like him, then my jaw
was thrust out and my eyes had an earnest look in them.
My life-belt was under my bunk. It did not stay there long. I went back
down the passageway jumping. There was a fine crush going up to the
boat-deck. Only a seagoing man knows how to take a ship's ladder with
speed. You just got to have practice at it. There were some fine
athletic boys among the troopers, but "Sweet mother," wailed a ship's
man, "are those new army shoes made of leather, or are they lead that
they move so slow?" And that comment did not have to travel a lonesome
road.
While scooting up the ladder we heard a gun; and another gun. As we made
the boat-deck there was another ship barking out six short blasts.
The ships of the fleet, when we got to where we could see them, were
headed every which way. We could feel our own ship heel over--she turned
so sharply. Every ship in the fleet was going it--right angles, quarter
angles, all degrees of angles. But what impressed us most--we almost
laughed to see her--was the lubber of the fleet. She was twice the tonnage
of most of us, and early in the run across she had brought anguish to our
souls by the way she lagged. "You bum, you loafer, you old cart-horse, why
don't you move up?" our soldiers used to yell across at her. She had not
then enough men in her steam department to keep her engines warm, so she
reported. But now she had steam enough. She was wide and high, a huge hulk
of a ship, and here she was now charging--charging was the word--like a
motor-boat at where somebody said the U-boat had just submerged. Whether
she got her U-boat, I don't know; but she certainly did cut through the
water for about a mile.
The ship next behind us went after something; and the ship next ahead
went tearing away after something else, and another ship--but, man, a
battalion of eyes could not follow them all. A destroyer went--zizz-sh
zizz--a thirty-odd knot clip--and the next thing we saw was a ten-foot
column of solid white water shooting straight up beside that destroyer.
And then came the terrific Bo-o-om! Our ship shook from one end to the
other. I thought it came from inside of us--that it was a loading-port
door let drop by some careless ship's man below. The ship's officer in
charge of our life-boat thought so, too. He stepped to the ship's side
to look down. "That one, he should be put in the brig--scaring us all
like that!" I agreed with him heartily, only I thought he should be put
in a second brig after he got out of the first one. Some time later we
learned that it was the shock from the bomb dropped by the destroyer,
from which you can gauge what chance the submarine will have which
happens to catch one of those bombs on its back.
We carried two 5-inch guns in our bow and two astern. Those gun crews
had been standing by those guns from the first day out. For the last
three days they had been sleeping near them in their life-jackets and
taking their meals standing beside them. They were not going to be left
out of it. About a thousand yards away some one reported a floating
torpedo. Whether it was a live or a spent one made no matter. It was too
soft a target; besides, some ship in the hurry of manoeuvring might
run into it. Bang! went two of our 5-inch fellows, one from each end of
the ship and both together.
That was when we heard from our chief engineer. He had been below from
the beginning, and knew from the way the bells were coming down from the
bridge that there was something doing topside. When the destroyer
dropped her first bomb he wondered if the ship was torpedoed. He waited,
and his men, with their shovels and slice-bars and oil-cans--they
waited, every one of them, with one sharp eye to the nearest ash-hoist,
which reminded the chief that he would never leave home again--and this
time he meant it--without installing those four more ladders leading up
from the engine and fire-room quarters to the decks. No, sir, he would
not.
But nothing happened! And then those two 5-inch guns went off together.
War-ships are built to withstand impact, but merchant-ships--no. This
time the chief was sure she was torpedoed. His fire-room force were
mostly Spaniards. He used to talk at table about his fire-room gang.
"You would think, with your ship coming through the war zone and your
watch down in the bottom of her, that you would want to go up topside
when your watch was done, for, of course, if any U-boat got the ship, it
would be the fellows below who would first get the full benefit." But
that gang of his! "Doggone, they'd sit there when their watch was over,
six or eight of 'em, and play some cross-eyed Spanish card-game for a
peseta a corner. What d'y' know about them?"
The chief's gang could not talk English, but they had speaking eyes.
They now looked at the chief, and he went up to have a peek. He came
back soon. "They are having target practice," he told them. He had been
running the Caribbean ports long enough to be able to say that much in
Spanish; but more than all he smiled as he said it. You want to smile to
get away with anything like that in the fire-room of a troop-ship in the
U-boat country.
Every ship in the fleet was now having something to say with her guns;
and with their incessant manoeuvring at such close quarters the sea
was all torn up by their wakes. Two or three wakes or bow waves would
cross each other, and the sea would roll up with a bounding white crest.
There were also the wakes of hidden submarines. You could tell them if
you saw any by the way they did not stop in one place; they moved on.
When a gunner saw a submarine wake he fired; where he wasn't sure he
fired anyway. What was he there for? Bang! Boom! Solid shot were
ricochetting, piling up little white splashes, and the shrapnel were
making little holes and bursting into little white smoke puffs all over
the place.
You must not forget that it was a beautiful day and a perfectly calm sea
with the shore of France looming like a blue mirage on the horizon. It
lasted about forty minutes altogether, and through it all the little
destroyers--don't forget them--were weaving in and out among the big
ships; and on the big ships were thousands of troopers, white life-belts
around their olive-drab uniforms, standing steadily by life-boats and
rafts.
Our fellows on the destroyers did handle their little ships well. And
the troop-ships were handled well--no collisions and no gun-shells going
aboard anybody else. A few went across other people's bows and sterns,
but not too near to worry. And in the middle of it all, our guns made so
much noise that before we heard them we saw them--two airplanes,
whirring and cavorting about and above us. Whenever they saw a destroyer
turn and shoot, they would turn and shoot after the destroyer. They
could move about three times as fast as a destroyer, and so quite often
beat the destroyer to it.
Later the airplanes escorted us into port. They were big, powerful
biplanes, and carried a sky-pointing gun mounted forward and the colors
of France painted on their little wings aft. They kept circling about us
until we made our harbor. Whenever they swooped low enough our troopers
gave them a fine cheer.
My job being to tell what I saw and heard, I want to say here that
throughout the entire mêlée I never saw one periscope! And there were
thousands like me who never saw a periscope. But there were hundreds of
others--cool, sensible people--who are ready to make affidavits that
they did see periscopes.
Why did not more of us see any? Well, a submarine commander needs to
turn up his periscope for only four, five, six, or seven seconds to have
a look. If you do not happen to be gazing directly at the spot, you do
not see it or the white bone which it makes going through the water.
On my ship the ranking officer was a regular army colonel who had seen
active and dangerous service in the Philippines and elsewhere. He is
given rather to understatement than overstatement of facts--a cool,
level-headed observer. He saw a periscope. We had another officer who
had been in the service in the Spanish War, had got out and was now
back. He was probably the best lookout of all the army officers in the
ship--a solid, substantial man with a keen eye. He could see what
anybody else could see, but further than that you had to show him.
Several of us had already christened him "Show me." He reported two
periscopes. Now he had never seen a submarine operating in his life. I
asked him to describe the action of the periscope. He described it
perfectly as I had noticed it in trial trips of submarines off Cape Cod,
which is where the Electric Boat Company used to try theirs out before
turning them over to purchasers.
My own notion of it is that the U-boats have many of us bluffed. They
must be capable men who go in submarines; of good nerve, quick wit, and
the power to withstand long nervous strain. Such men in a submarine are
going to throw great scares into people of less capacity on surface
ships. Put such men somewhere else than in a submarine and they will
outwit men not so well equipped for the war game.
But these men, no men, can make the submarine do impossible things.
Before firing a torpedo the submarine must come near enough to the
surface to stick out her periscope, to have a look around to locate her
target. In sticking out the periscope, lookouts on ships are likely to
see it. On merchant ships they do not keep a lookout which combs the sea
thoroughly; they do not carry men enough for that. The strain of such a
lookout is great. Men cannot stand to it as to an ordinary watch; they
have to be relieved frequently; and so submarines may have an advantage
over merchant ships, especially if the merchant ships are slow-moving
freighters. But a war-ship, or a troop-ship in convoy is something else.
Troop-ships carry an immense number of lookouts, not overworked men who
are liable to go to sleep on watch, but keen-eyed young fellows of high
vitality, surrounded by other young fellows of high vitality, and all
competing to see who can see something first.
They will spot a periscope, under normal conditions, at a pretty good
distance; which does not mean that that periscope is at once going to be
blown out of the water. Hitting a piece of 4-inch pipe at any distance
is not easy; the pipe moving and the ship moving does not make it any
easier.
But the submarine has shown herself. To get her torpedo home she will
have to move nearer. With a thousand eyes looking for her and five, six,
a dozen ships with four guns or more apiece waiting to have a crack at
her, she is not going to have a pleasant time after she moves nearer.
She must show her periscope again to locate her target. To show her
periscope she must get her hull somewhere near the surface; it takes a
little time--not so much, but a little time to get her hull safely below
again; and while she is doing that who can say that not one of our five,
six, or a dozen ships will be handy to the spot? And if one of our ships
should happen to be handy enough, what can save the submarine from being
rammed? And if she is rammed there is no hope for her--she is gone.
I am pretty much of one mind with our first officer in this submarine
matter. In the middle of the combat off the French coast he was making
the rounds, cutting away the lashings which held the life-boats to the
davits--this in case we had to leave the ship. He had a squint at the
banging guns, the charging troop-ships, the flying destroyers; and then
he looked up long enough to say: "A fat chance a U-boat would have if
she so much as stuck her nose out. In four seconds she'd be like a
rabbit among a pack of hunting-dogs. She might get away, but I bet you
no bookmaker would take her end of it."
This argument does not apply to a slow-steaming freighter going it
alone; it is for the matter of troop-ships moving at a fairly good
speed. For myself that time the fleet steamed in direct column ahead,
one ship jam up behind another, in a rough sea and on a black night, at
high speed without lights of any kind, they did a more difficult thing
than to evade or stand off half a dozen U-boat attacks. No fleet of
ships can be put beyond all danger of submarine attack, but the danger
to the subs can be made so great that it won't be worth the price the
attacking force will pay.
I do not know how many U-boats were in that attack. The official figures
will no doubt be given out in time. Our moderate estimators here put it
down as three, with one transport ramming and sinking one U-boat. Two
honest lads of one of our own forward gun crews say that our ship bumped
over another. They felt the bump. Perhaps they did, but bluejackets at
twenty years of age are apt to be optimistic, as witness:
The day after that U-boat fight the skipper, first officer, chief
engineer, and myself were trying our French on a waiter in a café
ashore, but not quite putting it over; we had to resort to a little
English to get action for one important item of our meal. A party of
American bluejackets--gun crews--were at another table. They heard us
speak English, whereat one of them called over: "Say, you guys comprong
English? Wee, wee? Then you oughter been where we were yesterday. Yuh'd
seen something. Fighting U-boats we were. Comprong? U-boats--wee, wee,
U-boats. Thirty-six of 'em came after us an' we sunk twelve. Whaddyer
know about that?" We did not know, so we opened up a bottle of the
ordinary red wine of the country, price deux francs, and drank to their
enthusiastic health.
CROSSING THE CHANNEL
To get out of France after getting in, a man has to go to Paris, see the
prefect of police, various consuls, and so on. It was all interesting--the
life in Paris--but it had nothing to do with U-boats. I had to go to
England, and to make England, I had to go to Havre.
And I was in Havre. Looking out the window at a roof across the narrow
street was a sign which read Hotel of the Six Allies. The Six looked as
though it had been painted over. The head waiter told me later that it
had. It had begun at three, then it became four--five--now six. But
there were more than six now--did not the great United States count? Oh,
yes, truly yes--but the paint and painters! They were growing more
scarce. The war--yes. Everything was the war.
The head waiter was a little old fellow with a round back, a quizzical
eye, and the hair of a first violin. After I beat my way by main
strength through three table-d'hôte meals with him he let me know that
he could talk English. Why hadn't he told me so before? Oh! Did I not
wish to practise my French? So many did, and if they made him understand,
the tips were sometimes more inspiring.
The steamer for England had been scheduled to leave the night of the day
our train arrived, but she did not leave. We did not learn whether it
was the full moon or the U-boats shifting their hunting-grounds or the
late air-raids on the south coast of England. Whatever the cause, no one
growled much. The steamship people and the government were doing their
best with a difficult service. The delay gave us another day to look the
port over. I had been there years before. Then it was all French; now it
seemed to be mostly British. The streets, the shops, the cafés, were
crowded with English, Canadian, and Australian soldiers. British soldiers
were running the tram-cars. In the country outside was a large British
camp. The French owners of the ships and of the cafés in the narrow
streets near the jetties catered especially to the British soldier and
sailor. English tobacco, English rosbif--they advertised these in quaintly
worded signs.
Ships lay between the jetties and the breakwater, coasting and deep-water
steamers, and the little fishing-cutters with the tanned sails. There was
a fleet (or a flock) of seaplanes all ready to take to either the water or
the air. They took to both while we looked, hurdling the breakwater from
the basin to get more quickly to some smoke on the horizon. They were
brand-new planes all, with the most beautiful polished maple pontoons and
bright varnish over paint that still smelled fresh.
Soldiers not so worn and weary as those on the hospital veranda came
down to the jetty promenade. Priests, nursing sisters, other soldiers
and sailors came also. What interested them most was the sun shining on
the bright new wood of the planes flying out to see what the smoke
meant. It was a ship from across the ocean somewhere, and the planes
circled it into the basin--one more ship which had beat the U-boat game
and brought home something needed. There was some noise along the jetty
and yet more noise in the wide and narrow streets of the town--clanging
trams, whip-cracking fiacres, yelling newsboys, honking taxis, and
soldiers and sailors tramping the pavements. Noise enough, and of the
kind befitting a Channel port in war time; but for a time at least we
heard the noise let down, and the bustle softened.
In a wide street of shops appeared a white-haired priest with a white
crucifix held high before him. Behind him was another priest reading
from a book of prayer. Two laymen came next, bearing a little
white-painted table with a little white coffin--a cheap board
coffin--resting on it. There was a canopy of plain white boards over the
little coffin. There were a few white blossoms on the canopy and beside
the coffin a few lilies of the valley--only a few.
Two other laymen followed the coffin bearers. All the men were
bareheaded. Three women--young women and young mothers to look
at--followed the two men. One of the young women was in deep black. A
group of little girls followed the young woman. Two very old women came
last. No more than that, walking through a crowded street at two o'clock
of a bright day!
It was on us almost before we saw it. Men took off their hats as it
passed; women blessed themselves. Sometimes men's lips murmured a short
prayer; always the women did. The soldiers and sailors, when they were
French, saluted nearly always; the British sometimes. The officers, if
anything, saluted more profoundly than the enlisted men, and, when they
did not stop dead, held a hand to their caps for eight or ten paces in
passing.
Two soldiers were talking with two girls of the streets. One of the
soldiers took off his cap. One of the girls stopped talking to say a
little word of prayer. Both soldiers faced about, and all four gazed in
silence for long after the little cortège had passed on. Then the first
soldier put on his cap, all faced about, and resumed their talk, but
more slowly and not quite so loudly as before.
An English Tommy was driving a tram--a swearing Tommy that you could
hear a block away. He came on the mourners from behind. He was in a
hurry, and by clanging his bell he could have crowded by. But he held
the tram in check, nursing it so as not to frighten the two old women in
the rear--until they came to a wide square. Here there was room. He
clanged his bell, not too loudly, turned on the juice, and hurried to
make up for lost time. Men are being killed by the million over here,
and other men who have been there--these very men on these streets--will
tell you that they hardly turn their heads to see one more killed. But a
little child is different.
Our steamer was to sail next night--at what hour no one could say, but
it was well to be there in good time, we were told, so we went with the
hotel bus. A little porter woman was there with my 70-pound bag before I
even knew "things were ready"; and she said she did not roll it down the
five flights from my room. She carried it every stair step of the way.
Her husband was in the war, and she had five children and it required
more than a few sous in the week for five children, the eldest fourteen.
I agreed that it did.
Swinging on to the jetty, we had to take notice of a shop advertising to
rent life-saving apparatus for the trip across the Channel. It was
fine--a one-piece suit which came from the toes to the ears and a hood
which you could turn in over your head! There was a painting of a
torpedoed passenger ship going up in flames, topside and the hull
settling down into the rolling billows. Men and women were jumping into
the sea and drowning in agony. They had no life-saving, one-piece suits.
But all were not so thoughtless. There were others floating along high
out of water with the most beatific expressions on their faces. They had
been thoughtful enough to buy one of the patent one-piece suits. The
painting was in colors, red and black mostly.
The afternoon had closed in showers, and when we made the steamer
landing we stood in pools of water in the hollows of the worn stone
flags. We were in good time, but a hundred or more who had been in
better time were already inside the shed. The hold-overs from three days
were there, military people mostly. We waited--and waited--and waited.
It was the eternal passport matter. One at a time they had to pass the
tribunal inside. A pleasant-mannered young English soldier stood guard
at the shed door. Every half-hour or so, at command of a voice from the
inside, he would let another dozen or twenty slide by. When he did so,
those of us in the rear would hurry to fill the void, picking up our
baggage from our feet as we pushed on. I had hired a porter, an old man,
to look after my 70-pound bag. He stood by patiently for two hours or
so. Then, without warning, he ran off and did not come back. I had not
paid him, so he must have grown very tired. After that, whenever I moved
forward, I had to pick up my two bags myself--the other weighed 40
pounds. Sometimes I put the bags into a pool of water--sometimes I put
my feet.
Not every one had to wait. An officer would be passed through
immediately, which did not please two enlisted men near me, just back
from what they called rough work at the front. The little one, called
Scotty, had a fear that the boat might leave before he could get there.
He wanted to "mak' a train oot o' Lunnon" at two of the next afternoon,
"mak' a nicht train oot o' Glesgie" (Glasgow) and surprise his folk by
walking in on 'em "afore brekkist." They would be glad to see him, be
sure.
"Almost as glad to see you come as they was goin'?" asked the soldier
with him, and then urged Scotty to stop over in London for a bit o' fun.
"I'll not," said Scotty. "I'll mak' the trains as I said an' surprise
'em afore brekkist. Besides, there's a football match on for the
arternoon arter to-morrer, and an old pal o' mine is playin' for'ard for
oor team. But let 'em allow all these officers aboord first--'ere's
anither ane--listen tae 'im!"
But it was not an officer this time. It was a voice asking if any
privileges were accorded a King's messenger. The guard at the door said
certainly, but where was he? Everybody made way for the voice. He turned
out to be a little man with a scraggy beard and large round spectacles.
The guard eyed him doubtfully. The King's messenger stood on his toes
and whispered up into the guard's ear.
The guard looked down on him. "King's messenger! Go on with yer!" He
shoved him back.
"Yes, garn with yer!" said Scotty, "but he's gained a guid half oor wi'
his King's-messenger talk. I think I'll hae tae be something important
masel' sune."
The soldier with Scotty could speak French. He spoke it to a pretty
young French girl and her mother who had been pressed up against them.
The mother had a new hat in a big paper box. Whenever the rush
threatened to crush the hat-box, she would hold it high over her head
till she could hold it no longer, when she let it get crushed.
Whenever the girl spoke to the other soldier Scotty would want to know
what she said. "She's sairtainly pretty. What did she say that time,
Tid?"
Tid kept to himself what she said. "It's a cut above the likes of you
we're discussin'," said Tid.
"She'll be goin' to England to marry an English officer," said Scotty.
The girl whirled on him. "No. No Engleesh officier--a French officier!"
"I had a notion you'd spoil it," said Tid.
"Ma Gud," groaned Scotty. "I wonder, Tid, did she hear a' I said this
nicht o' her, and ma lips no two feet frae her ear!"
The night was growing cooler. The girl's fur neck-piece slipped down
from her shoulders. The mother had passed her the hat-box, and the girl
had no hand free for the neck-piece. Scotty put it back for her. She
thanked him sweetly.
"You're no mad noo?" said Scotty. "I'll tak' a steady billet tae put it
back." He took to slyly stroking the fur piece when he thought she could
not see him.
A woman lost her passport, but did not know it until she was about to be
passed through the door. Then she shrieked. She came back in the crowd
to look for it. She had been standing in one spot for an hour--it must
be there. She rushed to the spot, lit a match, and began to look under
her feet. A man lit a match and began to look under his feet. Another
man lit a match and began to look under his feet. We all lit matches and
began to look under our feet.
She shrieked again. "Ma Gud, she's a dyin' woman!" said Scotty.
She was not. She had found her passport. The business of waiting was
resumed by the rest of us.
The little cafés along the water-front were closing; loads of soldiers
and sailors began to flow out on to the jetty. One began to sing, and
another; others to whirl along in grotesque dance steps. Two began to
talk loudly. They came to blows. A third one stepped in to stop it,
whereupon one of the first two turned on him to inquire what he was
interfering for.
"But he's a friend o' mine," explained the third man.
"Is he a better friend o' yours than o' me? Answer me that. Is he? Do
you know him longer than I know him? No? Then mind your own and do not
be interferin'." The third man felt properly rebuked. He withdrew his
objections and the other two resumed their fight.
We were inside the shed at last; and by and by I came before a man in a
little office inside the shed. He was a Frenchman, but spoke good
English.
"Your passport, please."
I produced it. He took a look and passed it back.
"Any gold on your person?"
"Thirty dollars--American."
"Hand it over, please. Wait. Are you American?"
"I am."
"In that case keep it. That is all. Pass out. Next."
Next came a little house with a row of men sitting at a long, narrow
pine-board table. The first had a quick look at my passport and handed
it on to a man who sat on his left before a card index in boxes. That
one dug into his boxes, found what he was looking for, and slid the
passport along to the next on his left, who slid it along to the man on
his left, and he to the man on his left, and he to the last one.
You chased that passport down the line, answering the questions which
each one put in turn, as to where you last came from, where before that,
and before that, and the date, your business, where you were going in
England, why, for how long, and where you would stay. They were all
pleasantly put, but you had the feeling that let you stumble and it
would be God help you. Each asked a question or two that nobody else had
thought of. The last one had the least of all to say. He probably
thought that if, after all, you were a German spy, you had earned your
exemption. He only made a note of your name, handed out a red card, said
to give it to the soldier at the out-going door, claim your baggage,
have the customs inspector pass it, and go aboard the steamer when you
liked. All I saw liked to go aboard at once.
There was a man of many buttons behind a shining brass grill on the
steamer--French, apparently, but also speaking plain English. I handed
in my ticket and asked for a berth. He was snappy. "Have you one
reserved?"
"Why, no. When I bought my steamer ticket I was told that there would be
no need to reserve a berth--there would be plenty."
"He told you wrong. There are no berths."
"But is he not your agent--the man who sold me the ticket?"
"No."
"But you accept his ticket?"
"There is no berth."
"You mean that I pay for a first-class ticket on your steamer and then
have to walk the deck?"
"There is no berth, I say." He talked like a machine-gun, and the marble
Roman gods were not more impassive as he turned to the next. I saluted
him. You just have to honor a man who knows exactly what he wants to say
and says it, which did not prevent me from saying over the next one's
shoulder what I thought of his manners, the ethics of his company, and
the cheek of the well-known tourist agency which had sold me the ticket
in Paris.
But it did not get me anything. He went right on about his business of
turning more people away.
I had a look around. The smoking-room air was all blue, and all khaki as
to chairs and tables. Also all khaki as to sleeping-quarters. They had
been campaigning for a year or more on the western line, and had not
lost any time here. And every blessed one of them had a whiskey and soda
before him. They were talking, but not of the war. They were going home
for a ten days' leave after a year at the front and were trying to
forget the war. There was also a lounge-room and a dining-saloon, but
bunks there were also already commandeered by the strategic military.
It could be a worse night to walk the deck. To see what was doing a man
would want to walk the deck anyway.
There was a fine bright moon mounting above the housetops of the
water-front when we slid away from our jetty berth. Slid is the word.
She was all power, this Channel steamer of hardly 1,500 tons, yet with
two great smoke-stacks, three propellers, turbine-engines, and burning
oil for fuel. That last is a cheerful item when you have to walk the
deck--it means no cinders in your eyes.
Fuss? A strange word to her. She slipped like running oil from the
jetty, past the breakwater lights, out by the few craft anchored
there--a fast one for sure. To get a line on her speed, you had but to
watch the shore marks fall away or the water slide by her side as out
into the Channel she went.
People without berths, but with a chair and a rug from the head steward,
began now to tuck away. At first they sat mostly by the rail watching
things. Later they sought snugger corners; but two o'clock of a
September morning in 50° north is still two o'clock in the morning. They
began to go inside. The lights were turned off inside the ship, so when
you walked around in there and felt your foot come down on something
soft, you needed to tread lightly--that would be somebody's neck or
stomach. There were life-rafts on the top deck, of a homelike sort of
model, in the form of two benches with the air-tanks under the benches.
If anything happened to the ship, you could go floating off with all the
comforts of a seat on a bench in the park--if too many did not try to
have seats at the same time. It was a fine night for anybody to spot us,
but just as fine a night for us to spot them. And a ship cutting out
devious courses at twenty-one knots, or whatever she was logging--she is
not too easy to hit. To lay out for the ten and eleven knot cargo boats
is more economical. Still, who knows? We paid tribute to the U-boats by
making détours. All the big stars of the night were out, and by them we
could follow her shifting courses. But no harm; she had speed enough to
sail the Channel sidewise and still bring us in by morning. The night
grew older and cooler. The last of the people who had paid toll to the
steward for a chair and rug went inside. Only one couple were left; and
they had not hired any chair. He was a young officer, and they sat under
his olive-drab blanket, on a life-raft bench athwartship. From there
without moving they could get sidewise peeks at the climbing moon. At
five o'clock in the morning they were still sitting there, heads
together and arms across each other's shoulders.
When we grew tired of walking we sought little anchorages. By two
o'clock any man on deck could have had his pick of abandoned chairs, but
they were not good chairs--the extension part too short. One very young
Canadian officer opened up his kit, made a bed and what lee he could of
the forward smoke-stack. A round smoke-stack makes a poor lee, but once
tucked in he stuck, and was there in the morning when clear light came.
The moon went behind clouds, and from the clouds little cold showers of
rain came peppering down. Heavier clouds came, and heavier squalls with
rain; and a mean little cross sea began to make. Straight ahead, above
the little seas a light showed, and soon another--this a powerful one.
We were still going at a great clip. We might know it anew by the way
that big light jumped forward to meet us. Soon we had it off our bow,
abeam, on our quarter; we were inshore.
A destroyer came out to meet us and blinked a message from screened
lights. More ships met us. We passed other ships--all kinds of ships, of
which in detail a man must not write here.
In good time and in smooth waters we made our landing. There was another
long wait, the same passport grilling, but in a different way, and then
a fast train to London. A taxi then, a room, a shave and bath, clean
linen, and--oh boy!--the roast beef of old England and people you knew
to talk to!
THE CENSORS
Before a visiting correspondent can do anything on the other side he has
to report to a censor somewhere. In London the Chief Admiralty Censor
was a retired Royal Navy captain and a Sir Knight, but not wearing his
uniform or parading his knighthood. He was quartered in an old dark
building where Nelson used to hang out in the days before Trafalgar.
There was a sign on the door:
DON'T KNOCK. COME IN
He was a good sort, with not a sign about him of that swank which so
many of the military caste seem to think it necessary to adopt. He was
perfectly willing to pass me on to our naval base and go right ahead
with my work; but he did not have charge of the naval base. There was an
admiral over there--not an American admiral--who had full charge of our
war-ships there. Without his permission not one of them could tie up to
a mooring in the harbor. I would have to get his permission even to
visit the base. My very human censor in London said he would cable to
him and let me know just as soon as word came.
Awaiting the pleasure of the naval base dictator held me two weeks in
London. While waiting I had a look over the city. It was during a period
when the moon was ripe for air-raids. There were seven of them in nine
nights. My business in life being to see things and then to write about
them, I walked the streets during two of them and viewed some of the
others from club and hotel windows.
The underground railway stations did a great business while the raids
were on; also bomb-proof basements. In a newspaper office, where I used
to visit, were precise directions how to get to their bomb-proof cellar.
And be sure to take the right one. They had two cellars, but only one
was bomb-proof. Shops in the expensive shopping districts had signs up,
advertising their bomb-proof cellars and inviting their patrons to make
use of them; but the trouble with the shops was that most air-raids took
place after they had shut up for the day.
There was a local regulation which said that when an air-raid was on any
person at all might knock at the door of any house he pleased and claim
admittance. If he were not admitted at once he could call a policeman,
who would have to see that he was admitted. We used to speculate on what
would happen if some hobo knocked at the front door of the town house of
the Duke of Westminster, say, and demanded of the butler in plush
knee-breeches that he be let in.
The chief defense against the Goths was a barrage of guns mounted mostly
on the roofs of buildings. An expected air-raid would be announced by
policemen running through the streets on bicycles, on their chests and
back were signs: AIR RAID ON. They also blew whistles.
The great search-lights would sweep the skies, and by and by there would
be a great banging of barrage guns. Bang, bang, bang--that would be the
defense guns. Boom! That would be a bomb. Bang, bang, bang, and Boo-oom!
The guns fired 3-inch shrapnel. Three miles into the air the shrapnel
shells would go! And what goes up has to come down. The next thing would
be shrapnel showering into the streets. It seemed to me that I would
rather take my chance with the bombs than with the shrapnel. A bomb came
down, exploded, and had done with it; but the shrapnel fell all over the
place.
You could see the shrapnel shells bursting high in the air--a beautiful
sight--twinkling like big yellow stars, and then fading out. They would
look more beautiful if only the pieces of them would stay up there after
they burst. I was in Oxford Circus one night when a hatful of shrapnel
fell about 20 feet away. One piece was about 5 inches long. Imagine that
falling down from a height of 3 miles and hitting a fellow on the head.
It would go clear on down through to your toes. Before any American city
is raided I hope some chemist will invent a barrage shell which will
dissipate all its energy and substance in the bursting. Surely an
airplane can be wrecked by concussion.
An Australian soldier and a girl were standing in a doorway near me
watching the shells burst. His was that common case--a soldier in London
on leave, speculating on where the shrapnel would fall, and becoming
peeved as he thought of it. "A hell of a place for a man to come on
leave! I came here to get rest and quiet, and I run into this gory
mess!"
While waiting the permission of the British authorities I learned that
all a correspondent's troubles do not come from foreign censorship. An
American newsman had cabled over something which did not please one of
our admirals then in London. Meeting that same admiral, I put in a word
for my trip to the naval base, thinking that he might warm up and hurry
things along for me. He warmed up, but on the side away from me. He
recounted the enormous villainy of that newsman, and in conclusion said:
"Perhaps, after all, the best way to do is not to allow you newspaper
men to send a word at all!"
Such an air of finality! He spoke as though he owned the navy; also the
press.
One now and again grows up like that. By taking care not to die, and in
the absence of plucking boards, they rise to be admirals. Then
side-boys, the bosun's pipes, the 13 guns coming over the side--all this
ritual goes to their heads. They get to thinking after a while that the
whole business is a tribute to their genius, or valor, or something or
other personal. Perhaps all this one needed was a little salve; but I
thought it up to some writer to fire a shot across his bows. So I came
back with: "That's all very well, sir, about your not allowing a word to
be sent, but there may be another point of view. There are 110,000,000
people over in our country, and some of them may not look on our navy as
the sole property of its officers. They may want to know what that navy
of theirs is doing over here. And perhaps no harm in telling them--or
some day they may decide to have no navy at all."
Imagination was not his long suit, so he had no card to follow with. But
he did glare.
After two weeks of waiting I got word from my very human London censor
that I might leave for the naval base. I left from Euston Station during
an air-raid. The station had been darkened hours earlier, and it was a
new kind of sport going around that big black place to locate the
cloak-room, and after you got the cloak-room to identify your baggage
from a big tumbled pile.
I lit a cigar, and as I did a policeman jumped me for showing a light.
Stopping to light it under my hat, a tall, able woman, dragging a trunk
by the strap, bowled into me. While we were in our compartments, the
train all made up, there came a banging of barrage guns--bang, bang,
bang--with now and then the boo-oom! of a bomb.
While we were waiting there we heard the crash of shrapnel coming
through the glass roof. By and by another bunch of shrapnel fell with a
fine ringing of metal on the concrete platform alongside the train. No
harm done. The raiders passed, the banging and the booming stopped; but
there was then no driver and stoker for the train. They had gone with
the second load of shrapnel, and we had to wait two hours while they dug
up a new crew.
After three and a half hours of deck-pacing on the steamer, and
twenty-two hours of sitting up straight in third-class wooden seats, I
made the naval base; and late at night though it was, there was a
British naval officer at the hotel to let me know I was to report next
morning to the British admiral in charge.
This admiral had a reputation in London for having no use for newspaper
men. When this staff-officer asked me if I had heard of his admiral
before, I told him what I heard in London. "He eats 'em alive," I was
told by a big London journalist, and I repeated that now, of course
without naming the journalist.
"And what do you think of that?" asked this staff-officer.
"If he tries to eat me alive I hope he chokes," I answered to that. I
figured he would tell his chief that, but there had been so much
boot-licking done by a couple of writers over there that, for the honor
of the craft, I thought somebody ought to have a wallop at these press
crushers once in a while.
This admiral is worth a paragraph, because he was a type. He was a
capable man up to his limitations; a good executive, a devotee to duty;
but he should have lived before printing-presses were invented. Also he,
too, lacked imagination.
He was a man who acted as if priding himself on his brusqueness of
language. He sat at his flat desk like a pagan image, never looked up,
never said aye, no, or go to the devil when I stepped in and wished him
"Good morning!"
I told him what I wanted. I wished to cruise with the American
destroyers in their U-boat operations.
His answer was a No! Bing! No, sir!
"Whoops!" I said to myself. "I've come more than 4,000 miles, with a
fine expense account to _Collier's_, and I'm turned down before I get
going."
I spread before him my credentials--from the department and elsewhere. I
spread before him a letter from Colonel Roosevelt, the same in his own
handwriting. In France I could have lost my passport and yet got along
on that letter. Batteries of inspectors used to sit up and come to life
at the sight of a letter in the colonel's own handwriting.
This man did not turn his head to look at what I might have. All the
credentials in the world were going to have no influence with him. He
repeated his No, putting about seventeen n's in the No!
Then, mildly, I told him that I thought I ought to have something more
than a No; that I should have a reason to go with the No. He intimated
that he didn't have to give reasons unless he wished to.
I asked him why he should not wish to? Was it not right and fair that he
should give a reason? I had come more than 4,000 miles at great expense
to _Collier's_, for one thing. For another--and this more
important--there was an anxiety among Americans to know something of the
doings of our little destroyer flotilla. They had sailed out into the
East, been swallowed up in the mists of the Atlantic--that was the last
we had seen of them. They were the first of our forces to come in
contact with the enemy. Were they doing good work over here, or were
they tied up to a dock in some port and their officers and crews
roistering ashore?
Still he said No.
Then I went on to tell him what I had told our own archaic type of
admiral in London--with additions: that it was possible that we had in
the United States a different idea of the navy from what the British
public held; that in our own country a lot of people held the notion
that the navy was not the property of the officers, not quite so much as
it was the property of the people; and that holding that view, these
same people thought themselves entitled to know what that navy was doing
to back their faith in it. And perhaps it was not the worst policy in
the world to tell them what that navy was doing.
Still he said No.
But why?
Well, for one thing (he was disintegrating a little), in the British
service they did not allow civilians of any kind to go to sea with their
ships in war time. That further--they allowed no reports of their work
at sea to appear in the press.
I pointed out that reports of fine deeds were, nevertheless, appearing
in the press; that from the London dailies of the week past I had made
clippings of such, and if he cared to see them I would show them to him.
"But we allow no civilians to go cruising with ships at sea in war time.
And I will not establish a precedent now."
It was the old fetich--precedent. I thought of judges who used to hang
men on precedent. He surely had what is called the mediæval mind, with
apologies to that same mediæval age.
I pointed out that conditions in our country and his were not the same.
That there were hundreds of thousands of officers and men in the British
navy; that those officers and men were regularly ashore on liberty or
leave; that they gossiped, and that hundreds of thousands of officers
and men gossiping could pass the word pretty far, especially in a
country where there was not a single little hamlet more than 40 miles
from tide-water. With us it was different. Our nearest Atlantic port was
3,000 miles from this very naval base; and 3,000 miles farther to the
Pacific coast, with no hundreds of thousands of men on liberty ashore.
If men like myself were not allowed to tell them something, how were
they ever to learn what was doing?
I wound up by telling him he was an autocrat; which disturbed his graven
serenity. Autocrat and autocracy were not pleasant-sounding words just
then. He snapped his head up, and for the first time looked as if he
might be human.
"We have to be autocratic in war time," he barked.
"Not in everything," I barked back.
Then, and not till then, did he soften. We had a little more
conversation, and then he said he wanted that night to think over the
unprecedented request. He would let me know next day.
A perfect bigot; and yet there were worse than he. He dared to say what
he thought about the rights of his station. Some of his judgments may
have been childish, but his convictions were deep and honest. I
respected him, and later came to have almost a liking for him.
I have expended many paragraphs in telling of this interview, but it is
meant to be more than a statement of one American correspondent. It is
meant to explain a point of view which Americans may find it hard work
to understand. That admiral in charge of our naval base can be
multiplied all the world over. We have them in our own departments.
While waiting the admiral's pleasure I had a look at the port. A fine
harbor, a beautiful harbor, but disfigured now by big, ugly
war-buildings. The houses of the port set mostly up on terraces. There
were several streets, but only one real one in the place, and that ran
along the waterside. All the pubs of the port were naturally located on
this waterside street, and so no tired seafarer had to walk far to get a
drink. Not many of our fellows were to be seen on the streets in
daylight; but at night they were plentiful. A couple of movie theatres
took care of about three hundred of them; the rest walked the waterside
street. There was a port order there that no sailor of ours could stay
in a pub after eight in the evening, so at one minute past eight that
waterside street looked like a naval parade. For the rest the port
offered little or nothing to tempt a man. It was as rainy a place as
ever I was in, and the back streets were crowded with children playing.
Barefooted, healthy children! If they had not been healthy the weather
would surely have killed them off. It was a most moral port, too; too
moral for some people, who thought to put a little life into the place
by making nightly calls there, and made the nightly calls till a local
clergyman protested from the altar, whereupon some muscular young
Christians ran the visitors back aboard their train and out of the
port's history.
Next day the admiral gave me permission to make a cruise with our
destroyers. He seemed to be giving it in the same stubborn fashion that
he had at first refused it--as though he saw his duty in so doing. I was
told that he said he did not think much of my manners; which, of course,
worried me.
I knew quite a few officers in the navy who were commanding destroyers
over there. Any one of them, known or unknown to me, was good enough for
me as a skipper. No man not ready to take a chance puts in for command of
a destroyer over there; and no man not fit is given a command. But I took
passage with one that I had cruised with before--the alert, resourceful
kind with plenty of nerve. If anything should happen, I knew he would be
there with all his crew and his ship had.
What happened while with him and at the naval base I have tried to tell
as separate incidents when I can, in the chapters which follow.
ONE THEY DIDN'T GET
We were one of a group of American destroyers convoying a fleet of
inbound British merchant steamers.
The messenger handed a radio in to the bridge.
"We are being shelled," said the radio; latitude and longitude followed,
as did the name of the ship, _J. L. Luckenbach_. One of us knew her; an
American ship of 6,000 tons or so.
Another radio came: "Shell burst in engine-room. Engineer crippled."
S O S signals were no rare thing in those waters, but even so they were
never passed up as lacking interest; the skipper waited for action.
Pretty soon it came, a signal from the senior officer of our group. The
352--let us give that as the number of our ship--was to proceed at once
to the assistance of the _Luckenbach_.
The skipper's first act was to shake up the second watch-officer, who
also happened to be acting as chief engineer of the ship, and to pass
him the word to speed the ship up to twenty-five knots. We were steaming
at the head of the convoy column at eighteen knots at the time. The
first watch-officer, having finished his breakfast and a morning watch,
was just then taking a little nap on the port ward-room transom with his
clothes and sea-boots still on. The active messenger shook him up too.
The two officers made the deck together, one buttoning his blouse over a
heavy sweater, the other a sheepskin coat over his blouse.
Word was sent to the _Luckenbach_ that we were on the way. Within three
minutes the radio came back: "Our steam is cut off. How soon can you get
here?"
Up through the speaking-tube came a voice just then to say that we were
making twenty-five knots. At the same moment our executive officer, who
also happened to be the navigator, handed the skipper a slip of paper
with the course and distance to the _Luckenbach_, saying: "That was at
nine-fifteen."
It was then nine-seventeen. Down the tube to the engine-room went the
order to make what speed she could. Also the skipper said: "She ought to
be tearing off twenty-eight soon as she warms up. And she's how far now?
Eighty-two miles? Send this radio: 'Stick to it--will be with you within
three hours.'"
By this time all hands had an idea of what was doing and all began to
brighten up. Men off watch, supposed to be asleep in their cots below,
began to stroll up and have a look around decks. Some lingered near the
wireless door, and every time the messenger passed they sort of stuck
their ears up at him. He was a long-legged lad in rubber boots who took
the deck in big strides. His lips never opened, but his eyes talked. The
men turned from him with pleased expressions on their faces.
There was a little steel shelter built on to the chart house to port. It
was for the protection of the forward gun crew, who had to be ready for
action at any minute. Men standing by for action and not getting it
legitimately, try to get it in some other way. So they used to burn up
their spare energy in arguing. It did not matter what the argument was
about--the President, Roosevelt, the Kaiser, the world series--any
subject would do so long as it would grow into an argument. The rest of
the crew could hear them--threatening to bust each other's eyes out--clear
to the skid deck sometimes. But now all quiet here, and soon they were
edging out of their igloo and calling down to the fellows on the main
deck: "That right about a ship being shelled by a sub? Yes. Well!" They
went down to their shelter smiling at one another.
Ship's cooks, who rarely wander far from their cosey galley stoves,
began to show on deck; ward-room stewards came out on deck; a gang
black-painting a tank hatch--they all slipped over to the rail and,
leaning as far out as they could and not fall overboard, had long looks
ahead. And then they all turned to see what 352's smoke-stacks were
doing. There was great hope there.
The black smoke was getting blacker and heavier. They were sure feeding
the oil to her. The chief came up the engine-room ladder. An old petty
officer waylaid him. Doing well, was she, sir?--She was. Hem! About how
well, sir?--Damn' well. She was kicking out twenty-eight--twenty-eight
good--and picking up.
Twenty-eight and picking up? And the best she showed in her builders'
trial was twenty-nine-one! What d'y' know about her? Some little old
packet, hah?
It was a fine day, the one fine day of the trip, a rarely fine day for
this part of the northern ocean at this time of year. It was cloudy, but
it was calm. There was a long, easy swell on, but no sea to make her
dive or pitch. The swell, when she got going in good shape, set her to
swinging a little, but that did not hurt. A destroyer just naturally
likes to swing a little.
Swinging along she went, rolling one rail down and then the other, but
not making it hard to stand almost anywhere around deck, except that
when you went aft there was a drive of air that lifted you maybe a
little faster than you started out to go. Swinging along she went, a
long, easy swing, carrying a long white swash to either side of her,
vibrating a thousand to the minute on her fantail, streaming out a long
white and pale-blue wake for as far as we could see, and just clear of
her taffrail piling up the finest little hill of clear white boiling
water.
Twenty-nine, they say, she was making, and still picking up. What!
Thirty? And a little more left in her? What d'y' know--some little baby,
hah?
Another radio came to the bridge: "A shell below our water-line.
Settling, but still afloat and still fighting."
"Good work. Stick to it," they said on the bridge, and wondered whether
it was the skipper or the radio man who was framing the messages. He had
the dramatic instinct, whoever he was.
Perhaps twenty minutes later came: "Water in our engine-room."
And then: "Fire in our forehold, but will not surrender. Look for our
boats."
And: "They are now shooting at our antennæ."
Radios to the bridge are not posted up for the crew to gossip over, but
there was no keeping that last one under cover.
"Shelling their attenay? Well, the mortifying dogs! Whatever you do,
don't let 'em get your attenay, old bucket."
Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We were getting near the
spot. The canvas caps came off the guns, and the gun crews were told to
load and stand by. A chief gunner's mate was told to make ready his
torpedo-tubes. He was a famous torpedo-man. He would stay up all night
with an ailing gyro or hydrostatic piston and not even ask to sleep in
next morning for a reward, and he had a record of making nothing but
hits at torpedo-practice. But he had been glum all the trip. He had
stayed past the legal hour on liberty the last time in, and the shore
patrol had come along and scooped him up. A court-martial was coming to
him and so he had been glum; but not now. He went around decks smiling,
with a little steel thing that looked like a wrist-bag but wasn't. It
held the keys to the magazines.
Pretty soon he had torpedo-tubes swinging inboard and outboard, and
between every pair of tubes a man sitting up in an iron seat that looked
like the kind that goes with a McCormick reaper, which all helped the
gunner's mate to feel better. He stopped ten seconds to tell the story
of the new gun-crew man who was sent up the yard to the storekeeper for
a pair of spurs to ride the torpedo-tubes with.
There were four guns, one forward, one aft, and two in the waist. They
had been slushed down with vaseline to keep the salt-water rust off; now
they were swabbing the grease off. Grease on the outside of a gun does
not affect the shooting of the inside, but a gun ought naturally to look
slick going into action.
[Illustration: Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We were
getting near the spot.]
Trainers and pointers stood beside their loaded guns, and other members
of the gun crew held up shells, the noses of the shells stuck into the
deck mat and the butts resting against the young chests of the gun crews
as they stood in line. There was a nineteen-year-old lad who, when I
knew him two years before, was doing boy's work in the Collier
bookbindery. Now he was a gun-captain standing handy to his little pet
and trying not to look too proud when he peeked up toward where I was.
The foretop reported smoke on the horizon ahead. That would be on the
_Luckenbach_. And where she was the U-boat was. The forward gun was
trained a point to right of the smoke.
One senior watch-officer, now in the foretop, called down that he could
now see the ship. Smoke was coming out of her hull. Soon he reported
shells splashing alongside of her. Those would be from the U-boat. Soon
we all could see the ship from the bridge.
The foretop then reported the U-boat. She was almost dead ahead. She
could not be seen from the bridge, but, directed by the foretop, the gun
was trained on the horizon dead ahead; 11,000 yards was the range. The
gun was one of the latest type--only a 4-inch--but a great little gun
just the same.
"Train and fire," said the skipper. Bo-o-m! it went, flame and smoke. We
could not see the splash from the bridge, nor could they in the foretop.
It probably dropped beyond the submarine, which soon we could see--a
pretty big fellow she looked with two guns. She had been shelling the ship
even while we were running up, and as our first shot boomed out she let go
another shell. We expected her to send a couple our way--she probably
carried bigger guns than we did--but she did not; she let go another at
the steamer. "Maybe at the antennæ," said a chief quartermaster on the
bridge.
We shortened our range. The gun was trained and ready for firing when a
sea rolled up on us. The ocean was smooth enough, but the swell was
still on--a long swell of the kind that does not sputter, but walk right
up and announce their arrival by arriving. This long blue swell rolled
up to our bow.
We were doing thirty knots and at thirty knots a little ship doesn't
need a masthead sea to get action. We went into it head first. It came
right on over our bow, over our foc'sle head, over the forward gun. The
shield to the forward gun stood probably six feet above the foc'sle
deck. That wave rolled right over the gun-shield.
There was a C. P. O. standing quite close to the shield. He grabbed a
vertical rod on the outside of the shield, and just managed to hook in
the fingers of one hand. The sea, all white and solid, rolled over the
gun and the shield. The C. P. O. was swept off his feet, but he was a
stubborn one and hung on. Behind him was the officer in charge of the
firing. When he saw that sea rolling up there was nothing near but the
C. P. O., so he grabbed the C. P. O. with both hands around the waist.
He too was swept off his feet, but he hung on--to the C. P. O. They both
floated flat out on the white roller, and the white roller went smash-o!
up against the chart house.
The chart house was just under the bridge, and the glass windows had
been taken out from the bridge railing so that they would not be smashed
by the concussion of the forward gun. We were leaning out of these open
spaces, just getting ready to laugh at the people below when, swabbo! up
the side of the chart house and through the open spaces and into our
open mouths came the wash of the sea.
Another wave followed that one, but not quite so high. As soon as it
passed the forward gun was trained and fired. We had been making great
leaps ahead all this time--the range now was under 9,000 yards. The
foretop reported it short.
The U-boat was still there. We still expected her to send one our way.
But nothing doing for us. She sent another shell toward the steamer. The
steamer had quit firing. No use. The U-boat had simply taken position
beyond range of the steamer's guns and leisurely as she pleased was
shelling her. Our third shell landed close to the sub. And then down she
went and wasted no time at it. Before we could train and fire again she
was gone.
The sub, as we learned later, had landed fifteen shells into the steamer
and wounded nine of her people, of whom three were of the bluejacket gun
crew.
One young bluejacket had been hit twice. He was carrying a shell to the
gun when he caught the second one--a piece of flying shell in his
shoulder. He laid his own shell on the deck to see how about it, and got
hit again; this time in what our navy calls the stern sheets. That made
him mad. He shook his fist toward the sub. "No damn' German's going to
hit me three times and get away with it." He grabbed his shell off the
deck and slammed it into the gun-breech. "Hand it to 'em, Joe!" he
yelled to the gun-pointer. Joe did his best, but he didn't have the
gun--the shot splashed where most of them had, about half a mile short
of the sub.
Still pouring the black smoke out of our funnels, we leaped toward the
_Luckenbach_ and hailed her through the megaphone when we breasted her.
She hailed back that she had water in her afterhold and fire in her
forehold, and gave us the number of her wounded. Two of the three
wounded bluejackets were injured seriously. We could see them stretched
out under the gun.
We were steaming around the _Luckenbach_ at twenty knots while we were
hailing: this in case the sub took it in her head to pop up again and
catch us slowed down. We did slow down and stop when it came time to
clear away a whale-boat and send it over to the steamer with our senior
watch-officer and the surgeon, with the needful surgical supplies.
We continued to steam circles around the steamer all the time they were
aboard, with our lookouts keeping eyes skinned for the U-boat. By her
manner of shelling the steamer after he had opened fire our skipper
judged she was a tough one. She did show once while we were circling the
_Luckenbach_. Her periscope popped up about a mile abeam of us. It may
have popped up again--it was getting to be a nice little choppy sea good
for sub work and no saying that it was not--but we only sighted it once,
and then it did not linger.
The sea was growing lumpy when the whale-boat came bouncing back with
our senior officer. It was right about the _Luckenbach_ having nine
injured, but all would get well. The doctor was looking after them. She
was a cotton steamer. The kid who had been hit twice was all right. He
was walking around deck with his cap over his port ear and proud as
Billy-be-Damn'--three times wounded by German shell fire and got away
with it!
The fire in the forehold? Most of it was from two old mattresses--at
least that was all he found.
"Did you put the fire out?"
"Yes, sir. The steamer's crew were too tired to do any more hustling
around to put any fire out, so we got out a hose and put it out."
"How about that bulkhead?" asked the skipper. "He hailed that he didn't
think it would stand the strain of steaming."
"Maybe so, sir, but I don't agree with him. I don't see how that
bulkhead's going to cave in with all those bales of cotton jammed up
against it. What the most of them over there are suffering from is the
reaction from that three hours of shelling--everything was looking
pretty blue to them, sir."
"Can he make steam?"
"Yes, sir. Their engineer has two ribs busted in and a piece of shrapnel
in his neck and part of his foot shot away. But he's all right. He was
lying down when I first saw him, cursing the Germans blue. Then he says:
'Put me on my feet, men.' A couple of oilers put him on his feet. I
thought he was going to give orders to make steam, but he only wanted to
be stood up so as he could curse the Germans a little better. Lying down
interfered with his wind. He rolled it out in one steady stream for ten
minutes. He was an Italian, or maybe a Spaniard, and his English wasn't
perfect, but he could talk like hell. He's all right. He'll get steam
up, sir."
By and by they did make steam and begin to move on a course our skipper
wigwagged to them. The skipper left the surgeon aboard, and at twenty
knots the 352 steamed more circles around the steamer, all lookouts
meanwhile skinning their eyes afresh for signs of the sub. We could make
out a lot of smoke on the southern horizon. It was the convoy we had
left in the morning. An hour later the _Luckenbach_ found her legs.
Our cripple broke no records for speed, but she was making revolutions,
and by five o'clock we rejoined the convoy with her alongside.
So here is an eight hours' log for the 352: At nine in the morning she
was responding to S O S-ing ninety miles away; at five in the afternoon
we had her tucked away for the night in the column.
The tall quartermaster came up on the bridge to stand his watch. We were
in our regular position, at the head of the column at twenty knots. He
looked back at the fleet. "There you are, Lucky Bag. They must have had
you checked up and counted in, a big ship and a three-million-dollar
cargo, this morning, and here you are to-night--one they didn't get."
THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE
Every American destroyer over here rates a young surgeon. What some of
these surgeons don't know about seagoing can be found in about six
hundred pages of Knight's "Modern Seamanship," but that does not matter
much. Let them look after the casualties; there are capable young naval
officers to look after the seagoing end.
Most of these young surgeons have a taste for adventure. If they had
not, they would not be over here. The 352 drew one, born and raised in a
Southern State. Before coming over here he had viewed the Atlantic once
or twice from a distance, which did not quite content him. His ancestors
must have crossed that same Atlantic to get to America, and somewhere
within him was a high-pitched string that vibrated to every thrill of
that same ocean now.
He used to speak of these things in the smoking-room of the King's Hotel
here, which is where every destroyer officer comes at least once between
cruises to get a--cup of coffee. He would have liked to make a few sea
voyages when he was a little younger, but if a fellow is ever going to
amount to anything he has to settle down sometime and become a
respectable member of society--so his folks were always saying, and so
he took up medicine. He liked his profession. A doctor can do a heap of
good in a suffering world--especially if people will only let him. But
so many people want a young doctor to be experienced before they ever
will call him in! "Get experience," they say; and not a doggone one in a
dozen'll ever give a fellow any chance to get the experience. "What the
most of 'em want is for some one else to give us the experience." He did
as well as the next young doctor, but at times he would grow almost
melancholy sitting before the smoking-room fire telling of his waiting
for business in his home town.
He was not at all melancholy by nature. He could keep the ward-room mess
ringing with darky stories on a quiet night in port. His messmates
called him Doc; and when the ship was at sea they were all glad to see
him on the bridge studying things out. He had plenty of time for that.
In two cruises his only cases were one quartermaster, who got hove
across the bridge and broke his nose, and a gunner's mate who broke his
leg by being bounced out of his bunk one windy night. They were a
disgustingly healthy lot, these destroyer crews.
But he felt pleased just to be out to sea. These high hills of moving
water sure did give a little ship heaps of action sometimes. He would
watch them from the bridge. He would watch the officer of the watch too,
and the man at the wheel, and the lookouts with their eyes skinned for
U-boats, and the signal quartermasters balanced on the flying bridge and
sending their messages in a jumping sea-way. He would go down to the
chart house with the navigator and stand by to pass him dividers and
parallels. He would stop to sigh when he thought that if somebody had
only tipped him off in time he might have gone to Annapolis and right
now be a young naval officer dashing around on one of these same
destroyers. Still, being a surgeon on one of them wasn't too bad. If
they had a battle or anything, a ship's doctor wasn't going to be too
far away.
It was in his third cruise that the 352 got the S O S which resulted in
the rescue of the big steamer spoken of. There had been other S O S's--any
number of them--but this time there was something doing for our young
doctor. When she signalled that nine of her people had been wounded by
shell and shrapnel fire, and the 352's skipper ordered a deck officer and
a whale-boat away, he also told Doc to break out his medical gear and go
along. Doc already had his surgical gear ready; from the first word of
the shelling he had gone below, and now everything was laid out ready for
action on the ward-room transom.
Over to the ship they went, all hands in life-vests, and while the deck
officer of the 352 was cross-questioning the captain and engineer, and
looking around to see how much damage had been done and so on, Doc was
rigging up an operating-table between the chart house and the chart deck
rail, slinging the table in sort of hammock style so that when the ship
rolled she would not roll his patients overboard.
Doc was no mean little operator. The great danger to most of the wounded
men was of infection. One after the other, he had his cases up, asked
about four questions, had about four looks, and went to it. No knowing
that the U-boat might pop up again and try a few more shells, or that a
bulkhead would not give way, or a boiler blow up when they tried to make
steam below. No knowing; no.
Up they came to his swinging table, where Doc took a probe, poked into
the wound, wrapped cotton around the probe, soaked it in iodine, jabbed
it in, twisted it around, swabbed it out, dressed it down, slapped the
patient on the chest, said "Next," and did it all over again.
"Next! You'd think it was a blessed barber's shop," Doc heard one of
them say. Only he was an officer--by the back of his head Doc knew
it--some of them would have told him what they thought of his rapid-fire
action. But it was no time for canoodling--it was war, and they were all
rated as grown men and so able to stand a few little painful touches.
One terribly wounded patient gave him worry. On him Doc worked with
great care. He was working on him, all the others being attended to,
when the 352's deck officer came to say that he was going back to the
destroyer to report. "The captain of this ship wants to abandon her,"
said the deck officer.
"Abandon ship and we will never be able to get this man I got here now
off her--not in this sea, sir," said Doc. "And if he's left alone for
two hours, he'll sure die."
"I'll signal what the skipper says." The officer went off with his crew
in the whale-boat, leaving a hospital steward and a signal quartermaster
to stay with the doctor.
Doc was working away on his hard case when his quartermaster came to say
that the 352 had signalled that they were to stay aboard and that the
steamer was to get under way and steer a course south half east
magnetic.
The doctor, without looking up, said: "All right."
"Shall I tell the steamer's captain, sir?"
This time Doc looked up. "Why, of course, tell him. Why not? Why do you
ask me that?"
"You are the ranking naval officer aboard here, sir. I take orders from
you now, sir."
For about four seconds Doc neglected his patient. That was so; so he
was.
"Yes, tell the captain."
The quartermaster ran up the bridge ladder. Doc gazed over the
chart-rail down to the deck, up and around on the ship. "Doggone!" he
breathed. "I am the ranking--I'm the only naval officer present." Then
he shook his head and bent to his patient. He might have the rank, but
the last thing he was going to do was to butt in on any regular ship's
officers.
The disabled ship went on to her new course, south half east magnetic,
with the destroyer steaming twenty-knot circles around her. And late in
the afternoon they made the convoy. By night she was tucked in the rear
of twenty other ships, the doctor and his emergency staff still aboard.
They were to remain aboard until the steamer made port.
That same night something happened. On the steamer they did not know
just what it was. They saw a column of white, a column of black--those
who happened to be looking--another column of white, from the big ship
of the fleet. And then dark came. There were radios flying about, but
they were code messages and the radio man could not decode them because
the first thing the steamer captain had done that morning when it looked
as though the U-boat was going to make them take to the boats was to
heave the code-books overboard. In the morning they would know.
Morning came, but with it not a ship in sight. Of twenty ships and a
group of destroyers the night before, not one now. It was his
signal-officer who thought it out first. "U-boats thick last night, sir,
and the convoy must 'a' got orders to disperse or else change course,"
he said to the doctor.
"That sounds like good dope to me too." He turned to the steamer's
captain. "Where were you bound, sir?"
"To Havre."
The doctor could see nothing else but to proceed to Havre, and on a
zigzag course. The old captain did not know about the zigzagging; he had
never done any zigzagging and did not know why he should now--besides,
it mixed his reckoning all up.
The doctor said he would fix the zigzagging part of it, and, telling his
hospital steward to have a special eye out for the very sick man, went
into the chart house and proceeded to explain the zigzagging stuff. He
paused to recall all he had ever learned while elbowing the 352's
navigator over the chart-table; also the answers he had got to his
questions while so doing.
You steer 45 degrees off the course you really want to make for so many
minutes and then you steer 90 degrees from that for the same number of
minutes back toward the course you really want to make--see, so--and
that gives so many minutes to the good--see. That was one way.
"How many minutes?" asked the captain.
Doc had to stop and think that over. "Twice the square of the total
minutes--no, no. Take twice the sum of the squares of the minutes on the
two legs--and get the square root and then you have the hypothenuse of
the two sides of the triangle; that is, you have the number of minutes'
steaming you make good on your real course."
The old skipper knew nothing of square roots or hypothenuses or anything
that looked like 'em, and he had always laid his course out by compass
points.
"All right," said Doc, and after a while laid out the zigzag courses in
compass points.
The old fellow did not quite like it, so all that day Doc alternated
between his bad patient and the bridge to keep the skipper reassured
about the zigzagging. Also he urged the crew to have a special watch out
for U-boats.
That night Doc and the seasoned signal quartermaster stood alternate
watches on the bridge. Doc would take a nap; the quartermaster would
take a nap; between them they were figuring to keep a sort of official
navy lookout. There were ship's crew men on the lookout too, but the
reaction from the shelling had set in. Doc used to find them asleep in
the bridge wings.
Just before dawn of the second morning Doc saw a shadow looming on their
starboard bow. He had another look. It was another steamer--a big one.
She was drawing nearer. "See that?" he called to the man at the wheel.
"See what?" sort of drowsed out the man at the wheel.
The trusty quartermaster from the 352 was getting a wink under the
bridge-rail. Doc yelled to him, at the same time grabbing up the
megaphone and roaring into the night air: "Where you-all going? Where
the devil you-all going? Can't you-all see where you're going? Keep
off--keep off."
"Can't _you_ see where you're going?--keep off yourself."
By that time the signal quartermaster was awake and bounding across the
bridge. He grabbed the wheel and began to spin it around. The ship's bow
turned. Doc saw the big hulk go by him in the dark.
"Good work," said Doc. "How'd you spot him so quick?"
"I didn't spot him, sir. I don't see him yet. I went by the sound of his
voice."
"Special little angel perched up aloft to look out for Jack when at
sea--" sang Doc. "I thought that was a nursery rhyme. Now I know it's
true. Between you and me, quartermaster, we'll get this ship to port
yet."
They finished that night and the next day without seeing anything or
having anything happen. Nothing except the argument about the forward
compartment.
Among the shells which had come aboard the steamer was one which had
punched a fine big hole in her bow. The ship's crew had put a plug there
which worked all right till the ship took to rolling, which it did this
day. The hole was just at the water-line. Before they knew anything
about it there was the plug gone and the water up to a man's knees in
the forward compartment. Doc said it should be stopped.
The old skipper wanted to know who was going to stop it. His crew? No,
sir. He wouldn't ask any of 'em to go down there--besides, they wouldn't
go. They were all used up since the battle with the U-boat. It made no
difference if the ship sank. He'd had so much trouble that trip anyway
that he wasn't too sure he wouldn't just as soon see her sink. He wasn't
too sure they wouldn't all be better off in the boats. The U-boat had
ordered them into the boats, and, only the destroyer had come along when
it did, they would 'a' taken to the boats, and then they'd 'a' been
picked up and no more watches or ships or holes in the for'ard
compartment to worry about.
There was nothing left but for Doc to call for volunteers from among the
gun crew. They were bluejackets, and their only complaint on the trip
had been that the U-boat's guns had outranged their guns. They
volunteered in a body--even the three wounded members. Doc took all the
sound ones and went down into the forward compartment with a mattress
and some scantling he found in the hold. The water was by then about up
to the men's waists. It was hard, cold work, but they got it done--the
mattress stuffed into the hole and the scantling shoring it up. It still
leaked, but not much--a little auxiliary steam in there at intervals did
not quite keep her dried out, but it kept her head above water, so that
was all right. All that day she was a lone steamer plugging her halting
way over a wide sea. Seven knots was her speed, and all hands tickled to
be making that because of weak places showing from time to time in her
steam department--damages by shell fire which they did not appreciate
properly at first.
They were nearing the coast of France. They would have to make a
landfall soon, and running without lights, as they were, made things
hard, so the old skipper began to talk to Doc. If the doctor didn't
mind, he would take full charge of the ship himself. She was a big ship
with a three-million-dollar cargo, and if anything happened her, the
owners would naturally look to him, the master, for it.
Doc thought it was a pretty cool way to wash out all record of what his
little force had done, but he also recognized the old fellow's position.
"It sounds reasonable," said Doc, "but I think you ought to give me an
idea of what you're going to do."
"There's been no sun for a sight these two days, but we were here"--he
made a new dot over an old one on the chart--"and logging so many knots
to-day noon we ought to be"--he made another dot--"about here now."
"How about the tides?"
"The tides? Oh, yes! Well, I don't know about the tides. You see, I
never made a port in France before."
"You didn't?"
There was a coast chart-book in the rack. Doc took it down and began to
read it. He made regular trips down to see how his wounded patient was
getting on, but always hurried back to his coast chart-book. Interesting
things in chart-books--he used to read them aboard the destroyer.
That night the first mate came up on the bridge. Doc asked him what kind
of a light he expected to pick up. The mate told him. Doc thought he was
wrong, and said so.
Well, that was the light the old man had said they would make. Where was
he now? Asleep, and Lord knows he needed it.
Doc did not wake him up. He had argued enough with him, but he didn't
think the old man had allowed for the tides, and if anything happened
there would be no more arguments--he would just assert his rank and take
charge of the ship.
Doc went below, gave his worst wounded patient a night potion and saw
him to sleep. He also went down to see the chief engineer, who had been
wounded three times--once in the head. The Doc talked to him awhile--he
was inclined to rave--gave him a half-grain jolt of morphine and saw him
to sleep. He told the signal quartermaster that he had better have a nap
before he dropped in his tracks.
"But the night-watches, sir?"
"We'll leave the night-watches to the ship's crew and Providence. The
watch may sleep on the job, but the Lord won't--at least I hope not.
Anyway, I know I'm doggone tired," said Doc, and turned in.
Doc could have slept longer--about twenty-four hours longer, he thought,
when he found himself awake. It was a sort of grinding under the ship
which had wakened him.
By his illuminated wrist-watch he saw that it was three o'clock--three
in the afternoon, he hoped. But it wasn't. It was three in the morning.
He had been asleep two hours.
He went on deck just as his signal-officer came to tell him the ship was
ashore.
Doc found the old man and the mate looking over charts under a
hand-light in the chart house. "I could 'a' bet we'd 'a' picked up that
other light," the old man was saying.
"The bettin' part don't explain it," said the mate. "A fine place to be
high and dry and a U-boat come along in the morning and plunk us another
few shells between our livers and lights. I'm tired of keeping my mind
on U-boats."
That was when Doc horned in on the old skipper. "I been pretty easy with
you-all. You ought to been twenty miles farther east. You listened to me
and you-all would have been. Look here"--he hauled down the chart-book
and showed them. "And now I'll take charge."
It was low tide when she ran on to the beach. With the flood-tide and
the engines kicking back they had her off at daylight. After that, with
Doc on the bridge, everything seemed to go all right. The mate said he
must have come over the side with a medicine-chest full of horseshoes.
By eleven o'clock next morning they were taking on a pilot outside
Havre.
Havre is a regular French port with jetties leading down from the heart
of the residential places almost. The people, seeing her coming, she
bearing the evident marks of her late battle, crowded down to greet her.
About five minutes was enough for her story to circulate. The bluejacket
gun crew, being in uniform, caught their eyes first. They cheered them,
the brav' Américains. And then the wounded came. Oh, the pity! Three or
four of the wounded, who had all that day been cavorting around deck,
saw the dramatic values and assumed most languid poses. Oh, the great
pity! Whereat two more almost fainted.
The worst wounded one--there was no pretense about him--had to be
carried down the gang-plank. Doc went with him. Good nursing was what he
needed; and he was going to see that he got it.
He got it in the port hospital; and then Doc and his two assistants
turned in and slept sixteen hours by Doc's illuminated wrist-watch.
After cabling and getting his orders, Doc headed for his base. Their
journey back by train and steamer--the two men in dungarees and
life-vests, and Doc in sea-boots and one of those sheepskin coats they
wear on destroyers--was noteworthy but not seagoing, so it is passed up
here.
Doc made his port. We met him in the King's Hotel smoke-room, and he
told us all about it. We had had it already from the quartermaster and
the hospital steward, but Doc was to have a little touch of his own.
"There she was, a little down by the head, but safe in port," concluded
Doc; "and while I was waiting for my orders I had a look around the
place. There was a little square there with little cafés all around the
square, and I sat in front of one of them and had my coffee."
"So this was France," I kept saying to myself. All my life I had been
reading more or less about France, and it used to be a sort of dream to
me to be thinking I might some day get there. And there I was--only a
little corner of France, but it was France, and a pretty sunny little
place after our week to sea.
"And while I sat there people came up and looked me over. I thought it
was my needing a shave, but it wasn't. I had my cap on, and by my cap
they knew me for the officer of the heroes of the ship. After a while
they came up and spoke to me. I didn't get quite what they were all
saying, but I was one brave man--we were all brave men, there was no
doubt about that part. When they all got through one little girl came up
and gave me a bunch of flowers."
He pulled out some kind of a faded flower and sighed. "She was about
eight years old."
"No use talking," I said, "it's a great life." And the quartermaster--he
stood with his signal-flags sticking out under his armpit--said:
"Yes, sir, a great life if we don't weaken."
"What's there to weaken about? Something doing every doggone minute
since we left our ship."
THE 343 STAYS UP
Most shore-going people, after a look at a fleet of our destroyers,
would not mark them high up for safe ships. They are too long and slim
and floppety-like.
But no one can tell their officers and crews anything like that. They
have tried them out and know. You take a destroyer in a ninety-mile
breeze of wind, put her stern to it, give her five or six knots'
headway, and there she'll lay till the North Atlantic blows dry.
And that is not their only quality. Speed, of course; but not that
either. They have a way of staying up after being cut up. There was that
one which was of the first to cross over for the U-boat hunting game.
One dark night she was struck amidships by a 2,000-ton British
sloop-of-war. In crowded quarters and steaming without lights those
little collisions are bound to occur.
This one was hit amidships--bam!--and amidships is a bad place for a
destroyer to be hit--her big engine and boiler-room compartment lie
amidships.
This one of ours was hit so hard that nobody aboard ever thought she
would stay up. She did go down till her deck was flush with the water's
edge, but there she stayed; and her crew, climbing back aboard, took a
hawser from the sloop-of-war, which towed her back to port. She was a
fine heartening sight coming in. If she could come back, why worry about
minor mishaps?
One of them--the 343 say--had performed her duty, which was to see a
small convoy to a point well on toward a large port, and was returning
to the naval base.
She was in no great rush, and, it happening to be smooth water, which is
a rare thing up this way at this time of the year, she stopped for a
little needed gun practice.
There was no more thought than usual of U-boats. Nobody would have been
surprised if one popped up--it was a coast where they had been regularly
operating--but no one was particularly expecting one.
Destroyers are bad medicine if you do not get to them quickly, and
lately the U-boats seemed to care more to get merchant ships; but this
day the lookouts were not loafing on their job on that account.
The 343 got through with her target practice, and, except for a few
gunners' mates still coddling their pet guns, the crew were taking it
easy around deck; and also, because of the smooth sea, the ship was
making easy weather of it toward port.
Seeing a periscope is oftentimes a matter of luck. When they stay up it
is easy enough, but when they are porpoising, shooting it up for just a
look around, you have to be looking right at one. What they first saw on
the 343 was the wake of this torpedo, coming on at a forty-knot clip for
the waist of the ship.
The commander of the 343 was on the bridge at the time and saw the wake
almost with the cry of the lookout. The wake was then pretty handy to
the ship, and the torpedo itself would be fifty feet or so ahead of the
wake.
There was no getting away from it then. The only hope was to take it
somewhere else than amidships. Engine and boiler compartments were
amidships. If it struck her there they might as well call it taps for
all hands. So the commander put the wheel hard over--to take it on his
quarter, where there was also a chance that it would pass under her.
Torpedoes generally strike twelve to fifteen feet under water, but just
before this one could make the 343 it broached--came to the surface of
the water--but without slacking her forty-knot speed. It was unusual and
spectacular. The sun shone on the polished sides of her as she leaped
from the sea.
She struck the 343 above her water-line and pretty well aft. Those on
her deck who saw her make that last leap out of water hoped for the
best, though waiting for the worst. But the resulting explosion was
nothing tremendous--so officers and men say, and so adding a little more
data to U-boat history. The bark of one of their own little 4-inch guns
was more impressive. There was a flame and an up-shooting cloud of black
smoke, followed instantly by another explosion, that of their own depth
charges, of which there were two of 300 pounds each in the stern. Those
who had any thoughts about it at the time were sure that if the torpedo
did not get them the depth charges would.
When they went to look they found that thirty-odd feet of the after end
of their ship had been blown clean off. The torpedo had hit them on the
port side, and the wreckage was hanging from the starboard quarter. Of
the after gun only the base was left; they never did see any of the rest
of it. The gunner's mate, one of those men who love to keep a gun in
shape, was swabbing it out at the time, and they never saw anything of
him again.
The chief petty officers' quarters were farthest aft on the 343. The
after bulkhead to their compartment was blown in, leaving the inside of
the ship open to sea and sun. Fourteen men were in there at the time,
lounging around or in their bunks. Many of them were bruised and all
were shook up, but they all made the deck. They do not know how they
made it, but they did. The after hatchway to the deck was closed with
tumbling wreckage, so they must have gone up the midship hatch.
One man taking a nap in the cot bunk farthest aft had a part of the
bulkhead blown past him. It cut off a corner of his cot and broke one of
his legs, and blew him into the passageway in passing. Landing in the
passageway he sprained his other ankle. He is not quite sure how he made
the deck without help, but he did make it, and he says he beat some of
them to it at that.
The man who was working on the after gun with the gunner's mate who was
blown up, saw the shining torpedo leaping in the sun and heading
straight for his part of the ship. If he did not do something he knew he
was in for it, so he began to take long high leaps forward. The
explosion came while he was in the air on his third long high jump. All
he remembers happening to him after that was of an ocean of water
flowing over him, and he not minding it at all. When he came to, the
doctor was looking him over for broken bones, but did not find any.
After the doctor left him he sat up and said: "I bet I've been as near
to a torpedo exploding and getting away with it as anybody in the world,
hah?" And "Yes," said one of his shipmates, "and I bet you made a
world's record for three long high jumps, without a run, too. You sure
did travel, boy."
When it was all over the two propeller shafts were still sticking out
astern, one naked and shining in the sun; the other also shining and
naked, but with a propeller still in place on it. Spotting that, the
skipper ordered the engines turned. To their delight the shaft revolved,
the ship began to move. No record-breaking pace, but--God love the
builder of a good little ship--she was making revolutions. The wreckage
hanging from her starboard quarter acted as a rudder, and so, instead of
going straight ahead, she began to go round in circles.
She continued to make circles, and her officers and men stood to
stations and waited for what next would happen. Destroyer people have it
that there are grades of U-boat commanders--some of nerve, some only
ordinary. The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack a destroyer is a
good one. He will bear watching; so what they expected was to see this
U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did come up and at the right
place to get another torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. So
they waited, some thinking one thing, and some another, but all agreeing
that the odds were against them.
The U-boat did show again. They saw her conning-tower slipping through
the water at about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343 was ready in so
far as he could be ready with his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun
stations, and that conning-tower had hardly got above the surface when
two of the 343's guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, the
fourth one pretty handy. But no more. She submerged to the
discouragement of one earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the breech
of his little 4-inch to say: "One more and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me
next month's pay that I get her if she shows for two shots again."
She did not show again, but her not showing did not end the 343's
troubles. They could steam in circles, but it was not getting them
anywhere. A few miles away was one of the roughest shores in the world,
the kind where green seas piled up against rocky cliffs--and a tide that
was already setting them toward it. A bad enough place in any kind of
weather, but with wind and sea making, and this time of year!
It was about two in the afternoon they were torpedoed. By dark they were
being driven by the tide and white-capped seas to the shore. They had
one hope left. Their radio operator had managed to keep the radio gear
in commission, and through all their troubles he had been sending out
S O S calls, though not with too great hope that anybody would come in
time. The U-boats had been pretty active thereabout, and it was not on
any main sea route. There was always the chance, of course, that some
war-ships would be somewhere near.
For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, six hours they drifted.
Their wireless kept going out of commission, and their radio operator
kept patching it up and getting it going again. S O S--he never let up
with that call. It was midnight when a British mine-sweeper bore down
and hailed. By then they could hear the high seas breaking on the rocks
abeam. The Britisher got the word across the wind, and tried to pass a
messenger--a light line, that is--across to the 343. They did not make
it. They tried again and again, but no use. The 343 was then within a
few hundred yards of the breakers.
The skipper of the Britisher then hailed that he would try to get a boat
to them. They could hear him calling for volunteers to man the boat. He
got the volunteers, and without being able to see every detail of it in
the dark, the 343's people knew what was happening. They were making a
lee of the trawler so as to get the boat over. But the boat was swashing
in and out against the side of the ship--up on a sea and then bang! in
against the side of the ship. Merely as a sporting proposition, their
own lives not depending on it, the 343's people would have been praying
for that boat to get safely away.
The boat managed at last to get away from the side of the mine-sweeper,
and in time, pitching down on the rollers, they made out to heave a line
aboard the 343. And on the deck of the 343 they were right there to grab
it and bend it on to a hawser. Fine. Off went the mine-sweeper after she
had taken her boat aboard, tugging heartily. She tugged too heartily for
the length and size of the hawser. It parted.
They did it all over again--the lowering the boat in the rough sea, the
passing the line, the bending on of the bigger line, the attempt to tow.
And again it parted. Wouldn't that test men's faith in their good luck?
The 343 thought so. Once more tried it, and once more it parted, but
this time not parting until they were far enough off the beach to be
safe till daylight.
At daylight a British sloop-of-war came along with a real big hawser and
gave them a real tow to our naval base. A group of us were steaming out
with a fleet of merchantmen to sea as she was being towed in. Our
fellows would have liked to turn out to give her a little cheer, also to
inquire into the details of her mishap, but we had to keep on going, and
wait until our return to port after a cruise to have a look at her.
She was in dry dock when we got back to port, and the most
smashed-up-looking object that any of us had ever seen come in from sea.
The wonder was how she ever stayed up long enough to make port. That
gaping after end open to sea and sky, and the bare propeller shaft
sticking out from the insides of her--she sure did look like she needed
nursing! They agreed that they were a lucky bunch to get her home.
One poor fellow was killed--a wonder there were not more--and all hands
were sorry for him; but tragedy and comedy so often bunk together, and
men who adventure are more apt to dwell on the humorous than the tragic
side of things. There was that about the code-books. The instructions to
all ships are to get rid of the code-books if there is ever any
likelihood of the enemy capturing the ship. The code-books are bound in
thick lead covers. They are kept in a steel box, and altogether they
weigh--I do not know, I never lifted them--but some say they weigh 150,
some say 200 pounds. After the 343 was torpedoed, an ensign grabbed up
the code-book chest, tossed it onto his shoulder, and waltzed out of the
ward-room passage and onto deck with it. You would think it was a
feather pillow he was dancing off with. When the danger of capture was
over our young ensign hooked his fingers into the chest handles to waltz
back with it. But nothing doing. It took two of them to carry it back,
and they did not trip lightly down any passageway with it either,
proving once again that there are times when a man is stronger than at
other times.
After the 343 made port the injured were handed over to the sick bay of
the flag-ship. There were two of them who must have been pretty handy to
the storm centre of the explosion. At least, it took two young surgeons
on the flag-ship all of one day to pick the gun-cotton out of their
backs.
There was another man. The doctors, when they came to look him over,
found the print of a perfect circle on the fleshiest part of his
anatomy. It was so deeply pressed in that the blue and yellow flesh
bulged out all around from it. The doctors said it must have been made
by a wash-basin being blown against him as he ran up the ladder to the
deck. But the man himself knew better than that. "Excuse me, doctor," he
said, "but it was nothing so light and soft as a wash-basin hit me. It
was something more solid and bigger than that. It was the water-cooler,
and I didn't run up any ladder--I was blown up."
The destroyer people have great faith in the durability of their little
ships. They are slim-built, and not much thicker in the plates than
seven pages of the Sunday paper--they know that, but maybe that is their
safety. There is no getting a fair wallop at them. They evade the issue.
One man compared them to a hot-water bottle. Try to swat a loaded
hot-water bottle. And what happens? "When you poke it in one place don't
it bulge out in another to make up for it? Sure it does. And how do you
account for that other one we were talking about? A couple o' years
ago--the one that had her stern cut off so that the men in the after
compartment leaned out where the bulkhead had been, but wasn't then, and
chinned themselves up to the deck from the outside? And how do you
account for her bouncing along at twenty knots or more in a gale of wind
and a rough sea, and nothing happening them? Get shook up--yes. But they
come home, don't they? They sure do. Maybe it's luck, but also maybe
it's the way they're thrown together--loose and limber-like."
Whatever it is, they are dashing in and out over there on their job of
convoying merchant ships and hunting U-boats. They expect to get their
bumps, and they do; but so long as they get an even break they are not
kicking. The chart-house gang on the 343 say that they are satisfied
they get an even break all right. If she did not fill her little
three-straight that time then nobody ever did get any cards in the draw.
They were sticking a new stern onto the 343 when I left the naval base.
When they get it well glued on she is going out again. Maybe that same
U-boat--you can't always tell, some people have luck--maybe that same
U-boat will come drifting her way again. And if they see her first--pass
the word for the gun crews!
THE CARGO BOATS
I have spoken earlier of meeting cargo boats--tramp steamers, we call
them at home--while crossing the Atlantic. In peace times a fellow would
naturally expect to see them here, or almost anywhere else on the wide
ocean; but to see them in these war days was to set a man wondering
about them.
Wondering, because more than 90 per cent of U-boat sinkings are of ships
of less than 12 knots' speed; which means that these rusty old junk
heaps, wheezing along at maybe 9 or 10, but more likely at 7 or 8 knots,
furnish most of the sinkings. They surely must be having great old times
getting by the U-boats, and their captains and crews must surely have a
view-point of their own!
At this naval base of which I have been writing, you could look almost
any day and see 5, 10, or 20 of these cargo boats to moorings. And
ashore was a pub--there were other pubs, plenty of them--but to this one
particular pub came bunches of these cargo captains to forget things.
(Without wishing to offend any prohibition advocate, I have to report
that knocking around the world a man cannot help noticing that men who
face peril regularly do sometimes take a drink to ease off things.)
A barmaid, answering to the name of Phyllis, presided over this pub, a
blond, square-built, capable person, who had always about three or four
of these captains standing on their heads. She was not without
sentiment, but never letting sentiment interfere with business.
"Phyllis, my dear," a skipper would begin, and get about that far when
she--her right hand reaching for the bottle of Scotch and her left for
the soda--would be saying: "The same, captain?"--thereby choking off a
great rush of words, and forwarding the business for which she drew one
pound ten a week.
Before a creature of that kind these cargo captains were bound to preen
themselves. They bought at frequent intervals, not at all like the ways
of another group--not cargo captains--of whom one of our American
warrant officers said: "You buy and buy and buy, and they drink and
drink and drink. It comes time for them to buy, and when it does they
submerge, and don't come up for air."
These cargo skippers were always coming up for air. They would hunt a
man three stories up in his room, wake him out of his sleep, and haul
him down-stairs to have just one more. Between drinks, after they got to
know a man pretty well, they would talk of their sea experiences; and,
after the fashion of all true adventurers, their talk was almost always
of the humorous side of things.
There was a skipper there one morning who bid all hands, especially
Phyllis, good-by. He was off to Alexandria. He would not be back for
three months--more likely five or six months. Phyllis pinned a flower in
his coat and off he went. From the pub window they saw him board his
ship, and an hour later saw her steam out of the harbor and to sea.
That was at ten in the morning. At five in the afternoon--the lights
were just being turned on--those in the pub who happened to be looking
out of the window thought they saw this captain's ghost coming up the
waterside with his crew trailing behind him. The crew looked as if they
had dressed in a hurry and were scampering along to keep warm. But our
skipper was wearing all he wore when he left the pub.
He drew nearer. It was no ghost. It was himself, even to the rose in his
coat. He hailed Phyllis. She was talking to another skipper. The other
skipper turned to see who was butting in, and seeing who it was, said:
"To Egypt and back in seven hours--the quickest voyage ever I 'eard of!"
Which comment so depressed the voyager that he refused to say anything
about what had happened, except that five miles outside of the harbor he
had been torpedoed, and they had to take to the boats in a hurry.
The foregoing is by way of introducing the captain who commented on the
quick voyage. A few mornings later I was up at the Admiralty House when
he came into the waiting-room, let himself carefully down into a
mahogany chair, dropped his new soft gray hat into his lap, and looked
around.
"A solemn place, ain't it? Would they 'ang a chap, d'y' think, if he was
to 'ave a bit of a smoke for 'imself while waitin'?"
I said that I thought the fashion nowadays was to take a man out and
stand him up against the wall and shoot him.
He was tall, heavily built, fresh-colored, with a way of seeming to
reflect deeply before he replied to anything. By and by he said: "Oh,
aye!" and lit his cigarette, but had not taken the second puff when the
doorkeeper's feet sounded outside, at which sound he pinched the
cigarette hurriedly by the neck, and looked around for somewhere to dump
it. There was no ash-tray, and the table being bare mahogany, the floor
all polished wood, the fireplace with no fire in it, so brassy and shiny
that to put anything there would be treason--he dropped the cigarette
into his hat.
The doorkeeper smelled something, but he wasn't one who looked on lowly
things when he walked, and so did not see the little spiral of smoke
curling up from the hat.
My seafarer was in a great stew. To sit there and watch him was to warm
up to him. There he was, a man who regularly faced death by more ways
than one at sea, but now in deep fear that this shore-going flunky would
catch him smoking a surreptitious cigarette. He stared determinedly at
every place except at his hat until the doorkeeper had passed on.
When he looked at his hat the cigarette had burned a hole in it. He
viewed the hat sadly. "No gainsayin' it, war is 'ell, ain't it? I paid
fourteen bob for that 'at three days back in Cardiff."
I went out to help him buy a new hat. Hat stores were scarce, but life
does not end with hat stores; there were fleets of little places where a
man could sit down and talk about more important things than hats.
In the hotel smoke-room after lunch there was no sugar for our coffee.
His sea-training began to show at once. "The thing you 'ave to learn to
do at sea is to go on your own. Nobody doing much for a chap that 'e
don't do for hisself, is there?" From his coat pocket he drew an
envelope which once held a letter from home--in place of the letter now
was sugar. "Preparedness--'ere it is"--and sweetened our coffee from the
envelope.
He spoke of his life at sea. "I can't say that I like it--I can't say I
don't like it--but it was my life before the war and it 'as to be since.
You've seen my ship, 'aven't you, lying to moorings? Nothing great to
look at, is she? but the managing director of our company--he has the
'andling of maybe a 'undred more like her--'Let 'em 'ave their grand
passenger ships,' 'e says, 'but give me my cargo boats that pays for
theirselves every two voyages.' The right idea 'e 'ad, I'll say for 'im.
And for my part of it there is no everlastin' polishin' o' brahss and
painting o' white work and no buying o' gold-laced uniforms at your own
cost. And there's the bonus for me. Oh, aye! A bit of bonus ain't a bit
of 'arm, you know, especially when you've a wife that's no eyesore to
look at, and little kiddies growin' up.
"Torpedoed? Oh, aye. It's not to be expected of a man to escape that
these days. My chum Bob, remember 'im--that was seven hours to Alexandria
and back--with a rose in his coat? His fourth time torpedoed, that was.
I've been blowed up only three times myself. Nothing much of anything
special, the last time and the time before that--a matter of getting into
boats and by and by being picked up--no more than that--no. But the first
time--maybe it was a novelty-like then. 'Owever, I'd carried a load of
coal to Naples and getting twenty-two pounds a ton for coal that cost two
pound ten in Cardiff maybe makes it a bit clearer what the managing
director 'ad in mind when 'e said: 'let 'em have their grand passenger
ships, but give me my little cargo boats.'
"From Naples I go on to Piræus in Greece, and we take a load on
there--admiralty stuff, and not to be spoken of--and we put out for
'ome. She was a good old single-crew, this one o' mine. Twenty-five year
old--not the worst, though I'd seen better. Well warmed up she could
squeeze out eight knots, or maybe eight and a 'alf. I 'ung close to the
land along that Greek shore, for if anything should 'appen ther's no
sense 'aving too long a row to the beach in boats.
"Very good. We're rollin' along one morning when the radio man came in
with a message which read: 'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. U-BOATS.'
"And without ado we puts into a little place down at the 'eel of Italy,
and that night I 'ad a 'ot barth an' a lovely long sleep in my brahss
bed which the missus 'ad given me for Christmas the last time 'ome. And
a great pleasure it was, I say.
"Next mornin' we put to sea again, and next day after comes another
radio, and it says: 'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. U-BOATS.' And we put into
Malta, and that night again I 'ad another 'ot barth and a fine sleep in
my brahss bed.
"We resume our voyage from Malta, and a two days later I gets another
radio--more U-boats--and I puts into Algiers. Three times in one week
that made with me 'aving me 'ot barth and a fine sleep in me brahss
bed--grand good luck, I say now, and said it then to the mate, adding to
it: 'There's a signal station west of Gibraltar--wouldn't it be delightful
passing that signal station to get the word to put back to Gib and stop
there for another night and I 'ave another 'ot barth and a lovely sleep
in my four-poster bed.' But the mate 'e only says 'e didn't have no brahss
bed aboard ship to sleep in, and he saved his 'ot barths, he did,'til he
got 'ome to enjoy 'em proper.
"Summer-time it was, and I likes to take my little siesta after
lunch--just like the Dons theirselves, y' know--and I'm 'aving me siesta
next day after lunch when something woke me up. There's a shelf of books
on the wall o' my room--chart-books and the like--and when all at once I
see them pilin' down on top of me I say to myself: 'Somethin's 'appened.'
And so it 'ad. The mate 'e sticks 'is 'ead in the door and says: 'We're
torpedoed, sir.'
"'There goes my bonus,' I says, and goes on deck.
"We carried a 3-inch gun in a little 'ouse aft, and there was the mate
firing at the U-boat, which was out of water and maybe two miles away.
It was one of those out-of-date guns the navy would have no more to do
with, and so they passes it on to us. New good guns would probably be
wasted on us, and maybe that's true. None of us aboard ever fired a shot
from the gory weapon till this day. The mate fired two shots at the
U-boat, but 'e don't 'it anything. The U-boat fires two shots at us and
she 'its something. One of 'em pahsses through the chart house, and the
other tears a nice little 'ole in 'er for'ard.
"That'll do for that gun practice,' I says.
"'Aren't you goin' to 'ave a go at 'em?' says the mate.
"'You can 'ave all the go at 'em you please,' I says, 'after we leave
the ship. Besides you there's 19 men and 4 Eurasians in this crew, and
some of 'em will maybe like to see 'ome again--I know I do!'
"We get into the boats, myself takin' along what was left of a second
case of Scotch, and good old pre-war Scotch it was, not the gory
infant's food they serve these days that a man 'as to take a tumblerful
of to know 'e's 'aving a drink at all. I also took along three sofy
cushions, hand-worked by the missus, with pink doves and cupids and the
like--rare lookin' they was. 'A man might's well be comfortable,' I
says.
"I 'ad a cook. 'If comfort's the word,' says the cook, 'I might's well
take along the wife's canary,' and 'e takes it along in a cage in one
'and, and a bag of clothes in the other. 'E's in the boat when 'e thinks
to go back for a package of seed 'e'd left for the canary on the shelf
in the galley. 'Hurry up with your bird-seed,' I says, and as I do a
shell comes along and explodes inside of 'er old frame somewheres, and
the cook says maybe 'e'll be gettin' along without the seed--the canary
not being what you'd call a 'eavy eater, anyway.
"The mate 'ad a cameraw, and when we're clear of the ship he would stand
up and set the cameraw on the shoulders of a Eurasian fireman, and take
shots of the ship between shells.
"In good time one last shell 'its 'er, and down she goes. The U-boat
moves off, and we see no more of 'er.
"It's a fine day and a lovely pink sunset, and there's a beautiful mild
sirocco blowing off the African shore to make the 'ot night pleasant as
we approach it in the boats. A man could 'ardly arsk to be torpedoed
under more pleasant conditions, I say, and we continue to row toward the
shore in 'igh 'opes. It's maybe two in the mornin' when we see the
side-lights of a ship. She's bound east--a steamer--and we know she's a
Britisher, because we're the only chaps carried lights in war zones at
that time. Carryin' lights at night o' course made us grand marks for
the U-boats, but there was no 'elp for it. A board o' trade regulation,
that was, and no gettin' away from what the board o' trade says. We had
our choice of carryin' lights and losin' our ships, or not carryin'
lights and losin' our jobs. So we lost our ships. After a year and a
'alf of war some bright chap in the board said that maybe it would be a
good idea to change the regulation about carrying lights, and they did.
And about time, we said.
"Some of the crew were for 'ailing the ship in the night. ''Ail 'ell!' I
says. 'D'y' think I want to be took into that rotten 'ole of a Port
Said, or maybe Alexandria, and that end of the Mediterranean fair lousy
with U-boats. Besides, we'll get 'ome quicker this way,' I says, and
allows her to pass on. In the mornin' we run onto the beach, and 'ardly
there when a crowd of Ayrabs come gallopin' down on 'orseback to us.
'We'll be killed now,' says the mate, and talks under his breath of
stubborn captains, who wouldn't 'ail a friendly ship's light in the
dark, but the only killing the Ayrabs do is two young goats for
breakfast. And they make coffee that was coffee, and we had a lovely
meal on the sand. And by and by they steered us along the shore to where
was a French destroyer, which takes us over to Gibraltar, and from Gib
we passed on through Spain and France to Havre. Three weeks that took,
and I never 'ad such a three weeks in all my life. 'Eroes, ragin'
'eroes--that's wot we were!
"At Havre the French authorities took the mate's pictures out of the
cameraw, and they never did give 'em back. Except for that, it was a
fine pleasure, that land cruise 'ome.
"Lucky? Oh, aye, you may well say it. Three times in one week I 'ad me
'ot barth and my lovely sleep in me brahss bed--it's not to be looked
for with ordinary luck, you know."
* * * * *
One day the destroyer to which I was assigned put to sea. There were
other destroyers, and we were to take a fleet of merchantmen from the
naval base to such and such a latitude and longitude, and there turn
them loose. My friend's ship was of the convoy.
We made such and such a latitude and longitude, and there we turned them
loose, signalling the position to them and waiting for acknowledgment.
They acknowledged the signal. We then hoisted the three pennants which
everywhere at sea means: Pleasant voyage! They answered with the three
pennants which everywhere spells: Thank you. And no sooner done than
away they belted, each for himself, and let the U-boats get the
hindmost.
The hindmost here was the rusty old cargo boat of my friend. I could see
her for miles after the others were hull down; and long after I could
see her I could picture him--walking his lonely bridge and his ship
plugging away at her 7 or maybe 7-1/2 knots across the lonely ocean.
Three times torpedoed and taking it all as part of his work! Some day
they may get him and he not come back; and when they do the world will
hear little about him. Hero? He a hero? Why a shore-going flunky had him
bluffed for smoking a surreptitious cigarette in high quarters! 'Ero?
Not 'im. Why 'e don't even wear a uniform.
So there they are, the wheezing old cargo boats and their officers and
crew. British, French, Italian, American, but mostly British.
No heroes, but the Lord help their people if they hadn't stayed on the
job.
FLOTILLA HUMOR--AT SEA
We were a group of American destroyers convoying twenty home-bound
British steamers. There was one ship, a _P. & O._ liner, a great
specimen of camouflaging.
She was the only ship in the convoy that was camouflaged, and she rode
in stately style two lengths out in front of the others. All of which
made her a prominent object. Our officers felt like telling her to dress
back; but she had a British commodore aboard, and for an American two or
three striper to try to advise a British commodore--well, it isn't done.
All day long she rode out in front of the column, and all day long our
fellows kept saying things about her.
"Isn't she the chesty one!"
"Look at the big squab with all that war-paint on--how does she expect
any U-boat to overlook her?"
"That big loafer, she'd better watch out or she'll be getting hers
before the day's gone!"
U-boats were thick around there. One of them must have come up, looked
the convoy over, and said, "Well, there's nothing to this but the big
one!" and, Bing! let her have it, for it was not yet quite dark when
those who were looking at her saw a column like steam go into the air, a
black column like coal follow it, and after that a column of water
boiling white.
One of our destroyers hopped to twenty-five knots, dumped over a
300-pound "ash-can," and got Mister U-boat. At least, the British
admiralty later gave her 100 per cent on the circumstantial evidence.
Two other destroyers--the 396 and the 384, we will call them--went at
once to the job of taking off passengers from the sinking ship.
That was at five minutes to six, just before dark. It had interrupted
dinner on our ship; but by and by we went back to the ward-room to
finish eating. It is always good business to eat--no knowing when a man
will be needing a good meal to be standing by him inside. And we were
still eating when the messenger came in with a radio. He passed it to
the skipper, who read it to himself, whistled, and then read aloud:
TORPEDOED--CLAN LINDSAY.
The _Clan Lindsay_ was another of our convoy, and she had been within
1,000 yards of our ship when we last came about to zigzag back across
the front of our column.
We looked at one another, and one said: "Well, you got to hand it to
Fritz for being on the job every minute."
And another: "Yes, but it looks like a big night to-night. Two in an
hour! And eighteen more ships and eight destroyers to pick from yet! If
he starts off like that, what d'y' s'pose he'll be batting by morning?"
The ward-room on our ship opens onto the ship's galley; and from the
ship's galley another door opens onto the deck. Through the open
galley-door just then came a muffled explosion--a great Woof!
We all thought just one thing--they've got us too!--and we all sort of
half curled up, and would not have been a bit surprised if the next
instant we found ourselves sailing through the deck overhead. The
feeling lasted for perhaps three seconds, and then our skipper,
happening to look up, saw that the colored mess-boy George was grinning
widely.
"What the devil you laughing at?" barked out our skipper.
George took his eyes off the galley-door, but his grin remained. Said
George: "Cap'n, I see de flame. The galley stove just done bust!"
The galley stove on our ship was an oil-burner. It had back-fired, and
so the loud Woof!
Later it came out that the _Clan Lindsay_ wasn't torpedoed at all; but
one of our destroyers dropped a depth charge so close to her to get a
U-boat that she thought she was.
* * * * *
The camouflaged big liner sank, but not until the two of our destroyers
standing by had taken off every one of the 503 passengers, one taking
the people off the deck, the other picking up those in the small boats.
One destroyer--the 396, say--took off 307 of these passengers. Her
skipper passed the word by radio to the 384, which had gathered in 196
passengers, including the commodore. The 384 got the message, only she
got it 7 instead of 307 people rescued.
"Seven survivors!" said the 384's skipper. "I wonder why she radioed
that?" He meditated over the puzzle and by and by solved it to his
satisfaction.
"Of course, what she wants is for us to take off the seven and add 'em
to our own." He took measures to meet the emergency, and then followed
this little incident:
Aboard the 396 they were busy trying to find space for their 307
passengers when a lookout heard a Putt! putt! putt! coming over the
water. The officer of the deck listened. Everybody on the bridge
listened. Putt! putt! putt! it came. The officer of the deck reported to
the skipper. The skipper wondered who it could be, when just then a
radio message arrived: "Am sending a boat--384."
"Sending a boat? What for?" He meditated over that puzzle and then he
solved it--as he thought. "Sure. That British commodore she picked up is
coming to see how the survivors aboard here are getting on. That's
it"--he turned to the watch-officer--"you know how these Britishers are
for regulations. Even in the midst of a mess like this we'll have to
kotow to his rank or he'll probably be reporting us. So rouse out six
side-boys, line 'em up, rig up the port ladder, have the bugler stand by
for ta-ra-rums and all that stuff."
They did that, shoving their crowded survivors out of the way to make
room for the ceremony.
The Putt! putt! putt! comes nearer and nearer. Next, from out of the
blackness of the ocean they make out a little motor-dory. Balanced out
on the gunwale of the little dory, when it comes nearer, they see an
American bluejacket smoking a cigarette. No one else was in the dory.
The dory ran alongside. It was about a 14-foot dory--no smaller one in
the flotilla. The skipper of the 396 looked down at him. "What you
want?"
The bluejacket removed the cigarette from his lips. "I'm from the 384,
sir."
"Yes, yes, but what do you want?"
"I've come, sir"--he waved his cigarette-stub airily--"to take off the
survivors. The captain thought I might be able to make one load of 'em."
* * * * *
When the big _P. & O._ liner reported herself torpedoed that evening, a
destroyer--not one of ours--picked up the message 100 miles or so away;
and at once radioed: COMING TO YOUR ASSISTANCE--GIVE POSITION,
COURSE, AND SPEED.
That was proper and well-intentioned, but as the 384 and the 396 were
already standing by, a radio was sent back: EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT--NO
HELP NEEDED--THANK YOU.
That did not seem to satisfy the inquirer. WOULD LIKE TO HELP--GIVE
POSITION, SPEED, AND COURSE.
Everybody being busy, nobody bothered to answer that. By and by came
another radio: THIS IS THE DESTROYER BLANK--GIVE POSITION, SPEED,
AND COURSE.
He was so evidently one of those Johnnies who are always volunteering to
do things not needful to be done that nobody paid any further attention
to him. But he kept right on sending radios. By and by, for perhaps the
seventh time, came: THIS IS THE DESTROYER BLANK--PLEASE GIVE
POSITION, SPEED, AND COURSE OF TORPEDOED SHIP.
At which some one--nobody seemed to know who, but possibly some
undistinguished enlisted radio man whose ears were becoming
wearied--sparked out into the night: POSITION OF TORPEDOED SHIP? BETWEEN
TWO DESTROYERS. HER SPEED? ABOUT FOUR FEET AN HOUR. HER COURSE? TOWARD
THE BOTTOM OF THE ATLANTIC.
Nobody ever found who sent that message; nobody inquired too closely;
but all hands thanked him. The flotilla heard no more from the
bothersome destroyer.
* * * * *
The business of hunting U-boats is a grim one. The officers and men
engaged in it do not like to dwell on the hard side of it. They do like
to repeat stories of the humorous side of it.
One of our destroyer commanders over there has a personality that the
others like to hang stories onto. He is a quick-thinking, quick-acting
man named--well, say Lanahan. He was one day on the bridge of his ship
when the lookout shouted: "Periscope!"
"Charge her!" yelled out Lanahan.
Away they went hooked-up for the periscope, which everybody could now
see--about 200 yards ahead.
"He's a nervy one--see her stay up!" said the officer of the deck, who
was standing beside the wheel, and had glasses on the periscope. And
then, hurriedly: "I don't like the looks of her, captain--it looks like
a phony periscope to me--as if there was a mine under it!"
"To hell with her--ram her anyway!" snapped Lanahan.
The deck officer had not once taken the glasses off the periscope.
Suddenly he let drop his glasses, grabbed the wheel and pulled it hard
toward him.
Lanahan had stepped to the wing of the bridge and was leaning far out to
get a glimpse of the U-boat. What he saw beneath him as his ship scraped
by was not a U-boat, but a great white mine. He watched it slide safely
past the bridge, past his quarter, past his stern. Then, turning around,
he said gravely to his deck officer:
"You're right--it _was_ a mine."
* * * * *
There was another young officer--Chisholm call him--who played poker
occasionally. He commanded a _flivver_, which is the service name for
the smaller class of destroyers, the 750-ton ones.
In our navy there are plenty of young officers who will tell you that
they never built destroyers which keep the sea better than that same
little flivver class. Young Captain Chisholm of the 323 was one.
One morning, having convoyed a fleet of merchant ships safely up the
channel, the 323 was one of a group of destroyers making the best of
their way to their base port. Officers and men who have been hunting
U-boats for a week or so do not like to linger along the road home; so
it was every young captain giving his ship all the steam she could stand
and let her belt.
It was breaking white water all around when they started. It grew
rougher. Chisholm in the 323 was going along at twenty knots when a
poker-playing chum came along in his big 1,000-ton destroyer. Her nose
hauled up on the quarter of the 323; up to her beam; up to her bridge.
As he passed the 323--and he passed quite close to let all hands view
the passing--the poker-playing friend leaned out and megaphoned across:
"What you making, Chiz?"
"Twenty knots!" hailed back Chisholm.
"I am seeing your twenty knots and raising you five!" returned the
other, and passed on.
"The boiler-riveted nerve of him!" gasped Chiz. "But let him wait!"
The sea grew yet rougher. The 323 was bouncing pretty lively, but
hanging onto her twenty knots. "And at twenty you let her hang if she
rolls her crow's nest under!" said Chisholm to his watch-officer, "and
I'll betcher we won't be acting rudder to this bunch going into port!"
It was at ten in the morning that the big one had passed them. It was
four in the afternoon, and the 323 was still going along at twenty knots
when from out of the drizzle ahead her bridge made out the stern and
funnels of a destroyer. It was Chiz's poker-playing chum, and his ship
was making heavy weather of it. The able little 323 came up to her
stern; breasted her waist, her bridge, and as he passed her (and he came
quite close to let all hands view the passing), young Captain Chisholm
leaned out from his bridge and roared through a long megaphone: "I
_call_ yuh!"
He beat the big one fifty minutes into the naval base.
* * * * *
There are two channels leading into the naval base port--call them West
and East. This same Chisholm was one day headed for port in the usual
hurry and was already well into the west channel when a signal was
whipped out from the signal hill. It was for his ship and it read: "West
Channel mined last night by U-boats. Proceed to sea and come in by East
Channel."
Chiz did not proceed to sea. All the harbor men who were watching saw
him come straight on through the gap in the barrage, and safely on to
his mooring. Also all the harbor knew that next morning he had to report
to the admiralty and explain.
The story of his explanation was not told by himself. But an officer
friend, a great admirer--call him Mac--had gone with him to the
admiralty. Here the next day Mac told the story in the smoke-room of the
King's Hotel:
"Well, Chiz went and--you know his courtly style--he has his cape over
his shoulders--and he salaams and says, 'Good morning, sir.'
"The old man looks up and says like ice: 'You got my signal yesterday
afternoon?'
"'I did, sir.'
"'Then why did you not turn back and come in by the other channel?'
"'Sir,' says Chiz, 'may I be allowed a few words?'
"'Very few. What have you to say?'
"'Sir,' says Chiz, 'I have been trained to believe that the one word a
naval officer should not know is fear. In our navy, sir, we reverence
the tradition of your own Admiral Nelson, who at the siege of Copenhagen
put his glass to his blind eye and said: "I see no signal to withdraw!"
and continued the fighting to a victory.'
"'Have you a blind eye, too?'
"'My sight is good, thanking you, sir, for inquiring, but in my own navy
we also have the tradition of Admiral Farragut, who at Mobile Bay said:
"Damn the torpedoes--go on!" and his fleet went on to victory. And there
was Admiral Dewey, who said: "Damn the mines!" at Manilla, and went on
to victory.'
"'What are you coming at?' roars the old man. 'Did you get my signal?'
"'I did, sir. And my first instinct--the instinct of all our naval
officers--is to obey all orders of our superiors, sir. But I was well
into that channel when I got the signal, sir. And as I have said, sir,
my first instinct was to obey orders. But also I stop and reflect, for I
have also been trained to believe that hasty judgments work many evils,
sir, and I consider and find myself saying to my deck officer: "This
ship, Mac, is 300 feet long, and under her stern there are two big
propellers. If ever we turn this 300-foot ship in this channel with
those two propellers churning and there's any loose German mines around,
there won't be a blamed one of 'em she'll miss. But if I keep her
straight on, there's a chance. So hell's afire!" I says to Mac--"there's
only one thing for us to do now and that is to keep straight on!" And I
kept straight on, sir--and, I beg leave to report it now, sir--we made
our mooring safely.'
"And that's all there was to that," concluded Mac.
There was a long silence in the smoke-room when Mac had done, and then a
voice asked: "If Chiz had gone to sea and come in by the other
channel--it was almost dark at the time--he would have been too late to
make the barrage, wouldn't he?"
"He sure would," said Mac.
"Which would mean that he would be kept turning his wheels over outside
the net all night?"
"He sure would."
"As it was, he got in in plenty of time for that little game up-stairs
last night?"
"He was in a little game," admitted Mac.
Another silence, and then another voice: "Well, poker or no poker,
Chiz's dope on that damn-the-torpedo stuff isn't the worst in the
world!"
FLOTILLA HUMOR--ASHORE
The incident reported in the previous chapter was not young Chisholm's
first interview with the British admiral.
Mac went on to tell how when, after his first cruise, Chiz came to the
naval base to report. He had heard that the old fellow in charge
believed that the Lord made the earth for admirals, especially British
admirals, but beyond that he knew nothing of his peculiarities.
However, after his cruise, Chiz went whistling up the hill to report. By
and by he was admitted to the presence of the admiral, who was seated at
a flat desk in the middle of the room, gazing straight ahead.
The old chap looked pretty frosty. Chiz waited a moment, then ventured a
cheery "Good morning, sir."
The face at the desk did not even turn to look at him, but the thin lips
almost opened and a rasping voice said: "Got anything to say to me?"
Chiz was one of the sociable souls, and he would have liked to sit down
and talk in an informal way of several little sea things that he thought
were fairly interesting. But he had not been asked even to sit down, and
the voice froze him. So, "Why, no sir, nothing special to report," was
all he could find to say.
"H-m. Nothing to say? Then why waste my time or your own? Might as well
get out, hadn't you?"
Chiz got out.
"An American lieutenant-commander in this place must rate about seven
numbers below a yellow dog," said Chiz to Mac when he came out.
Chiz had four days in port (Mac is still telling the story) after that
cruise, and two days after his visit to the hill there was a
cricket-match between a team from our flotilla and a team from theirs.
The idea was for all hands to forget rank for a while, get into the
game, and so cement the entente between the two nations.
Chiz was picked for one of our team, and you all know what a husky he
is, and what he used to do with a baseball-bat. There aren't many who
ever hit 'em any further or oftener than Chiz on the old Annapolis
ball-field. He was one of the first of our fellows to go to bat. He's
standing there--in the box, or whatever they call it, waiting for one to
his liking; and looking around the field wondering where he will place
it when he gets one to his liking. And as he looks he spies his friend
the admiral, playing what we'd call left field. And just beyond the
admiral the ground sloped away for a hundred yards or so.
Chiz hefts his bat--and you know those cricket-bats, what they look like
and how they feel after you've been used to meeting fast ones with a
narrow baseball-bat. They are wide and heavy and springy. Chiz doesn't
pay any attention to three or four balls that come along, except to fend
them away from the wicket with his wide cricket-bat. He knew what he
wanted, and by and by he got one--one about knee-high with a little
incurve to it. Chiz sets himself and swings and whale-O it goes, over
the old admiral's head and down the slope beyond.
Chiz makes all the runs the law allows--six, I think it is--and he's
sitting resting on the wide part of his cricket-bat before the admiral
even shows the top of his head over the hill with the ball. When he does
and heaves it about half-way to the pitcher, or bowler, or whatever they
call him, he's out of breath.
Chiz sets himself for another one knee-high with an inshoot, and when he
gets one he whales it again, and away trots the admiral on another hunt
down the hill. And Chiz makes six more runs before they even see the top
of the admiral's head over the brow of the hill.
The third time, and the fourth time, Chiz sets for a knee-high one with
an inshoot to it, and the third time and the fourth time he belts it
over the old fellow's head and down the long slope. But on the fourth
time the old fellow doesn't throw the ball in. He walks in with it and
he calls in the high official umpires, or whoever they are in charge,
and they have a conference, and the next thing they call the game off.
By this time, doubtless (so the word was passed), the American officers
have caught the idea of the game, and next time there would be a real
game and so on.
But there was no next game. However, next day Chiz puts out to sea, and
when he's into port again he calls up on the hill as per instructions.
And by and by he is passed again into the presence, who is sitting just
as before at the flat desk in the middle of the room, and gazing
straight before him.
This time Chiz doesn't speak, not even to say; "Good morning, sir." And
the graven image at the desk doesn't speak either, and there's a silence
for maybe a minute, and then the old fellow barks out: "What are you
standing there for? You wish to see me?" And Chiz barks out in his turn:
"No, sir, I don't wish to see you."
"You do not wish to see me? Then what are you doing here?"
And Chiz cracks out: "I'm here because your orders compel me to be here,
sir."
_Zowie!_--that straightened the old boy up. He took a look at Chiz, and
he says, after a while and almost pleasantly: "Have a chair."
And Chiz has a chair, and they have a talk, and after that Chiz finds
him a lot easier to get along with. Chiz says now that the old fellow
isn't such a terrible chap--not after you get onto his curves.
* * * * *
When we first came over (Mac is still speaking), most of the topsiders
over here were strong for the entente stuff, and a good thing, too--why
not?
Our fellows were mostly strong for it, too--two or three so strong that
it was hard to tell whether they were Americans or something else--even
their accents.
And, as I say, most of the officers of our own over here were for
it--most of them. But you can't rid everybody overnight of
long-inherited notions. There was one chap we used to meet, and he sure
was the most patronizing thing!
Now, we know we haven't the biggest navy in the world, but as far as it
goes we think it is pretty good. As good as anybody's, man for man, and
ship for ship--but let that pass.
This chap, who never could see anything in our navy, came in here one
day. He wasn't bad. He was just one of those naturally foolish ones who
thought he was a little brighter than his company. The topsiders would
be working night and day to create good feeling, and he was the kind
would come along and break up the show--not exactly meaning to.
This was in the hotel bar here, where a bunch of us were easing off
after a hard cruise, when he comes along. He doesn't like the names of
our destroyers. In his navy there was significance in the names they
gave to a class of ships.
"Take _Viper_, _Adder_, _Moccasin_, and so on--they suggest things y'
know. Dangerous to meddle with and all that sort of thing, y' know. But
your people name your ships after men evidently--_David Jones_,
_Conyngham_, _McDonough_. I say, who are they--Presidents or senators or
that sort, or what?"
Lanahan was there--the hell-with-her-ram-her-anyway Lanahan--and we all
just naturally turned him over to Lanahan, who had west-of-Ireland
forebears, and never did believe in letting any Englishman put anything
across--nothing like that anyway.
"You never read much, I take it, of our history?" says Lanahan.
"Your history? My dear chap, I had hard work keeping up with my own."
"No doubt. But you've heard of the American Revolution?"
"I dessay I have--Oh, yes, I have!"
"Well, you spoke of Jones. If you mean John Paul, then there was a naval
fight one time in the North Sea--the _Serapis_ and the _Bonhomme
Richard_."
"I say, old chap, I didn't mention John Paul Jones. _David Jones_ is the
name of your destroyer out in the harbor now."
"David Jones? Let me see. Why, sure, David Jones was a New England
parson who boarded around among the God-fearing neighbors for his keep
on week-days and preached the wrath of God and hell-fire for his cash
wage--five pound a year--on Sundays. He was a devout man. If thy finger
offend thee, cut it off. But a sort of muscular Christian, too. If thy
enemy cross thee, go out and whale the livers and lights out of
him--same as we're trying to do to the U-boats now.
"Well David lived in the shadow of the church till he was thirty-seven
years of age. Then the Revolution broke, and David, in whose veins
flowed the blood of old Covenanters, took a running long jump into it.
He started in as deck-hand or, perhaps, it was cook's helper, but there
was salt in his veins too, and rapidly he learned his trade. And soon
rose in his new profession until he was master of his own ship, and, as
master, raising the devil among the coasters which used to cruise out of
Maritime Province ports in those days. The captures he made of vessels
loaded with hay and potatoes, and so on, materially reduced the high
cost of living for New England folks in those days.
"Conyngham? He was a young American lad who did not come of any
particularly good old stock, meaning that he did not come from
Massachusetts or Virginia probably. He went to sea as a midshipman on
an American sloop-of-war. And he turned out to be some little middy.
Ensign, lieutenant, commander--man, he just ran up the ladder of naval
rank. And got a ship of his own--a fine, young, able sloop-of-war, and
with this sloop-of-war he would run out from the French channel ports
and harry the English coast and English shipping. Never heard of him?
No? Well, well!--and he so famous in his day that King George put up a
reward of 1,000 pounds for his capture dead or alive. But they never
captured him.
"And Barry? He was the Wexford boy who captured 200 English prizes more
or less in the West Indies. Paul Jones trained under Barry before he had
a ship of his own. And McDonough? He--but am I boring you?"
"No, no--it is very interesting."
"I am glad. Well, McDonough was the commodore who fought the battle of
Lake Champlain against your people. He opened that battle with prayers
for the living and closed it with prayers for the dead. You want to
watch out for those fellows who pray when they go to war. Their technic
is sometimes pretty good. Their spirit is always good. While Mac was
looking over the booty after that fight, a funny thing happened. He----"
"I say, old chap, it's all very interesting, exceedingly interesting,
but what d'y' say to another little nip before I go? I've got to run
along to see the chief now. What will you have to drink?"
"Sure. A nip of Irish, if you please. And here"--Lanahan held up his
glass--"here's to the memory of dead heroes--may they always be
preferred to crawling reptiles when it comes to naming our fighting
ships!"
After the other fellow had gone Lanahan turned to us. "Say, fellows, I
know I got Paul Jones and Barry and McDonough right, but how near was I
on Davey Jones and Conyngham? Something tells me I got their histories
mixed."
* * * * *
This admiral, of whom our fellows used to spin the yarns, was a unique
character. He lacked imagination, and he had the manner of a rat-terrier
toward people not of his own kind; but he was one good executive.
Devotion to duty--conscience--those were his beacon lights. He had been
known, when the minister of the local church wasn't up to standard, to
walk into the pulpit, and deliver the sermon himself. Before he came to
take command of this coast district the U-boats had been raising Cain
there. There was a fleet of steam-trawlers handled by their old fishing
captains and crews, whose special duty it was to sweep up the waters
just outside the harbor for mines. It was at that time a dangerous
business, but it was also monotonous. It was a duty most easy to evade.
Who was to say they had not swept up? No cove at a naval base five
hundred miles away, that was sure! Even if mines were found there after
they reported it swept clear, what would that prove? The Huns were
laying mines all the time, weren't they? So--war days are hard enough
anyway--why not ease up now and again?
They eased up. Many a snug little place there was along the coast where
a crew could go ashore and have a pleasant time for a day or two. There
were reports to fill out, but what were reports? Ship a clerk in the
crew and who would know? Surely not some aide at the naval base who
spent his busiest hours taking the admiral's niece to tea fights!
The British public will probably stand more from their lawfully ordained
rulers than any other public on earth. They stood for a good many ships
being mined on that coast before they began to ask the why of it.
The powers returned with facts and figures, percentage tables, and so
on, of ships departing and ships arriving; proving clearly that the
number of ships lost was no more than was to be expected. Whereupon the
British public took to writing letters to the press. British politicians
take letters to the press seriously; a new man, the admiral we have been
talking of, was sent to take charge of the district.
He got down to business. He fitted out a 30-knot despatch-boat and away
he went! All along that coast he pounced in on little harbors where
mine-sweepers should be found working outside, but where he found them
working mostly inside at little sociable gatherings where there was a
dance or the like going on in front and a little something nourishing to
drink in back. Our stern and efficient admiral lit into them like a gull
into a school of herring. Out by their gills he hauled them, and pretty
soon the B. P. began to read less of percentages and more of results.
One of the first results was that some trawler skippers lost their jobs,
and new skippers took their places. This was at the time that rewards of
five pounds or so were offered the skippers bringing a mine into port.
That five pounds looked pretty good to one of the new skippers; and when
one night at a pub a discharged skipper confided to him where there was
a nest of German mines, out he goes into the gray dawn to be there
first. He's there first, and sure enough it's a grand little spot for
mines. He hooks into one, lashes it under his quarter and goes scooting
back to harbor, which happens to be the naval base.
Proudly and noisily he steamed along, shouting to everybody he met of
his good luck, and asking the course to the admiral's ship. Everybody he
met gave him the course and also the full width of the channel as he
passed. He ran alongside the flag-ship, hailing loudly for the admiral
as he steamed up.
The admiral was not on board, but his aide was, and the aide came on to
have a look over the side. He saw the mine bouncing up and down between
the mine-sweeper's quarter and his own ship's side. Shove off--"get away
from us!" yelled the aide. "Suppose you press one of those little
feelers and blow us all to pieces--get away, I tell you!"
The mine-sweeper skipper looked up--"Feelers, sir?"--and then looked
down at the mine. "Feelers, sir? Oh-h, you mean them little 'orns
stickin' out on 'er? Bly-mee, sir, I thought I'd knocked 'em all hoff
afore I lashed her alongside. But 'ave no fear, sir, there's only two of
'em left, and I'll bloomin' well soon"--he reaches for an oar and went
bouncing aft--"bloomin' well soon knock them hoff, too, sir!"
THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER BOYS
One day last summer a group of our destroyers were sent across the
Atlantic. It was a night-and-day strain for all hands--watching out for
raiders, watching out for U-boats, watching out for everything, and
grabbing snatches of sleep when they could.
Arriving at their naval base, every skipper of the little fleet felt
pretty well used up. But every worth-while skipper thinks first of his
men. One we have in mind passed the word to his crew that whoever cared
to take a run ashore to stretch his legs and forget sea things for a
while, why--to go to it. And stay till morning quarters if they wished.
As fast as they could clean up and shift into shore clothes they were
going over the side. Our young captain felt then that perhaps there was
a little something coming to himself; so he turned in, and he was
logging great things in the sleeping line when the anchor watch, who was
also a signal quartermaster, woke him up with:
"Signal from the admiralty, sir."
"Read it."
The S. Q. M. read it--an order to proceed at once to an oil dock and
take oil.
It was nine o'clock at night when our skipper had come to moorings. It
was now one in the morning, and he knew he could have slept for another
week; however, orders were to oil up.
He turned out and mustered what remained aboard of his crew. There were
about a dozen. He sent three to the fire-room, three to the engine-room,
one here, another there, himself took the wheel, and with his signal
quartermaster acting as a sort of officer of the deck, set out to find
the oil dock.
He had never seen that harbor before that night, but he sheered close in
to every ship's anchor light he saw and hailed for the course to the oil
dock. Most of them did not know, but one now and then passed him a word
or two, and so he bumped along and by and by made the oil dock.
Officers who have business with it will tell you that the naval
organization of the British is pretty complete. Our young skipper found
everything ready for him now. Men ashore made fast his lines, connected
up his pipes, filled his tanks--all in good order. Sister destroyers
were oiling up with him, and with tanks filled they all bumped their way
back to moorings, again without sinking anything along the way.
It was then daylight, and right after breakfast they all had to report
to the admiralty, so no use trying to sleep any more. Arrived at the
admiralty, the officer in command complimented them on their safe run
across, and then went on to say that of course they had had a trying
passage, and naturally their ships, especially engines and boilers,
would have to be overhauled--all very natural and proper--and of course
the needful time for overhauling, and for officers and crew--two, three,
four days, whatever it was--would be granted; but (they knew the need)
the question was: How long before they would be ready to go to sea?
The young destroyer commanders had discussed that and other
possibilities in the reception-room outside, so when the senior of the
group looked from one to the other of his colleagues they had only to
nod, for him to turn to the admiral and say:
"We are ready now, sir."
Which remark should become one of the historic remarks of this war.
At this time--at the gates to the North Sea, the English Channel, the
Irish coast--the U-boats were collecting frightful toll. In the
Mediterranean they were running wild. Five ships from one convoy in one
day--three of them big P. & O. liners--was one of their records in the
Eastern Mediterranean.
To the natural question, Why haven't you checked them? almost any young
British naval officer felt like saying: "Check 'em? Try it yourself and
check 'em! You go out there and keep your ship zigzagging full speed
night and day for three years and see how you like it! Go out there in
rough weather and fog with not a minute's let-up, and see if you get to
where the fall of a bucket of a dark night will make you jump three feet
in the air or not! Our ships were not built, and our chaps were not
trained, to beat their rotten game."
So things were when our fellows took hold, and hearing no word from them
for a long time and then but a meagre one, it may be that many a citizen
on this side was saying to himself:
"Well, they're gone, that little flotilla, swallowed up in the mists of
the Atlantic, and that is all we know about them. And now I wonder what
they're doing over there? Are they doing great work or are they tied up
to a dock at the naval base, and their officers and crews roistering
ashore?"
I can say from several weeks' observation later that they were not doing
too much roistering ashore. Before leaving this side I found no evidence
that anybody in Washington wished to suppress the record of what that
little fleet was doing. Secretary Daniels and Chairman Creel of the
Committee on Public Information believed with me that our little fellows
over there were doing things worth recording. This fact is set down here
because many people last summer believed there was too much suppression
of the news of our fighting forces; and suspicion of suppression breeds
distrust. Our fellows perhaps were not doing well. If they were doing
well, wouldn't we be told more?
But they have ideas of their own on these matters over on the other
side, and it is the other side which has most to say of what shall or
shall not be given out for publication. In a previous chapter I have
reported the answer of the British admiral in charge to my request to be
allowed to cruise on an American destroyer. The reply was a flat and
immediate: "No." They did not allow British writers on British ships;
why should they allow an American writer on an American ship?
It had to be explained that despite what they allowed or did not allow,
English papers did publish praiseful items about the deeds of the
British navy; and even if they did not publish such items, conditions
governing publicity in the United States and the British Isles were not
equal. The British navy was a tremendous one and it was operating just
off their own shores; officers and men were regularly going ashore by
the thousands and to their friends and families, if to nobody else, they
talked of what was going on; and it does not take long for thousands of
bluejackets to spread the gossip in a country where no spot in it is
more than forty miles from tide-water, whereas our nearest Atlantic
ports were three thousand miles from our base of operations in Europe,
and it was another three thousand miles to our west coast.
It also had to be pumped into the admiralty over there that possibly the
American and British publics did not hold to quite the same ideas about
their respective navies. It was possible that the 110,000,000 people of
the United States looked on our navy as not altogether the property of
the officers and men in it; possibly our 110,000,000 people over here
looked on the navy as their navy, that they had a right to know
something of what it was doing; and so (this item had to be pointed out
to one of our own topside officers, too) as that same public were paying
the bills of the navy, no harm perhaps to let them in on a few things
or, this being the twentieth century, they might take it into their
heads some day to have no navy at all.
It took the foregoing talk and something more before I could get the
permission of the British Admiralty to cruise on one of our own
destroyers over there. This isn't so much a criticism of the British
Admiralty as to show that their point of view differs from ours; and to
show that it was not Washington which was holding up news of our navy
over there.
As to what they have been doing! They have been doing great work. I
cruised over there on one of our destroyers. She was five years old, yet
one day during an 85-mile run to answer an S O S call she exceeded her
builder's trial by half a knot. Incidentally, she saved a merchantman
which had been shelled for four hours by a U-boat and her $3,000,000
cargo; also she ran the U-boat under--one of the new big U-boats with
two 5.9 deck guns. On the same day two other destroyers of our group
took from a sinking liner 503 passengers without the loss of a life. One
of these destroyers lashed herself to the sinking ship the more quickly
to get them off; and as the liner went down our little ship had to use
her emergency steam to get away in time. A fourth destroyer of ours got
the U-boat which sank the liner. That was the record of one little group
of destroyers in one day; and it is detailed here because the writer
happened to be present when these things happened.
When our fellows first went over they had to learn a few things from the
British. We had first to get rid of some childish ideas about depth
charges. We brought over a toy size of 50 to 60 pounds. They showed us a
man's size one--300 pounds of T N T, a contraption looking so much like
a galvanized iron ash-barrel with flattened sides that they call them
"ash-cans."
These ash-cans do not have actually to hit the U-boat; to explode one
anywhere near is enough. When our fellows let go one of them, the ship
has to be going 25 knots to be safe. One of our destroyers was making 11
knots one night--the best she could do under the weather conditions--and
an ash-can was washed overboard by a heavy sea. Our destroyer's stern
came so near to being blown off that her crew thought sure she was gone;
she had to feel the rest of the way most carefully to port.
This U-boat hunting has been found so wearing on men's nerves that the
British Admiralty has a law that our destroyers must remain in port
after every cruise for periods that average about two-thirds of their
time at sea. Once our destroyers are back to port and tied up to
moorings, a U-boat might come up and sink a ship at the harbor entrance
and our fellows not allowed to up-steam and at 'em. It was only after a
hard experience against U-boats that they evolved this law to save men
from breaking down.
It is a dangerous, hard service on one of the roughest coasts in the
world--a coast where for seven months or so in the year wind and sea and
strong cross tides seem to be their daily diet; a service where for days
on a stretch it is nothing at all for destroyer crews not to be able to
take a meal sitting down, not even in chairs lashed to stanchions and
one arm free hooked around a stanchion; a service where officers live
jammed up in the eyes of the ship and never think at sea of taking off
their clothes, and where they sleep (when they do sleep) mostly by
snatches on chart-house or ward-room transoms.
And for watches: eight hours in every twenty-four, night and day
watching of their convoy, of their colleagues, of periscopes. (The
prospect of collision with their close-packed convoy and themselves is a
bad chance in itself.) On a destroyer convoying ships the officer of the
deck has to stand with one eye to the compass ordering, say, two hundred
changes of course in every hour. And one watch-officer of every
destroyer has the extra job of acting as chief engineer of the ship; and
when a watch-officer had to go aboard a torpedoed ship, or to go in the
crow's nest in a critical time, to spend hours, it may be, the time so
spent is in addition to his regular eight hours.
If he is the executive officer he must also act as navigator; and as it
is important to know just where the ship is any moment of the day or
night, the navigator does not figure on sleep in any long stretches.
About twenty waking hours out of twenty-four is his portion. As for the
skipper: Every single waking hour of his is a heavy strain. I went to
sea with the commander of the alert, intense type. Most of them are of
that type, but this one particularly so, with eyes, ears, nerves, and
brain working always at full power. Three hours in twenty-four was a
pretty good lay-off for him.
Lively? Our destroyers are about 11-1/2 times as long as they are wide;
which does not mean that they cannot keep the sea. They can keep the
sea. Put one of them stern-on to a 90-mile breeze and all the sea to go
with it, give her 5 or 6 knots an hour head of steam, and she will stay
there till the ocean is blown dry. But they are engined out of all
proportion to their tonnage, with their great weight of machinery deep
down; which means that they roll. Oh, but they do roll! Whoopo--down and
back like that! Most any of them will make a complete roll inside of six
seconds. Ours was a 5-1/4-second one. When she got to rolling right, she
would snap a careless sailor overboard as quickly as you could snap a
bug off the end of a whalebone cane. There is one over there which
rolled 73 degrees--and came back.
Take one of them when she is hiking along at 20 knots, rolling from 45
to 50 degrees, and just about filling the whale-boat swinging to the
skid deck davits as she rolls! See one dive and take a sea over her
fo'c's'le head and smash in her chart-house bulkhead maybe! Their outer
skin is only 3/16 of an inch thick. See that thin skin give to the sea
like a lace fan to a breeze! Watch the deck crawl till sometimes the
deck-plates buckle up into V-shaped ridges! See them with the seas
sloshing up their low freeboard and over their narrow decks, so that men
have to make use of a sort of trolley line to get about. A man is aft
and has to go forward, say. He hooks onto a rope loop, the same hanging
from a fore-and-aft taut steel line about seven feet above deck, and
when her stern rises he lifts his feet and shoots and fetches up
Bam!--up against the fo'c's'le break. He is forward and wants to go
aft--he hooks onto the loop, waits for her bow to rise, lets himself go
and there he is--back to her skid deck.
That sounds like rough work. Sometimes it gets rougher than that, and
then you hear of the wireless operator who was held in his radio shack
for forty hours. He got pretty hungry, but he preferred the hunger to
coming out and being washed overboard.
But let a machinist's mate tell you in his own way of the night he was
standing a fire-room watch--this with all due respect to the chart-house
bulkhead, the trolley line, the buckling decks, and the radio operator
who was confined--this night he was on watch in the fire-room. Was it
rough? He thought so. When he looked down at his feet, there were the
fire-room deck-plates folding in and out like a concertina.
Destroyer crews do not loaf overmuch around deck. They can't. They live
below decks mostly, strapped in when it is rough to a stretch of canvas
laced to four pieces of iron pipe, set on an angle down against the
ship's sides, and called a bunk. Even strapped in so they are sometimes,
when she has a good streak on, hove out into the passageways. It was a
young doctor of the flotilla who said that, except for their broken arms
and legs, his ship's crew were disgustingly healthy.
Our officers over there volunteer for this service, and for every one
who went, there were a dozen who wanted to go. And there is a lot of
difference between men who go to a duty because they are ordered to go,
and men who go because they want to go. These officers and men--there is
no beating them, except by blowing them off the face of the waters. And
even then they are not always beaten. One of our destroyers was cut down
one night by collision. (With so many ships being crowded into a small
steaming area, collisions are sure to happen.) All hands had to take to
the rafts in a hurry. It was about two in the morning, one of those
summer nights in the North when the light comes early. They watched her
going under. Her deck settled level with the sea, and as it did so a
young irrepressible one sang out: "What do you say, fellows, to having a
race around the old girl before she flops under?" Away they started,
four or five gangs of them, paddling their life rafts with their hands
around the sinking ship at two in the morning.
That is youth; and there is no beating youth. We have had stories of our
soldiers singing a song that has become very popular since we entered
the war. We have been told of them singing it under the most varying
conditions: as they camped on the granite blocks of the Hoboken
water-front; as they climbed over the gangways of ships bound across;
debarking from ships in European ports; singing it from behind the drawn
shades of coaches rolling across France. There were even those who sang
it while waiting to step into the life-boats on a torpedoed troop-ship;
but for light-hearted courage has any one beaten that destroyer lad who
was torpedoed one night last winter?
When the torpedo struck his ship the two depth charges astern were
exploded also. Two 300-pound charges of T N T they were. The little ship
seemed to be lifted out of the water. There was just time to throw over
a few life rafts and take a high dive after the rafts. There was no time
to get an S O S message away before the ship went down; so there they
were--a November night in northern waters, more than half their crew
known to be dead, their ship sunk, no other ship near and no hope of one
coming near. It was about as tough a case as men could be expected to
face and hope to live. But there was a boy there--he was jouncing up and
down in the water to keep warm, and jouncing up and down he was singing
(from out of the dark they heard him), singing cheerfully:
"O boy, O boy, where do we go from here!"
It is the thing spoken of in the early part of this book. Material is a
great thing; but personnel has it beaten a dozen ways. Paul Jones with
his capable seagoers in his little sloop-of-war could raise the devil
with the enemy. Paul Jones with a line of battleships and forty crews of
men without spirit would not have caused them ten minutes' loss of
sleep. That singing lad in northern waters was worth a dozen guns.
Our destroyers went over there at a time when the U-boats were sinking
more tonnage in one month than Great Britain was building in four; and
because of U-boat activities the loss of ships in the usual marine ways
was far beyond normal. To the weary British our fellows brought a fresh
vigor, a new aggressiveness.
Only half a dozen were in that first group, but other groups followed,
and groups are still following. They have not driven the U-boats from
under the seas, but they have made it possible for merchant ships to
live in that part of the ocean they are covering.
Somebody has broken into print somewhere to say that Germany has trouble
getting U-boat crews; that men have to be driven into U-boats to man
them. What a queer idea of human courage people who say such things
have! There are always volunteers, probably always will be--plenty of
volunteers for any dangerous service. If the U-boat crews were the kind
that have to be driven to sea, there would be no great harm in them. But
they are not that kind. They have courage, and they have skill, and
because they have courage and skill they are dangerous.
After a year of the U-boat drive England saw a danger of being some day
starved out; and with England starved out, our army might as well have
stayed on this side last summer; but though the drive is still on,
England is not yet starved out, for much of which comfort they can thank
the officers and men of our little destroyer flotilla.
At a time when England was worn and weary with the U-boat game, our
fellows went over to hearten them up; and they are still heartening them
up; and, besides heartening them up, they are getting the U-boats
regularly. How many they are getting I could not say, even if I knew;
but one of our vice-admirals has publicly stated that they once got five
in one day. And with malice toward none, let us hope for more days like
it.
THE MARINES HAVE LANDED----
It was a little girl at home, not old enough to read long words, but
able to read a picture, as she put it; and there was a print of a
company of marines leaving one of our navy-yards, and she said: "The
marine soldiers going away--more trouble somewheres, isn't there, papa?"
Which caused her papa to recall that from where he was born and lived
the first years of his life he had only to look out of his top window
and across the harbor to see a big navy-yard; and while he was still too
young to read a paper, he had seen marines boarding ships and marching
off to trains; and just as sure as he did the older people would read
from that night's or next morning's paper of trouble somewhere abroad.
And always they went without any fuss. Most of us would have more to say
about going to the office of a snowy morning than do the marines on
leaving for some far-away country, from where, as they know by past
records of the corps, quite a few of them are never coming back. They
were the original efficiency boys. They slung their rifles, hooked on
their packs and went; and that ended that part of it.
But after they were gone people living near naval quarters waited for
the next word; and that next word so often came in the form of one
laconic sentence, the same cabled back by the topside naval officer or
some American consul, that we used to wonder if they had a rubber stamp
for it--that laconic, reassuring sentence! When our country erects a
memorial structure to the United States Marine Corps, she should chisel
over the main front:
_The Marines Have Landed and Have the Situation Well in Hand_
Landed in some tropic port with some hard-pronouncing name, they have,
shoving off from the ship's side with their rifles and their packs, to
get a toe-hold somewhere against two, five, ten times their number
blazing away at them from behind sand-hills, or roof-tops, or a fine
growth of jungle, it may be.
The others are not always as well equipped as our fellows and they may
have no advance supply-base; but they know how to campaign. South of us
are multitudes who will take a bag of corn, a water-bottle, and a pair
of straw sandals and go shuffling over the hill trails for forty or
fifty miles a day. And don't think they won't fight. They will. In
countries where boys of twelve and thirteen pack a gun and go off with
their fathers in the army, they probably do not worry overmuch about
dying early.
From their retreats they like to sally forth at intervals and have a
wallop at our fellows. There was a corporal in Haiti, on outpost, with
half a dozen loyal natives acting as policemen with him. The native
guards slept in barracks by themselves; our marine in a little low shack
set up on posts a hundred yards away, with a native who acted as cook
and general helper. The next outpost was six miles away.
A band of outlaws rushed the native police in their barracks at this
post one night, and such as they did not shoot up they ran into the
brush. Our corporal was awakened from sound slumber by the firing and
shouting at the barracks. A few volleys through the sides of his own
shack waked him up good. He pulled on his trousers, taking time to
fasten them only by one button at his waist. There was no time for
socks; he pulled on his shoes, but had no time to lace them. A marine is
trained to be neat in his attire, and so our corporal apologetically
explained later that he had got no farther than that in his dressing
when he heard them trying to burst in his front door.
The corporal sent his native cook to the rear door, while he fixed his
bayonet to his rifle and stood guard over the front door. They had it
all but stove in when he began cutting loose like three men with his
rifle through the door. He killed a man there.
They then began to smash in the window nearest the door. He pried open
the window with his bayonet, and got there before them. There was a big
black fellow at the broken window. Our marine shot him dead, which gave
him time to turn to the side window, which they had now broken in with
the butts of their rifles. He got one there. There was another close up
whom he hit but did not kill; and he dropped another one on the edge of
the shadows outside. The cook, catching the spirit of the thing, killed
one at the rear door on his own account.
The bandits had enough, and left. Next evening, when his officer came
along with a squad, he found our corporal with his wounded under guard,
his four dead ones in a neat row, and himself and his cook frying
chicken in the twilight, cheerfully able to report that he had the
situation well in hand.
They are a sharpshooting rifle outfit. Down in Vera Cruz during the late
trouble a platoon of marines were at the foot of a street leading up
from the water-front. They had cleaned up things all about them and
thought they were in for a rest; and they wanted their rest--a hot
tropic day with the heat rolling off the asphalt where they lay.
There came a ping! of a rifle bullet among them; and half a minute or so
later another ping! They watched, and up the street they saw the head,
arm, and shoulder of a man with a rifle come poking around the corner of
a building, and ping! another one, and this time one of their men hit. A
bad hombre, that one.
"Get him!" said their officer, and named two of them to get him.
The two men lay down on the asphalt; and when their friend next poked
his head and shoulders around the corner, they fired. They saw the adobe
plaster spatter from a corner of the building just under the man's chin;
but that wasn't getting him. They jacked their sights up 50 yards,
making it 800 yards; and when next the native showed around the corner
they both got him--one plumb between the eyes.
It was good shooting; but there was no special comment after it. The
talk would have come if they hadn't got him.
But it is not always a matter of fighting or shooting efficiency. There
was that bad hombre, Juan Calcano of Santo Domingo--Juan the Terrible,
the natives called him. Juan and his gang had a headquarters in the
mountains. From there they came riding down into the valleys--shooting,
robbing, standing quiet natives on their heads generally. Juan had quite
a little territory under tribute. He came down into La Ramona, where was
a custom-house and guard. He shot up the guards, took all the gold in
the custom-house, and rode away, saying: "Come after me who dares!"
The marines did not worry about the daring part; but he was too strongly
intrenched for a direct attack. Your professional soldier, above all
men, prefers not to throw away good men's lives. They considered
matters; and one day they set out, three marine officers and thirty men,
for Juan's country. One of those tropical hurricanes came along the same
day they started, blew down trees, filled rivers to over their banks,
and made them wade waist-deep in the mud of the roads. It was tough
going, but it had its good side--there were not many people abroad.
They arrived near the village where Juan was known to be. An American
marine would not have stood much chance to get back if Juan had known
one was around; but one of the officers rigged up as a mule trader and
went looking for Juan. He found him, taking it easy until the roads
after the storm should become passable, and allow himself and his men to
sashay into the valley again.
All kinds of people--white, and black, and brown--came Juan's way to do
business--to buy mules and horses, for instance. In the course of his
travels in the valley Juan had helped himself to some very fine mules
and horses. Along comes this man this day--American, English, French,
Spanish, who knows? Or cares? He talked money--cash--for a good pair of
mules. No old spavined creatures, but young, strong, sound ones.
Yes, Juan had just such a pair of mules. Oh, a superb young pair! He
would see. Truly yes. Would the stranger señor come into his house so
that Juan might speak more confidentially of them? The stranger would.
And did. But before Juan could unload all he had to say about his mules
the mule buyer drew a large service automatic and slipped Juan out to
where thirty-two marines, officers and men, were in hiding. And they put
Juan in jail, and all it cost was one mule--not Juan's--drowned while
crossing a stream during the hurricane.
The marines have a great fighting record; but the marines do more than
fight. After all, men cannot be handling rifle and bayonet every waking
minute--they would become abnormal creatures if they did, of use only in
war time; and it would be a terrible world if war were our end and aim.
The marines get aviation, search-light, wireless, telegraphic, heliograph,
and other signal drill. They plant mines, put up telegraph and telephone
lines in the field, tear down or build up bridges, sling from a ship and
set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for their advance base work.
It is a belief with marines that the corps can do anything. Right in New
York City is a marine printing plant with a battery of linotypes and a
row of presses. They set their own type, write their own stuff (even to
the poetry), draw their own sketches, do their own photography, their
own color work--everything. Every man in that plant is a marine, enlisted
or commissioned. Every one has seen service somewhere outside his
country.
One was in a tropic country one time after an all-night march to a river
where the ferry was a water-soaked bamboo raft. They had to wait until
some native might happen along with a bull--or it might be a cow--to tow
the raft across. After crossing the river twice in that day, the young
marine commander halted on the bank and said: "That's sure not crossing
in a hurry if we had to. Might's well go to it and build a bridge right
now."
They cut down trees, got a portable pile-driver from their transport,
rigged it up and set to work. They hoisted the hammer--a good heavy
one--and let it drop. Bam! she struck, and into the mud for about two
feet went the pile. Fine! They hoisted the hammer again--four men
hauling on pulley blocks did the hoisting--and let her go again. This
time instead of a fine bam! the hammer went a fine splasho! into the
river. The great heat and dampness of the place had warped the runways;
almost every other time they let that hammer drop, it jumped the runways
and into the river.
But that was all right. They could fish her out and hoist her up by man
power again. It was when they left the solid bank and had to put out
into the river that their troubles began. A pile-driver ought to have a
pretty solid foundation. Ought to have! They took two dugout canoes,
lashed them together, put a bamboo deck across, set their pile-driver on
the deck and turned to again. It made a kind of a wabbly base; besides
hauling the hammer out every time it jumped into the river, they had to
see that it didn't come bouncing down atop of their own heads or through
the canoe deck. However, they were getting action. They finished driving
the piles and setting up the stringers.
For their bridge floor they laid down wood shingles, and over that a mat
made out of woven bamboo strips. For a top deck? Well, it was a coral
island and the roads of that country were of pounded coral; they put a
top dressing of pounded coral across the bridge.
And then the young marine commander looked her over and figured on the
dimensions of his struts and stringers, and said: "Some class! She'll
stand a two-ton load." And then along came a steam-roller from off the
transport, and the roller weighed five tons and it was important that
it be passed across. "Go ahead," said the marine commander--"only I
hope you can swim!" And they all camped on the bank to watch. The
steam-roller man was an optimist and a literary person: "You may have
builded better than you know, captain!" The bridge settled down another
foot, but the roller got across, and back and over many more times;
which set the younger marines to standing on the bank and saying:
"That's us--bridge builders!"
The fight in the shack, the capture of Calcano, the sharpshooting at
Vera Cruz, the building of that coral-floored bridge, are not set down
here as wonderful stunts. They are set down because the writer happened
to bump into them during a casual hour's inspection of their records.
Scores of more heroic or ingenious samples could be served up by anybody
who cared to dig deep into the records. These are detailed here, because
they could be briefly told and at the same time show the marine's
characteristic qualities: courage, ingenuity, technic, and industry.
Here we might mention that it is not in itself an act of war to land
marines on foreign soil. It was sending ashore the bluejackets at Vera
Cruz that made it an act of war. To protect American lives and property
in Nicaragua a battalion of marines landed there a few years ago. They
had some sharp fighting, but it was not an act of war. Do you begin to
see him as a diplomatic asset? And perhaps why all this landing action
comes his way? Most of us have probably forgotten the details of that
Nicaraguan landing; but--unless they have been jacked out lately--a
company of those marines are still there, looking out for American
interests. Only a company, but still hanging on.
Courage, ingenuity, industry--they need them all. Most of us will
probably have to stop to remember that the marines who landed in Haiti
and Santo Domingo are still there. And running things in their usual
efficient fashion. There was the usual fighting to get a toe-hold, the
usual fighting to retain place, the usual establishing of outposts, with
the usual killed and wounded already probably forgotten by most of us.
Perhaps they are too far away to make absorbing newspaper items; perhaps
it is the Big War overshadowing all else.
In Haiti and Santo Domingo it was the old story of political factions,
each faction having its own little gang of fighting men till our fellows
came in and ran most of them into the hills. When the marines took
charge they found that pretty much everything on the island had gone to
wrack. As, for instance, under the old French régime there had been some
splendid roads in Haiti, but now they were hardly more than sewers in
the towns and a drainage for the hill slopes of the country.
The marines repaired the roads; not always using the picks and shovels
themselves, but seeing to it that somebody did, paying a living wage for
such work to the natives. Sometimes bandits--who are quite often gentle
creatures when out of training--captured bandits were allowed to quit
jail to do useful work in this line. The marines installed sanitary
methods, saw that courts of justice were resumed, marine officers
themselves serving as justices until they found natives who could do
that service. Likewise they collected and disbursed taxes.
Above all, they did away with the old reign of terror, when no man's
life was safe if he happened to be on the wrong side. When the bandits
were running around unchecked, it was not safe for a whole family to go
to market together. Generally the women went to sell their little
produce, while the men stayed behind to guard the little property at
home. Now--the natives speak of the wonder of it--the roads on
market-days are crowded with both men and women.
At first they had distrust of the marine; not altogether because he was
a foreigner (the tropical people probably are less distrustful of us
than we of them)--he was an armed soldier. But they learned to know him,
and now the native salutes and smiles without effort at the marine in
passing. When one particular marine officer left there to come home
recently, crowds of native men, women, and children came down, some to
weep, but all to wish him Godspeed in going.
The marine is sometimes termed soldier and sailor too, which is not
correct. He is not a sailor and does not claim to be. When not in
barracks ashore he lives aboard some war-ship afloat; and on shipboard
he does certain guard work and handles the secondary batteries. But he
does not have to sailorize; the bluejacket takes care of that part, and
takes care of it well. The notion that a marine must qualify as a sailor
aboard ship has probably cost the corps many a prospective recruit.
To call him a seagoing soldier is more nearly correct. When it is not an
act of war to land marines on foreign soil, it is good business to keep
them where landings can be quickly made with them. So his being kept
aboard ship, perhaps. Bluejackets have taken part in landing-parties,
too, but it is not to black the bluejacket's eye to say that it is not
his regular job. The bluejacket's work is aboard ship--on the bridge, in
magazines, in turrets, below decks. Advance shore work is the marine's
specialty, and he goes to it pretty much as a man with a dinner-pail
goes to work in the subway.
He is the first to land, the last to leave, and to name the places where
he has seen service--well, one of them wrote a song once.
"From the hills of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," it began. But he
has seen more than Mexico or the Mediterranean since. He could now say:
"From the hills of Montezuma to the gates of old Peking
He has heard the shrapnel bursting, he has heard the
Mauser's ping!
He has known Alaskan waters and the coral roads of Guam,
He has----"
But it's like calling a roll--Egypt, Algeria, Tripoli, Abyssinia,
Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, Cuba, Porto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti,
Santo Domingo, Alaska, the Philippines, Formosa, Sumatra, Hawaii, Samoa,
Guam--like calling the roll of tropic countries and a few less warm to
say where he has been.
He has been most everywhere, done most everything. Did you ever see any
mounted marines? There is a guard of mounted marines right now with the
legation in Peking; and once a platoon of marines, on duty in Africa,
not being able to get big enough horses, rode camels through the wilds
of Abyssinia to the palace of old Menelik.
In speaking here of the marines, no man or officer has been named.
That is done of a purpose. In talking of the corps, from the
topsiders down--generals, colonels, majors, captains lieutenants,
and enlisted men--one fact stuck out: They all played up the corps.
All individuals--officers and men--were made subordinate to the corps.
So here, taking the tip, no names are named. A soldier speaks of his
regiment, a bluejacket of his ship. The Marine Corps is made up of
companies, regiments, battalions, divisions; but it is the corps of
which the marine always speaks.
If you ask the members of any other outfit to name the model military
unit, they may name their own branch of the service first; but if they
do, it is almost a sure bet that they will name the United States Marine
Corps next. When they do not name themselves first, they name the
marines first. And this does not apply to outfits in this country alone.
By the look of things now, there probably will be plenty of war before
we are done. If any young fellow is wishful to be in the middle of it,
we would say: Consider the marines. You may not see them mentioned every
morning in the press reports, but be sure of this--they are there and on
the job.
THE NAVY AS A CAREER
A young fellow reading all this stuff about the doings of our destroyers
might be inclined to look on the navy as pure adventure, which would not
be to get it quite right. The adventure is there, but there is something
more.
The navy will take a young man, feed and clothe him, give him a good
all-round training, and while he is yet in middle age retire him with at
least $60 a month for the rest of his life. No matter how low his rating
has been, that $60 a month is certain after his thirty years of service;
while, if he has shown moderate intelligence and ambition, he can count
on close to $100 a month, and this without his having ever been a
commissioned officer. The years after his retirement he may spend as he
pleases--go into business, get another job, and make another wage on top
of his pension. He can go to jail if he prefers: whatever he does,
always there is that sheet-anchor of a pension to windward.
Apart from the fighting end of it, most of us possibly do not know just
what navy life means to-day. We all know that man-of-war's men no longer
lie out on rolling yard arms to reef salt-crusted sails in gales of
wind; but in what else lies the difference? Some of us, possibly, do not
know that.
The navy still wants men with the seagoing instinct--men who can
sailorize, who can hand, splice, and steer; but more than ever the navy
is looking for men who can do other things. The navy wants ship-fitters,
blacksmiths, plumbers, electricians, wireless operators, carpenters,
boiler-makers, painters, printers, store-keepers, bakers, cooks,
stewards, drug clerks; even as it wants gunners, boatmen, quartermasters,
sailmakers, firemen, oilers, and it will take clarinet, trombone, and
cornet players and the like for the ship's band.
If a man has no trade the navy will teach him one. There are navy
schools for electricians, shipwrights, ship-fitters, carpenters,
painters, coppersmiths, ship's cooks, bakers, stewards, and musicians.
There are schools where yeomen (ship's clerks) are taught all about
departmental papers; there is a Hospital Corps school; an aeronautic
school; a school for deep-sea diving. (There are no schools for
blacksmiths or boiler-makers; these must have mastered their trades
before enlistment.)
When a young fellow enlists he is sent to one of several naval
training-stations. Here they are quartered in barracks--well-aired,
well-lighted, well-heated buildings. At one place, where the climate is
mild, the boys sleep in barracks in bungalows with upper sides of
canvas, which are rolled down to let in sun and air in fine weather and
laced up against bad weather.
At all training-stations there are mess-halls, reading-rooms, libraries;
also gymnasiums, athletic fields, and ball parks. At all stations there
are setting-up drills, gymnastic, swimming and signal exercises, ship
and boat training. The men go on hikes, fight sham battles, dig trenches.
Line-officers give them advice which will be of use to them on shipboard
later; service doctors and chaplains hand them hygienic and moral truths
that will be of use to them anywhere at any time.
A recruit goes from the training-school to a cruising ship, where he may
find himself--according to his work--doing watch duty four hours on to
eight hours off; or working at hours like a man ashore--turning to at
eight or nine o'clock and knocking off at four or five or six o'clock in
the afternoon.
War-ships formerly meant close living quarters; and ships formerly went
off on cruises on which the men sometimes did not set foot on shore for
six months or a year, and quite often they had to go for months without
taste of fresh meat or vegetables. Those days are gone. Ships still make
long cruises from home, but they do not keep the sea as they used to.
Service regulations require that men now be given a run ashore once in
three months; and "beef boats" travel with all fleets.
The everlasting holystoning of wooden decks and the dim lanterns hung at
intervals from low-hanging beams--they are gone. The only dim lanterns
now are the "battle-lanterns" in use at night war practice; and they are
swung to steel bulkheads by electric wires. Quarter-decks, forecastle
heads, and bridges are still planked on the big ships, and such do still
have to be holystoned on special days; but the great stretches between
decks are now laid in linoleum on the hard steel itself; electric lights
are all over the ship, and, as for the low beams, the new big ships are
so high-girdered that hammock-hooks on the berth-deck have to be made
extra long so the men won't have to get stepladders to turn in. A
battleship nowadays is about 600 feet long, 100 feet wide, has seven or
eight decks, with turrets, bridges, military masts, and smoke-pipes
topside. Between decks are magazines, storerooms, engine-rooms,
boiler-rooms, dynamo-rooms, mess-rooms, ice-rooms, repair-shops,
staterooms, office-rooms, sick-bays, galleys, laundries, pantries--but
only ship-constructors can tell you offhand how many hundreds of
compartments are below decks of a present-day big war-ship.
She is a great workshop, an office-structure, a big power-plant, a
floating hotel--and a few other things. But above all she is meant to be
a home for ten or twelve hundred officers and men.
A man may not be given duty on a battleship or battle cruiser; he may be
sent to a scout cruiser or a beef boat or a gunboat, which, being
smaller, will bounce and roll around more in heavy weather and not offer
so much room to move around in; but he will get used to the bouncing
around, and always he will find some variety and some comfort in his
daily life.
That item of comfort might as well be counted in as important. It is
something to know that, no matter what else happens, there are hot meals
waiting a man three times a day, and a dry change of clothing, and a dry
hammock to turn into nights. Even on deck duty in bad weather a man can
get into slicker, rubber boots, and rain-hat, and at the worst be almost
comfortable.
Navy life is not meant to be a perpetual entertainment--not though they
do hold regular smokers on the quarter-decks of the big ships. To lie
for months off a tropic port waiting for something to happen--that is
not exhilarating; and coaling ship, even with the band playing--that is
no joy. But the watching of tropic ports passes; and the ship has to
steam many a mile before she must be coaled again. So, taking it in the
long perspective, it is a moderately varied life, an outdoor life, and
under hygienic conditions of the best. Right now, war with us, there is
going to be some danger; but we are assuming that any man who thinks of
joining the navy is prepared for a little danger.
A man may enlist in the navy up to thirty-five years of age, provided he
is at least 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 128 pounds, has a 33-inch
chest, possesses normal vision, a moderate number of sound teeth, is
free from disease or deformity, and is an American citizen. Sometimes
men shy on some measurement are passed if above average otherwise. A boy
seventeen (the youngest enlistment age) must be 5 feet 2 inches and
weigh 110 pounds. When a boy or a man enlists he goes at once on the
payroll. With his pay goes a clothing allowance sufficient to cover all
service demands; with his pay also goes nourishing and abundant food.
Enlistments are of four years for men. A boy's enlistment runs to his
majority. A man may work up to be a C. P. O. (chief petty officer) in
his first enlistment. The navy is full of men who have done that. During
this war many a recruit should make his C. P. O. quickly, for there is
nothing in the Regulations to prevent a recruit from making his C. P. O.
overnight. The habit of most officers is to rate up good men in their
divisions as fast as vacancies will permit.
A C. P. O.'s base pay may run up to $77 a month. With re-enlistment that
base pay is increased. A man re-enlisting without delay gets a bounty of
four months' pay. (Figure that extra re-enlistment money--four months'
pay every four years, the same with interest at the navy savings-account
rate of 4 per cent--and see what it amounts to after thirty years'
service.) That extra re-enlistment money is not figured into the pension
probabilities, as stated in the beginning of this article. Consider that
and then consider how many men have to work until they are too old to
work any further and who, after all their years of labor, go on the
scrap-heap without a dollar against the poverty of their old age.
Besides the base pay of a man's rating there is extra money for men
doing special work. (Neither has this been reckoned in the pension
possibilities.) Certain gun-pointers, gun-captains, coxswains, stewards,
and cooks get extra money up to $10 a month. Men in submarines get $1
extra for every day their boat submerges up to $15 a month. Men acting
as mail-clerks draw up to $30 a month extra; ship's tailors up to $20 a
month extra. Men in the Flying Corps get 50 per cent more than the base
pay their rating calls for. Every man in the service draws a small extra
sum for good conduct.
A chief petty officer is not the highest rating of the enlisted service.
There is a most efficient body of men called warrant-officers, who wear
a sword, are called "Mr.," and draw up to $2,400 a year. There are
warrant boatswains, gunners, machinists, carpenters, pharmacists, and
pay-clerks. But they must remain in service, even as most commissioned
officers, till they are sixty-four, before they draw their pension of
three-quarters pay. Also, like commissioned officers, they get no
clothing allowance and have to pay for their food.
The matter of becoming a commissioned officer may interest the recruit.
One hundred appointments may be made to Annapolis every year from among
the younger enlisted men of the navy. Young fellows who wish to try for
this are given special opportunities for study. The proviso that an
applicant must be under twenty years of age and have been at least one
year in service to make Annapolis is going to bar the way to some. For
such there is another way--warrant. A warrant boatswain, gunner, or
machinist of four years' standing and still under thirty-five years of
age may take an examination for ensign. Twelve warrant-officers may be
made ensigns annually. If they pass, they thereafter go on up exactly as
any Annapolis graduate. A warrant pay-clerk may go up to be junior
paymaster, where he will rank with an ensign.
The foregoing is for the business or ambitious side. Somebody may ask:
Will the young fellow who looks on the navy as a business proposition
make a good fighting man?
Well, in the judgment of men who study the game, almost any young fellow
you meet along the street has it in him to make a good fighting man. The
fighting habit is more a habit of mind than of body. Habituating the
mind to the fighting game is what makes our sailors, soldiers, and
marines do the right thing almost automatically in crises; and this
almost automatically correct action makes for the greater safety of
shipmates or comrades in time of peril.
In this book only the work of our destroyers in this war has been spoken
of. That is because only our destroyers have come in contact with enemy
ships; but all along the line the personnel is of equal caliber.
Our navy is crowded with men who will face any danger. Some years ago
one of our battleships was on the battle-range, with bags of powder
stowed in her turrets to save time in loading and firing the guns. A
spark got to the bags of powder. There was an explosion and a fire.
Directly underneath was the handling-room. Burning pieces of cloth fell
from the turret down into the handling-room. The crew of that
handling-room could have jumped into the passageway, made their way up a
ladder, and so on to the free and safe air of the open deck. What they
did was to stand by to stamp out what fire they could.
Leading from the handling-room were the magazines. The doors of the
magazines were open. Men jumped into the magazines and buttoned the keys
of the bulkhead doors so that there would be no crevice for sparks. In
doing that they locked themselves in; and once in they had to stay in.
Above them, they knew, was a turret full of men and officers dead and
dying; they knew that fire was raging around them, too, and that the
next thing would be for the people outside to flood the magazines. The
magazines were flooded; when things were under control and the doors
opened, the water in the magazines was up to the men's necks.
While that was going on below decks, in the turret were other men and
officers, including the chaplain, not knowing what was going on below,
and expecting every moment to be blown up into the sky; but there they
were, easing the last moments of the men who were not already dead.
Thirty all told were killed in the turret. All concerned behaved well,
but no better than they were expected to behave.
A few years ago there was a destroyer off Hatteras. It was before
daybreak of a winter's morning in heavy weather. A boiler explosion blew
out her side from well below the water-line clear up through to her main
deck. Men were killed by the explosion; others were badly scalded. A
steam burn is an agonizing thing, yet some of these scalded men went
back into that hell of a boiler-room and hauled out shipmates who, to
their notion, were more badly burned than themselves. One such rescuer
died of his burns. The hole in the deck and top side of that destroyer
was twelve feet across, yet her commander and crew got her to Norfolk
under her own steam. Commander and crew behaved well, but no better than
they were expected to behave.
There is a chief boatswain in the navy who had the duty of taking a
ship's steamer with a crew to look after the ship's target at battle
practice. A target is a frame of canvas set up on a raft of logs. The
duty of the steamer was to stand off to one side and make a record of
the hits.
This boatswain likes to joke, to try out new men. On the run from the
ship he called the roll and said: "Now, boys, in this work one of you
will have to stay on the raft to count the hits. Of course it is
dangerous work. I won't say that it isn't. The man going may not come
back. The chances are"--he eyed them one after another--"that whoever
goes will never come off the raft alive. Now, I can name the one who
will have to do that work. But I don't want to have to name him. I'll
let you draw lots."
He took a sheet of paper and cut it into strips. His crew--all
apprentice boys, all fresh from the training-school--drew the slips. The
lad who drew the short slip was no better or braver to look at than most
of the others. He looked at his slip of paper and then in a sort of
wonder at the sea and sky.
He came back to his short slip. His lips trembled. He prayed to himself.
Then he went down into his blouse pocket and fished out a stub of a
pencil. He was whiter than ever, and shaking. "Can I have a sheet of
paper, sir?"
"What do you want a sheet of paper for?"
"I'd like, sir, to write a note to my mother before I go."
To pick out a few isolated instances from service records and shout:
"There is the proof of general efficiency, of courage, of--"
whatnot--that would be idle. These were not taken from the service
records. Officers and men in the turret explosion, in the destroyer
accident, in the raft incident, are mentioned here because the writer,
at different times, has cruised with them.
They all behaved well; but no better than they were expected to.
When I asked the boatswain in the raft case if he expected the boy to
quit, he said: "Quit! They never quit."
This talk of heroism and pensions in the same breath may not seem to
jibe; somebody is going to wonder if the man who thinks of the money
side of the navy in the beginning isn't going to think too much of it in
the end. But there is a point of view which should be reckoned with, and
a type of man, of a good fighting man, who should be listened to in this
matter. Why should not a man who risks his life in his daily calling
have the normal comforts and his family the ordinary necessities of
life?
I know a fireman, an efficient, brave man--a man with a record. One
night--we were in a drug store in a crowded city--he was answering the
argument of a man working in a big factory.
Said the fireman: "You're making your five or six--yes, and eight--dollars
a day, in lively times like now. All right. But the lively times will
pass, and there'll come weeks when you won't make any four or five or
six dollars a day, and there'll come weeks when you'll be on half-time.
Average it up and you won't get any more than I will in the long run. And
when I'm through, when I'm fifty-five, I get a pension, and with a few
good years left to me. And where are you then? Out on the street or some
home for the aged--if they will take you.
"Save money as I go along? I don't figure on it--not with a family and
trying to give them the kind of food they need and the little things
that live boys and girls--especially girls--care as much for as the grub
they eat and the clothes they wear. But if I do spend all my pay, my
family are getting the good of it, I don't go into the discard at the
end. And when I'm up on a shaky roof in a bad fire, maybe I'll be more
ready to take a chance, knowing that if I go through and cripple myself,
there's something coming to the wife and family after it."
The fireman's argument holds for the navy, except that in the navy they
get through younger and with a bigger pension.
Is there any romance in the navy nowadays? Who can answer for all?
Probably as much now as ever there was. Why should substituting
smoke-pipes for spars, and propellers for sails, kill the thing that
thrills us? I've seen men washing down decks of a tropic morning, and,
ninety miles inland, old Orizaba showing his white head above the
clouds; and some of those men thought it was slow work and others
thought it was great.
On a scout cruiser to African ports, or a thousand miles up a Chinese
river on a gunboat, among the South Sea Islands on a light cruiser, some
men return with dumb lips and others can keep you awake till morning
with the tales of what they've seen.
A nineteen-year-old big-gun pointer sits atop of his bicycle saddle, and
the enemy fleet is swinging into range. Will it be like shooting clay
pipes in a gallery or will a warmer wave go rolling through his veins as
he presses the button?
Romance! Is it something always dead and gone, or something a man carries
around with him?
Whatever it is, the navy is there to try it out, and no danger of starving
while we try it.
THE SEA BABIES
Submarines have been cutting a large figure in this war. There is
probably a general curiosity to know how they are operated. I know I was
curious to know, and, _Collier's_ having secured me permission from the
Electric Boat Company, I went over to Cape Cod to take in a trial trip
or two of some boats they were building for the British Government.
There was one all ready for sea.
Long and narrow, and modelled like a stretched-out egg she was, with one
end of the egg running to a point by way of a stern, and the other
flattened to an up-and-down wedge-like bow. A heavy black line marked
her run.
Below her run she was tinted to the pale green of inshore waters, and to
a grayish blue above. Everything above her deck, which was only a raised
fore-and-aft platform for the crew to walk on, with countless little
round scupper-holes in its sides--above the deck her conning-tower, and
above that again her periscope casing--all were blue-gray.
The feeling of the morning was of heavy wind and rain or snow to come;
and a hard, cold breath of the sea and a taste of the rain were already
on us as we crossed the plank from the mother ship to the deck of the
"sub" and, one after the other, fitted ourselves into the main hatchway
and wiggled down into her.
Our submarine, from the inside, was an amazing collection of engines,
tanks, gauges, tubes, pipes, valves, wheels, torpedoes, tube heads,
electric registers, electric lights, and whatnot. A flat steel floor ran
from the forward end to the engine-room aft. Between the floor and the
arched deck overhead were three heavy steel bulkheads with heavy steel
doors. A narrow iron skeleton ladder led up to her conning-tower; small
steel rungs bolted to the casing showed the way to a square after-deck
hatch.
When all the others of us were below, the captain came squeezing down
from the conning-tower hatch and took his position at the periscope.
To the captain's left stood a man whose job it was to hold the sub to
the depth of water desired. This was the diving-rudder man, a most
expert one, we were told, who had been known to hold a submerged sub at
full speed to within six inches of one depth for two miles at a stretch.
A thin brass scale and a curved tube of colored water with an air bubble
in it helped out the diving-rudder man's calculations. The least
deviation of the sub's course from the horizontal and these two
instruments, lit up by electric lamps, showed it at once. There was a
big dial, with a long green hand, which also marked the depth of the
sub; but that was an insensitive and rather slow-acting gauge--all right
for the crew to look at from half the length of the sub, but not fine or
quick enough for the diving-rudder man.
He was the busy man while we were under water. The others could now and
again grab a moment of relaxation from their tenseness, but while the
sub was moving the diving-rudder man never took his eyes off the little
brass scale with the electric light playing on it. Stop and consider
that our sub had only to get a downward inclination of ever so little
while running hooked-up under water, and in no time she would be below
her lowest safety depth of 200 feet, where the pressure is 7 tons to
every square foot of her hull. And should she collapse there would be no
preliminary small leak by way of warning. She would go as an egg-shell
goes when you crush it in your palm. Plack!--like that--and it would be
all over. Above this same middle compartment, the smallest and most
crowded of all, up through the grilled spaces of a steel grating, we
could see the wide feet and boot-legs of the man who held the ship to
her compass course; and for a wheel, we knew, he was holding a little
metal lever about as long and thick as his middle finger, with a little
black ball about as big as the ball of his thumb on the end of it.
To the right of the foot of the conning-tower ladder stood the
ballast-tank man; and when the captain from the foot of his periscope
gave the word--after first looking forward, aft, and to each side of him
to see that all hands were at their proper stations--it was the
ballast-tank man who went violently at once into action. He grabbed a
big valve and gave it a twist; grabbed another and gave it a twist; and
another, and one more; and, standing near by, we could hear--or thought
we could--the in-rush of great waters.
[Illustration: In the engine-room of a submarine. The Diesel engines,
driven by crude petroleum, propel the ship on the surface. Electric
motors supply the power when running submerged.]
A man got to wondering then what would happen if this chap got his
valves mixed. But a look around showed every lever and every valve,
everything marked with its own name and number. Nothing was left
unmarked--in deep-cut black lettering on brass plates generally, but
here and there colored-light signs, too. After another look at the
multiplicity of them, almost any man would agree that it is a good
scheme.
But to get back: the tank man has done his part and our sub is sinking.
There is no unusual feeling to inform a man she is sinking. Only for the
starting of the engines, the diving-rudder man getting busy, and the
wide-faced gauge's long green finger beginning to walk around, a man who
didn't know could easily believe that the sub was still tied up alongside
her supply-ship. But the long green finger is walking, and marking 5
feet, 10 feet, 11, 12, as it walks. At 16 feet the finger oscillates and
stops, and to that depth our diving-rudder man holds her while she speeds
on for a mile or so.
That first little dash is by way of warming her up. The officer for
whose government this submarine was built is aboard. He now asks for a
torpedo demonstration. So two 1,500-pound dummy torpedoes are got ready,
the breeches to two of the four forward tubes opened, the torpedoes
slipped in, the breeches closed. The bow caps are then opened.
The captain, during all this time, has never left the periscope, which--to
have it explained and over with--is no more than a long telescope set on
end, with a reflecting mirror top and bottom. From the lower end of the
periscope project two brass arms, by means of which the skipper now swings
the periscope all the way around. In this way he is able to look at any
quarter of the sea he pleases.
Running at the depth we were then, the periscope showing about six feet
out of water, the captain at the periscope was, of course, the only man
who could see anything outside of her.
The captain gave the needful preliminary orders; and at the proper time,
sighting through the periscope as he did so, he pressed the button of a
little arrangement which he held, half concealed, in the palm of his
hand. There was a soft explosion, a sort of woof!--and a torpedo was on
the way to a hypothetical enemy, with only the captain able to see that
it reached its mark.
As the torpedo left the sub the rudder man gave her a "down" rudder,
which was to offset the tendency of the sub to shoot her nose to the
surface; when the torpedo had gone the tank man turned on the
air-pressure, which blew out what water had entered the torpedo chamber.
By and by the other torpedo was fired.
One reason for this trial run was to prove that she could run so many
miles an hour under water by the power of her storage-batteries alone.
And soon she went at that. And no mild racket inside her then; for a
sub's engine power and space are out of all proportion to her tonnage.
Not to decrease the noise, the man to whom the trial meant most was
standing by with a stop-watch, and every half-minute or so he would yell
at the top of his lungs, "Go!" or "Hold!" to the engineer, who was
imprisoned in a narrow alleyway with engines to right and to left and
below him. The engineer would look at a register and yell back at the
manager, who would then set some figures in a book and rush over to the
man who was reckoning up the decreasing or increasing amperes or
kilowatts or whatever they were of her storage-batteries, and set down
more figures; and if the boss had to yell his head off to make himself
heard, be sure that the others had to yell even louder. Only on trial
trips, probably, where tests have to be proved, does all this yelling
happen; but the total effect was to make a shore-goer feel, not as if
he were in a ship under water, but rather in a subway section under
construction, or some overdriven corner of some sort of night-working
machine-shop, or some other homelike place ashore. The bright electric
lights helped out the machine-shop illusion.
For a time during the run the diving-rudder man had his troubles keeping
her on a level, whereupon the skipper--an easy-going man ordinarily--jerked
his head away from his periscope and had a peek for the reason. Through
the forward bulkhead door he spied the torpedo man, who, feeling pleased,
perhaps, at the successful execution of his part of the programme, was
fox-trotting fore and aft for himself in his section of the ship. "Would
you mind picking out one spot and staying on it?" asked the skipper, at
which the torpedo man took his camp-stool, picked out his one spot, and
planted himself on it, and piously read the stock-market quotations of a
week-old newspaper for the rest of the run.
While this hour run--full speed, submerged--was in progress, a tickling
in our throats set most of us to coughing. A naval constructor of note,
who was also a shark on chemistry, explained how this coughing was not
caused by the chill in the air, but by the particles of sulphuric acid
thrown off by the action of the storage-batteries. These little particles,
it seems, went travelling about in the air seeking a home--some place,
any place where they could tuck in out of the way; but all the air homes
being already occupied by other tenants--the usual ingredients or
components of the air--they could find no place to butt in; and so they
went around and about till innocent people like ourselves made a home for
them by breathing them in out of the way. After which explanation--yelled
above all the other noises--these sulphuric hoboes caused less suspicion
and discomfort. It was good to hear that what we were swallowing was not
the chlorine of a hundred stories of fiction.
The sub had now to prove her diving qualities. So tanks were blown out
and up she went to the surface again; and there, while she was resting
like a bird on the water, ballast-tanks were suddenly filled and down she
went. Down, down, down she went--the long green finger on the broad-faced
gauge walking around at a fine clip. Dropping so--on an even keel, by the
way--she gave out no sense of action such as a man gets on an aeroplane.
Flying around in the air, you see what's doing every second. If anything
happens, you know you will see it coming, and--perhaps--going: your eyes,
ears, brains, and nerves prove things to you.
But action in a submarine lies largely in a man's imagination, unless he
be the periscope man; and even there, when she is completely submerged,
he sees no more than the others. However, a man did not need to have too
much imagination to think of a few things as he looked at the long green
finger walking around: 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet--This particular
observer had no idea she could drop so fast; and as she dropped, he
could not help wondering how deep the ocean was around there--this in
case anything happened. Sixty feet, 70 feet--she was gathering great
speed by then, but at 82 feet she stopped--a pleasant thing to see. And
then, maybe to show it was no accident, she did it all over again. Did
we feel any difficulty in breathing during all this? We did not, nor
during the three to four hours we were under that morning. And let a man
listen to these submarine enthusiasts telling how they can live three or
four weeks on their compressed air, if they have to, without coming to
the surface! Only give them food enough, of course. And coffee--they
have an electric range to make the coffee. As it happened, they made
coffee for us--not that day, but next morning going home. It was good
coffee. The 82-foot-drop stunts were done with each of the crew at his
station, ready at any instant to check her.
To meet the further requirements our sub had to rise to the top, fill
her tanks, let herself go, and then, by an automatic safety device,
fetch up all by herself. So the tank man applied the air-pressure, blew
his tanks free of all water, closed his outer valves and brought her up.
She was now stretched out on the surface--not quite motionless, for the
first of the breeze predicted the night before was on and we could feel
that she was rolling a little. A peek through the periscope while she
was up disclosed further evidence of the breeze--tossing white crests,
two coasters hustling for harbor under short sail, an inbound fisherman
with reefed mainsail making great leaps for home. Looking through the
periscope so, it was easy enough to understand the feeling of power
which might well come to the master of a submarine in war time. The sub
can be lying there--in dark or bright water will make no difference; on
such a day no eye is going to discern the white bone of the moving
periscope; and he can be standing there, with a quick peek now and then
to see what is going on above him; and by and by she can come swinging
along majestically in her arrogance and power--the greatest battleship
afloat, with guns to level a great city, or the biggest and speediest
ship ever built--and he can be there and when he gets good and
ready--Woof! she's gone. War-ship or liner, she's gone and all aboard
gone with her; and the submarine skipper can go along about his business
of getting the next one.
However, the automatic device was set for action at the required depth
and the word given.
In this same middle compartment--the operating compartment of the
ship--was a man with the spiritual face of one who keeps lonely, intense
vigils. He sat on a camp-stool, and his business seemed to be not ever
to let his rapt gaze wander from several rows of gauges which were
screwed to the bulkhead before him. Since I first stepped down into the
sub I had spotted him, and had been wondering if his ascetic look was
born with him or was a development of his job--whatever his job might
be. Now I learned what his job was. He was the man who stood by the
automatic safety devices. If anything happened to the regular gadgets
and it was life or death to get her at once to the surface, he was the
man who pressed a button, or moved a switch, or in some highly
mechanical way applied the mysterious power which would get her safe to
the surface.
The skipper gave the word, the main ballast lad opened his outer valves,
and down she started. We knew this, as always, by the moving green
finger on the wide-faced gauge. Downward she kept on going, and to a man
not too long shipmates with the creature she certainly did seem to be
going down in a hurry. She was nearing the appointed depth; she made the
appointed depth, and--went on by. "What's this!" said one observer to
himself, and directed an interested eye toward the saint-like lad on the
camp-stool.
But it was only for a few feet. The indicator slacked up, fluttered,
stopped dead. And then--without the husky tank boy to lift a finger--we
heard the rumph-h and rumbling of the valve-seats as the sea-water was
driven out of her ballast-tanks; and then up she started. Soon there she
was--did it all by herself--atop of the water. And the face of the young
fellow of the automatic devices was like the face of the devout
missionary who has just put something over on the heathen.
Later, when you express the feeling of almost holy comfort which these
little automatic safety devices give you, the manager--the same with the
stop-watch and the note-book--says, "Puh! Look here," and sits down and
details--drawing good working plans of them on a pad while he talks--three
different ways by which a submarine crew can beat the game should any
evil happen to the ordinary and regular means of getting to the surface.
She has a turn at porpoising then; that is from a moderate depth the
diving-rudder man shoots her near enough to the surface for the captain
to have a look through the periscope--a long-enough look to plot the
enemy on a chart, but not long enough to give that enemy much of a
chance to pick him up; and then under again. And then up for another
peek; and quickly under again, the captain at the periscope taking each
time a fresh bearing of the enemy, who is supposed to be at some
distance and steaming at good speed. After two or three such quick
sights, changing course after each sight, it will be time to discharge a
torpedo or two at her. And--the layman may note it--with expert men at
the periscope and diving-rudder, a porpoising sub can sight, discharge
her torpedo, and dive--all within five seconds.
Steaming back to harbor after our trial run that day, we caught the
first rip of the gale which the gummed-over moon and the low barometer
had forecast the night before. It was too rough to tie her up to the
supply-ship, so the sub was anchored--they carry anchors too--a short
distance away, with three men left on her for an anchor watch, the idea
being to take them off later for a hot meal. But after the rest of us
were safe and warm and well fed aboard the mother ship, the increasing
winds came bowling over the increasing seas, and the crew of the sub had
to wait.
At intervals we could hear them emitting beseeching, doleful, disgusted
moans and shrieks and howls from her air-whistle. But it was too rough
for any little choo-choo boat to be battling around. It was 9.30 that
night before they could safely be taken off. They were a moderately
good-natured lot; but that was the blear-eyed trouble with making sub
trial trips with bad weather coming on--a man never knew about his
regular meals.
The supply-ship was quite a little institution herself. Approaching her
from shore the night before, her lights beneath the dull moon and thin,
drifting clouds had loomed up like a dancing-hall across the lonesome
harbor waters. When we got aboard, we found her the relic of what had
once been a fine block of a three-masted coaster; but moored forward and
aft she was now, as if for all time, and no longer showing stout spars
and weather-beaten canvas--nothing but two floors of white-painted
boarding above her old bulwarks.
She was a boarding-place, a sort of club, for the crew and attendants,
as well as a supply station for the submarines which in these New
England waters were being tried out for one of the warring Powers.
Voices and cigar-smoke as we stepped aboard, and more or less quiet
breathing, with partly closed and open living and sleeping rooms,
denoted that men were discussing, arguing, sleeping, and otherwise
passing a normal evening. Looking farther, we saw that down in the
insides of her--where formerly she stowed noble freights of coal or
lumber or, sometimes, hay and ice--were now a boiler and engine room,
and a good, big repair-shop.
This night, while the gale came howling and the sea rolling and the
solid rain sweeping against the sober old sides of our supply-ship--on
this night, the finest kind to be sitting in a warm cabin, we sat and,
while the smoke rolled high, aired our views of the real things in the
world; and the most real thing in the world just then being a submarine,
we got this:
"Danger? Of course, there's some danger. So is there danger in
bank-fishing, in log-jamming down in Maine, in mining deep down, and in
aeroplaning.
"You want to get a sub right. A sub is a ship modelled different from
most ships, of course, and built stronger to stand pressure, but only a
ship, after all, with special tanks in her. She's on top of the water
and wants to go down. Good. She fills her tanks and down she goes. She's
down and wants to come up. All right. She empties her tanks and up she
comes. She's got to. She couldn't stay down with her tanks empty if she
wanted to--not unless she blew a hole in her side, or left her hatches
open.
"Of course if her tanks don't work right! But we showed you three
different ways to-day how she can beat that game. And anyway, no matter
what happens, unless you're cruising deep, it's only a few feet to the
top. Not like a crazy aeroplane a thousand feet up in the air! Something
happens in an aeroplane, and where are you? With a busted stay or bamboo
strut and you a mile in the air, where are you? Volplane? Maybe. But if
you didn't--down you'd come atumbling like a hoop out of the clouds.
That's 90 per cent--yes, maybe 99 per cent--of the submarine game: See
that everything is right mechanically with your sub, then get a competent
crew and--well, you're ready."
That is for the submariner's point of view. As for the danger from a
shore-goer's point of view: Ashore we make the mistake, perhaps, of
thinking of a submarine as a heavy, logy body fighting always for her
life beneath an unfriendly ocean; whereas she is a light-moving easily
controlled creature cruising in a rather friendly element.
The ocean is always trying to lift her atop and not hold her under
water. A submarine could be sent under with a positive buoyancy so
small--that is, with so little more than enough in her tanks to sink
her--that an ordinary man standing on the sea bottom could catch her as
she came floating down and bounce her up and off merely by the strength
of his arms. Consider a submarine under water as we would a toy balloon
in the air, say. Weight that toy balloon so that it just falls to earth.
Kick that toy balloon and what does it do? Doesn't it bounce along, and
after a few feet fall easily down again, and up and on and down again?
Picture a strong wind driving that toy balloon along the street, and the
balloon, as it bumps along, meeting an obstacle: Will the balloon smash
itself against the obstacle, or what will it do? What that balloon does
is pretty much what a submarine would do if, while running along full
speed under water, she suddenly ran into shoal water. She would go
bumping along on the bottom; and, meeting an obstacle, if not too high,
she would be more likely to bounce over it than to smash herself against
it.
But sometimes they do run into things and fetch up?
That is right, they do. Let our naval men tell of the old C plunger--the
first class of sub in our navy--which hit an excursion steamer down the
James River way one time. She was a wooden steamer about 150 feet long,
and the C's bow went clear through the steamer's sides. The steamer's
engineer was sitting by his levers, reading the sporting page of his
favorite daily, when he heard a crash and found himself on the
engine-room floor. Looking around, he saw a wedge of steel sticking
through the side of his ship. He did not know what it was, but he could
see right away it didn't have a friendly look; so he hopscotched across
the engine-room floor and up a handy ladder to the deck, taking his
assistant along in his wake. After rescuing the passengers it took three
tugboats to pry sub and steamer apart.
Our C boat must have hit her a pretty good wallop, for as they fell
apart the steamer sank. They ran the little old C up to the navy-yard to
see how much she was damaged. Surely after that smash she must be shaken
up--her bow torpedo-tubes at least must be out of alignment! But not a
thing wrong anywhere; they didn't even have to put her in dry dock. Out
and about her business she went next morning.
Later another of the same class came nosing up out of the depths, and
bumped head on and into a breakwater down that same country--a solid
stone wall of a breakwater. What did she do? She bounced off, and, after
a look around, also went on about her business.
* * * * *
In the morning our sub up-anchored for her run across the open bay. On
the conning-tower was rigged a little bridge of slim brass stanchions
and thin wire-rope rail, with the canvas as high as a man's chin for
protection; and away she went in a wind that was still blowing hard
enough to drive home-bound Gloucester fishermen down to storm trysails
and sea enough to jump an out-bound destroyer of a thousand tons under
easy steam to her lower plates whenever she lifted forward.
There was not a soul standing around on the main deck of the destroyer
as we passed her, nor on her high forward turtle-deck, which was being
washed clean; and surely not much comfort being bounced around on
transoms in that destroyer below, nor too much dryness on her flying
bridge. And yet here was our little sub--full speed and all--heading
straight into high-curling seas and making fine weather of it.
Plunging her bow under, and through she'd go; and when she did the seas
would go swashing up atop of her make-believe deck and come rolling down
her round-top plates and squishing through the hundreds of round holes
in her deck sides. But steady? Up on her little bridge we did not half
the time have to hold on to her little steel-rope rail lines to keep our
balance. She kept on going, hooked-up all the way, seas and wind and all
to hinder her, and finished her five-hour run without so much as wetting
our coat fronts up on the conning-tower bridge. A great little sea
boat--a submarine.
Now for the personnel of the crew. The crew of the sub described were
not sailors. The captain was an old seagoer--yes; and it would be a safe
guess that the diving-rudder man had a seagoing experience; and one
other perhaps; but the fellows who stood by the other things below came
straight from the boat works. They had helped, most of them, to build
her: which was one good reason for having them along on her trial trip.
And there are thousands of young fellows working around garages and in
machine-shops and electric-light plants ashore who are the very men
needed for submarines. There will always have to be a sailor or two in a
submarine; or there should be, for a real sailor is always a handy man
to have around--he knows things that nobody else knows.
And so, if hanging around there are any young fellows with a taste for
adventure and a trend for naval warfare, these submarines look to be the
thing. They are only little fellows now, and, as they stand to-day,
limited as to range and power of offense, but stay by and grow up with
them, and by and by be with them when they will be as big as the
battleships and of a radius of action that will stretch from here
to--well, as far as they like; drawing their energy from the sun above
them, or the sea-tides about them, and not having to see enemy ships to
be able to fight them--equipped with devices not now invented but which
will serve to feel those other ships and, feeling them, to plot their
direction and distance!
Imagine a fleet of those lads battling under water some day--allowing no
surface craft to live--feeling each other out and plotting direction and
distance as they feel, and then letting go broadsides of torpedoes ten
or a hundred times as powerful as anything we now have; and at the same
time the air full of war-planes battling above them.
Infants, sea babies, is what they are to-day. But wait till they grow
up!
* * * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Typographical errors corrected:
Page 84: changed ay to aye
Page 191: moved quotes from end of paragraph to end of quote
Page 202: changed serivce to service
Page 208: changed underguard to under guard
Page 253: added missing word "to" after "evil happen."
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE U-BOAT HUNTERS***
******* This file should be named 23601-8.txt or 23601-8.zip *******
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/6/0/23601
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://www.gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit:
https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
https://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
