two suits of winter underwear, two pair of woollen socks, a navy
sweater, a blue dress uniform and two white undress uniforms, shoes,
hairbrush, clothes, "kiyi," which, in plain English, is a clothes brush,
shoe cleaning gear, needle and thread and thimble, six pocket
handkerchiefs, a neckerchief, a pocket knife, two white hats, a watch
cap and a flat hat. Then you get your bedding: a mattress, two pair of
blankets, your hammock and your duffle-bag. Believe me, the mattress
looked good to me. I could see myself drifting off into slumber in a
gently swaying hammock. . . .
They marched us to a Detention Barracks. You are not supposed to leave
there until you get permission, in case someone breaks out with smallpox
or yellow fever.
Everything was complete in the barracks. Meals were cooked in a regular
galley; there were showers, mess room and sleeping rooms. Very nifty!
A little, fat C.P.O. with a bald head came in and instructed us how to
clue our hammocks. It didn't seem hard. We were pretty proud of the
job--all twenty of us.
By that time we could have eaten whale oil with a relish, and a squad of
four went for chow, while the other fellows pitched in and laid out the
mess gear. That navy stew certainly smelled good! The squad dished us
out big portions of it and that, with hot coffee, made us feel like new
men.
After we had finished four men washed up the mess gear and the rest of
us turned to and swept down the room. The little C.P.O. bounced in again
and fixed up our watch for us--two fellows on guard, each standing two
hours. The Chief posted the first watchman, and taps began blowing as we
started in stringing our hammocks.
It was great sport. Everyone had a theory about it, but we were told
that, whatever we did, we must get the hammocks straight, because a
sagging hammock is death on the back.
At nine, to the dot, lights were out. It was pitch black in our room.
Somewhere outside one feeble standing light flickered, but inside,
nothing doing.
Remember, these hammocks are about seven feet above ground--say, the fun
started right there. How to get up in them was some problem. Each man
thought of a way of doing it, and, in the first rush, one or two made
it, but the rest of us only got a leg up and swung there before dropping
back to earth.
Everyone was hollering suggestions and trying to get a grip on the
blamed things. It wouldn't have been so hard if the hammocks hadn't
moved--but they almost acted as though they had sense--hanged if they
didn't. They'd bob this way and that, and the moment you got
up--well----
After three or four attempts I made it. I got in all right, but, before
I could settle down, over it turned with me--spilling out everything I
owned, me included. I scrambled around picking up what I could in the
dark, and what I said wouldn't be passed by the Board of Censors.
I piled the things in again and crawled back--pretty cautious this time.
I rolled up my clothes for a pillow and lay on my back, gripping both
sides of my little old bed. That's the way I slept--or rather didn't
sleep. All through the night there were thump-thumps, as someone fell
out and hit the deck.
When I heard reveille next morning I was so stiff I could scarcely move
a muscle. I wasn't the only one though. We looked at each other and
wondered if ever under the blue sky we would get the hang of sleeping in
something that turned over every time you hitched a bit.
We cleaned up the quarters and spread our blankets and mattresses to
air. It was bitter cold. We huddled close to the steam pipes and
certainly tackled the chow for all it was worth when it appeared about
six A. M.
[Illustration: A sniff of "chow."]
After breakfast we lashed our hammocks, and I told mine a thing or two
as I tied it up. Then we listened to the C.P.O. giving us our first
talk on regulations. We wondered if we'd ever remember half the
things he was telling us.
As soon as he was out of sight, in trotted the ship's tailor with a
portable sewing machine. Funny little man, so intent on his tiny task of
sewing little strips of white cloth inside our clothes for marking. I
suppose he felt as important in his way as the Navigator.
Somebody passed out stencils with our names on them, and the C.P.O.,
rather out of breath from scooting all over the station, dropped in long
enough to tell us how to mark our clothes--then he was off on the wing.
Busiest man I ever saw. I bet he lost ten pounds a morning. Well, he
could afford to.
We were dying for lunch. You are always ready to eat in the navy, and
the food is great. Lots of it, too. A new bunch of men had arrived--we
felt like veterans as we gave them a hand at cluing their hammocks--and
say, advice! We told them all there was to know about climbing into your
swinging bed.
That night, when I crawled in, I found I could manage much better. I
was dead to the world, and I slept the sleep of the just. Nothing short
of reveille or an earthquake could have made me open an eye.
Next morning we parted from our room-mates. In peace times you are
supposed to spend twenty-one days in detention. This was war, so we had
spent three. We were to be shipped straight off to our respective
division stations.
We Hospital Corps men reported to the head doctor and were assigned to
classrooms. It seemed queer to be going to class again, after you'd been
out making your living for a few years in business, but we got used to
it. The lecture was on regulations, then they marched us over to
Barracks B, our new home. We three from Baltimore stuck together. We
were all assigned to quarters on the second deck--it's really the second
floor, but you don't call them that in the navy.
It was a big place, but with a hundred and fifty men in it there was
scarcely room to turn around--packed like sardines. We found a tiny
space up by a window and put up our hammocks. Supper was in the mess
hall, then back we'd go to school for a lecture; after that you could
study or write letters until nine o'clock and taps.
We were up at five every morning, chow at six-thirty, mustered at
seven-fifteen, and marched down to school in time to clean the lecture
rooms inside and outside. Spick and span is the watchword of the navy.
You get so you wonder how you ever lived inside of a house that didn't
shine from top to bottom.
We didn't have to know much to pass exams--oh, no! Only Anatomy and
Physiology, and First Aid, and Minor Surgery, and Operating Room
Technique, and Nursing, and Hospital Management, and Pharmacy, and
Materia Medica, and Toxicologies, and Chemistry, and Litter Drill,
besides a little "lab" work in the compounding of medicines. Oh,
no--anyone could learn that with one eye shut!
I stayed in Barracks B for three weeks, then the government sent down
some big circus tents holding about one hundred and fifty, and we
pitched them. We slept on cots for a change. Queer how we had to get
used to them. Hanged if we didn't long for our hammocks.
I remember one night when we had a bear of a storm--a regular gale--and
sure enough the old tent began to leak. I happened to be on watch so I
spent about two hours going around keeping a sharp lookout for
leaks--there were plenty of them. As wet a crowd of boys as I ever saw
came forth, and I sent them to the lecture rooms to sleep. Funniest
looking gang, sleepy and cross, their blankets around their shoulders
dripping water. They made a run for the deck.
About twelve I woke my relief and started to turn in. There was no leak
over my bed and I was half undressed when something rolled down my back.
I beat it for the school. Not ten minutes later the whole tent
collapsed, with thirty men in it. Rescue parties were formed, and the
men inside needed it--a small Niagara had swept in on top of them.
But no one seemed any the worse for it. We were a hardened lot by that
time. I thought of the day I had left Baltimore and the way I had
shivered with the cold--here I was, only a few weeks later, only half
dressed, drenched to the skin and not minding it a bit. The training had
done wonders for me.
Next day a pile of lumber arrived--we carried it from the wharf to the
Barracks and we were informed that after school we would find
nails--plenty of them--one saw and one hammer for two hundred men to lay
the floor, upright and erect tents before taps. Say, that was a
staggerer! But orders were orders and we fell to. What did we do? Why,
we got rocks or pipes or anything you could use for a hammer and with
two hundred huskies working at top speed just to show the C.O. that they
can do a thing once they make up their mind to it, we got those tents up
that night right as a top!
Luckily for me, my site was 'way up on Strawberry Hill, back of the
hospital, and with the crackingest view of Narragansett Bay--and a
distant glimpse of the Atlantic. It was a wonderful life up there. We'd
become so used to outdoors that we used to talk about how strange it
would feel to live in four walls again. We took everything as it came
and enjoyed it. The government certainly did all in its power to make
things comfortable. We used to wonder how the Sam Hill all the busy
people up in Washington could keep every one of us in mind and see that
we were all supplied. It is a queer feeling--that sensation that you
don't have to worry about to-morrow or what it will bring, that you are
clothed and fed and housed--and that your only problems are the ones
that may come with the rising sun. Great life!
Other camps were all around us. The Yeoman's camp, the Seamen's
camp--nothing but bluejackets from morning until night. We wondered if
the whole U. S. Navy were there--it didn't seem as if there could be any
more sailors in the world.
The Hospital Corps didn't have much drilling to do, just squad movements
and litter drills and counter-marching. We used to parade through
Newport to boom recruiting, and on Saturday the whole school turned out
for Captain's inspection on the green in front of the War College.
There was so much to learn that we spent most of our liberties in the
study hall, but once in a while we would drop in at the Army-Navy Y. M.,
or go down to beaches for a swim, or take in a show.
At the end of three months we were through a course that takes, as a
rule, eight months. Then I went to the Naval Hospital and there I made
my rate. Gee, but I'm glad I'm going over at last. There's a girl down
in Baltimore--I've promised her some souvenirs. Some of the fellows have
been back and forth eight times without a glimpse of a submarine--but I
hope we see one. I'd like to tell it what I think of it.
Yes, we're leaving pretty soon now. I'll tell you all about it when I
get back.
CHIEF PETTY OFFICER BERTRAM SPEAKS:
ZEPS AND TORPEDOES
I JOINED the navy because I felt patriotic and all the rest of it. You
couldn't help it down home. Everybody was doing it. My brother-in-law
made the yeomanry, my chum went in for hospital corps work. Wherever you
turned you found fellows discussing their branch of service and swearing
it was the best in the pack. It didn't take me long to make up my mind.
I sure was crazy to get "over there."
It's the English in me, I guess. Yes, I've got quite a slice. Before the
war I was thirty-third in direct line for the title of Earl of
Northumberland. Now I am about seventeenth.
It's queer how much I wanted to go to London. I just itched to. My
family had come from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and settled there. That's
where I was born--Johnny Rebs, you know. But that's ancient
history--just plain all-round American now.
I never had a chance to forget the English part of me, though. I
couldn't very well. You see the solicitors send me a notice every now
and then telling me how good my chances are of inheriting a
thirty-three-million dollar estate and a couple of dozen titles on the
side.
Well, I don't care what I shipped on so long as it had a prow and a
stern and kept afloat. They held me three months in the naval station
waiting for a ship, and at last I got one--and what a one! An old oil
tank! Ever see an oil collier? It resembles one of the countries of
Europe. Which one? _Greece._
Grease everywhere. You eat grease and you drink grease and you sleep
grease and you breathe grease. You never get it off your hands or your
clothes or your disposition until you land.
I was commissary. That meant I had charge of the cook and bought
supplies and dished out food and made up the bill of fare. But I might
as well have saved myself the trouble of that, because every little
thing tasted alike. Why wouldn't it, with eighty-three barrels of oil on
board?
None of us wore our uniforms. What was the use? We were saving them for
London or Paris, and it's lucky we did! Instead, we slapped on our
overalls--"dungarees," we call them in the navy. We looked like a crowd
of rough-necks, instead of a crew of snappy bluejackets.
We left some time in September, and steamed up to Nova Scotia, then
across. We had a speedy ship, all right. Eight knots was the best she
was known to make. Say, did it give you the jumps! It sure did! I could
walk a heap faster than that old tug could steam at full speed. It
seemed as though every raider and submarine in the Zone would line up in
a row and take a shot or two at us--it was too easy to miss.
We had rough weather all the way. That and grease are about all that
happened until we hit the Zone. There we met our convoy--a British
flagship, a number of merchantmen, and a flock of torpedo-boats.
My pal was a fellow from Newark, New Jersey, Bill Willsie. He was out
for excitement.
"I certainly hope something will break before we land," he'd say, "so
that I can have a real yarn to spin for the folks back home."
He got his wish. It was the fourth day in the Zone, at five twenty-seven
in the afternoon. I was on deck sniffing air that wasn't full of grease.
Suddenly I saw the red flag go up to the mast. . . . Danger! . . . Gee,
I sure did wish Bill hadn't wished for trouble out loud. I wondered
which one of us would get it--the British flagship ahead of us, or the
merchantmen behind.
It all happened in the fraction of a minute. I saw scudding across the
water the black nose of a torpedo. You've heard of men having a
premonition of death, but how about seeing it coming straight toward you
at the rate of thirty miles an hour!
My God! I'll never forget it! I thought my heart had stopped beating. I
gripped the railing and waited. She struck the flagship and sank her in
seven and a half minutes. To this day I can see her going down--the
explosion--the roar--the sudden list--the boats lowered, and, on the
bridge, two figures pacing--pacing--the captain and the admiral.
Do you think they left their ship? Not they! Up and down--up and
down--those two paced. Oh, I tell you the British are a great people,
but I wished to God, as I stood there, that I had never had to see it
proved to me that way.
Up and down they walked, talking together as though nothing out of the
way were happening. I saw the ship settle for her last heave. No, they
didn't leave her bridge. Why not? They were true British naval officers,
that's the answer. They sank with her.
By that time every alarm on our ship was sounded--five long whistles,
electric bells, a regular bedlam let loose. I never heard such a noise.
The life-boats swung out ready to drop. All hands were on deck except
the engineers. They stand by in the engine room until a ship is struck.
As soon as she is hit their job is to put out the fires and turn off the
water--that is, if they aren't blown into the middle of next week first.
About eighty yards away the submarine came up and fired point blank at
us. She missed us again and she submerged. That was the last we saw of
her. The destroyers were working like little flashes of lightning,
picking up the men in the water, darting here and there. You've seen
those dragon flies in the pools--that's what the little gray fellows
were, dragon flies--here, there, everywhere. I never saw such quick
work.
Along about eight we pulled into Dover. All dark, except for a few
smothered lights. We anchored and went up on deck. We were pretty glad
to have land so near. You felt a lot safer. The comfort didn't last
long, for we heard the queerest buzz in the sky above us--a long hum.
"Zeps! By Cracky!" yelled Bill in my ear. "We're in for an air raid!"
Out of the blackness of the city before us leaped a million lights,
cutting the darkness like a knife, hunting--hunting for those Zeps.
Searchlights turning their yellow blaze on the sky, whisking from one
point to another, relentless in their scour of the heavens.
[Illustration: The Colt gun is an important weapon for landing parties.]
Now and then they would spot one of the great black bugs that buzzed on
high with that tormenting hum keep it for a second in the radius of
light, losing it as suddenly, and all the while the machine guns in the
city pop-popped without taking a breath.
Now and then from the sky would be hurled a black something that flamed
and thundered as it struck earth. . . . Bombs! . . . Their red glare
lighting up a roof--a cornice--a water front--showing groups of frenzied
little black figures scurrying to shelter--then blackness once more and
the pop-popping of the machine guns, spiteful, biting sound that never
paused.
It lasted about half an hour. The Zeps circled Dover and went back. The
guns stopped firing one by one, as though they had run down. The lights
died out, save for a few on guard. Did we sleep well? We did not, in
spite of the fact that we hadn't had our clothes off a single night
while in the Zone.
"I bet we're going to have a swell time in London," Bill told me. "We
sure have started off right!" We certainly had!
We had three days shore leave and we started out next day--sixteen of
us--in our best bibs and tuckers, to see the sights. Were we glad to
get ashore? Chorus--we were! We took a little train--funniest train I
ever saw. Reminded me of the Jim Crow cars back home. They were divided
into first, second and third class, but over there uniforms can ride
wherever they choose, and we are expected to pay only half of a
third-class fare.
Remember, we were one of the first shipload of American sailors to put
foot in London, and as such we were one of the sights of the city.
Crowds! Say! New Year's Eve around Times Square or Mardi Gras back home
had nothing on the mob we drew there in Charing Cross.
They fought to see us. They elbowed and pushed and wormed their way in.
The girls threw their arms around us and kissed us, and the men cheered,
but that wasn't all. They wanted to wish on the eagles on our
sleeve--all of them did. And they wanted souvenirs--anything for
souvenirs--buttons or American loose change.
"Give us American dimes," they'd cry. "Give us American dimes," and they
fought for them. I had some Confederate money with me. They snapped it
up.
Two bobbies--they are the English policemen, you know--came to our
rescue, and packed us into taxies, but not before the crowd surged
around us exclaiming about our caps--our little white canvas hats. They
had never seen any like them. They wanted those, too. I don't know what
would have become of us if the police hadn't taken a hand.
Say, by that time, we were hungry and thirsty, but we didn't dare get
out for fear of starting another young mob. I felt like the President on
inauguration day, or the King, or someone.
"Stop at a beanery," yelled Bill to our driver, a little old man with
round shoulders and a shiny coat. He cocked an eye at us.
"Beg pardon, sir?" he said.
Bill replied, "As me Allies, the French, put it, 'Jay fame.'"
Our driver wasn't a French scholar. He looked at me.
"Where is it you want to go, sir?"
"Food," I said. "In plain Anglo-Saxon, I hunger--I crave nourishment."
"Oh," he said, "I see, sir," and he dumped us out before a restaurant.
We went in.
"Ham and eggs," we all shouted. Every good American sailor always orders
that, but our waiter didn't care.
"You can have either ham, sir, or eggs. Not both."
And we learned something else, too. You couldn't order more than thirty
cents' worth of food at one sitting. It's against the law, and, what's
more, you can't treat a pal; you can't even treat a girl, which ought to
please some people I know back home.
We didn't stay in that joint. We tried four others with the same result.
I never wanted to spend money so badly before in my life.
What got me was the work the women are doing in London. Women bus
drivers--women street cleaners--women baggage smashers--and all of them
the healthiest lot of girls I've ever seen--red cheeks and clear eyes
and a smile for us always.
"Will you let us wish on you?" they'd cry. Of course we let them. I only
hope their wishes came true.
But, say, night in London is one great party. It gets dusk, and, if
you're on to what you are in for, you make a bee-line for where you are
going, before the light fades entirely--or you don't get there. We
didn't know that, so we planned to go to the Hippodrome; but we waited
until dark. Say, talk about pitch black! It's pale beside London at
night!
Imagine Broadway with not a single light--not even a pale glimmer.
Imagine it filled with thousands and thousands of people, bumping into
each other--talking, laughing, whispering.
No wagons or street-cars--nothing on wheels, except an ambulance, which
crawls about with weird blue lights, very dim. Just crowds and crowds,
knocking your hat off, stepping on your feet, taking your arm by
mistake. Men apologizing. Girls giggling. Voices coming from nowhere.
Forms brushing by and vanishing.
The streets are full. I think every last person in London must turn out
after dark. It is one big adventure. You never forget it. You don't know
where you are or where you are going--no one seems to. When you get
tired you stop someone and ask the way to a rooming house. If they know
they lead you along. You feel a door. You open it and close it
cautiously behind yourself. You are in a dark vestibule. You cross a
black hall groping before you. Suddenly your hand touches two curtains
drawn close. You part them. Beyond is light at last. You enter the
living-room of the house. Someone quietly draws the curtains so no
faintest glimmer will penetrate the outer darkness. Say, it was some
experience!
Next day a gentleman in a big motor picked us up, five of us, and showed
us the sights. He wouldn't tell us who he was, but he was a big bug all
right. All the bobbies came to a crack salute as he passed by, and he
took us through Parliament and to Buckingham Palace. We couldn't find
out his name. All he confessed to was that he sat in the House of Lords;
so I asked him about the family estate. He knew all the facts but said
none of the crowd were in London just then. I thought of looking them
up, but I didn't get a chance.
That night we took in the Hippodrome. It was all right, but it made us
homesick for the one on Forty-fourth Street. When we got back to the
ship next day we found we were going home to the U. S. A. That was the
best news I ever heard.
We came back in sixteen days. Say, do I want to go over again? Well,
rather! And I'll take a longer shore leave next time. Perhaps I'll run
up to Northumberland and look over the old place. After all, seventeenth
isn't so far down the line, now is it?
CAPTAIN BARCLAY OF THE MARINE CORPS SPEAKS:
"THE LEATHER NECKS"
I DON'T want to say anything that sounds like boasting, but the Marine
Corps is the finest branch of service in the world. No exceptions. I
guess you know that marines date back to days of ancient Greece. They
had them then. They were the landing party on shipboard--the fighting
force. They were right there with their bows and arrows and javelins and
spears, and they carried out their contract as well as the men who rowed
the ship. Each one had his own particular duties. It's the same today,
but somehow the nation has got into the habit of saying, "Leave it to
the Marines"--and we've tried to prove that we are worthy of the trust.
In the old days there used to be a bit of feeling between the sailor and
the marine. You'll find the reason for it in English history. About 1803
there was a mutiny in the British navy, and the marines helped put it
down. After that they were called the Royal Marines, but the sailors
got an idea that they were on board a ship to prevent mutiny and they
did not like them any too well. But they soon found that the marine had
his own field--and that he had just one motto--"There's nothing I can't
do."
It's funny the way our men tackle everything, particularly as they have
never been specialized like other branches. For instance, there is no
bridge-building company, yet over and over again when there has been
need of bridges the marines have just gone out and made them.