our ship was slowly working water; you could tell it by measuring, but
the chief engineer continued to assure the captain that we would be
successful in beaching her.
All night we moved slowly through the water, wondering each minute when
she would take a sudden dive to the bottom. Walking along the edge of a
canyon in the dark is much the same sensation, I guess. We were glad
when we saw a pale streak in the sky, and watched the morning star fade.
Daybreak found us still afloat.
Some of the British crew had had experience on torpedoed ships. I
suppose they knew that the wise thing to do was to leave her if they got
the chance. That was the reason why they chose to go on the escort
vessel when the captain put it up to them. By morning it certainly
looked as if our ship would never be beached on this earth. We were in
water up to our knees. There wasn't a dry spot on us, and the chill
winds that swept down from the north played a game of hide-and-seek
through our wet clothes.
The captain called us all together. He told us that the chances for
bringing her in were small, that no man need stand by, that he did not
blame anyone for choosing dry land and dry clothes in preference to
almost certain sinking.
His speech did not shake the officers' determination to remain aboard
her--all of them. They simply had no intention of getting off so long
as there was a glimmer of a chance of landing her safe. Then the
captain asked Dick if he desired to remain or if he wanted to get off.
Dick grinned.
"I'll stay, sir," he said.
The captain asked Tod.
"I'll stay, too, sir," he answered.
The captain came to me. I had my answer ready.
"I'll stay, sir," I told him.
After he had thanked us and gone on, Dick called a meeting of the Three
Yanks. "You didn't stand by just because I volunteered to, did you?" he
asked anxiously. We shook our heads. Our teeth were chattering so that
it was hard to say what we thought, so we didn't try. What I thought was
something to the effect that I wished I had my extra sweater on
underneath, and that I was glad I had two such plucky pals.
We spent another night on board her. We had had not slept for
forty-eight hours, but we didn't seem to need to--the excitement of
wondering what the next minute would bring banished sleep.
The following morning at four o'clock we landed safely on the beach. The
destroyers took us off the ship--all we knew was that at last we were on
something where we could rest. I remember some of the crew asking us
questions, but I don't remember our answering. We just dropped down on a
roll of blankets and closed our eyes. . . .
I woke last. Dick and Tod were chatting softly in a corner. I opened my
eyes and listened.
"Well, write it down, Tod, so you don't forget," Dick was saying. "You
and Clink and I will hike it for Maine. Is that straight?"
"What's this?" I asked. Dick grinned over at me.
"We're making a little date for after the war," he said. "We figured
what a lot we'd have to talk about on that camping trip, eh?"
I nodded. "You can count me in," I said.
But, as it's turned out, there won't be any camping trip for the three
of us after all. Dick was lost at sea on his next trip across, while I
was sick in hospital. Then I heard that Tod had gone down, and it
nearly knocked me out. There never were two such pals as those chaps.
Perhaps some day when it's all over, and we've licked the Hun to a
standstill, I'll wander up there myself with our stony-faced guide; and
perhaps I'll sit on the bank of our little lake and fish in the clear
water with the tackle we all used, or shoot the same-sized rifle--and
I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they've trod every inch of
the ground--it will be almost like having them there--but not
quite--pals like that don't happen more than once in a lifetime--I wish
I could tell you just what great sort of fellows they were--oh, well, I
couldn't if I tried a thousand years--so what's the use?
[Illustration: Here's to the marines--the foremost military body in
America!]
SEAMAN BURKE SPEAKS:
A TASTE OF HELL
I JOINED the Navy as an apprentice seaman. I thought it would be great
to try a new way of licking the Huns. I had sampled the army. Yes, I was
at the Somme with the Canucks. Greatest bunch of fighters the world has
ever seen!
I can say it, because I'm an American, but as soon as war was declared,
my three cousins and I beat it for Canada and enlisted. We were all in
the same regiment, the third to go across.
You've no idea until you get into the thick of a fight with shrapnel
whistling past you and shells bursting a few feet away, how much depends
on your leader. It's up to him to win or lose the ground you're holding
for all you're worth. The men in charge of us were young and some of
them pretty green at the war game--but say! there wasn't a bloody Hun
alive that could scare them! Not by a long sight!
We sailed in August, about two thousand of us. We had a quiet trip
across and, oh, Christmas! how we did long to get into the scrap! They
landed us at a French port and we had just three days' training before
we were ordered up.
You can't make much headway in three days to prepare you to meet the
Boches, but we did manage to get in a little drilling and skirmishing.
All the bayonet charging I learned was from a Jap in my company. He was
a funny little cuss. Why he joined up I can't imagine. You'd think he
would rather save his skin and stay at home, but he was all for
fighting. He had been trained in Japan and had joined the Canadians at
the last minute.
My cousins and I learned all we knew from him. He seemed glad to show
us. He was a friendly little chap and some fighter! I remember seeing
him alongside of me for a few seconds in a trench full of Germans . . .
and then not seeing him. What became of him I never knew. You don't,
most of the time.
A long line of troop trains were awaiting us. Pullmans? I guess
not!--freights. We piled in. We were all anxious to get to the front.
We knew they were in desperate need of men and that we might get a
chance to go over the top, green as we were.
It was night before they opened the doors and let us out. We seemed to
be in a sort of meadow. It was black as a cave, except for the lights of
the station. There was plenty of noise as two thousand men alighted, but
there was another sound--a dull, thick booming . . . cannons! It seemed
thousands of miles away, but you never forgot it for an instant. It
meant that we fellows who had been so recently in offices plugging away
for so much a week were out there at last on the great battlefield of
France!
We had reached the trenches. They weren't at all like I supposed they'd
be. I expected them to be narrow, with room enough for one man only.
Instead two and sometimes three could walk abreast. It seemed to me as
though we marched a hundred miles that night. I was so tired I was ready
to drop, and then all the mud I had ever read about seemed to be planted
in that trench! Mud! We tramped through knee-deep slime--knee-deep,
mind you--and we thought that was bad until we went in up to our waists.
It must have been raining pitchforks before we arrived, and as we
scuffed along the best way we could it began again--a cold, driving rain
straight down from the black sky, stinging our faces and running down
our necks. After a while we halted for the night.
There were dugouts where you could set up your cook-stove if you were
lucky enough to own one. All your food you carried on your back in cans,
but you didn't have energy enough left to open them. You just dropped
down under the shelter of a bunch of sandbags if you were lucky, or if
you weren't, in a muddy patch of ground where you slept like a log.
Next day we were on our way--that long line of drenched men tramping
toward the sound of the big guns. That's how you measured distance, by
increasing volume. The rain had begun in earnest and it never let up for
the three days we made our way to the trench just back of the Big Hill.
It seemed to be our destination, because we got orders to begin digging,
and we went to work with pick and shovel. I forgot how tired I was in
the excitement of being so near the Huns. You do out there. You don't
worry about dying, that's one sure bet, nor about eating or sleeping;
the one thing that gets you is when your best pals go west.
I had to stand watch that night. That meant two hours of pacing back and
forth, fifteen feet, ready for the enemy's charge at any second. I
couldn't believe that the fellows we were waiting for were so close
up--there across that short patch of ground--but I realized it when a
shell fell not five feet away from me and blew three of my pals to bits.
By God! I knew it then!
I shall never forget it. I'd been listening to them talk in a little
knot as I paced by, swapping smokes and trying to find a dry place to
stand. One of them laughed. That was the last sound I heard before the
crash of exploding shell. There wasn't one of them left.
We were four days waiting for the signal to charge. We were mad for it.
It seemed as if the leaders could not hold us back another day. We
wanted to get at those damned Huns who had killed our pals. We knew we
could lick them, raw as we were. We had some full-blooded Indians from
Ontario with us. They were the real thing in a fight. They did not know
what fear meant. There just wasn't any such word in the language for
them, and when they charged they forgot they were supposed to use
rifles. They threw them away and drew their long knives--razor-sharp.
That's how they went after the Huns--and butchered the swine good and
proper.
On the fourth day the signal was passed along the trench for a charge.
One hundred and fifty men were picked--every third man. I was lucky and
was one of the number. Every man was keen to be first over the top.
About nine of the Indians came along. None of my cousins made it, but
the little Jap who had taught me bayoneting was beside me, grinning and
fondling his rifle as a mother does her baby.
Our leaders sprang up on the sand bags and hurled us the order. How few
of them came back from that charge on which they set out so fearlessly!
We climbed up. We heard our officers shouting to us and our comrades
wishing us the best of luck, to give the Huns hell! We sprang forward
and the Germans opened a rain of bullets from their machine guns full
upon us and the men who followed. They swept our lines. Men reeled and
fell to the left and right of me--just crumpled up like those little
toys whose springs have snapped. Still we went on. We made the trench
and I speared my first Boche. Got him, too! Brought back his iron cross
as a trophy. The Germans were scampering to the next trench like rats
caught in a trap. They sure do hate hand-to-hand fighting!
We held that trench six days. It was jumpy work. The Germans were driven
back, but there was no telling when they would start with the
hand-grenades. They didn't do that, but they did something worse--gas.
It was pretty new to us then. We were fitted out with a sort of rubber
mask that wasn't much good. We saw a fellow drop a way down the line.
Then one of the brownish trench rats, a friendly little chap, who ate
the scraps I shelled out to him, turned up his toes. We clapped on our
masks, but the wind was with Fritz and the gas swept through our trench
on the breeze.
It lasted about an hour and a half. I'd hate the job of being the first
man ordered to take off his mask and test the air for the rest, but some
one has to, and it often means lights out for him.
I had been slightly wounded--a sabre cut on my leg, but I managed to
dress it myself. It was ten times better to be up, however rocky you
felt, than lying around those damp trenches. I wondered where my cousins
were. I worried about them. Somehow I wasn't afraid for myself, but I
just wished it would soon be over and I could get home. You think about
home an awful lot out there.
We were sent to some swamps next. There were cement trenches--German
make--and they were considerably drier. We were pretty comfortable
there except for an occasional shell blowing things to bits. I used to
wonder how there was enough lead in the world to make all the shells the
armies used. We always had plenty of ammunition. The Russians were the
ones who got the raw deal. We passed a lot of them on our way out front.
A regiment of them was holding a square. They were dull-eyed
boys--hopeless looking. Do you blame them? One day they would be sent
out with ammunition to burn. The next they wouldn't even be given a
rifle. How did they protect themselves? Oh, rocks and stones, I suppose.
But they were wiped out when they tried to charge empty-handed, that's
sure.
The Germans raided us with hand grenades one night. We heard them coming
and we fought like fiends, but they outnumbered us five to one. I went
down with a shot in my side. The next thing I remembered was being
aboard a transport bound for home. Nothing ever sounded so good to me as
that word! I found my three cousins were aboard. One of them had lost
his two legs, another his leg and his arm, and the youngest had his
right arm blown off.
It didn't take me long to find out how lucky I was. All I needed to do
was to look around at the other eighteen hundred wounded. They landed us
at Halifax, on our way to Toronto. I was laid up for quite a while, and
the funny thing was now that I was home again I kept planning ways to
get back as soon as I could just to show those Huns who's who.
I used to lie in my clean white bed, looking out a long window onto the
garden. It was calm and quiet. But I didn't seem to see it--what I saw
were those blood-soaked trenches, with your pals gasping out their lives
alongside of you and your leaders, falling even as they urged you to
charge! It took me a while to get well and when I did I went back to the
States. I had an idea. I would join the Navy. It would be a new way of
meeting Fritz. I liked the thought of killing him wholesale on the sea.
I enlisted as an apprenticed seaman,--that was last March. I am in fine
trim, except for a scar on my leg and a bullet hole in my side. I've
finished training now and I'm ready to be shipped across. Gee, but I
hope we'll get a fat submarine full of German officers--and that we'll
drown them like the rats they are!
SECOND-CLASS GUNNER'S MATE FOWLER SPEAKS:
[Illustration: A marine can do anything--even ride a horse!]
THE WANDERLUST AND THE WAR
I'VE been torpedoed three times--three ships gone down under me, and I'm
still here. Didn't mind it much--I can swim; besides, I'm pretty used to
the sea--first shipped when I was thirteen. My father and mother had
sent me to a manual training school. I didn't like it. I was always
playing hookey and finally ran away.
I didn't care where I went just so long as it was on a ship. I knew it
was the sea I wanted. Before I decided, I used to hang around the docks.
I liked the smell of the water and the big talk of the old salts who had
been around the world a dozen times. They didn't stay cooped up in any
four walls studying geography--they went out and lived it.
I knew enough about sailing to ship as boatswain. I was big for my age,
so they took me on. It was a sand sucker going down to the mouth of the
Mississippi.
The skipper took a kind of a shine to me. He saw I wanted to study
navigation so he lent me books and let me go into the chart house and
work. Arithmetic was hard for me, and spelling, too, but I'd copy out
words I didn't know and take them to him. I guess he saw I was in
earnest.
As a result I got my rate as able-bodied seaman when I was fifteen. I
was in New Orleans then, and I saw a chance to ship on one of the
Standard Oil boats bound for Tampico.
I was crazy to go to Mexico. There was a "Mex" on the old ship and he
was always talking about the sunshine and free fruit in his country.
When I told him where I was bound for he wanted to come, too, but my new
skipper couldn't see him. "Mex" drank too much fire water for the good
of one man.
We didn't stay long in Mexico. I got a chance to go through Vera Cruz,
and that was about all, before starting for home. I'd saved quite a lot
of money and all the way back to New York I kept asking myself would I
or wouldn't I drop in on my father and mother to let them know I was
alive. I couldn't decide. When I got to New York the first thing I did
was to buy myself a great outfit; then I started to the street where I
knew the family lived. On the way I met a pal who was shipping on a
small boat leaving for Canada. He wanted me to go along. There didn't
seem to be any good reason to refuse, seeing as I had all my papers. I'd
never been to Canada.
I told him about wanting to call on my parents, but he said there'd be
time enough when I got back to port. I went along with him and up to
Nova Scotia.
All the time I told myself it was going to be my last trip up the coast.
I wanted to see Europe next. When we came back to New York I went up to
Union Hall and told them I'd like to ship across. I got my wish. They
sent me on a Standard Oil steamer bound for Rouen. At last I was going
to France!
I liked that country from the start. The first sight I had of it was
white houses and green fields and church steeples. I was so busy
looking at the scenery I couldn't do a stroke of work. I got liberty to
go up to Paris, and I saw all of it for two francs. I just hopped into
one of those little cabs and said to the driver "Giddap," and he rode me
around. I didn't miss a thing.
We went back to Norfolk, where we were quarantined for seven days
because a yellow cook we had broke out with the same color fever. That
gave me time to think, and I made up my mind that I'd pay off and go up
and see my folks. I was sixteen then, hard as nails and pretty
prosperous.
Once ashore I bought myself everything from patent leather shoes to a
derby hat. I wanted them to see I'd made good.
I walked in on them at dinner time. My father didn't know me, but my
mother did. "It's George!" she hollered, then stared at me. But father
didn't. He wanted to lick me for staying away all those years. Mother
wouldn't let him, though. She wanted to hear all about where I'd been. I
was glad I could put some money in the bank for her. I stayed home
about two weeks and then got so restless I knew I'd better leave before
they threw me out.
Well, I let myself in for an adventure that time for I went to Halifax,
and from there shipped on an oil collier bound for Mexico. We struck a
hurricane and were washed ashore. That was my first shipwreck. We had to
eat stores out of the ship's supplies, which were pretty low at the
time. I didn't like the looks of things and I decided to foot it into
Tampico, which we figured wasn't more than forty-two miles south of us.
Eight of my mates and I figured that by traveling toward the sun, we'd
make it in a couple of days. We packed our grub and put on the good
heavy Dutch sea boots we wore in heavy weather, and set out through the
woods.
Hot! Say, your head blistered under your cap. We struck a swamp, but we
were afraid to go back--it was just as bad as going forward--so we
started through, but we miscalculated, for we spent a whole day and
night in there before we got our bearings.
We climbed the branches of the trees at nights and slept as best we
could in them. But two of the fellows caught the jungle fever, and one
of them died before we could get him out. We buried him there and marked
the place.
Another man was pretty sick, and I remember reading somewhere that
sassafras root was good for fever. We found some growing there, and we
managed to build a fire--but we didn't have matches to light it, so we
struck flints until we got a blaze. We cooked the root and gave him the
juice. It saved him.
On the outskirts of the swamp we saw a little Mexican house. It was the
greatest sight I ever want to see. The woman was cooking some kind of
meat over her fire. We didn't stop to inquire what it was so long as it
was _f_-_o_-_o_-_d_. That was enough for us. She was glad to give us all
she had, because American money goes big down there. Several of the men
stayed to look after our sick mate, but I hot-footed it into Tampico to
find the consul and try to get back to the States. I found him but he
couldn't do anything for us.
I didn't care much. It was a pleasant country, so I decided to stay. I
was there six months. At last I grew tired of everlasting hot weather so
I asked a skipper on an English ship if he'd take me back to the States.
I told him I didn't care about the pay, just so long as I got home. That
impressed him and he signed me up for a quarter a month. He couldn't
have paid me less, but what difference did it make to me? Wasn't I
getting out of that all-fired hot country?
We docked at Baltimore. I was pretty seedy, so I took the first job I
could get, which was night watchman on the docks. Then I wired my mother
that I was stranded without clothes or money. She sent it double quick.
I knew she would.
Once I was outfitted I applied for a third mate's job. I had already
made my license, although I was only seventeen. The hard thing was
getting any skipper to believe I knew all I claimed I did. I found one
at last. I told him to fire any questions at me he could think of. He
sure did. He asked me things a chief has to know and I came through. He
took me on as third and I paid off at New York.
When I reached there I went to the seamen's Bethal, where I got clothes
and the chance to ship on an English vessel bound for the other side.
That was in 1915. The German subs had started their little game of
hide-and-seek, but we didn't expect any trouble. However Fritz was
waiting for us. It was about six o'clock in the evening, dark, with a
full moon. I was on deck watching the moonlight on the water. It's a
sight I never get tired of. All was quiet except the throbbing of our
own engines, when suddenly we felt the blow that ripped her side open. A
torpedo had registered a hit.
We couldn't see the sub; she had gotten in the moon's rays, and it was
impossible to make her out. We didn't try. The order, "abandon ship,"
had sounded, but I didn't make a lifeboat; instead I dived off the side
of the ship and swam around in the water for a few minutes before
somebody heard me yelling and yanked me in.
Next morning an English schooner picked us up and we went ashore. Say,
but I was mad through to think of a blinking submarine sinking a
neutral. I never was neutral from that minute, and when we got into the
war I went in the navy. I knew that would be the one place I'd have a
chance to take a shot at the Kaiser's pets.
We carried a big cargo over; our cargo line was 'way down. We had a lot
of green hands aboard, "hay-shakers," I call them. Some of the boys were
pretty seasick. I bet they wished they had never started across.
Well, we delivered our cargo and started back, when sure enough, one
dark night, we got it again. This time, though, I was standing under the
bridge, and in the explosion a piece of rail was hurled against me that
broke both legs.
A big Swede, who had always a hand out to help everybody, hoisted me
into a lifeboat, but in launching it was smashed up. I was in the water
and I certainly thought my last hour had come, but I found the big Swede
was swimming beside me, and he dragged me onto a piece of board floating
by. I lay there until it was light and in answer to our S. O. S.,
American destroyers came on and picked up our boats. Was I glad to see
the good old American flag? _Was_ I! I didn't know much when they hauled
me aboard--the pain was pretty bad, but they sent me to a hospital over
there, and before long I was around again, fine as ever. Takes more than
a German sub to keep me down.
I went back to the States in style on a transport. As I always carried
my Union book I had no trouble in getting another new outfit, once I
reached my home port. I set out for France on a cargo vessel. Well, say,
it was clear sailing over. We met our convoy and they hoisted up their
signal flag. We were all of two hours making it out. At last we could
read it, it spelled:
"What are you doing,--bringing Brooklyn Bridge over with you?" They were
making fun of our queer-shaped bridge. Well, we started back, but I know
things always happened in threes so I was pretty sure we'd get it going
home. I was right.
It was my watch, late in the afternoon. I was keeping a sharp lookout
when I saw the torpedo scudding toward us.
"Wake of a torpedo in starboard bow!" I yelled. Say, that vessel wheeled
like a streak--and the torpedo missed. But the next one didn't. Bing!--I
felt the big ship quiver under me, and the explosion that followed blew
me so high that I came down in the paint locker with my arm under me.