day, "tours of welfare inspection," he used to call them humorously.
Everywhere would he go, from wardroom to torpedo station, not
neglecting an occasional visit to the boiler room. Friendly grins
used to salute him on his passage; as the sailor said he was a "real
feller." I often accompanied him on his rounds. When the tour was
over, we would go to the chaplain's room for a quiet smoke and a good
talk. The chaplain's room was always clean and quiet, and on the
bookshelf, instead of weighty books on thermodynamics and navigation,
were the pleasant kind of books one found in friendly houses over
home.
"Do you know," said the chaplain to me one day, "you have landed here
at an interesting time. There's very little shore leave being given
because it can't be given, and as a result the life of the ship is
thrown back upon itself for all its amusements and social activities.
What do you think of the morale here?"
"I think it's very high," I answered. "The men seem very contented
and keen. I've talked with a great many of them. How do you keep
the morale up?"
"Well, this ship has always been famous as a 'happy ship'" (here I
ventured to say that any other condition would be impossible under
the captain we had) "and when men get into the habit of working
together good-naturedly, that habit is liable to stick. And I find
the men sustained by the thought of active service. You may think it
calm here, having just arrived from a destroyer base, but think of
what it is over on the American coast."
"Calm?" said I. "Don't put that down to me. The very idea of being
with the Grand Fleet is thrilling. It's the experience of a
lifetime. And let me tell you right from personal experience that no
sight of the land war can match the impressiveness and grandeur of
the first view of the fleet."
"I feel just as you do. The whole thing is a constant wonder. And
some day the Germans may come out. Moreover, summer is now at hand,
and we shall have a chance to use the deck more for sports. This
long, raw, rainy winter doesn't permit much outdoor exercise. As
soon as it gets warm, however, we shall have boxing matches on the
deck between various members of the crew and the champions of the
different ships. We have some good wrestlers, too. At present we
are reduced to vaudeville competitions between our various vessels,
and movies. I'm doing my best to get better movies. So we shan't
fare badly after all."
"When do you hold Sunday services?"
"I have a service in the morning and another in the evening. Yes, I
muster a pretty big congregation. But I'm afraid I've got to be
going now, got to ram a little algebra into the head of one of the
boys. See you at dinner." And our sky pilot was gone. May good
luck go with him, and good friends be ever at hand to return him the
friendliness he grants.
They tell a story of a favourite chaplain who retired from the Navy
to take charge of a parish on land.
"Good-bye, sir," said one of the old salts to him, as he was leaving
the ship. "Good-bye, sir. We'll all look to see you come back with
a _bishop's rating_."
XXV
IN THE WIRELESS ROOM
I haven't the slightest idea where the wireless room is or how to
find it. All that I remember is that some kind soul took me by the
hand, led me through various passages and down several ladders, and
landed me in a small compartment which I felt sure must have been
hollowed out of the keel. The wireless room of a great ship is, by
the way, a kind of holy of holies, and my visit to it more than an
ordinary privilege.
There are as many messages in the air these times as there were wasps
in the orchard in boyhood days after one had thrown a large,
carefully-selected stone into the big nest. Messages in all keys and
tunes, messages in all the known languages, messages in the most
baffling of codes. Now the operator picks up a merchantman asking
for advice in English, this against all rules and regulations; a
request once answered by a profane somebody with "Use the code, you
damned fool." At intervals the Eiffel Tower signals the time;
listening to it, one seems to hear the clear, monotonous tick-tock of
a giant pendulum. Now it is a British land station talking to a
British squadron on watch in the North Sea, now the destroyers are at
it, now one hears the great station at Wilhelmshaven sending out
instructions to the submarine fleet in ambush off these isles.
How strange it is to come here at midnight and hear the Germans
talking! Germany has been so successfully cut off from contact with
the civilization she assaulted that these communications have the air
of being messages from Mars. There are times when the radio operator
picks up frantic cries sent by one U-boat to another; I have before
me as I write a record of such a call. It began at 2.14 A.M.,
shortly after a certain submarine was depth-bombed by an American
destroyer. First to be received was _OLN's_ clear, insistent call
for _RXK_ and _ZZN_, probably the two nearest members of the U-boat
fleet. Were they cries for help? Probably. Again and again the
spark uttered its despairing message. For some time there was no
answer. The other two boats may have been submerged; quite possibly
sunk. Then at 2.40 from far, far away came _ADL_ calling _OLN_. At
2.45 _OLN_ answered very faintly. A minute or two later, _ADL_ tried
and tried again to get either _RXK_ and _ZZN_. But there was no
answer. Was she trying to send them to the help of the stricken
vessel? At 2.57 _ADL_ tries for the hard pressed _OLN_, but no
answer comes to her across the darkness of the sea.
Night and day, a force of operators sit here taking down the
messages, sending important ones directly to the chief officers, and
letting unimportant ones accumulate in batches of four and five. The
messages are written or typewritten on a form in shape and make-up
not unlike that of an ordinary telegram blank. All day and all night
long, the messengers hurry through the corridors of the great ship
with bundles of these naval signals. And since everything intended
for the Navy comes in code, decoders too must be at hand at all hours
to unravel the messages. It is no easy task, for the codes are
changed for safety's sake every little while. On board the great
ship I visited, the chaplain did a big share of this work. I can see
him now bent over his table in the wireless room, spelling out
sentences far more complicated than the Latin and Greek of his
university days.
There is one wireless service which will not be remembered with
affection by our sailors over there, the Government Wireless Press
Service. I was in the Grand Fleet when that dashing business of the
first Zeebrugge raid occurred. The "Press News" on the following
morning mentioned it, and warned us impressively to keep our
knowledge to ourselves. As a result we spoke of it at breakfast time
with bated breath. I myself, a modest person, was stricken with a
sudden access of importance at possessing a Grand Fleet secret.
Then at ten o'clock the morning papers came down from a certain great
city with a full, detailed account of the raid!
The thing that we have most against it, however, is its conduct
during the great offensive of the spring of 1918. The air was
resounding with the wireless pæans of the on-rushing Germans; and
everybody was worried, and anxious to know the fortunes of our
troops. One rushed to breakfast early to have first chance at the
press news. Friends gathered behind one's shoulder, and tried to
read before sitting down. What's the news? What's the news? This
(or something very like it) was the news:
"Dr. Ostropantski, president of the Græco-Lettish Diet, denounced
yesterday at a meeting of the Novoe Vremya the German assault on the
liberties of Beluchistan."
There was one vast, concerted groan from the sons of the Grand Fleet.
Some wondered what the anxious folk far out at sea on the destroyers
were saying. Finally the wit of the table shook his head gravely.
"Boys," said he, "where _would_ we be if the civilians refused to
tell?"
XXVI
MARINES
This paper does not deal with the marines fighting in France, but
with the marines such as one finds them on the greater ships. The
gallant "devil dogs" now adding fresh laurels to the corps have army
correspondents to tell of them, for though they are trained by the
Navy and are the Navy's men, the Army has them now under its command.
It is rather of the genuine marine, the true "soldier of the sea"
that I would speak. Having been myself something of a soldier and a
sailor, the marines were good enough to receive me in a friendly
fashion when I was a guest on one of the battleships now on foreign
service.
Even as the traditional nickname for the sailor is "gob," so is
"leatherneck" the seaman's traditional word for the marine. I am
guileless enough not to know just how marines take this term, but if
there is any doubt, I advise readers to be easy with it, for marines
will fight at the drop of a hat. All those aboard declared, by the
way, that the antipathy between the sailor and the marine in which
the public believes, does not exist, nor do the marines according to
the popular notion "police the ship." The marine has his place; the
sailor has his, and they do not mix, not because they dislike each
other, but simply because the marine and the sailor are the products
of two widely different systems of training. Moreover, the marine is
bound to his own people by an _esprit de corps_ without equal in the
world. It was very fine to see each man's anxiety that the corps
should not merely have a good name, but the best of names.
We swopped yarns. In return for my gory tales of shelled cities, gas
attacks, and air raids, they gave me gorgeous ... gorgeous tales of
the little wars they have fought in the Caribbean. I realized for
the first time just what it meant to Uncle Sam to be Central
America's policeman. Now, as they spun their yarns, I could see the
low, white buildings of a Consulate against the luminous West Indian
sky, the boats on the beach, the marines on patrol; now the sugar
plantation menaced by some political robber-rebel, the little tents
under the trees, the business-like machine gun. A harassed American
planter is often the _deux ex machina_ of these tales.
We used to talk in a little office aboard the battleships down by the
marines' quarters, which lie aft. I believe it was the sergeant's
sanctum sanctorum. There were marine posters on the wall, a neat
little stack of the marines' magazines handy by, a few books, and
some filing cabinets. Just outside were the marine lockers, each one
in the most perfect order, and a gun breech used for loading drills.
The sergeant, himself, was a fine, keen fellow who had been in the
corps for some time. His men declared themselves, for the most part,
city born and bred.
"What happened then?"
"Just as soon as they got the message, a detail was sent into the
hills for the defence of the plantation. It was a big sugar
plantation. The American manager was seeing red he was so peeved,
the harvesting season had come and the help, scared by the
insurgents, were beating it off into the hills. What's more, the
insurgents had told the manager that if he didn't pony up with five
thousand dollars by a certain date, they'd burn the place. Actually
had the nerve..."
"In fiction," said I, "a lean, dark, villainous fellow mounted on a
magnificent horse which he has looted from some fine stable dashes up
to the plantation door, delivers his threat in an icy tone and
gallops back into the bush. Or else a message wrapped round a stone
crashes through the window onto the family breakfast table. Which
was it?"
I think the marine telling the story wanted very much to utter: "How
do you get that way?" however, he merely grinned and answered:
"Neither. A big, fat greaser in a dirty, Palm Beach suit came
ambling up one morning as if somebody had asked him to chow. This
was his game. A holdup? Oh, no! Only his men were getting a bit
restless under the neck, about five thousand dollars restless, and if
they didn't get it, there's no telling what they wouldn't do. He
thought he could restrain them till Tuesday night, of course it would
be a pretty stiff job to hold them in, but if something crisp and
green hadn't shown up by Tuesday P.M., those devils might actually
burn the plantation. Did you ever hear such a line of bull? And
that's the honest truth of it, too; none of this stone in the mashed
potatoes guff."
"And then," I broke in, "the faithful servant gallops through the
valley to the shore; a stray bullet knocks off his hat, but he gets
there, and delivers his message to the warship in the bay. A bugle
blows, the marines rally, launches take them to the beach; they rush
over the hills, and get to the plantation just as Devil's-hoof Gomez
or Pink-eyed Pedro has set fire to a corner of the bungalow. Rifles
crack, bugles sound a charge, the marines rush the Gomez gang who
take to their heels. Brave hearts put out the fire. Isn't there
always an exquisitely beautiful señorita to be rescued? There always
is in the movies. Now, please don't destroy any more of my
illusions."
"The message comes all right, all right, but I doubt very much if
that faithful servant comes in a hurry. Down there, if a man goes by
in a hurry, everybody in the village will be out to look at him....
The major gets the message, works out his plan of campaign, and away
we go. Arrived at the plantation, we pitch camp, establish pickets,
and generally get things ready to give the restless greasers a hot
time. Sometimes the greasers try their luck at sniping; other times,
they go away quietly and don't give you a bit of trouble. There
aren't any beautiful señoritas, ... no broken hearts. Yes, it's
tough luck."
Thus were my illusions dispelled by a group of Uncle Sam's marines.
They forgot to tell me that many members of their little company had
been wounded, and seriously wounded in these West Indian shindies.
The list of wounds and honours in the records was an impressive roll.
The visitor aboard a warship will see marines acting as orderlies and
corporals of the guard and manning the secondary batteries. I
attended many of their drills, and never shall forget the snap and
"pep," of the evolutions. Nor shall I forget the courtesies and
friendly help of the gallant officer under whose command these
soldiers of the sea have the good luck to be stationed.
N.B. (Very secret), to Huns only. The marines man the gun in the
"Exec's" office and the corresponding one in the line officers'
reading room. If you want to get home to the old home canal, ...
keep away from their range.
XXVII
SHIPS OF THE AIR
After I had been to visit several of the bases, I returned to London,
and called at the Navy headquarters. A young officer of the
admiral's staff who was always ready and willing to help the writers
assigned to the Navy in every possible way, came down to talk with
me. "Had I been to Base X? To Base Y? Had I been to see the
American submarines? The Naval Aviation?" I grasped at the last
phrase.
"Tell me about it," I said. "I had no idea that the sea flyers were
over here. Last fall the streets of Boston were so thick with boys
of that service that you could hardly move round. And now they are
on this side. Where can I find them?"
The officer drew me to a large scale map of the British Isles and the
French coast which hung on the wall, plentifully jabbed with little
flags. His finger fairly flew from one dot to another.
"Well," said he, "we have a station here, another station here,
another station there, ... there's a station on this point of land;
right about here we're putting up buildings for a depot but there is
nobody at hand yet, here's a big station...." I believe that he
could have continued for five minutes.
"You seem to have a big affair well in hand," I suggested, rather
surprised.
"No," he corrected, "just beginning. The department scheme for the
naval aviation service is one of the big things of the war. It's so
big, so comprehensive that people over there haven't woken up to it
yet. Aren't you going to Base L next week? Why don't you go down
the coast a few miles and see the outfit at Z? Only don't forget
that we've 'just begun to fight.' Come upstairs and let me give you
a letter." A few days later I ran down to see the aviators in their
eyrie.
The naval station lay in a sheltered cove hidden away in a green and
ragged coast. Landing at a somewhat tumble-down old pier, I saw
ahead of me a gentle slope descending to a broad beach of shingle.
Mid-way along this beach, ending under the water, was to be seen a
wide concrete runway which I judged to be but newly finished, for
empty barrels of cement and gravel separators stood nearby. At the
top of the slope, in a great field behind mossy trees, lay the
corrugated iron dormitories of a vast, deserted camp once the repose
quarters of a famous fighting regiment. There was something of the
atmosphere of an abandoned picnic ground to the place. Sailor
sentries stood at the entrance of the quiet roads leading to the
empty barracks, and directed me to those in authority.
The naval aviation is a new service. For a long time the uniform of
the cadets was so unfamiliar that even in their own America the boys
used to be taken for foreign officers. It was a case of "I say he's
an Italian. No, dear, I'm _sure_ he's a Belgian." A not unnatural
mistake, for the uniform has a certain foreign jauntiness. In
colour, it is almost an olive green, and consists of a short,
high-collared tunic cut snugly to the figure, shaped breeches of the
riding pattern, and putties to match. Add the ensign's solitary
stripe and star on shoulder and sleeve and you have it.
I found a group of the flyers in one of the tin barracks that did
duty as a kind of recreation centre. The spokesman of the party was
a serious lad from Boston.
"Fire away," they yelled good-naturedly to my announcement that I was
going to bomb with questions.
"First of all, about how many of you are there helping to make it
home-like for Fritz in this amiable spot?"
"About fifty of us."
"Been here long?"
"No, just came. You see the station is not really finished yet, but
they are hurrying it along to beat the cars. Did you spot that
concrete runway as you came up? A daisy, isn't it? Slope just
right, and no skimping on the width. Well, that's only one of the
runways we're going to have. Over on the other side, the plans call
for three or four more."
"And what do these sailors do?" I had noticed a large number of
sailors about.
"They look after our machines and the balloons. You see this is a
regular aviation section just the same as the army has, and the
sailors are trained mechanics, repair men, clerks and so forth.
They're rather taking it easy now because the planes have been
somewhat slow in reaching us. You know as well as I do the rumpus
that's been made in the States over the air program. Things are
breezing up mighty fast now, however, and every supply ship that puts
into the harbour brings some of our equipment. The Navy's ready, the
camps are being organized, the men are trained; it's up to the
manufacturers to hustle along our machines. Please try to make them
realize that when you write."
"But, say," put in another, "don't, for the love of Pete, run away
with the idea that we haven't any equipment. We've got some planes
and some balloons. But we want more, more, more. Anything to keep
the Germans on the go."
"What do you use?" I asked. "Mostly balloons," put in a third
speaker, a quiet young Westerner who had thus far not joined in the
conversation. "Most of us are balloon observers, though Jos here,"
he indicated the Bostonian, "is a sea-plane artist. He runs one of
the planes."
"Come," said I, "tell the thrilling story."
"There isn't any story," groaned Jos, "that's just the trouble. I've
been fooling round these coasts and out by the harbour mouth in the
hope of spotting a sub till I feel as if I'd used up all the gasoline
in the British Isles. Those destroyers have spilled the beans.
Fritz doesn't dare to come round. Ever try fishing in a place from
which the fish have been thoroughly scared away? It's like that.
Mine laying submarines used to be round the mouth of the harbour all
the time, now Fritz is never seen or heard from.... The destroyers
have spilled the beans. The balloon hounds are the whole show here.
Tell him about it, Mac. You've taken more trips than any of the
others." The disgruntled sea planer knocked a bull-dog pipe on his
shoe, and was still.
"I can't tell much," drawled Mac, a wiry, black little Southerner
with a wonderful accent. "They fill the balloon up here, take it out
to a destroyer or some patrol boat and tie it on, jes like a can to
purp's tail. Then you go out in the Irish Sea and watch for subs.
If you observe anything that looks like a Hun, you simply telephone
it down to the destroyer's deck, and she rushes ahead and
investigates. Sometimes the observer in the balloon sees something
which can't be seen from the level of the destroyer's bridge, and in
that case the balloonist practically steers the vessel, ... so many
points to port, so many to starboard, and so on till you land them in
the suspected area."
"What's it like up above there in a balloon? From the deck of a
battleship or a destroyer, it seems to be a calm matter."
"Don't be too sure of that. I know it looks calm, calm as a regular
up-in-the-air old feather baid. And it isn't bad if you have a
decent wind with which the course and speed of the ship are in some
sort of an agreement. But if the ship's course lies in one direction
and the wind is blowing from another, the balloon blows all over the
place. When the wind blows from behind, you float on ahead and try
to pull the ship after you; if the wind is from ahead, you are
dragged along at the end of a chain like a mean dawg. There is
always sure to be a party if the ship zigzags. Now you are pulling
towards the bow, now you are floating serenely to port, now you are
tugging behind, now you are nowhere in particular and apparently
standing on yo' haid."
We went to walk in the grounds. I was shown where the balloon shed
was to be, the generators, and a dozen other houses. Evidently the
station was going to be "some outfit." Already a big gang of
civilian labourers, electrified by American energy, were hard at work
laying the foundations of a large structure.
"Yes," said one of the boys, "this is going to be a great place.
When it's completed we shall have regular sea-plane patrols of this
entire coast, and a balloon squadron ready to coöperate with either
the British or the American destroyer fleets. Our boys along the
French coast have already made it hot for some Huns, and believe me,
if there are any subs left, you just bet we want a chance at 'em?"
Such is the spirit that has driven the Germans from the seas.
XXVIII
THE SAILOR IN LONDON
The convalescent English Tommy in his sky-blue flannel suit, white
shirt, and orange four-in-hand, the heavier, tropic-bred Australian
with his hat brim knocked jauntily up to one side, the dark,
grey-eyed Scotch highlander very braw and bony in his plaited kilt,
these be picturesque figures on the streets of London, but the most
picturesque of all is our own American tar. Our "gobs" are always so
spruce and clean, and so young, young with their own youth and the
youth of the nation. Jack ashore is to be found at the Abbey at
almost any hour of the day, he wanders into the National Gallery, and
stands before Nelson at St. Paul's; he causes fair hearts to break
asunder at Hampton Court. Wherever you go in London, the wonderful
wide trousers, and the good old pancake hat, this last worn cockily
over one eye, are always to be seen in what nautical writers of the
Victorian school call "the offing."
Our boys come in liberty parties of thirty and forty from the various
bases, usually under the wing of a chief petty officer very conscious
of his responsibility for these wild sailor souls. Accommodations
are taken either at a good London hotel with which the authorities
have some arrangement, or the personnel is distributed among various
huts and hospitable dwellings. The great rallying centre is sure to
be the Eagle Hut off the Strand.