OFF FOR THE OTHER SIDE
The captured steamship proved to be the _Mahlow_, before the war a
French passenger ship plying between Marseilles and Spanish ports under
the name of the _Golfe du Lion_. She was of some thirty-seven hundred
tons. She had been armed with small caliber guns in profusion, for her
main deck fairly bristled with them and a multiplicity of ports had
been cut on the lower deck. The latter were not apparent when closed,
and, as the deck guns were easily hidden, she doubtless looked quite
harmless when posing as a merchantman. She was credited by Lloyd’s with
being a fast ship, and her inability to get away from the _Gyandotte_
was later explained by her engineer force as due to poor coal taken
aboard at a South American port. She had been at sea two months and
had in that time caused considerable havoc from Rio de Janeiro north
to the Caribbean. When taken she had on board twenty-six men of the
crews of the _San Felipe_ and a second vessel, both destroyed within
the past three weeks. These men, however, seemed scarcely more pleased
to reach the deck of the _Gyandotte_ than did the bulk of the German
sailors. About half of the _Mahlow’s_ complement was taken aboard the
cruiser and the rest was taken care of by the United States gunboat
_Hastings_, which appeared shortly after the surrender. The _Hastings’_
men were a disgruntled lot, for the tiny gunboat had nearly ripped her
seams for six hours in an effort to get to the scene. The _Mahlow_
had twenty-two dead and a score injured, while aboard her adversary
eight had been killed and nine wounded. Of the dead five were of the
crew of Number One gun and the rest were of the engineering force.
Among the _Mahlow’s_ wounded was her executive officer, a young junior
lieutenant, who later died in hospital. What happened to the other
prisoners Nelson never learned. The last he saw of them was at Norfolk
two days later when they were marched away under a guard of marines.
The _Mahlow_ was hopelessly battered and sank about six o’clock,
rolling over like a dead whale just before she went under. Her officers
looked on unemotionally from the decks of the two enemy ships, seeming
to those who watched them more relieved than sorry to see the last
of the raider. To Nelson fell the duty of guarding a squad of the
prisoners the next day. The men were herded in two lots on the lower
deck and the officers occupied fairly comfortable quarters aft. Many of
the prisoners had been supplied with clothing, for when taken aboard
they were in some cases in tatters. Nelson found that nearly half of
the German sailors spoke English enough to be understood. To him they
seemed a rather childish lot, more concerned with the rations dealt to
them than with their recent misfortunes or their ultimate fate. There
were exceptions, however, notably one dark-visaged man who wore the
insignia of a machinist’s mate. This man refused to eat any food for
the first twenty-four hours and spent his time reviling his captors
and, or so it appeared, his companions. The latter seemed in fear of
him, but the fact didn’t keep them from grinning at him behind his back.
The ship’s doctor and assistants were busy all the way across to
Norfolk, for some of the wounds sustained by the injured men of the
German ship were serious. The bodies of the dead aboard the _Mahlow_
had gone down with the ship, but on stretchers, under sheets of
sailcloth the _Gyandotte’s_ dead went back to their own country for
burial. Nelson couldn’t help reflecting that the shell that had wrecked
Number One gun might just as easily have chosen Number Four, in which
case it was probable that he would have been lying quiet under a
tarpaulin or groaning in the sick bay at this moment. But he didn’t
let his thoughts dwell overmuch on that subject. Life was a thing one
risked when one joined the country’s forces in time of war, and whether
one was to die or come safely through was up to the Great Commander.
At Norfolk the _Gyandotte_ underwent repairs and lay in the harbor four
days with steam up. Liberty was granted the second day, but not after,
and life aboard threatened to grow monotonous in spite of drills and
duties. The newspapers made all they could of the action off Bermuda,
but, as the Navy Department had given out but the barest facts, there
was little to build a story on. Nelson made friends of a sort and
picked up all the information and lore obtainable on the subject of
guns, ammunition, explosives and fire control. Garey, gun captain of
Number Four, was the chief victim of Nelson’s passion for knowledge,
and Garey, who wore two service stripes and the Navy “E,” and who was
an untalkative chap ordinarily, spent hours at various times on the
boy’s enlightenment. Nelson soon had a large fund of information on
many subjects concerned with gunnery. He learned the why and wherefore
of gas check pads and rings, and how to seat them, learned how to clear
powder chamber and mushroom head of oil before firing, how to sponge
and re-oil after, learned that anyone using emery or brick dust on
certain parts was inherently a criminal who would murder his poor old
blind grandmother, learned how to find leaks in the recoil cylinders
and how to refill them and much more severely practical information,
some of which he had known and forgotten and much of which was new to
him.
He dipped into the subject of explosives, which he found intensely
interesting, and borrowed a book about them from the ship’s library
and, I suspect, made rather a nuisance of himself during those four
days at anchor and for several days after.
Norfolk was a busy scene just then and scarcely a day passed that
didn’t witness the arrival or departure of one or more warships.
There were submarines there, too, and Nelson often wondered if Martin
Townsend was aboard one of them. On the morning of the fourth day
of the _Gyandotte’s_ stay there was much activity in the submarine
basin, followed just before noon by a wholesale exodus of the little
underwater craft. They went sliding past the cruiser on their way out
to sea, one after another, until Nelson had counted eight of them.
Somehow and somewhere the rumor started that they were going across
under their own steam, which rumor, whether true or not, aroused much
enthusiasm on the _Gyandotte_, and as the subs filed past they were
roundly cheered.
That same afternoon the _Gyandotte_, too, up-anchored and stood out
past Fortress Monroe and Cape Charles and set her course northeastward.
There was a heavy rain falling and the lights ashore twinkled wanly as
the cruiser crossed the mouth of the bay. Nelson spent a wet watch on
deck between midnight and four in the morning and was heartily glad to
throw off his glistening rubber clothing and turn in at eight bells.
In the morning the _Gyandotte_ was steaming at half-speed, out of
sight of land, at the tail-end of a one column formation of cruisers
and destroyers that reached ahead until lost in the gray murk. It
was a miserable, cheerless sort of morning, and even “chow” with all
the hot coffee he could drink didn’t dispel the gloom. But something
else did shortly after, for there appeared on the ship’s bulletin
the soul-stirring announcement that the _Gyandotte_ was to convoy
submarines to an American base in British waters!
There was joy, loud and unrestrained, on the cruiser. Nelson forgot
lowering skies, unfriendly sea and reeking decks and wanted to cheer or
dance――or both. There was only one fly in the ointment, and that was
indicated by Ferris, the lanky third class yeoman who had been one of
Nelson’s first acquaintances on board.
“It’ll be a rotten voyage,” said Ferris mournfully. “Those subs are old
tubs that can’t stand any weather and we’ll be waiting on them hand and
foot all the way. Likely as not we’ll have to tow them! It’ll take us
about two weeks to get over, you mark my words, Troy. And if we don’t
lose two or three of them on the way it’ll be a miracle.”
But Nelson wasn’t to be downcast by any such talk as that. He had long
since decided that Ferris was a natural-born pessimist, anyway. And,
besides, Nelson wasn’t particular how long the voyage lasted just so
long as it led them to the other side. What did worry him slightly
was the question of whether the _Gyandotte_, which, after all, was a
third class cruiser and, even for her class, not especially efficient
as a warship, was to remain on the other side or come home again. If,
he decided, she was to do the latter, and he learned of it in time,
he would do all in his power short of actually deserting, to remain
behind. However, there was no sense in crossing a bridge before you
came to it, and meanwhile he was in high spirits.
The weather got thick toward noon and the half-speed became less than
half and the bow lookouts had their work cut out for them, for there
is always danger of treading on the heels of the ship ahead of you
in a heavy fog. Nothing of the sort happened, however, and somewhere
that night they picked up their charges. When it was Nelson didn’t
know, for he was asleep at the time, but when he looked out the next
morning there they were, fourteen of the little steel cylinders,
bobbing along with the spray drenching their canvas-protected bridges
and the waves breaking along the decks. They were a plucky lot, Nelson
decided, and he told himself that he wasn’t half sorry to be where he
was instead of in one of those tiny “tin cigars.” But, nevertheless,
he found that down at the bottom of his heart was a sort of sneaking
desire to see what it was like to eat and sleep and have his being in
one of the strange craft. There were all kinds in sight, single hull
and combination, coastal and fleet, large and small. Indeed, one tiny
Class H boat, which was wallowing along within a short distance of the
_Gyandotte_, looked to be scarcely more than a toy and appeared to have
set forth on a most suicidal venture. Further ahead were larger boats,
submarines of possibly a thousand or twelve hundred tons displacement
with sterns queerly cut away and much superstructure. In the gray of
the morning it was difficult to pick them out a half mile away so
closely did their hulls match the hue of sky and water. They were in
two column formation, well spaced, and the leaders were far away from
the _Gyandotte_, their presence indicated now and then by a dash of
white foam when a wave broke against a conning tower. The convoyers
consisted of three cruisers, the _Gyandotte_ amongst them, a heavy
looking, high-decked ship which someone said was a submarine tender and
two destroyers of about four hundred tons, themselves looking scarcely
more seaworthy than their charges. All that day the flotilla steamed
northeastward and all of the next, the weather remaining either drizzly
or foggy. Some time in the early morning of the fourth day after
leaving Norfolk the light on Cape Sable shone off to port and in the
afternoon they put in to Halifax.
That was rather fun, for they received a fine reception from the
warships and merchantmen lying in the outer harbor and, later, ashore,
were welcomed quite as cordially. There was liberty every day during
the four days the ships lay there, and Nelson, sometimes with shipmates
and sometimes alone, saw about all there was to be seen of the old city
which, in the month of July, fortunately unaware of the destruction and
death that was to be her portion a few months later, was bright and
cheerful in spite of all the war activities within and about her. The
_Gyandotte_ took on coal one day and Nelson had his first experience of
the joys of such a job. After the bunkers were filled, the coal being
handled aboard the _Gyandotte_ in bags by hand, every speck of coal
dust had to be washed away, and that was a task almost as difficult as
loading. But at last the job was done, though the _Gyandotte’s_ men
didn’t threaten the Navy record that time, and soiled dungarees were
pulled off and baths were in order. For the first time Nelson realized
the advisability of winning speedy promotion, for petty officers didn’t
have to carry bags of coal across a canvas covered deck.
They were to have started on again after three days at Halifax, but one
of the submarines had managed to get an engine out of commission and
repairs required another day, so that it was just after sunset on the
fourth evening that underwater craft and convoys pulled up hooks and
turned noses seaward again. British and French flags dipped as they
passed out of the harbor and from one of the warships came the strains
of the American anthem, in response to which the departing Jackies
cheered and waved. Devil’s Island Light blinked farewell to them and
they steamed away into the ocean lane, one more contribution to the
cause of Justice and Humanity.