BOYS IN KHAKI
Just as the sun broke forth from the bank of mist that trailed its gray
banners along the hillsides to the east a squeaking wagon, drawn by a
pair of thin, decrepit looking white horses and occupied by two youths
in what remained of the blue uniforms of United States sailors, drew
up in front of police headquarters in Queenstown. It was too early for
many of the citizens to be abroad, although here and there a sleepy
pedestrian cast a vacantly curious stare at the odd apparition. From
the seat one of the occupants yielded the frayed lines and got down
stiffly, disappearing into the station. Those few early persons who
paused to witness subsequent events were forced to wait for a good ten
minutes. Then the youth in sailor togs, whose left sleeve bore an eagle
above crossed cannons, done in white, and a single scarlet chevron
below, emerged once more in company with two stalwart “Bobbies.” A
hasty glance into the back of the wagon, and the jaded horses were
again started and the whole outfit disappeared behind the gates and was
lost to view of the curious observers.
Five minutes later a police sergeant was very gingerly introducing a
chisel under the lid of the nearest box on the wagon. The sergeant
looked a bit unhappy, for Martin had innocently advanced the
possibility of the cases containing explosives. At each _creak_ of
the lid as it gave to the chisel the sergeant flinched perceptibly,
while his companion edged the fraction of an inch further into the
background. Even Nelson was none too certain that a nice collection of
dynamite bombs or guncotton cylinders was not about to reward their
investigation. But in a moment a sigh of relief went up from the
sergeant as the lid gave at last and revealed the contents.
“Guns!” he said devoutly.
And guns they were, rifles, neatly nested between much excelsior, with
wicked looking sights of a sort quite new to either of the boys if not
to the sergeant.
“Ha! German! Cast your eye on ’em, Flaherty! What do you say to that
now? The murderin’ rapscallions! ’Twas to Dublin they was meanin’ to
take ’em, mark my words, Flaherty! It’s the Sinn Feiners as landed ’em
and that divil of a Rosmoyne crowd that was handlin’ ’em. If them
horses didn’t have their last feed forninst the Two Rocks I’ll eat me
hat. Unhitch ’em, Flaherty, an’ put ’em in the stable till the Captain
comes on an’ tells us what’ll we do with ’em. You gentlemen will wait
an’ give your evidence, please. Step inside, sirs.”
“That’s all well enough,” objected Nelson, “but we’re hungry. We
haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday noon. We’ll get our
breakfasts and be back in half an hour.”
But the sergeant was adamant. They must await the appearance of the
captain who was due in another twenty minutes. So, with sighs, they
preceded their captor up the steps and into the bare office inside
where, for the subsequent twenty or twenty-five minutes, they stifled
the demands of two healthy hungers and impatiently awaited the advent
of the police captain. The sergeant and the other officer, who appeared
to be an ordinary constable, although he exuded so much dignity that
the boys were in doubt as to that, were inclined to be chatty but found
little encouragement from their guests.
In the course of time, following the arrival of several constables who
dribbled in at intervals and had to hear the story of the capture from
the sergeant, the captain himself at last materialized. He proved to
be a slight, wistful looking man with a Cockney accent and a manner at
once apologetic and suspicious. The boys’ troubles began the moment
the sergeant had finished his story. The captain bent a mild blue eye
on them and announced sadly: “Wotever you sy will be used agynst you,
my men.” At least, that is what Martin always stoutly averred that he
said. Nelson thinks he phrased it slightly differently.
However, nothing was used against them, so it didn’t matter. The captain
asked them so many questions that they were almost dizzy――although lack
of food may have had something to do with it――and wrote every answer
down slowly, sadly, laboriously. They had to delve into the ancient
history to satisfy that official and reveal their ancestors as far back
as the third generation, and tell their religious beliefs, political
predilections and ethical standards. At last they were allowed to
stagger forth, although they were severely informed that it would be
their duty to hold themselves in readiness at all times to answer
further questions.
If ever food tasted better than it did that morning neither of the boys
was able to remember the occasion. They ate until it was necessary to
slump down and sit on their spines, until even the cheerful and untidy
waitress viewed them apprehensively. After a long, dreamy half hour
over the empty coffee cups they arose, paid their scores and made for
the landing and the ships to face the music.
Reaching the _Gyandotte_, Nelson reported to the officer of the deck
and hurried below to change his togs before he was sent for to face the
first lieutenant. That proved less of an ordeal than he feared, for his
straightforward story, strange as it was, carried conviction and even
brought more than one fleeting smile to the officer’s face. “I’ll look
into the story, Troy,” was the decision, “and if I find it’s just as
you’ve told it you’ll hear no more. Hereafter, however, see that you
keep close enough to the ship so that weather conditions won’t get you
into trouble. Frustrating Feinians is all very well in a way, Troy, but
you aren’t here for that.”
In the afternoon the Chief Constable, although that might not have
been his real title, came aboard in company with two minor officials
and Nelson had to go through his story again. This time he was made to
feel somewhat less like a criminal. In fact, the Chief intimated that
he and Martin had displayed wit and courage, and seemed inclined to
be a trifle grateful; which, considering that they had captured more
than a hundred rifles, Nelson secretly thought appropriate. There
were most sensational if extremely vague stories in the newspapers in
which Martin’s name was “Townser” and Nelson’s “Tory.” That ended the
incident, so far as they were concerned. What ultimately became of the
white horses, which had so faithfully performed their duty that night,
and the creaking wagon, they never learned. They met only once more
during the stay at Queenstown, and on that occasion their liberties
barely overlapped, and they were together but an hour or so. The next
day the submarine flotilla slid quietly out of the harbor, with the old
mother ship wobbling along behind, and were soon out of sight around
Roche’s Point. On the _Gyandotte_ it was rumored that they were to
go up to the north coast of Scotland and join the British submarines
on guard there, but no one knew for certain. There were a great many
things concerning the movements of ships that one didn’t know in those
days.
Nelson missed Martin horribly at first, and was a bit mopey as long as
the old _Gyandotte_ stayed at the base. Fortunately for his spirits,
that wasn’t long. She followed the submarines through the booms just
two days later, picking her way between anchored mines as daintily as
any fine lady avoiding mud puddles, and, wigwagging a last signal to
the forts, headed south. Nelson saw the hills of Queenstown fade into
the brown and purple shadows of evening and finally disappear. Later
the cruiser altered her course and in the first full darkness the light
of Fastnet flashed at them from starboard. Nelson slept finely that
night, for the _Gyandotte_ rolled comfortably and creaked and rubbed
her seams and was quite home-like again.
In the morning they were out of sight of land, lounging over a calm
gray-blue sea in company with three destroyers. At daylight the four
ships scuttled into line and held a deal of conversation by means of
gay signal flags. The lookouts had hourly spasms, for that summer
the waters around Great Britain and France for three hundred miles
away from the coasts were thick with floating débris, and, with
sufficient imagination on the part of the lookout, an empty lard pail
makes an excellent periscope a mile away, while an abandoned mattress
at two miles is as fine a conning tower for practice purposes as
soul could desire. Those destroyers were new at the game and filled
with enthusiasm, and half a dozen times that day the sharp bark of
three-inch or four-inch guns added to the joy of life. When it wasn’t
inanimate wreckage that made a lookout gasp and shout incoherently it
was a porpoise. A porpoise appearing suddenly near the bow suggests
just one thing in the world, and it isn’t “Porpoise!” It’s “Torpedo!”
The _Gyandotte_ was theoretically blown to bits at least five times
that day by playful porpoises! What distressed the _Gyandotte’s_
secondary battery crews was that while the destroyers were forever
letting fly at something, or, at least, preparing to, the _Gyandotte’s_
place at number three in the formation presupposed her to be safely
guarded and gave no excuse for potting mythical periscopes.
That was a wonderful day, though. Aside from imitation U-boats,
there was other excitement. Once they sighted and bore down on a big
four-masted schooner from which trailed a long veil of black smoke.
One of the destroyers slipped out of column and had speech with the
schooner and later reported to the cruiser: “American ship _Annie
B. Wells_, Baltimore, in cargo. Struck a mine yesterday evening and
started a fire in some turpentine casks. Says she has fire under
control and will be able to make Havre without assistance.”
Later two mine sweepers wallowed along under convoy of a diminutive
chaser painted with more colors than she had tonnage. Again it was a
big Italian freighter, high-sided, rusty-red in spots and squares,
ambling along for Bordeaux. But by night the highway was empty and
the four ships slid westward into a gentle sea while a soft breeze
blew from the south and whispered of Spanish orange groves. Nelson was
always glad he experienced the North Atlantic under the conditions he
found that day and night, for never again, for as long as he roamed it,
was it so kindly and bland.
In the morning, five hundred miles west of Land’s End, they awoke to
green seas that buffeted the bow under the steady push of a southeast
wind and to a sky that alternated sun and squall. The destroyers rolled
merrily and the spindrift flew aft as far as their second stacks. There
was more signaling about noon and at two o’clock smoke was sighted
ahead and the four ships picked up their pace and plowed on into an
anxious group of transports and convoys. The transports were big
passenger liners and their decks were solid brown streaks where boys in
khaki waved and cheered, three and four deep behind the rails, as the
newcomers sped amongst them.
That was a fine sight to Nelson. Leaning from the _Gyandotte’s_ Number
Four gun port, he waved back, and cheered a little, too, but was rather
too chokey to make much noise. Lewis, first shellman, who leaned at
Nelson’s elbow, didn’t try to shout. He just grinned all the time, and
blinked his eyes, and kept muttering, over and over: “They’re the boys
to do it! Good old kids from the U. S. A.!” Nelson wondered at the
tier on tier of faces, blurred by distance, that looked down from the
many decks of the big liners. He couldn’t see the expression of any
individual countenance, for the _Gyandotte_ didn’t get close enough for
that, but it seemed to him that a sort of composite and kindly grin
beamed over the water from every one of the troopships. Now and then,
when the wind allowed, he could hear the cheering, steady, continuous,
and always broad-brimmed campaign hats fluttered like brown leaves in a
breeze.
“They’re the boys! Good old kids from the U. S. A.!” He found himself
repeating Lewis’ slogan in time to the song of the ship’s engines. He
felt very warm about his heart and a trifle damp of eye, and was proud
and haughty and wouldn’t have given a plugged nickel for the whole
German Empire just then.
The _Gyandotte_, flags fluttering, siren shrieking once or twice, sped
along the edge of the crowd and wheeled into position far back on the
starboard, almost touching elbows with a still smaller cruiser, whose
graceful, yacht-like lines brought memories of Guantanamo. Twelve
transports and six convoys had been the story until the new escort
arrived. Now there were but four of the original convoys left, for two
were already showing their propellers and hiking back to the west:
“Straight for Broadway,” as one yearning voice on the _Gyandotte_
phrased it. Altogether the convoy now consisted of three cruisers――one
an armored craft――and five destroyers. The “Big Lady” was saturnine
looking and forbidding, like a great gray bulldog, and had four
ridiculously high funnels and a basket mast forward and a military
mast aft and was all broken out with search lights like a child with
measles. She was the flagship, and didn’t she know it? She signaled
orders so fast that the signalmen dripped perspiration in the teeth of
a southeast wind, and she gave the impression of being short-tempered
and dangerous to fool with, and the result was that in an incredibly
short time everyone was in the right place and on the very best
possible behavior and the twelve adventurers were plowing on again at
standard speed, every nose set straight for the port of Bordeaux.
It was well worth seeing, that little armada, and so Nelson thought. He
couldn’t see it all at once, for the two destroyers plowing ahead were
so far away that he caught only occasional frisky glimpses of their
rolling sticks or the fluttering ribbons of their oily smoke, and one
ship had a mean way of hiding another. But he could see enough to get
a fine proud thrill. The convoys encompassed the transports as collies
herd a flock of sheep. In the lead were the two destroyers, while along
the flanks were the four cruisers. Two other destroyers plunged along
behind. So they steamed until darkness, when, obeying the good night
instructions of the flagship, the convoys quartered off toward the
rim of the world and the liners increased their intervals. But in the
morning the destroyers came scampering back and the cruisers closed
in again. That was a blustery, pitch-and-toss day, and Nelson, gazing
across after gun drill, felt a bit sorry for those landsmen cooped up
on the rolling top-heavy troopships. In such weather, he reflected
grimly, there must be many absent from roll-call!
There were few excitements that day, and only once was a gun fired.
Then what the target really was Nelson never knew, for the destroyer
was far away and seemed to be firing at the horizon. By afternoon
staring across the water at the nearest transport palled and even the
lookouts slouched despondently at their stations and the watch officers
yawned behind their hands and seemed to be asking of the gray skies if
it was for this that they had left their cosy firesides! Another night
and they were looking for the landfall. More than once on that voyage
Nelson’s thoughts had dwelt on the events of that tragic night, now
almost eleven months ago when the _Jonas Clinton_ had met her fate and
he had last seen his father. Doubtless the _Gyandotte_, since leaving
Queenstown, had passed within a hundred miles of the spot, and for all
he knew some of the wreckage they had sighted might have been from the
schooner. Wind and current play strange tricks with flotsam. Doubtless
his nearness to the _Clinton’s_ grave accounted for the fact that his
father was a great deal in his mind just then. He still managed to
cling to the conviction that Captain Troy was alive, although as time
passed and no word nor sign reached him the conviction grew weaker. But
he had not yet given up hope. Perhaps so long as positive proof was
wanting he never would.
The dim, blue shore-line of France crept up above the misty edge of
the sea about mid-day and that evening they were anchored in the broad
estuary of the Gironde. It was early morning before the tide favored
and the transports and one convoy rattled their winches and steamed up
the river. The other ships slept at their anchors until daylight and
then turned their bows seaward once more. When Nelson looked through
a port in the morning he found the _Gyandotte_ lying in sight of the
picturesque, red-roofed city of Bordeaux.