THE CRUISE OF THE “NESTOR”
By the time the space and hammocks were assigned to platoons and
squads, the ship was under way. Orders were to keep below decks until
out of the harbor; and for many, their last look at America was a
glimpse of the harbor front through a port hole.
At this point Lt. Gibbs reappeared, with the cheerful order that
life preservers would be donned at once, and kept on for the rest
of the voyage. For the next ten days all waddled about feeling like
motherly hens. The apparatus I drew seemed particularly dirty, and most
unbecoming to my figure, which is built close to the ground anyway.
Breakfast had been nothing more than a cracker and bully beef, snatched
at odd moments. The good ship hadn’t started to roll much yet, so all
looked forward to dinner with a robust interest. Then it evolved that
this was an Australian transport, the “Nestor;” and as such, sailed
under the British flag; and hence and therefore, the next meal would be
tea at 5 o’clock. Eternity passed, and about half an hour thereafter
the steward came around, and in queer, clipped cockney English
introduced us to “dixies” and “flats.” Another half hour, and the first
messes to be served saw their hash-grabbing detail returning, bearing
through aisles of famished Yanks--bread and cheese and tea! A planked
steak would have been more to the point, we felt, and a towering,
raw-boned countryman in a corner,--Lory Price, I imagine--opined
dismally that we were being mistaken for an orphan asylum. However,
what there was aroused the boys sufficiently to take a less morbid
view of life, and as the officers departed to the cabin, cards and
books appeared, and the mystic words were softly chanted: “Natural,
bones”--“Read ’em and weep.”
But there was not what you might call a festive air to that first
evening; nor to many thereafter. Of course, for some fellows who had
no one dependent on them, who were setting out foot loose for a great
adventure, there was nothing to interfere with the thrill of the
unknown before them. But the majority of these men had been taken out
of their civilian life but two or three weeks before; they were among
strangers, and in an absolutely foreign environment; their new uniforms
still uncomfortable and scratchy, and army regulations and discipline
an incomprehensible set of shibboleths. Far down in each heart the
love of their country burned, steadily enough for the most part; white
hot in some; in others, but recently kindled. All hid it diligently,
of course, from the general view. They had been so fed up with windy
orators, with politicians waving the flag with one hand and keeping
the other on exemption certificates, that the real thing was jealously
concealed.
As I made my final inspection that night, looking out from the
companion-way over the rows of close slung hammocks, I wondered what
their occupants were thinking; what forms of dear ones were present to
their minds; to what homes their thoughts went back--a Harlem flat,
a Jersey farmhouse, a great hotel, a tiny pair of rooms in Jersey
City; comfortable, well-off American homes; tenements in the foreign
districts--each one dear for its memories, each one the home to fight
for. Would we have time to train these men into a fighting machine, or
would we be thrown in at once to stop the great Hun drive in Flanders,
then at its height? How many of us would see these homes, these dear
ones again?--But a company commander has little time to indulge in
reflections; and thoughts of the morning report, and how to distribute
the chow more evenly, and a large budget of orders I had to read, soon
chased away everything else.
The NESTOR carried the 1st and 2d Bns. and Headquarters Co. of the
311th Inf., a Machine Gun battalion, and Brig. Gen. Dean, our brigade
commander, and his staff. Our colonel was in command of the troops on
board, such things being below the dignity of general officers. He was
in his element; he had an officers’ meeting the first thing, and dished
out about 4 square acres of orders to be read and put into effect at
once.
[Illustration: 1st Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.]
Now no one knows better than I how many orders you men received, and
how it was often beyond human power to obey all of them. But I call any
company commander to witness that we got them coming and going. The
Co. Cmdr. is the one man who can’t pass the buck on responsibility.
We had to take the bushels of orders we received, eliminate those
utterly impossible, select from those remaining what seemed essential
and what we thought the Major and Colonel would deem essential, and
then get those things done by the company--that is, issue orders to the
1st Sgt. for details, Supply Sgt. for supplies, Mess Sgt. for mess,
officers for drill and instruction, company clerk for paper work, and
then see to it that the whole is carried out. And then one usually
amasses a balling out for something or other that he has left out.
One of these orders was the censorship order, of which we had heard so
much. Instead of having all letters censored at post offices by clerks,
some genius had decided to follow the British plan of having officers
censor their own men’s mail. Thus at one brilliant stroke a situation
was created which embarrassed men and officers alike, imposed an
irksome and continual task on over-burdened officers, delayed the mail,
and was in every way sweet incense in the nostrils of the little tin
gods of the red tape; the exponents of the theory of How Not to Do It.
The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship’s inspection. The
holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they
had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was
kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who
do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the call would be
sounded, and all except the day’s orderlies would be massed on decks in
their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the
lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded
by a bugler, who blew a seasick “Attention” at each deck. Everybody
would then step on everyone else’s feet, and make a little lane for the
procession. The adjutant, the ship’s captain, the colonel, the ship
supply officer--poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job--would play
“follow my leader,” and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and
everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand.
The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills--one company
using the deck at a time--and fire and boat drills. It was given out at
first that four long blasts of the boat’s whistle would be the signal
for “Abandon ship.” This was changed later by the ship’s captain, but
somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never
got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about
10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once--twice--heads began to
appear over the hammocks; thrice--the hammocks began to be agitated;
four times--two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four
hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the
gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way
to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it
must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .45 and a
few choice remarks in the vernacular.
Then the chow--oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled
out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was none too much in quantity.
There were here and there newly made n. c. o.’s who were not above
holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were
several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a
weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How
did we know it was currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature
to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday
air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried
with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save
the ship’s cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony.
“Tea” was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at
Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was
hardly a success so far.
The officers were fed well and in civilized fashion in the cabin,
which didn’t help matters much for the men. Also some members of the
boat’s crew took advantage of the situation by running a sub-rosa
restaurant in the forecastle, gouging such as had the price. Of course
the Americans thought right away that they were holding out part of our
rations for this purpose, and international relations began to get very
strained. The officers were finally informed, and the practice stopped.
There were ten or twelve other ships in the convoy, which was headed by
the battleship Montana. At last one morning the latter was missing, and
we knew that we must be nearly across. Precautions were redoubled and
life preservers were not removed even at night.
On the morning of May 31st we sighted land--a welcome sight indeed.
Capt. Breen at once identified it as dear auld Ireland, and was much
disgusted when we learned later that it was Scotland. We had sailed
around the north of Ireland, and were dropping down the Irish sea to
Liverpool.
This was the submarine zone indeed. Destroyers appeared from the
horizon and hovered on the outskirts of the convoy. A great silver
dirigible swung lazily from the clouds and floated along above us. The
Irish coast came into view on our right.
At about 2:00 P. M. there was a scurry among the destroyers. The
dirigible descended above a spot some half mile off our port bow. Guns
began to speak from the transports and destroyers. It only lasted for
about five minutes, however, and we couldn’t see any visible results.
But we were told that a sub had been spotted and destroyed.
Late that night we took the pilot aboard and proceeded up the Mersey.
Few of us slept a wink. After the long strain it was good to see
ourselves surrounded by the lights of shipping, and to see the shore
on either side, though as few lights as possible were shown even then.
However, we could open the portholes, and the long, long line of docks
slipped by until we wondered if this great harbor had any end. At last,
about 2:00 A. M., we docked and settled down to wait until morning for
a glimpse of Merry England.
The next day we waited around until 1:30, when we disembarked. We were
marched about half a mile through the streets to a railroad terminal.
The people hardly glanced at us. They were well used to soldiers by
that time. Not a cheer, not a sign of curiosity. Another herd for the
slaughter house. A few wounded soldiers, in their flaring “blues,”
looked us over with some professional curiosity.
At the railroad station we were halted on a cobbled street for a weary
three hours’ wait. There was an English-American Red Cross canteen
there, and we bought them out of buns in short order and distributed
them to the companies. An aviator appeared on the scene and amused us
for a while by doing all sorts of acrobatics--loops, whirls, twists
through the air--such as we had never seen before.
Finally we were formed and marched into the station, and boarded
the funny little English coaches, and were locked up in different
compartments. Canteen girls gave each of us a printed letter of welcome
from King George, and finally we jolted out of the station, rolled
along between factories and munition plants--manned mostly by girls and
women--and so out into the countryside.
That was a wonderful ride through England on the last day of May. It
was a perfect evening, the air soft and balmy; light until ten o’clock.
It was like a toy country to us, beautifully ordered and groomed, with
little villages here and there, and green hedgerows, and usually one or
two Tommies on leave walking down the lane with their sweethearts--that
made us homesick already. And the train sped along, stopping only once
for us to get out and have some coffee and a drink of water; and we
were all thrilled and excited and felt a little tickly in the stomach,
as you do before a big football game. We were fast drawing near the
greatest game, now being played to a finish.
As the night wore on, and it became dark, and we couldn’t look out the
windows any more, our cramped quarters were anything but comfortable.
Also, sanitary arrangements on European trains are conspicuous by their
absence. When at last, at 2:00 A. M., we were told to detrain, we were
pretty thoroughly uncomfortable.
After the usual hubbub of detraining--“which way’s comp’ny form?”--“I
dunno”--“First squad”--“Ninth squad”--“Where’s me bayonet?”--“Oh,
thanks”--“D’ja get the can open all right?”--We departed into the
night, filing past a little station out into a dark road, and then at
a good round pace on through silent, dark streets, for about a mile.
There we were introduced to our first billet.
It was a large empty stone house in a row of similar ones. Bare
floors, bare walls, but clean, and not so bad. After a vast amount of
unnecessary fussing about the company got itself settled. Sixty men
were to leave at six o’clock under Lt. Foulkes.
That night and early the next morning we heard for the first time the
distant rumble of the guns in France.
In the morning we discovered that we were in an embarkation camp at
Folkestone, near Dover. A beautiful place it was, something like
Atlantic City, only everything seemed more permanent, and the boardwalk
was lacking. The camp was a section of the town set apart for the
purpose. Everything was well ordered. These Englishmen had been at
the game a long time, and after some chafing and fussing around
we discovered that though no one displayed any particular “pep,”
nevertheless things really got done quite well; in the British way, of
course. But woe be unto the ambitious Yank who sought to alter anything.
Most of the company had not even been in the service long enough to
master the manual of arms, and part of the day was used in instilling
the rudiments of this essential into them. Time was still left for
a short ramble about Folkestone, however; and the promenade, town,
pubs, Tommies and Waacs were all investigated enthusiastically and as
thoroughly as time and opportunity permitted.
The next morning the battalion was formed at 6 A. M. and marched
along cobbled streets to the pier, where we were sardined into a fast
channel steamer, and donned those confounded lifebelts again for a
short farewell wearing. Then, with an American destroyer racing along
on either side, we slipped swiftly down under the Dover Cliffs, then
swerving out and across the channel to Calais. A dock, a Red Cross
train on the other side of it, a fisherman in a little boat alongside
us--France at last.