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THE U-BOAT HUNTERS
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY
Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
THE U-BOAT HUNTERS. Illustrated _net_ $1.50
RUNNING FREE. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
HEAD WINDS. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
SONNIE-BOY'S PEOPLE. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
WIDE COURSES. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
OPEN WATER. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
THE CRESTED SEAS. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
THE DEEP SEA'S TOLL. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
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OUT OF GLOUCESTER. Illustrated _net_ 1.50
JEB HUTTON. Illustrated _net_ 1.20
THE TRAWLER. _net_ .50
* * * * * *
THE U-BOAT HUNTERS
by
JAMES B. CONNOLLY
With Illustrations
[Illustration: "Where you-all going?... Can't you-all see where you're
going? Keep off--keep off." [_Page 117_]]
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1918
Copyright, 1906, 1918, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Published June, 1918
Copyright, 1916, 1917, 1918, by P. F. Collier & Son, Incorporated
FOREWORD
What a great thing if we could do away with war!
But men are not cast in that mould. We shall continue to have wars; and
some day the world is going to have a war to which the present will
serve only as a try-out.
When that war comes our country will probably have to bear the burden
for the western hemisphere. In that war our navy will be our first line
of defense; and what we do for our navy now will have much to do with
what our navy will be able to do for us then.
Our navy to-day is made up of good ships and capable, courageous,
hard-working officers and men. There are some fuddy-duddies and
politicians among them, but most of them are on the job every minute.
Their highest hope is the chance to serve their country. The chapters in
this book which tell of their U-boat hunting only prove once more their
great qualities.
There are chapters in this book which have nothing to do with U-boat
hunting, but have much to do with the navy. Such are the two opening
chapters and the three closing chapters. The motive of four of those
chapters will probably be obvious; the chapter on the workings of a
submarine is included in the hope of interesting our young fellows in
that type of craft.
The need of such a chapter? Take this illustration of what people do not
know about submarines: Three years ago an admiral on the other side was
called into conference on the U-boat problem. When it came his turn to
speak he said: "Gentlemen, it is child's talk to say that the U-boats
will ever amount to anything! Disregard them utterly!" Only three years
ago that was, and that naval officer was considered for commander-in-chief
of the Grand Fleet! Three years ago, and last year the U-boats sank
6,600,000 tons of shipping!
Right now Germany probably contemplates, or is actually constructing,
U-boats with armor and guns heavy enough to engage on the surface any
war craft up to the battle-cruiser class. How far from that to fighting
the heaviest of surface craft--even to the battleships?
In the event of invasion--we might as well face that; refusing to think
about it certainly will not eliminate the possibility,--in the event of
invasion by a powerful foe our first line of defense will be our navy.
The navy will always be our first line of defense; and so the need
to-day of interesting in our navy young men,--progressive young men, who
will learn from the past but prefer to live in the future.
J. B. C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
NAVY SHIPS 1
NAVY MEN 12
SEEING THEM ACROSS 24
THE U-BOATS APPEAR 37
CROSSING THE CHANNEL 58
THE CENSORS 77
ONE THEY DIDN'T GET 92
THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 108
THE 343 STAYS UP 127
THE CARGO BOATS 142
FLOTILLA HUMOR--AT SEA 157
FLOTILLA HUMOR--ASHORE 172
THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER BOYS 186
THE MARINES HAVE LANDED-- 204
THE NAVY AS A CAREER 222
THE SEA BABIES 239
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Where you-all going?... Can't you-all see where
you're going? Keep off--keep off" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
She shoved out into the stream and kicked her way
down the harbor, and as she did so ... everybody
seemed to know 26
Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We
were getting near the spot 98
In the engine-room of a submarine 242
NAVY SHIPS
More than one-third of our naval force was being reviewed by the
President. A most impressive assembly of men-o'-war it was, in tonnage
and weight of metal the greatest ever floated by the waters of the
western hemisphere.
The last of the fleet had arrived on the night before. From the bluffs
along the shore they might have been seen approaching with a mysterious
play of lights across the shadowy waters. In the morning they were all
there. Hardly a type was lacking--the last 16,000-ton double-turreted
battleship, the protected and heavy-armored cruisers, monitors,
despatch-boats, gun-boats, destroyers, attendant transport, and supply
ships. Fifty ships, 1,200 guns, 16,000 men: all were there, even to the
fascinating little submarines with their round black backs just showing
above the water.
It was that chromatic sort of a morning when the canvas of the
sailing-boats stands out startlingly white against the drizzly sky and
the smoke from the stacks of the steamers takes on an accented
coal-black, and, drooping, trails low in a murky wake. Rather a dull
setting at this early hour; but not sufficiently dull to check the
vivacity of the actors in the scene.
The President comes up the side of the _Mayflower_ and, arrived at the
head of the gangway, stands rigid as any stanchion to attention while
his colors are shot to the truck and the scarlet-coated band plays the
national hymn. Then, ascending to the bridge, he takes station by the
starboard rail with the Secretary of the Navy at his shoulder. The
clouds roll away, the sun comes out, and all is as it should be while he
prepares to review the fleet, which thereafter responds aboundingly to
every burst of his own inexhaustible enthusiasm.
And this fleet, which is lying to anchor in three lines of four miles or
so each in length, with a respectful margin of clear water all about,
is, viewed merely as a marine pageant, magnificent; as a display of
potential fighting power, most convincing. No man might look on it and
his sensibilities--admiration, patriotism, respect, whatever they might
be--remain unstirred. To witness it is to pass in mental review the
great fleets of other days and inevitably to draw conclusions. Beside
this armament the ill-destined Armada, Von Tromp's stubborn squadrons,
Nelson's walls of oak, or Farragut's steam and sail would dissolve like
the glucose squadrons that boys buy at Christmas time. Even Dewey's
workman-like batteries (this to mark the onward rush of naval science)
would be rated obsolete beside the latest of these!
It was first those impressive battleships; and bearing down on them one
better saw what terrible war-engines they are. Big guns pointing
forward, big guns pointing astern, long-reaching guns abeam, and little
business-looking machine-guns in the tops--their mere appearance
suggests their ponderous might. A single broadside from any of these,
properly placed, and there would be an end to the most renowned
flag-ships of wooden-fleet days. And that this frightful power need
never wait on wind or tide, nor be hindered in execution by any weather
much short of a hurricane, is assured when we note that to-day, while
the largest of the excursion steamers are heaving to the whitecaps,
these are lying as immovable almost as sea-walls.
It is, first, the flag-ship which thunders out her greeting--one, two,
three--twenty-one smoke-wreathed guns--while her sailormen, arm to
shoulder, mark in unwavering blue the lines of deck and superstructure.
Meantime the officers on the bridge, admiral in the foreground, are
standing in salute; and in the intervals of gun-fire there are crashing
out over the waters again the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner." And
the flag-ship left astern, the guns of the next in line boom out, and on
her also the band plays and men and officers stand to attention; and so
the next, and next. And, the battleships passed, come the armored
cruisers, riding the waters almost as ponderously as the battleships and
hardly less powerful, but much faster on the trail; and they may run or
fight as they please. After examining them, long and swift-looking, with
no more space between decks than is needed for machinery, stores,
armament, and lung-play for live men, the inevitable reflection recurs
that the advance of mechanical power must color our dreams of romance in
future. Surely the old ways are gone. Imagine one of the old three-deckers
aiming to work to windward of one of these in a gale, and if by any
special dispensation of Providence she was allowed to win the weather
berth, imagine her trying, while she rolled down to her middle deck, to
damage one of these belted brutes, who meantime would be leisurely picking
out the particular plank by which she intended to introduce into her
enemy's vitals a weight of explosive metal sufficient in all truth to blow
her out of water.
After the cruisers passed the craft of comparatively small tonnage and
power follow--the gun-boats, transports, and supply ships; and, almost
forgotten, the monitors, riding undisturbedly, like squat little forts
afloat, with freeboard so low that with a slightly undulating sea a
turtle could swim aboard. And after them the destroyers, which look
their name. Most wicked inventions; no shining brasswork nor holy-stoned
quarter, no decorative and convenient companionway down the side--no
anything that doesn't make for results. Ugly, wicked-looking, with
hooded ports from under which peer the muzzles of long-barrelled weapons
that look as if they were designed for the single business of boring,
and boring quickly, holes in steel plate.
So the _Mayflower_ steams down the four long lines in review; and always
the batteries and bands in action, the immortal hymn echoing out like
rolling thunder between the flame-lit broadsides. From shore to shore
the cannon detonate and our fighting blood is stirred. On the pleasure
craft skirting the line of pickets like vaguely outlined picture boats
in the dim, perspective haze, the people seem also to be stirred. We
dream of the glory of battle; but better than that, the hymn which has
stirred men to some fine deeds in the past, and shall to just as brave
in the future, mounts like a surging tide to our hearts:
"Oh, say, can you see?"
it is asking. And we can see--no need of the glass--ahead, astern,
abeam, aloft, some thousands of them streaming in the fresh west wind,
and within signal distance of their beautiful waving folds a multitude
of men and women in whom the sense of patriotism must have become
immeasurably deepened for being within call this day.
The vibration of brass and pipe, the music and the saluting, one ship
and the next, and never the welcome of one died out before the tumult of
the next began. It was like the ceaseless roar of the ever-rolling
ocean, with never an instant when the ear-drum did not vibrate to the
salute of cannon, the blood tingle to the call of the nation's hymn. One
felt faith in ships and crews after it; and later, when in the cabin of
the _Mayflower_ the admirals and captains gathered, to meet them and to
listen was to feel anew the assurance that this navy will be ready when
the hour comes to do whatever may be deemed right and well by the
people.
* * * * *
The admirals and the _attaches_ having departed and dinner become a
thing of the past, it was time to review the electric-light display.
We were almost abreast of the first in line, and she was like a ship
from fairyland. Along her run the bulbed lights extended, and thence to
her turrets, and, higher up, followed the outline of stacks and tops and
masts, with floating strings of them suspended here and there between.
Most striking of all, her name in gigantic, flaming letters faced
forward from her bridge. Now one ship decked in a multiplicity of jewels
on this clear calm night would have been a beautiful sight--but where
there were forty-odd of them----!
It was a sailor of the fleet, lurking in the shifting shadows of the
bridge, that he might enjoy his surreptitious cigarette and not suffer
disratement therefor, who reviewed the illuminations most illuminingly.
"Man, but they do blaze out, don't they? They make me think of the
post-cards we used to buy in foreign ports. You held them up before the
light and they came out shining like a Christmas-tree. But no ships of
cards these--and that's the wonderful thing, too. Seeing them to-day,
with their batteries in view, 'twas enough to put the fear o' God in a
man's heart, and now look at them--like a child's dream of heaven--that
is, if we don't sheer too close and see that the guns are still there.
And, look now, the tricks they're at!"
Outlined in incandescents, the semaphores of a dozen ships were being
worked most industriously. "Jerk up and down like the legs and arms of
the mechanical dolls at the theatre, don't they? But these here could be
dancing for something more than the people's amusement if 'twas
necessary. And what are they saying? Oh, most likely it's 'The
compliments of the admiral, and will you come aboard the flag-ship and
try a taste of punch?' And 'With pleasure,' that other one is saying.
And they'll be lowering away the launch and no doubt be having a
pleasant chat presently. And they could just as easily be saying (if
'twas the right time), 'Pipe to quarters and load with shell'--just as
easy; and they could revolve the near turret of that one, and ten
seconds after they cut loose you and me, if we weren't already killed by
rush of air, would be brushing the salt water from our eyes and clawing
around for a stray piece of wreckage to hang on to. Just as easy--but
look at 'em now again!"
The search-lights were paralleling and intersecting, now revealing the
perpendicular depths beside the vessel, and now flooding the sky. Twenty
of them, simultaneously flashing, were sweeping the surface of the
Sound, one instant outlining the arbored Long Island shore, the next
betraying the beaches of Connecticut. One, beaming westerly, disclosed a
loaded excursion steamer half-way to Hell Gate, and, a moment later,
turning a hand-spring, picked up in its diverging path the Fall River
steamer miles away to the eastward.
"The torpedo-boats'd have the devil's own time trying to lay aboard
to-night, wouldn't they? And yet if 'twas cloudy 'twould be the
submarines! Did you see them to-day? Weren't they cute--like little
whale pups setting on the water--yes. They say they've got them where
they turn somersaults now. Great, yes--but terrible, too, when you think
they're liable to come your way some fine day. Imagine yourself, all at
once, some night when you ought to be sound asleep in your hammock,
finding yourself, afore you're yet fair awake, so high in the sky that
you can almost reach out and take hold of the handle of the Dipper! And
when you come down and get the official report, learning that one of
those cute little playthings had been making a subaqueous call.
"It's ninety-odd years since the American navy proved it could do a good
job; for, of course, none of us count Spain, who wasn't ready to begin
with, and wasn't our size, anyway. And yet, we mightn't make out so bad
'gainst a bigger enemy at that. Our fellows can shoot, that's sure.
There's a gun crew in this ship we're breasting now, and I saw them
awhile ago put eight 12-inch shot in succession through that regulation
floating target we use, and it was as far away as the farther end of
that line of cruisers there, and the target was bobbing up and down, and
we steaming by at 10 knots an hour. Not too bad--hah? And a hundred
crews like 'em in the navy. That's for the shooting."
He flicked the end of another fleeting cigarette over the rail. "Yes,
the American navy has fought pretty well, and this navy, no fear, will
fight too. There's more different kinds of people in it than ever
before, they say--though as to that I guess there were always more kinds
of people in the navy than the historians ever gave credit for. Now it's
all kinds like the nation itself, I suppose. And that ought to make for
good fighting, don't you think?"
NAVY MEN
The foregoing occasion was the first of several naval spectacles staged
by Theodore Roosevelt during his presidency to show the public that we
had a growing navy, and not too small a navy, and a navy that, ship for
ship, need ask for no odds in its equipment at least.
More than any President we ever had did Theodore Roosevelt work for a
big navy. To no President before him in our country did the prospect of
a great European war loom so near; a war which meant our participation,
not so much through any will of our people as by the pressure of
happenings from the other side.
Hence, the need of the country for as large a navy as we could get
together. With an eye for this future need President Roosevelt asked for
4 battleships a year. There were men in Congress who believed that to
talk of war was foolish; there would be no more war; so, instead of 4,
Congress gave him 2, and the famous "big stick" had to come into play
before they gave him even the two.
During these years I had the privilege from President Roosevelt of
cruising on United States war-ships--gun-boats, destroyers, cruisers,
battleships (later, through the good offices of Secretary Daniels, I
became acquainted with submarines and navy airplanes).
The war-ships were an interesting study, and the life aboard a war-ship
then was even more interesting, for after all, men, not materials, were
the chief thing. Almost any fairly well-trained bunch of mechanics will
turn out a pretty good machine to order. But there is no turning out
good men to order; only good-living generations can do that.
If it was a matter of machinery alone, then the Prussian idea would have
this war already won. But that alone cannot prevail, can never prevail
for the long run. It is the spirit which must win.
The personnel of the navy, officers and men, seemed always so much more
interesting to me, that for one hour I spent in looking over ship
equipment, I probably spent forty in observing the men; and when you are
locked up in ships for weeks or months with a lot of men you must, where
your heart and mind are not closed, come away in time with some sort of
knowledge of them.
And what sort are they?
Well, they are nearly all young--average age about twenty-one years; and
they come from anywhere and everywhere--from the farms, the prairies,
the corners of city streets; and they have been many things--farm-hands,
carpenters, mechanics, barbers, trolley-car men, clerks, street loafers,
college boys. Some are terribly sophisticated in worldly ways and some
so green, of course, that the wags have frequent chances to keep their
wits on edge. Some have come with the plain notion that if a fellow has
got to fight, why then the navy offers the most comfortable outlook for
a fellow--during this war it especially offers it--dry hammock every
night, no mud, no cooties, and three hot meals at regular intervals--but
many are there with the bright hope of some day pointing a 14-inch gun
and sending a relay of 1,400-pound shells where they will blow something
foreign and opposing high as the flying clouds.
Blowing up ships and people may have once seemed a terrible idea, but a
few weeks in the community of a war-ship with its matter-of-fact,
professional manner of discussing such subjects soon brings them around
to common, seagoing notions of the matter.
Four years ago at Vera Cruz our modern navy had its first taste of war.
It was only a light touch of war, and there was no doubt of the outcome;
but in little affairs men may be tried out, too. Through somebody's
blunder, for which somebody should have been jacked-up, our bluejackets
were sent up in solid sections to occupy a large open area on the Vera
Cruz water-front. Standing there in solid columns, not knowing just what
was going to happen, but feeling to a certainty that something stirring
was going to happen, and to happen soon, they stood there grinning
widely and waiting for the ball to open. It may have been their childish
innocence, it may have been their untutored ignorance, but when that
sheeted rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval College, and a
solid squad or two of our lads went down, and following that the snipers
began to get them in ones and twos and threes--when that happened there
was no distressing confusion in their ranks. When, later, it became
necessary for the _Prairie_ and _Chester_ to fire just over their heads
to batter the walls of that same War College, it made no difference. The
ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent--they knew it would be--and when
the shells went whistling through the walls of the second story, the
marines and bluejackets stood under the first story and let them
whistle. Plaster and bricks from the shaken walls came tumbling down
upon them. They ducked beneath the falling mortar, some of them, but
they all took their shells standing.
They are not the sailors of classic tradition, these battleship lads of
the twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in--it must be so.
The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk
as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great
seaport--Boston--and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the
harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the
pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from
long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short
liberty. Great-hearted men, who gave truth to the phrase--"and spending
his money like a drunken sailor"--and knowing, usually, but two
inescapable obligations--to do his duty aboard ship and to stand by a
shipmate in trouble ashore. Almost any of the old-time policemen of the
large seaports can tell you many fine tales of the riotous hours along
the water-front in the old days.
Such is the passing tradition. The present lad of the navy is creating a
new one. For one thing, he no longer gets drunk--that is, he does not
get drunk by divisions. To illustrate:
During that greatest steaming stunt in all maritime history--the cruise
of our sixteen battleships with their auxiliaries around the world--all
naval records were broken in the number of enlisted men allowed ashore.
Every day in large foreign ports saw 4,000 of our bluejackets and
marines allowed shore liberty. Now consider the case of the first
foreign port where liberty was granted, Rio de Janeiro in South America;
and what happened in Rio was what happened in other ports.
It was five weeks or more since leaving home, and during that five weeks
they had been for twelve days steaming along one of the hottest coasts
(Brazil) in all the world--the tropics--and it was summer-time once they
were south of the line; and in all that time no chance for an enlisted
man to get a drink of any kind of liquor--no beer or light wine even--no
matter what the intensity of the thirst which may have possessed him.
Now he is suddenly thrown ashore with his pockets full of money. He has
only to go to the paymaster and draw pretty much all he pleases. By
actual figures the men of the battle fleet--about 13,000--drew $200,000
in gold to spend ashore in Rio--about $15 a man. For five or six weeks
not a drop to drink, and all at once 4,000 of them thrown daily to roam
into the midst of 500 grog shops with their pockets full of money, and
no restrictions placed upon them, except one: they must be back to their
ship that same night!
I was a passenger with that battle fleet, and night after night I stood
on the great stone quay in Rio and watched them returning to their
ships. On no night did I see more than forty or fifty who might be said
to be "soused"; on no night did I see more than a dozen or fifteen who
had to be thrown into the accommodation barge with the "dead ones," the
helpless ones who were so far gone that they had to be carried up the
sides of their ships from the barge which made the last rounds of the
fleet.
Now I would like to make an observation; gratuitous, but perhaps of
human interest and pertinent right here: I think if we took 4,000
lawyers or doctors or authors or car-drivers or clerks--4,000 of almost
any sort from civil life--and locked them up so that for five or six
weeks in a warm or a cold climate they could not get a drink of any kind
of liquor, no matter how great their fancied or real need; and at the
end of that five or six weeks took the whole 4,000 of them, with their
pockets full of money, and suddenly threw them into the middle of all
the grog-shops of a great city--I do think that more than forty--that
is, one per cent of them--would be found "soused"--that is, if we had
means of locating them all at the end of the day.
The heroic sailor of tradition has passed--a sailor of another kind, but
just as efficient and just as heroic in another way--the way of his
day--is rapidly creating another tradition. The lad who in the lusty
days of his youth can thus hold himself in check is a pretty good
product of American development. He pretty generally passes up the
grog-shop, but he visits the art galleries, the museums, the cathedrals,
the K. of C.'s, and Y. M. C. A.'s ashore, takes books from the library
on shipboard, buys post-cards and mails them home to let his friends
know of the great things in the world. On that world cruise referred to
the men cleaned Rio de Janeiro out of 250,000 post-cards.
I doubt if many of them, on the first try, could lay out on a
topsail-yard in a gale of wind without immediately falling overboard;
but they don't have to lay out on topsail-yards nowadays. They do have
to shoot, however; and they can shoot. Lay a gun's crew of them behind a
big turret-gun and watch them make lacework of a target at 11,000 yards.
* * * * *
The main question is, Have we the spirit to-day? As to that, no man
having yet devised any apparatus wherewith to measure energy of soul and
mind, it is difficult to prove to whoever will not believe, or does not
in himself possess the germ, the existence of this thing that may not be
measured by foot-rule or bushel basket. The belching of powder and the
roll of drumhead do not prove it. We can always hire men to do that, and
to do it well. And yet, to be present at the review described in the
preceding chapter was to experience the thrill that may not be measured,
to note how the enthusiasm of the occasion seemed to be animating the
crews, to share in the feeling of pride which mantled all cheeks, and,
ship after ship slipping past, to feel that pride of fleet intensify,
until we echoed the cry of the Commander-in-Chief, whose enthusiasm for
all that is good for the nation is unquenchable. As the President said,
it was a glorious day.
No doubt of it. Men had met and there was kinship in the meeting. From
that auspicious opening in the morning when the clouds seemed to
dissolve for the express purpose of allowing a fresh-washed sky to enter
into the color scheme of the beautiful picture--blue dome, chalk-white
and sea-green war-ships, green and blue and white-edged little
seas--until that last moment at night when the last call on the last
ship was blown and to its lingering cadence the last unwinking
incandescent of the fairy-like illumination was switched off, leaving
the hushed and darkened fleet riding to only the necessary anchor lights
on the motionless, moon-lit sound--who witnessed it all might not doubt
the existence of that spirit which in conflict makes for more than
thickness of armor or weight of shell.
* * * * *
We went to war; and it was with an immense confidence in what they would
do that I heard of the sailing of our first group of destroyers for the
business of convoying ships and hunting U-boats on the other side. Ships
were up to date and officers and men knew their business; and there was
something more than knowing their business.
Other groups of destroyers followed that first one, and a lot of us were
wondering how they were making out. They had sailed out into the
Atlantic--that we knew; but what were they doing? We who knew them
believed they were doing well. But how well?
I thought it worth-while finding out. I went to Washington and from
Secretary Daniels and Chief Censor George Creel secured necessary
credentials, and through the War Department the word which would put me
aboard a troop-ship.
It is only justice to Secretary Daniels to say that he granted me all
aid even though I told him I would probably work for _Collier's_ on the
trip--for _Collier's_ which had been pounding him editorially.
What I learned of this game of escorting ships and hunting U-boats is in
the chapters which follow.
SEEING THEM ACROSS
He had been on what most anybody would agree was pretty trying sort of
work; and so, having an idea that a furlough was coming to him, he
applied for it, but did not get it. The department had other things in
view. Instead of going home, he took time to write a few letters,
printing the one to his little girl in big capitals, so that--being six
going on seven--she might, with mama's help, be able to read it.
They sent him to a ship that had been running between north and south
ports on our own coast, shifting in winter-time to tropical waters. She
was one of a group of thirty or forty that the department had on its
little list to be made over into transports. She was the handsomest
boat, but war makes nothing of beauty. Our officer ordered all her
gleaming black underpaint off, also her pure white topside enamelling
with the gold decorations here and there; then he swabbed her top and
bottom with that dull blue-gray which the naval sharps say does blend
best with a deep-sea background.
She had the prettiest little lounging-room. Our officers retained
that--for even in war officers must have some place aboard ship to
gather for a smoke and gossip--but they threw out the large, lovely fat
pieces of furniture. In case of submarine attack or an order to abandon
ship, the men might want to make a passage of that room in a hurry and
no time there--in the dark it might be--to be falling over chairs and
tables.
There was a sun-parlor, a large, splendid room with wide windows and the
deck on three sides. There were thick draperies, filmy laces, and many
easy chairs. In the old days cabin passengers used to sit there and
absorb the soft tropic breezes while digesting their breakfasts. An army
quartermaster-captain surveyed it with our naval officer. "Swell," said
the Q. M. C. "We'll haul down that plush and fluffy stuff, dump those
chairs and rugs over the side, plant my desk here, my chief clerk's
there, my other clerks' desks over there, open those fine wide windows
and let the north Atlantic breezes blow on our beaded brows while we're
doing our paper work. Fine!"
Our naval officer did that and a hundred other things to the inside and
outside of the beautiful ship and reported her fit for transport
service, or as fit as ever a made-over ship could be made to be,
whereupon he was ordered to take her to such and such a dock in such and
such a port--which he did. Then many large, heavy cases were lowered
into her hold, and troops and troops and more troops filed aboard and
took up what was left of the spaces between decks with themselves and
their war gear.
She lay then with her water-line a foot deeper than anybody around there
ever remembered seeing her in her swell passenger days; then she shoved
out into the stream and kicked her way down the harbor, and as she did
so, though there was not a single trooper's head showing above her rail,
everybody seemed to know. Passing tugs, motor-boats, ferry-boats blew
their whistles--every kind of a boat that had a whistle blew it--and
there was an excursion boat loaded down with women and children. Her
band had been playing ragtime, but it suddenly stopped and broke into
"Good-by, Good Luck, God Bless You," to the troop-ship bound for France.
There was a war-ship waiting below--not the biggest by a good deal in
our fleet, but big enough to have hope one day of firing her broadside
on the battle-line. But the great duty of a war-ship is to be immediately
useful. She was there, and smaller war-ships with her, to see that the
troop-ships got protection on the run across.
[Illustration: She shoved out into the stream and kicked her way down
the harbor, and as she did so ... everybody seemed to know.]
Our troop-ship, other troop-ships, every one in turn, steamed up,
reported her presence, and tucked into a berth under the wings of the
big war-ship; and there they stayed until night, until the signal came
to get under way. When it did, one after the other they up-anchored and
kicked into line. They had been warned to make no fuss in going, and
they made none. From somewhere ashore a great search-light swept our top
structure, swept every top structure as we filed out. Some one on each
top structure must have given the proper sign, for that was all.
All that night, and next day, for days and days thereafter, with
shifting formations and varying speeds, we steamed. All were good,
seaworthy ships, but little things will happen. There was one that was
always lagging. The flag-ship, meaning the war-ship of most tonnage,
inquired why. The answer came, whereat the war-ship of most tonnage
showed right there that she was fit to do something more than furnish
long-reaching guns for the fleet's protection.
The next thing the fleet knew they were ordered to shut off steam. They
did so. It was a perfect, calm day, and the ships lay, still as paint
between a clear blue sky and a deep-blue sea while a boat-load of
bluejackets from the big fighting ship rowed across a swell so gentle
that it seemed to be only serving to put life into a picture. The
lagging steamer had been short a few oilers or firemen or water-tenders.
The big ship had them to spare. After that the slow one picked right up.
Soon it was standard speed with everybody in proper alignment again.
Not often do seagoing people get the chance to see a fleet of merchant
steamers cruising the wide ocean. A full-rigged sailing-ship, a
steam-collier, a tramp steamer, all came out of their way in one day to
view the strange sight. As they did so, one of our smaller and faster
war-ships would trot over to have a closer peek in turn at the curious
ones; to ask them questions; probably also to tell them to keep their
wireless mouths shut, if they had any.
One day one big freighter did not answer signals promptly. Perhaps she
could not read them. In these war times it is not too easy to get crews
who are sea-wise in every detail--the expert signalman among the
officers might have been off watch and having a nap. Anyway, one of our
little fighting fellows went bounding after her. It was like watching a
sheep-dog at work. The war-ship moved up from behind, drew up, and then,
showing her teeth, headed the freighter the other way and held her
headed that way while she put an officer aboard and asked an explanation,
which was probably given and doubtless all right, for the officer came
back and the freighter resumed her regular course. Day in and day out
that was the way of it, every passing ship being viewed as suspect and
our own ships, of varying speeds and tonnage, trying to keep a good
alignment.
The weather generally was fine, but one morning we ran into a fog. A fog
has its virtues; a submarine cannot see you in a fog. But neither can
you see a submarine. And somewhere handy to you is a bunch of your own
ships, and no telling when one of them may come riding out of the mist
and climb aboard by way of your port or starboard quarter!
A whistle by day or a search-light by night would have been a great help
to our naval officer on the bridge during that fog, but he was denied
that. So he made out (as did every other commander on every other bridge
during the fog) with whatever other means he could devise. Nothing
happened to us.
The fog passed on, and then one day came a slaty gray sea and a slaty
sky. Gray seas look hard; white crests moving across gray seas look hard
too. Our naval officer took time to look around on them. Gray hulls were
smashing high bows into them, making boiling white water of the hard
gray sea and throwing it to either side in fine, high-rolling billows as
they pressed on. They were a fine sight then, with the smoke pouring out
and trailing low from some of them. They were not trying to make smoke,
but if a ship must make smoke, it will not be seen so far on a gray day.
Our naval officer held the bridge from early that morning to nine
o'clock that night. He had an idea that he might be able to sneak in a
couple of hours' sleep against the strain of the later night. It was not
bad weather when he left--a good breeze blowing and plenty of white
showing. It was dirty, but not bad weather. He got in one hour in his
bunk, turning in with his clothes on, when he was called to go on the
bridge again. Something had happened. He could feel the increasing wind
before he was fairly rolled out of his bunk.
As he stepped out on deck he could see that the lookouts had adopted
life-belts for the night. The lookouts were men from among the troops,
and now each man as he went off watch was handing over his life-belt to
the next coming on. They had had to use the soldiers for lookouts. In
these war days no merchant ship can supply from her regular crew
one-tenth of the men needed for lookout work in the war zone. The
soldiers were all right, but just then our naval officer felt sorry for
them. He had been having them up before him afternoons, lecturing them
on their duties as lookouts. That very afternoon he had had a bunch of
them before him while he explained a few new things. He had spent extra
time on the men who were to be on forward watch this very night, with
the men who were to go into the bow or into the forward crow's nest. And
now they were there, buried as the bow went smash into it, or--those of
them who had drawn the crow's nest--swinging a hundred feet in the air.
All right for old seagoers, but most of these boys had never in their
lives before been on an ocean-going ship. Some had never even seen a big
ship until they came to the seacoast for their trip. They had great
eyesight, some of these young fellows--men who had lain on the
bull's-eye at a thousand yards regularly were bound to have that--and
they made good lookouts once they got the idea, but climbing the last
twenty feet of that ladder to the crow's nest, leaning back under part
of the time with life-belt stuffed under their overcoats--they surely
must have been thinking that a soldier's duties were difficult as well
as various in these days of war.
A ship on tossing seas and the wind blowing a dirge through the
rigging--well, a man may be brave enough to fight all the Germans this
side the Russian line, but if he is new to sea life he is apt to see
things. Two soldiers were standing on deck when our naval officer came
out of his room. They were not on guard. They did not have to be
there--they were staying awake on their own account. One said to the
other: "There, there--look! Ain't that a submarine?"
It was a shadow as high as a house. "If that is a submarine," thinks our
officer, "then it is good night to us, for she's a whale of a one!"
It was no submarine. It was the shadow of one of their own ships which
had been driven out of column.
It was blowing hard when our officer made the bridge. He could not see
far, but far enough to see that the ocean was black, and that across the
black of it the white patches were flying--dead white patches leaping
high in the night.
The fleet was in direct column ahead, or should have been. Some were
surely having their troubles staying there. This steaming close behind a
ship, with another ship close behind you--and you have to be close up to
see from one to the other on such a night--made me think as I stood
under the bridge that night: "Give me all the submarines in the world
before this with a fleet that has not had a chance to practise
evolutions."
There was not a steaming light of any kind, not even one shaded little
one in the stern, which an enemy might see and, seeing, swing in behind
it. Rather than show even the smallest little guiding light, our fellows
preferred to steam this way in the night.
The glad morning came, glad for the reason that an almost warm, bright
sun came with it. The sun showed three ships gone from the column. There
was more than one of us who wished that we too had gone from the column
about six hours ago. We would have slept better. Still, it was a good
experience to have--behind you. Wind and sea went down; all hands felt
better--especially the lookouts. Those who came down from the crow's
nest looked as if the grace of God had suddenly fallen on them.
By and by we picked up the drifters. They were looking just as hard for
us as we were for them; and later that day we ran into our escorts from
the other side. Everybody at once felt as if the trip was as good as
over. The fact was that the worst part of the war zone was ahead of us.
All hands were still turning in with life-belts handy, and most of them
with clothes on, but there was a feeling that now it was up to these new
escorts.
Before we reached France on this run we were in a U-boat fight, which I
shall tell of later. What I want to say now is that the submarine fight
had an enjoyable side to it, but as for that night run of our troop-ships
in gale and sea--a big ship just ahead, a big ship just behind, big
high-bowed ships plunging down at fourteen knots an hour from roaring
waters in the dark--there was no fun in that!
Of the scores of devices the fleet used to beat the U-boats on that run
across, a man can say nothing here. But to get back: our naval officer
stuck to his bridge until one most beautiful morning he took his ship
into a most beautiful port on a most beautiful shore. I never before
heard anybody so describe that same port, but the general verdict says
it did look pretty good.
This story of our troop-ship's run across is given from the view-point
of the naval officer in charge. It could just as well have been written
from the view-point of the merchant captain or his officers aboard--all
on the job; or the chief engineer or his assistants--all on the job, and
who put in more than one hour guessing at what was going on above; or
from the view-point of the quartermaster captain, or his clerks, or the
oilers, or the firemen, or the water-tenders, or the cooks, or anybody
else, high or low, in the ship's regular service.
This transport service is one tough game. It is well enough for us who
have but one trip to make. But one trip after another! They had good
right to look a bit younger when they made the other side. But before we
can win this war we've got to get the million or two or three million
men across; and the millions of tons of supplies. Somebody has got to
see them across. These men on the troop-ships are doing it. May nothing
happen to them!
THE U-BOATS APPEAR
The soldier lookouts in the forward crow's nest had been especially
advised to have an eye out for the convoys which were to pick us up as
we neared the other side; and they were very much on the job.
One bright morning came: "Smoke three points off the port bow.... Smoke
broad off the starboard bow.... Smoke dead ahead.... One point off the
... Broad off the ..." and so on. Their excited calls rattled down like
rapid fire to the bridge; the thrill in their voices rolled like a wave
through the ship. That smoke, incidentally, meant that the strangers,
whoever they were, had already identified us and so were not afraid to
let us see them.
Everybody that was not already on deck came running up to have a look
for himself. It was our escort. Darting across our bows they
came--low-riding, slim, gray bodies. The ranking one reported to our
flag-ship; and all, without any fuss or extra foam, took position and
went to work as though they had been there for weeks. And as they did
our big war-ship and the little ones which had come across with her
wheeled about and went off. There was no ceremonious leave-taking. They
simply turned on their heels and flew. They might as well have said: "We
are glad to have met you and been with you, but we can do no more for
you, so good-by and good luck; we're going back home as fast as we can
get there."
A soldier watched them going and said: "The night before we left home I
went to a show, and a fellow sang: 'Good-by, Broadway! Hello, France!' I
thought it was great. I know what they're saying aboard those ships
there now. 'Hello, Broadway! Good-by, France!' is what they're saying.
And I betcher it'll be a straight line with no time wasted zigzagging
for them on the way back!"
He had it about right. They carried the most eloquent sterns that any of
us had seen on ships for a long time. The big one in the middle, the
others like chickens under either wing--away they went, belting it for
about sixteen knots good. In one half-hour all we could see of them was
a cloud of smoke to the west'ard. Just how far off the French coast we
were at this time does not matter here, or from what direction we were
approaching; but we were far enough off for that group of destroyers to
show how they went about their work of guarding the troop-ships. To comb
the sea about us was their mission; and they were attending to it every
minute. The fleet steamed on.
We proceeded under advices not to fall asleep with too much clothes on,
and never to get too far away from our life-belts. It may have been true
that some men slept with their life-belts on, but it is probably not
true that one man took his to the bathroom with him--not true because
about the time we got that far along the steward refused to prepare any
more baths. He had enough on his mind, he said, without fussing with
baths.
There was one place we looked forward to passing with lively feelings.
We may not name the place here, but here is how it was described: "Ever
been to that big aquarium in Naples? Yes? Well, remember those
devil-fish hiding behind the rock on the bottom? Along comes an innocent
young fish who is a stranger to those waters. Mr. Devilfish, hiding
behind, has a peek at it coming. He waits. Mr. Young Fish drifts by his
hiding-place, and then--Good night, young fishie."
That kind of talk in the watches of the night sounded like lively action
before us. We waited for--call it the Devilfish's Cave--and waited; and
the first thing we knew when we came to inquire further about it, we
were safely past it, with never a sign of any devil-fish, unless it
would be the one torpedo which went by the bow of one of us from some
distance one noontime. Some distance it must have been because it was a
clear day with a smooth sea, and under such weather conditions, with the
hundreds of wide-awake lookouts in the fleet, no U-boat could have put
up a periscope within any near distance and not be seen by somebody. As
for long-distance shots from submarines--there is small need to worry
about them. Subs like to get within a thousand yards or less. Those
three and four mile shots--it is like trying to hit a sea-gull with a
rifle. Amateurs try that kind of shooting, but the professional, who has
to reckon the cost of powder and shot, lets it pass. Not that the
Germans are sparing of the cost of war, but a sub which has to make a
voyage of three thousand miles to take on a fresh load of torpedoes is
not firing too many for the mere practice.
We drew near the coast of France, and still nothing had happened. We
were getting hails, of course, from the lookouts. There was one who
called it a dull watch when he did not see at least one periscope. He
had never seen a periscope in his life, but he had read about periscopes.
One night just at dark he stood us all on our heads by reporting one
just alongside. We all got a flash at it then, an ominous object, bobbing
under our port quarter, and then it went down into our wake. It bobbed up
again, and we all had another look. It was a beer-keg. The ship's first
officer, the one who had a gold medal as big as a saucer for saving life
at sea, eyed the keg, and then he eyed the lookout, saying: "An empty one
too! If you'd only report a full one, we might gaff it aboard."