Eight young men in civilian clothes"Before taking"—a dose of military discipline makes them "Topnotch Americans."
Our boat lay in the harbor. They were coaling it, and, once ready, we started our work of patrolling the coast. It was on one early afternoon that we got sudden orders to put to sea, and we started out at a fast clip. Somebody passed the word that we were on a rescue party and to keep a sharp watch out for rafts or lifeboats.
Rescue party! Ever see men who have faced death in a leaky boat all through a black night? I'll never forget their faces—something was stamped there that will never come out—a grim, strained, white look you don't like to see. The few boats we spotted bobbed about like corks on the waves. The men were too numb to pull on their oars. They had been rowing all night. Some of them were half dressed.
Once we pulled them in and helped fit them out with clothes we heard their story. They had been struck amidships by a blasted torpedo along about midnight. Their boat was a yacht something like our own; the impact of the shell blew her to a thousand bits. The men asleep were killed like rats in a trap. The few on deck managedto launch some boats and rafts before they were sucked down with the vessel.
That midnight attack made our score against the Hun a little higher, not that I needed any incentive to hate him another notch. I had a vision stamped on my mind I could never forget. I could still see that black snake of a train crawling into the crowded station at Havre—hear the long-drawn grinding of the brakes and hissing of steam—see the guards keeping back the mob surging forward for a chance to welcome home its sons. There was endless noise and confusion—but occasionally you would find a silent watcher—a woman and sometimes a man, who stood motionless, staring at the cars—muscles taut, waiting for God knows what horror.
Yes, you don't forget the first sight of the returned prisoners, in their worn uniforms. White-faced boys looking about eagerly for the face of friends—friends at last, after three long years! No, you never forget those battle-scarred men, with here an arm gone, or a leg—or worse, the eyes blinded forever.
Oh, my God! you dream of it nights afterward; you see that endless line of maimed and broken men. . . .
Hate Germans! I tell you I'm a peace-loving man and all I want is my little home, with the wife and the kids, but do you think I'd stop fighting in this war while there is yet a drop of blood left in me? Not much! I love my own too well to let them suffer as those French and Belgian women have—that's the answer!
I haven'tanything to tell about. Being torpedoed is an old story now. Any number of men have met Fritz on the way over, and, if they haven't been quick enough, he's managed to take a shot at them, but it isn't often we fail to get a chance to return fire. Just let a periscope stick its head out of water, and I'll show you action on deck that would make a Kansas cyclone look tame—not that I've seen one. My home is in the East. The best we can boast about is a blizzard or two, and a sixty-mile gale.
I enlisted as a signalman, and was assigned to duty on a merchant ship. There were two other U. S. N. signalmen aboard her, and we managed to make the time fly talking about home and the people we knew.
One of our prize ways of speeding up a long evening on shipboard was to swap notes on the summers we had spent. We all three, at differenttimes, had "vacated" in the Maine woods, almost at the identical spot, and, do you know, we hailed the fact with something very close to triumph!
I guess we three hashed over every little incident of our trips. We found we had had the same close-mouthed Indian guide, that we had all fished on the same bank of a little lost lake, that we had all camped on the same site in a clearing by the water. But when we discovered that we had used the same sort of tackle, and the same-sized rifles, we were almost "moved to tears," as the lady novelists put it.
Those things, small as they seem, are the most important things in the world when you are far away from home. They certainly make men inseparable, and, aside from the fact that Dick Chamberlain and Tod Carlin and I were the only Americans aboard, we became, from the first, the best pals in the world.
We were proceeding as flagship of a convoy, and, as such, we kept an extra sharp lookout for trouble, once we were in the zone.
It was three o'clock on the afternoon of a clearSeptember day. The sea was smooth and we were all on deck. The sky was so blue and the sun so bright that it seemed as though the lurking submarine we were always expecting was a myth like the sea serpent you read about but never see. Night time is the time you are looking for an attack, but broad daylight always seems to dispel thoughts of danger. However, the danger was there.
We were struck close by the engine rooms. All I remember clearly was the terrific roar and splintering of wood, and the sudden listing of the ship. The order rang out to clear the ship and the crew immediately took to the life-boats in the event of rapid settling.
We three found ourselves assigned to the same life-boat. There was a slight delay in lowering it. That delay was fatal. The explosion that we had been expecting blew our boat to pieces and we found ourselves struggling in the water.
The officers' boat had been lowered and it drew up alongside of us. They helped us in. The captain was all for going back to his ship. He wassure there was no immediate danger of her sinking. The water-tight compartments fore and aft were holding and he called for volunteers to go aboard and help in an attempt to beach the ship.
By this time the other life-boats were beyond hailing distance and we found out afterward that the men in them, including some British gunners, were picked up later by patrol boats.
Of course, all the occupants of the remaining boats volunteered. I didn't particularly like the looks of the ship, as her well docks were on the sea level, but she had stopped settling and we followed the rest aboard.
It seemed queer to be on her again. There were just a handful of us, the rest of our mates were out of sight, bound for none of us knew where. It was like returning to a ghost ship, she lay so still on the waters, rocking softly, the waves washing over her deck.
There was plenty of work for all hands—it didn't give us time to think. I was glad of that. Dick and Tod and I joked a bit about what the people back home would say now, if they could seeus up to our ankles in water on a sinking ship. Afternoon changed to evening. Still we saw no sign of help coming toward us. However, just so long as Fritz stayed away we were satisfied. When it got good and dark, though, we weren't quite so pleased. It helps, I can tell you, to be able to see your hand before your face. You feel a lot happier then.
Late that night we made out something coming toward us. We weren't sure whether it was friend or foe. It gave us a bad few minutes, then we made out the towboats who had come to our assistance. We were so glad to see them that we almost cheered out loud, which is one thing you don't do in the Zone.
We passed them lines, and they steered a course for land. All this time our ship was slowly working water; you could tell it by measuring, but the chief engineer continued to assure the captain that we would be successful in beaching her.
All night we moved slowly through the water, wondering each minute when she would take a sudden dive to the bottom. Walking along theedge of a canyon in the dark is much the same sensation, I guess. We were glad when we saw a pale streak in the sky, and watched the morning star fade. Daybreak found us still afloat.
Some of the British crew had had experience on torpedoed ships. I suppose they knew that the wise thing to do was to leave her if they got the chance. That was the reason why they chose to go on the escort vessel when the captain put it up to them. By morning it certainly looked as if our ship would never be beached on this earth. We were in water up to our knees. There wasn't a dry spot on us, and the chill winds that swept down from the north played a game of hide-and-seek through our wet clothes.
The captain called us all together. He told us that the chances for bringing her in were small, that no man need stand by, that he did not blame anyone for choosing dry land and dry clothes in preference to almost certain sinking.
His speech did not shake the officers' determination to remain aboard her—all of them. They simply had no intention of getting off so long asthere was a glimmer of a chance of landing her safe. Then the captain asked Dick if he desired to remain or if he wanted to get off. Dick grinned.
"I'll stay, sir," he said.
The captain asked Tod.
"I'll stay, too, sir," he answered.
The captain came to me. I had my answer ready.
"I'll stay, sir," I told him.
After he had thanked us and gone on, Dick called a meeting of the Three Yanks. "You didn't stand by just because I volunteered to, did you?" he asked anxiously. We shook our heads. Our teeth were chattering so that it was hard to say what we thought, so we didn't try. What I thought was something to the effect that I wished I had my extra sweater on underneath, and that I was glad I had two such plucky pals.
We spent another night on board her. We had had not slept for forty-eight hours, but we didn't seem to need to—the excitement of wondering what the next minute would bring banished sleep.
The following morning at four o'clock we landed safely on the beach. The destroyers took us off the ship—all we knew was that at last we were on something where we could rest. I remember some of the crew asking us questions, but I don't remember our answering. We just dropped down on a roll of blankets and closed our eyes. . . .
I woke last. Dick and Tod were chatting softly in a corner. I opened my eyes and listened.
"Well, write it down, Tod, so you don't forget," Dick was saying. "You and Clink and I will hike it for Maine. Is that straight?"
"What's this?" I asked. Dick grinned over at me.
"We're making a little date for after the war," he said. "We figured what a lot we'd have to talk about on that camping trip, eh?"
I nodded. "You can count me in," I said.
But, as it's turned out, there won't be any camping trip for the three of us after all. Dick was lost at sea on his next trip across, while I was sick in hospital. Then I heard that Tod had gonedown, and it nearly knocked me out. There never were two such pals as those chaps.
Perhaps some day when it's all over, and we've licked the Hun to a standstill, I'll wander up there myself with our stony-faced guide; and perhaps I'll sit on the bank of our little lake and fish in the clear water with the tackle we all used, or shoot the same-sized rifle—and I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they've trod every inch of the ground—it will be almost like having them there—but not quite—pals like that don't happen more than once in a lifetime—I wish I could tell you just what great sort of fellows they were—oh, well, I couldn't if I tried a thousand years—so what's the use?
many Marines standing at attendion by battleshipHere's to the marines—the foremost military body in America!
I joinedthe Navy as an apprentice seaman. I thought it would be great to try a new way of licking the Huns. I had sampled the army. Yes, I was at the Somme with the Canucks. Greatest bunch of fighters the world has ever seen!
I can say it, because I'm an American, but as soon as war was declared, my three cousins and I beat it for Canada and enlisted. We were all in the same regiment, the third to go across.
You've no idea until you get into the thick of a fight with shrapnel whistling past you and shells bursting a few feet away, how much depends on your leader. It's up to him to win or lose the ground you're holding for all you're worth. The men in charge of us were young and some of them pretty green at the war game—but say! there wasn't a bloody Hun alive that could scare them! Not by a long sight!
We sailed in August, about two thousand of us.We had a quiet trip across and, oh, Christmas! how we did long to get into the scrap! They landed us at a French port and we had just three days' training before we were ordered up.
You can't make much headway in three days to prepare you to meet the Boches, but we did manage to get in a little drilling and skirmishing. All the bayonet charging I learned was from a Jap in my company. He was a funny little cuss. Why he joined up I can't imagine. You'd think he would rather save his skin and stay at home, but he was all for fighting. He had been trained in Japan and had joined the Canadians at the last minute.
My cousins and I learned all we knew from him. He seemed glad to show us. He was a friendly little chap and some fighter! I remember seeing him alongside of me for a few seconds in a trench full of Germans . . . and then not seeing him. What became of him I never knew. You don't, most of the time.
A long line of troop trains were awaiting us. Pullmans? I guess not!—freights. We piled in.We were all anxious to get to the front. We knew they were in desperate need of men and that we might get a chance to go over the top, green as we were.
It was night before they opened the doors and let us out. We seemed to be in a sort of meadow. It was black as a cave, except for the lights of the station. There was plenty of noise as two thousand men alighted, but there was another sound—a dull, thick booming . . . cannons! It seemed thousands of miles away, but you never forgot it for an instant. It meant that we fellows who had been so recently in offices plugging away for so much a week were out there at last on the great battlefield of France!
We had reached the trenches. They weren't at all like I supposed they'd be. I expected them to be narrow, with room enough for one man only. Instead two and sometimes three could walk abreast. It seemed to me as though we marched a hundred miles that night. I was so tired I was ready to drop, and then all the mud I had ever read about seemed to be planted in that trench! Mud!We tramped through knee-deep slime—knee-deep, mind you—and we thought that was bad until we went in up to our waists.
It must have been raining pitchforks before we arrived, and as we scuffed along the best way we could it began again—a cold, driving rain straight down from the black sky, stinging our faces and running down our necks. After a while we halted for the night.
There were dugouts where you could set up your cook-stove if you were lucky enough to own one. All your food you carried on your back in cans, but you didn't have energy enough left to open them. You just dropped down under the shelter of a bunch of sandbags if you were lucky, or if you weren't, in a muddy patch of ground where you slept like a log.
Next day we were on our way—that long line of drenched men tramping toward the sound of the big guns. That's how you measured distance, by increasing volume. The rain had begun in earnest and it never let up for the three days we made our way to the trench just back of the Big Hill.
It seemed to be our destination, because we got orders to begin digging, and we went to work with pick and shovel. I forgot how tired I was in the excitement of being so near the Huns. You do out there. You don't worry about dying, that's one sure bet, nor about eating or sleeping; the one thing that gets you is when your best pals go west.
I had to stand watch that night. That meant two hours of pacing back and forth, fifteen feet, ready for the enemy's charge at any second. I couldn't believe that the fellows we were waiting for were so close up—there across that short patch of ground—but I realized it when a shell fell not five feet away from me and blew three of my pals to bits. By God! I knew it then!
I shall never forget it. I'd been listening to them talk in a little knot as I paced by, swapping smokes and trying to find a dry place to stand. One of them laughed. That was the last sound I heard before the crash of exploding shell. There wasn't one of them left.
We were four days waiting for the signal tocharge. We were mad for it. It seemed as if the leaders could not hold us back another day. We wanted to get at those damned Huns who had killed our pals. We knew we could lick them, raw as we were. We had some full-blooded Indians from Ontario with us. They were the real thing in a fight. They did not know what fear meant. There just wasn't any such word in the language for them, and when they charged they forgot they were supposed to use rifles. They threw them away and drew their long knives—razor-sharp. That's how they went after the Huns—and butchered the swine good and proper.
On the fourth day the signal was passed along the trench for a charge. One hundred and fifty men were picked—every third man. I was lucky and was one of the number. Every man was keen to be first over the top. About nine of the Indians came along. None of my cousins made it, but the little Jap who had taught me bayoneting was beside me, grinning and fondling his rifle as a mother does her baby.
Our leaders sprang up on the sand bags andhurled us the order. How few of them came back from that charge on which they set out so fearlessly!
We climbed up. We heard our officers shouting to us and our comrades wishing us the best of luck, to give the Huns hell! We sprang forward and the Germans opened a rain of bullets from their machine guns full upon us and the men who followed. They swept our lines. Men reeled and fell to the left and right of me—just crumpled up like those little toys whose springs have snapped. Still we went on. We made the trench and I speared my first Boche. Got him, too! Brought back his iron cross as a trophy. The Germans were scampering to the next trench like rats caught in a trap. They sure do hate hand-to-hand fighting!
We held that trench six days. It was jumpy work. The Germans were driven back, but there was no telling when they would start with the hand-grenades. They didn't do that, but they did something worse—gas. It was pretty new to us then. We were fitted out with a sort of rubbermask that wasn't much good. We saw a fellow drop a way down the line. Then one of the brownish trench rats, a friendly little chap, who ate the scraps I shelled out to him, turned up his toes. We clapped on our masks, but the wind was with Fritz and the gas swept through our trench on the breeze.
It lasted about an hour and a half. I'd hate the job of being the first man ordered to take off his mask and test the air for the rest, but some one has to, and it often means lights out for him.
I had been slightly wounded—a sabre cut on my leg, but I managed to dress it myself. It was ten times better to be up, however rocky you felt, than lying around those damp trenches. I wondered where my cousins were. I worried about them. Somehow I wasn't afraid for myself, but I just wished it would soon be over and I could get home. You think about home an awful lot out there.
We were sent to some swamps next. There were cement trenches—German make—and they were considerably drier. We were pretty comfortablethere except for an occasional shell blowing things to bits. I used to wonder how there was enough lead in the world to make all the shells the armies used. We always had plenty of ammunition. The Russians were the ones who got the raw deal. We passed a lot of them on our way out front. A regiment of them was holding a square. They were dull-eyed boys—hopeless looking. Do you blame them? One day they would be sent out with ammunition to burn. The next they wouldn't even be given a rifle. How did they protect themselves? Oh, rocks and stones, I suppose. But they were wiped out when they tried to charge empty-handed, that's sure.
The Germans raided us with hand grenades one night. We heard them coming and we fought like fiends, but they outnumbered us five to one. I went down with a shot in my side. The next thing I remembered was being aboard a transport bound for home. Nothing ever sounded so good to me as that word! I found my three cousins were aboard. One of them had lost histwo legs, another his leg and his arm, and the youngest had his right arm blown off.
It didn't take me long to find out how lucky I was. All I needed to do was to look around at the other eighteen hundred wounded. They landed us at Halifax, on our way to Toronto. I was laid up for quite a while, and the funny thing was now that I was home again I kept planning ways to get back as soon as I could just to show those Huns who's who.
I used to lie in my clean white bed, looking out a long window onto the garden. It was calm and quiet. But I didn't seem to see it—what I saw were those blood-soaked trenches, with your pals gasping out their lives alongside of you and your leaders, falling even as they urged you to charge! It took me a while to get well and when I did I went back to the States. I had an idea. I would join the Navy. It would be a new way of meeting Fritz. I liked the thought of killing him wholesale on the sea.
I enlisted as an apprenticed seaman,—that was last March. I am in fine trim, except for a scaron my leg and a bullet hole in my side. I've finished training now and I'm ready to be shipped across. Gee, but I hope we'll get a fat submarine full of German officers—and that we'll drown them like the rats they are!
Men on horseback in a fieldA marine can do anything—even ride a horse!
I'vebeen torpedoed three times—three ships gone down under me, and I'm still here. Didn't mind it much—I can swim; besides, I'm pretty used to the sea—first shipped when I was thirteen. My father and mother had sent me to a manual training school. I didn't like it. I was always playing hookey and finally ran away.
I didn't care where I went just so long as it was on a ship. I knew it was the sea I wanted. Before I decided, I used to hang around the docks. I liked the smell of the water and the big talk of the old salts who had been around the world a dozen times. They didn't stay cooped up in any four walls studying geography—they went out and lived it.
I knew enough about sailing to ship as boatswain. I was big for my age, so they took me on. It was a sand sucker going down to the mouth of the Mississippi.
The skipper took a kind of a shine to me. He saw I wanted to study navigation so he lent me books and let me go into the chart house and work. Arithmetic was hard for me, and spelling, too, but I'd copy out words I didn't know and take them to him. I guess he saw I was in earnest.
As a result I got my rate as able-bodied seaman when I was fifteen. I was in New Orleans then, and I saw a chance to ship on one of the Standard Oil boats bound for Tampico.
I was crazy to go to Mexico. There was a "Mex" on the old ship and he was always talking about the sunshine and free fruit in his country. When I told him where I was bound for he wanted to come, too, but my new skipper couldn't see him. "Mex" drank too much fire water for the good of one man.
We didn't stay long in Mexico. I got a chance to go through Vera Cruz, and that was about all, before starting for home. I'd saved quite a lot of money and all the way back to New York I kept asking myself would I or wouldn't I dropin on my father and mother to let them know I was alive. I couldn't decide. When I got to New York the first thing I did was to buy myself a great outfit; then I started to the street where I knew the family lived. On the way I met a pal who was shipping on a small boat leaving for Canada. He wanted me to go along. There didn't seem to be any good reason to refuse, seeing as I had all my papers. I'd never been to Canada.
I told him about wanting to call on my parents, but he said there'd be time enough when I got back to port. I went along with him and up to Nova Scotia.
All the time I told myself it was going to be my last trip up the coast. I wanted to see Europe next. When we came back to New York I went up to Union Hall and told them I'd like to ship across. I got my wish. They sent me on a Standard Oil steamer bound for Rouen. At last I was going to France!
I liked that country from the start. The first sight I had of it was white houses and green fieldsand church steeples. I was so busy looking at the scenery I couldn't do a stroke of work. I got liberty to go up to Paris, and I saw all of it for two francs. I just hopped into one of those little cabs and said to the driver "Giddap," and he rode me around. I didn't miss a thing.
We went back to Norfolk, where we were quarantined for seven days because a yellow cook we had broke out with the same color fever. That gave me time to think, and I made up my mind that I'd pay off and go up and see my folks. I was sixteen then, hard as nails and pretty prosperous.
Once ashore I bought myself everything from patent leather shoes to a derby hat. I wanted them to see I'd made good.
I walked in on them at dinner time. My father didn't know me, but my mother did. "It's George!" she hollered, then stared at me. But father didn't. He wanted to lick me for staying away all those years. Mother wouldn't let him, though. She wanted to hear all about where I'd been. I was glad I could put some money inthe bank for her. I stayed home about two weeks and then got so restless I knew I'd better leave before they threw me out.
Well, I let myself in for an adventure that time for I went to Halifax, and from there shipped on an oil collier bound for Mexico. We struck a hurricane and were washed ashore. That was my first shipwreck. We had to eat stores out of the ship's supplies, which were pretty low at the time. I didn't like the looks of things and I decided to foot it into Tampico, which we figured wasn't more than forty-two miles south of us.
Eight of my mates and I figured that by traveling toward the sun, we'd make it in a couple of days. We packed our grub and put on the good heavy Dutch sea boots we wore in heavy weather, and set out through the woods.
Hot! Say, your head blistered under your cap. We struck a swamp, but we were afraid to go back—it was just as bad as going forward—so we started through, but we miscalculated, for we spent a whole day and night in there before we got our bearings.
We climbed the branches of the trees at nights and slept as best we could in them. But two of the fellows caught the jungle fever, and one of them died before we could get him out. We buried him there and marked the place.
Another man was pretty sick, and I remember reading somewhere that sassafras root was good for fever. We found some growing there, and we managed to build a fire—but we didn't have matches to light it, so we struck flints until we got a blaze. We cooked the root and gave him the juice. It saved him.
On the outskirts of the swamp we saw a little Mexican house. It was the greatest sight I ever want to see. The woman was cooking some kind of meat over her fire. We didn't stop to inquire what it was so long as it wasf-o-o-d. That was enough for us. She was glad to give us all she had, because American money goes big down there. Several of the men stayed to look after our sick mate, but I hot-footed it into Tampico to find the consul and try to get back to the States. I found him but he couldn't do anything for us.
I didn't care much. It was a pleasant country, so I decided to stay. I was there six months. At last I grew tired of everlasting hot weather so I asked a skipper on an English ship if he'd take me back to the States. I told him I didn't care about the pay, just so long as I got home. That impressed him and he signed me up for a quarter a month. He couldn't have paid me less, but what difference did it make to me? Wasn't I getting out of that all-fired hot country?
We docked at Baltimore. I was pretty seedy, so I took the first job I could get, which was night watchman on the docks. Then I wired my mother that I was stranded without clothes or money. She sent it double quick. I knew she would.
Once I was outfitted I applied for a third mate's job. I had already made my license, although I was only seventeen. The hard thing was getting any skipper to believe I knew all I claimed I did. I found one at last. I told him to fire any questions at me he could think of. He sure did. He asked me things a chief has to know and Icame through. He took me on as third and I paid off at New York.
When I reached there I went to the seamen's Bethal, where I got clothes and the chance to ship on an English vessel bound for the other side. That was in 1915. The German subs had started their little game of hide-and-seek, but we didn't expect any trouble. However Fritz was waiting for us. It was about six o'clock in the evening, dark, with a full moon. I was on deck watching the moonlight on the water. It's a sight I never get tired of. All was quiet except the throbbing of our own engines, when suddenly we felt the blow that ripped her side open. A torpedo had registered a hit.
We couldn't see the sub; she had gotten in the moon's rays, and it was impossible to make her out. We didn't try. The order, "abandon ship," had sounded, but I didn't make a lifeboat; instead I dived off the side of the ship and swam around in the water for a few minutes before somebody heard me yelling and yanked me in.
Next morning an English schooner picked usup and we went ashore. Say, but I was mad through to think of a blinking submarine sinking a neutral. I never was neutral from that minute, and when we got into the war I went in the navy. I knew that would be the one place I'd have a chance to take a shot at the Kaiser's pets.
We carried a big cargo over; our cargo line was 'way down. We had a lot of green hands aboard, "hay-shakers," I call them. Some of the boys were pretty seasick. I bet they wished they had never started across.
Well, we delivered our cargo and started back, when sure enough, one dark night, we got it again. This time, though, I was standing under the bridge, and in the explosion a piece of rail was hurled against me that broke both legs.
A big Swede, who had always a hand out to help everybody, hoisted me into a lifeboat, but in launching it was smashed up. I was in the water and I certainly thought my last hour had come, but I found the big Swede was swimming beside me, and he dragged me onto a piece of board floating by. I lay there until it was light and in answerto our S. O. S., American destroyers came on and picked up our boats. Was I glad to see the good old American flag?WasI! I didn't know much when they hauled me aboard—the pain was pretty bad, but they sent me to a hospital over there, and before long I was around again, fine as ever. Takes more than a German sub to keep me down.
I went back to the States in style on a transport. As I always carried my Union book I had no trouble in getting another new outfit, once I reached my home port. I set out for France on a cargo vessel. Well, say, it was clear sailing over. We met our convoy and they hoisted up their signal flag. We were all of two hours making it out. At last we could read it, it spelled:
"What are you doing,—bringing Brooklyn Bridge over with you?" They were making fun of our queer-shaped bridge. Well, we started back, but I know things always happened in threes so I was pretty sure we'd get it going home. I was right.
It was my watch, late in the afternoon. I waskeeping a sharp lookout when I saw the torpedo scudding toward us.
"Wake of a torpedo in starboard bow!" I yelled. Say, that vessel wheeled like a streak—and the torpedo missed. But the next one didn't. Bing!—I felt the big ship quiver under me, and the explosion that followed blew me so high that I came down in the paint locker with my arm under me.
You'd think I'd be used to torpedoing by this time, and could keep my sea legs under fire, but I didn't. I'm getting better though, and I'm waiting to get a shot at Fritz that will send him where he'll stay for a while. I certainly am glad every time I hear we've sunk one of them, but I always wish I was one of the crew of that lucky ship.
I waseducated abroad. That's how I came to love France and England almost as well as my own country. I was in my teens when I returned to America. I had always wanted to be a nurse. Even while at school I longed for the days when I should be old enough to begin training. It was my calling, and, when I left school, I answered it.
I trained in France, England and America. I had practised but a short while when I married. My husband was a surgeon, and from him I learned more of nursing than I could ever hoped to have acquired from text-books. We were always together. We played and worked and traveled all over the world. When he died, it was like a great light going out. I did not know where to turn—I did not know what to do. Even to this day I cannot get used to his being away from me. It always seems as though he were on one of his professional trips and would return.
And then in 1914, just six months after his death, war came, and I knew that my place was in France, so I sailed at once and enlisted in the nursing corps.
Those were the days before the great base hospitals were established—the days when the dead and wounded were left in piles awaiting such care as could be given them by the handful of overworked doctors and nurses.
It was there I found my "son." We had come to a group of white-faced boys—the mark of death on their brow. Lying a little apart from the others was a young Frenchman. He had an ugly shrapnel wound on his shoulder. He was unconscious when we found him, but he was so appealing, so young, that my heart went out to him. His clothes were stained with dirt and blood, and the mud was caked on his cheek, where he had fallen.
When we moved in, he opened his eyes. "Maman," he said, and smiled at me. I think that was what won me completely.
men loading torpedo into lifeboat for recoveryCopyright by International Film ServiceTorpedoes cost money—they are often recovered and fired again.
I watched over his convalescence and learned that his own mother was not living, so when he was well once more and ready to return to duty, I adopted him as my "fils de guerre," and to this day I hear from him twice a month—and such letters! Full of his battles and his play at the rest billets—his dreams and his hopes. He is France at her best, with the love of youth and life and country in his heart.
There were sights on that battlefield you never forget—never. It was the bodies of Frenchwomen left dead by the Germans that haunt me—the women they dragged from captured France and took with them to their trenches. We used to thank God when we came upon these girls that we found them dead. At least these few were out of their unfathomable depths of misery at last.
After ten months of nursing in France, the doctors ordered a rest—no—commanded it, so I left the service and went to England to visit an old schoolmate, now married. Her husband was at the front, but her father, a peer, whose name is a great one in England, lived with her.
He had known me since childhood. He was very fond of me. He was a man of great importance tothe government, but he had a delightful way of dropping all the cares of State, once he reached home, and of romping with his two tiny grandsons whom he adored.
In their home I found the quiet I craved, and, as I grew stronger, I longed to get back once more to duty. I knew so well the desperate need for trained workers. My friends sensed my growing restlessness and Violet's father spoke of it at dinner one evening.
"Why not join the British army?" he asked me. "I'll try to get you a good post."
There were a number of guests present, and, as Sir Arthur sat quite far from me, I did not catch what he had said. But Violet had. She leaned across and called to me.
"You aren't listening to father—he means you." I turned toward him eagerly. "Why not join the British ranks?" he repeated. "You say you feel fit again and want to get out there. Well, I'll give you a chance to prove it."
I didn't believe he half meant it, for his eyes twinkled; but I caught at it.
"I cannot get to the front soon enough to pleaseme," I cried. "Just try me and see," and no more was said about it.
The days passed and the lovely English summer changed into autumn. I felt splendidly. One day I came in from a long walk. I glowed with health. I just knew that I could not remain idle another instant. I found Violet in the nursery with her babies. I told her I must go. She laughed at me.
"So long as you feel that way, it's fortunate this letter came for you this morning, isn't it?" and she laid in my hands a long, official-looking document, bearing the royal coat-of-arms in one corner. I tore it open. It was a command to appear before the Matron-in-Chief of her Majesty's army. I knew by the time that I had finished reading it that Sir Arthur was responsible in a large measure. He was well aware of the fact that no neutral could serve in the Allied armies unless by royal order. I flew to the office of the Matron-in-Chief. My knees knocked together. Could I qualify in her eyes for a post at the front?
What transpired seemed like a golden dream to me. I was appointed Chief Nurse—or Matron, asthey call us Over There—of a hospital ship holding four thousand beds! I did not show my inward tremors. If it could be done, I was going to do it—I, an American—and what was more I was going to make those British nurses on my staff love me in spite of themselves. I dared not think how afraid I was to tackle it. I just kept saying, "I'll do it! I'vegotto, so I can."
I returned to Violet and dropped in a heap on a couch.
"What's happened?" she demanded—and I told her. She listened, her eyes like stars.
"How splendid! You can do it if anyone in the world can! You've proved your worth in France. Oh, I am so happy that you are to look after our poor boys!"
Sir Arthur came in at this moment. I knew by his smile that he had been listening.
"Well, well, so you are to be a Matron, are you?" he teased. I nodded. I was past speech.
"Perhaps you don't know that you will be gazetted as Major in the British army as well. That will probably be your official rank."
And a major I became on my floating hospital. I felt strangely alone at first. The only American among so many English. For the first time in my life I longed for my compatriots. Then one day as we lay at anchor in the harbor, I saw, some distance away, a battleship flying from her mast the Stars and Stripes. I began to cry, I was so glad to see my own flag again. I asked our wireless operator if he would send her a message.
"Will you ask an American officer aboard the Man-o'-War to come aboard the British Hospital ship and speak with an American woman?" The instrument snapped the message. The battleship caught it, and, a few hours later, I saw an American Naval officer for the first time in over a year.
I had never met him before, but I was so glad to talk with him of our own land that I dreaded the time when he must return to his ship. He went at length, and I followed him with my binoculars. It gave me a warm feeling around my heart to have a Yankee ship so close by.
Once I started to work in earnest, I found that my nurses were eager to coöperate with me inevery way. Instead of resenting my authority over them, they were anxious to help me, and the fear I felt of my ability to handle this great task was swallowed up by the mountains of work before me. There was no time to fear or to rejoice. There was no time for self, with four thousand souls aboard who needed caring for each hour of the day and night. For our ship was loaded with the wounded from that desperate fighting in the Dardanelles.
There were a great per cent who came to us with hands and feet cruelly frozen, from the weeks and even months in icy trenches. Then there were shell-shock cases. One which appealed to us all was of a chaplain, adored by his regiment. Through the heaviest fire he had stood by his flock with no thought for his own safety. An exploding shell had brought on that strange state of aphasia. He did what he was told to do docilely and quietly, but he remembered nothing that had gone before.
He was sent back to London, his mind still clouded. I used to think of him often—his quiet,studious face and soldierly bearing and his eyes with their eternal question in them, which none of us could answer for him.
Months later I saw him again. The government was in need of a matron to take charge of a four-hundred-and-fifty-bed ship bound for South Africa. Fierce battles were raging in Mesopotamia. I was selected for the task. I had eight nurses and a hospital corps of fifty.
As I came aboard her, I saw a familiar figure standing by the gang-plank. I caught my breath. It was the chaplain himself. There he stood, smiling quietly, with hands outstretched.
"I am going with you, Matron," he told me, "to care for the boys."
He was well once more and back again in the field.
Malaria was rampant in Africa. Our ship exceeded capacity by over a hundred cases—men with raging fevers. Working at top speed, we could not bathe them all, and cold baths alone could save them.
The convalescent officers helped us. We workedlike machines. Some of the nurses caught the tropical fever, too, but they stuck by their post. They did not dare give in. There were too many sick and dying men calling for them. I have known those girls to stand on their feet when their own temperatures ranged between 103 and 104 degrees. They laughed at the idea of giving in. They couldn't. That was all.
You have heard of the brutality of the Turk. Let me tell you he is gentle compared to the ferocity of the Germans. We lay at anchor near Salonika. The Turks were on one side of the Gulf, the British on the other. More than once I have seen the Turks hoist a white flag to us, and, when we have at length replied to it with our flag of truce, they have sent an envoy aboard. Always, he desired to parley with the Matron instead of with the Commander, and I would be summoned to receive his message.
"Mem Sahib," he would say, "we are about to open fire on the British. You will move your ship about fifty yards. You will then be out of danger." He would bow and return to his regiment,giving us ample time to move before the great guns roared once more.
But the Germans! To bomb a field hospital or shell an ambulance, or sink a Red Cross ship is a triumph for them!
It was three o'clock one morning. We lay in the Mediterranean. An accident case needed instant care. I ran to prepare the "theater," as we call the operating room. The patient was treated and had been lifted to a stretcher when the Huns' torpedo struck us.
Then came the crash, the sudden trembling of the ship and the sudden dreadful listing. We carried the man to the deck, scrambling up as best we could. The engine had not been struck, but the stern was shattered. Every man who was able to, reached the deck with life-belt on, and the nurses and doctors flew to the rescue of those below.
We carried them all on deck, and the Commander faced us quietly.
"The boats on the port side are smashed, and those on starboard cannot be lowered."
There was not a sound for a full moment after he spoke, as the awful truth dawned upon us. Then his voice rang out:
"There is only one chance—to jump for your lives."
Jump for your lives! I looked at the men who were too ill to be moved, who lay unconscious, with flushed cheeks and closed eyes. Jump for our lives! What chance had they? Truly the Boches could take toll that night if they counted sick and wounded men and Red Cross nurses as fair prey. . . .
The Commander shouted to us: "Jump feet first. Watch out—jumpfeet first."
We had practised doing it in the tank on the way over. With life-belts on, it is the only way of preserving your balance.
The men were dragging out tables and tearing up planks for rafts. They hurled them into the water, and little groups of them climbed the rail, stood poised an instant above the black depths below them—then leaped down. . . .
The voices of hundreds of struggling men rangin on our ears and we were helpless to aid them.
The Commander called the nurses to him.
"You go next," he told them. "The Matron and I will jump last."
They were the bravest, coolest lot of girls I have ever seen. They climbed the rail, hand in hand. They hesitated a second—with a shudder at what lay before them, then they leaped forward. . . . I could not look. Only the Commander and I remained. He drew me to the rail.
"I can't do it," I cried, drawing back. But he was very firm.
"Come," he said quietly, "it will soon be too late."
He helped me up. My heart was thumping like a trip-hammer in my breast. I could not—I could not—could notjump. He drew me down suddenly. I lost my footing and plunged after him. The water closed over me. It seemed hours before I came to the top. For a long time I could not move. At length I began to swim. I knew enough to get as far away as I could from the suction that would draw me as the ship sank.
Three hours later patrols picked us up.
And yet, I love the water. If I am ashore and cannot sleep, I pretend my room is a cabin and that I am on a quietly rocking sea. That is why I entered the Navy nurse corps of my country when she declared war on Germany.
So I have served under three flags since war was declared, and at last—at last I am under my own!
Mefather was always talkin' about the old country. Sure and he said there was nothin' in the whole of America to compare with a corner of County Cork! We kids used to poke fun at him, but I'm confessin' it made us kinder hanker to see that land ourselves.
He was after claimin' that the grass was greener there than anywhere else on earth and the sky bluer. As a kid I planned to run away and ship over there just to see if the old man was givin' it to us straight. But it was to Canada I drifted, and, because I have more inches than most men, the Northwest Mounted sent me an engraved invitation askin' me to join them, which I did for six years.
Sure, it's a great way to spend your days, ridin' through snow and ice or mud and mosquitoes—accordin' to the season—after the gang of outlaws runnin' loose up there. But it was always worryin',the wife was, for fear I couldn't shoot quick enough and they'd get the drop on me. She'd tell me that it was the kid she was considerin'—she wasn't wantin' to bring him up without a father. She'd say he was too big a handful for her to manage, then get around me by claimin' he was a chip off the old block all right—all right.
So I give up me post in the Northwest and settled down in Winnipeg. Then the war came and I could see reasons all over the place for me joinin' up at once. First of all, though me country was America, me home was in Canada and I knew that nine-tenths of the Canucks would be friends of mine. Then secondly, wasn't I Irish, which meant gettin' into any scrap that was goin', so help me?
Well, the wife held me back at the start. She kept coaxin' me to bide a bit. She argued the States wasn't in trouble yet, so I listened with one ear, but with the other I was hearin' from all sides about the greatest free-for-all fight in the world's history, and I knew that me, Patrick M'Quire, had no business to be standin' by.