three sailors aiming a deck gun"Boresighting"—a 3-inch gun on board a merchant ship.
We anchored in an English port and like every good "bloomin' bloody Yank," as our British cousins call us, we got out our bats and balls readyto play United States baseball. We had four cracking good teams on the ship. The first and fourth would play, then the second and third. The competition was pretty close and we were tickled to death when the American Consul got a tract of land for us and we went ashore to show those Johnnies a regular game, after watching cricket for an hour or two.
Well, after several days of games, some of the men began abusing their shore privileges, and the officers knocked it off and kept us aboard—no liberty at all!
Gee, we certainly longed to get off the boat. There was land only a hand's throw away—and there was a whole diamond going to waste and games tied. One afternoon, after talking the matter over, we plucked up courage and drew lots. It fell on me to go up to the Officer of the Deck and ask for a Recreation Party.
I did.
He didn't waste any breath at all. "No," he said, so I slunk back to my mates. But we didn't let the matter rest. Every ten minutes anotherone of us would march up with the same request. The O. D. got sore. Ole was on watch.
"Pass the word," the O. D. commanded crisply, "No Recreation Party whatsoever!"
Ole did.
"No Recreation Party what's er matter?" he hollered.
That finished him. He lost a rank on account of it. Poor Ole, he got in dutch for fair!
We were convoying merchant and troop ships, going out to meet them and bringing them back to port. We started out one cold October day with a raging gale blowing. The sea was like a seething caldron—the waves were mountain high. We had on all the warm things we owned, but, at that, we were ice wherever the water struck us.
I was muffled to the eyes. Esquimos had nothing on me and I could see we were in for some stiff duty. It wasn't a matter of one day—it was a matter of eight days on a raging sea—no chance to take off your socks even—life-preservers on every minute of the time—watching out sharp for Fritz.
A flock of us met the ships we were to bring in and we started to steam back to our base, when we had the shock of our lives!
It was early morning, barely light. The sky was a gray line, as if you took a paint brush and slapped a streak from east to west. The water was gray and we men on the bridge rubbed our eyes, for right in front of us, not five hundred away—standing out black against the sky—was a German submarine.
We figured she had laid there all night—and was going to send our flagship to the bottom if she could—but she couldn't have looked over her shoulder, because she didn't seem to know we were there.
Well, we were after her like a streak of greased lightning. That was just what we had been praying for; as we charged her we fired; we were almost on top of her, trying to ram her, when she submerged; we passed right over her as she went down; you could see the bubbles and spray.
Then we launched our depth charges—"ashcans," as we call them. They look like a ten-gallon drum. You set them off when you are traveling full speed right above your blooming submarine—fifteen knots we were making.
Quick! Say, it's the speediest work in the world, because, once your charges are dropped, you have to beat it or get blown up yourself—as it is you can feel the explosion for yards around. Well, we dropped four—and got out of the way. As for the sub . . . zowy! Up she came to the surface, ripped wide open. Then she stood up on her end and sank as if somebody had pulled her down by the tail.
One man of the German crew floated out of her before she sank for all time, and Ole, before we could stop him, had lashed a rope around himself and was overboard hauling him in. The German was dead, so he couldn't give us any information. Worse luck! But we didn't let that make us feel blue. I tell you we were a pretty pleased bunch. You feel good all over when you get a German sub. They are so blamed much like a crook waiting in a dark alley to stab a man inthe back. Yon owe it to society to knock him out good and proper.
Yep, great crew ours. Some say destroyer duty takes nerve, but the reason I like it is that you don't feel like sleeping on your job; you're just too blamed afraid you'll miss the thrill of your life if you do. It's a great life! Take it from me!
I didn'tknow what I wanted to enlist in—I didn't care. All I thought about was that war was declared. That set my New England blood boiling, I suppose, and I didn't waste any time. I happened to be in Baltimore. I scooted down to a recruiting station and joined the Navy.
They asked me what branch of service I wanted to go in for. I said I didn't give a hang just so long as I'd get a chance to go across and do a thing or two to the Huns. They chose the Hospital Corps for me. It sounded all right. I didn't dream of the hard work I was letting myself in for.
After I'd left the station I called up mother on long distance. She was visiting in Connecticut. I told her I had joined. She said she knew I would and that she was glad I had not waited a day. That's mother all over for you. I thinkevery ancestor she ever had fought in some war or other. No slackers in this family!
It was April. I had on an unlined suit and a light cravenette when three hundred of us left Baltimore at eleven next day. We were going to Newport. At five that afternoon we took the Fall River line. It was pretty chilly then. I kept wondering why the dickens I hadn't brought along an overcoat—but you didn't speak about being cold, although I'll bet three-fourths of the men on that boat were chattering. We were in the navy now—fine sailors we'd make if we complained about a chill!
We arrived in Newport between four and five in the morning, and anchored until daybreak. I thought it would never come. The sky was grayish. I hadn't slept all night and I was beginning to wish we'd get somewhere where I could turn in for a good rest,—but no such luck.
A petty officer met us at the steamer pier, taking us over in a little government boat to Coaster Island. We landed at the Government Pier and there we lined up. There was a queer old tubanchored nearby. I asked someone what it was, and he told me that I was gazing upon the old frigateConstellation, which fought in the war of 1812 and is now used as a signal school. She certainly looked out of date. I wondered if our snappy sub chasers would look as clumsy as that in another hundred years.
We marched to the receiving building and stood around on the outside. I didn't know a soul there, but three of us were Hospital Corps, and we sort of stuck together. The rest were a mixture. There were "sparks" that's what they call the radio wireless men; and electricians; and there were "chips"—that's carpenters—and there were some of the "black gang," which are what the firemen are called, unless it's "coalheavers." As for us, we were the "iodine crew." It's a good name, all right.
Each draft was called in in turn. A C.P.O. would come to the door and bawl, "All right, all New York draft in," and they'd waltz in while we waited and wondered how soon before we could sleep.
After a while they called Baltimore, and we went inside, turned over our papers, and were sent to an adjoining room to receive the Navy hair-cut.
Say, talk about speed! Liberty motors have got nothing on those four barbers. You no sooner sat down than—snip-snip-snip—and—"Next!" Then you signed your name, but what the barber wanted with all our autographs I never have been able to make out. Perhaps he figures some of us may become great heroes and he'll sell the signatures for a young fortune some day.
In the adjoining room we removed our clothes so that they could be disinfected and sent home. Then we took a shower. At times the water was very warm, then suddenly it would get cold as ice. They certainly believed in variety being the spice of life.
We were vaccinated next, a long line of us. And some were so scared they just curled up and fainted. But I got through and went in for my medical exam. If you don't pass it right there you are rejected, but if you only have depressedarches, or, say, stooping shoulders, they let you through. They know navy life will fix that O. K. Just do setting up exercises for a few months and you'll gain a ton!
Then we were measured for our uniforms and they were handed out to us: two suits of winter underwear, two pair of woollen socks, a navy sweater, a blue dress uniform and two white undress uniforms, shoes, hairbrush, clothes, "kiyi," which, in plain English, is a clothes brush, shoe cleaning gear, needle and thread and thimble, six pocket handkerchiefs, a neckerchief, a pocket knife, two white hats, a watch cap and a flat hat. Then you get your bedding: a mattress, two pair of blankets, your hammock and your duffle-bag. Believe me, the mattress looked good to me. I could see myself drifting off into slumber in a gently swaying hammock. . . .
They marched us to a Detention Barracks. You are not supposed to leave there until you get permission, in case someone breaks out with smallpox or yellow fever.
Everything was complete in the barracks.Meals were cooked in a regular galley; there were showers, mess room and sleeping rooms. Very nifty!
A little, fat C.P.O. with a bald head came in and instructed us how to clue our hammocks. It didn't seem hard. We were pretty proud of the job—all twenty of us.
By that time we could have eaten whale oil with a relish, and a squad of four went for chow, while the other fellows pitched in and laid out the mess gear. That navy stew certainly smelled good! The squad dished us out big portions of it and that, with hot coffee, made us feel like new men.
After we had finished four men washed up the mess gear and the rest of us turned to and swept down the room. The little C.P.O. bounced in again and fixed up our watch for us—two fellows on guard, each standing two hours. The Chief posted the first watchman, and taps began blowing as we started in stringing our hammocks.
It was great sport. Everyone had a theory about it, but we were told that, whatever we did,we must get the hammocks straight, because a sagging hammock is death on the back.
At nine, to the dot, lights were out. It was pitch black in our room. Somewhere outside one feeble standing light flickered, but inside, nothing doing.
Remember, these hammocks are about seven feet above ground—say, the fun started right there. How to get up in them was some problem. Each man thought of a way of doing it, and, in the first rush, one or two made it, but the rest of us only got a leg up and swung there before dropping back to earth.
Everyone was hollering suggestions and trying to get a grip on the blamed things. It wouldn't have been so hard if the hammocks hadn't moved—but they almost acted as though they had sense—hanged if they didn't. They'd bob this way and that, and the moment you got up—well——
After three or four attempts I made it. I got in all right, but, before I could settle down, over it turned with me—spilling out everything I owned, me included. I scrambled around pickingup what I could in the dark, and what I said wouldn't be passed by the Board of Censors.
I piled the things in again and crawled back—pretty cautious this time. I rolled up my clothes for a pillow and lay on my back, gripping both sides of my little old bed. That's the way I slept—or rather didn't sleep. All through the night there were thump-thumps, as someone fell out and hit the deck.
When I heard reveille next morning I was so stiff I could scarcely move a muscle. I wasn't the only one though. We looked at each other and wondered if ever under the blue sky we would get the hang of sleeping in something that turned over every time you hitched a bit.
We cleaned up the quarters and spread our blankets and mattresses to air. It was bitter cold. We huddled close to the steam pipes and certainly tackled the chow for all it was worth when it appeared about sixA. M.
two men in blankets peering out of a tent flapA sniff of "chow."
After breakfast we lashed our hammocks, and I told mine a thing or two as I tied it up. Then we listened to the C.P.O. giving us our first talk on regulations. We wondered if we'd ever remember half the things he was telling us.
As soon as he was out of sight, in trotted the ship's tailor with a portable sewing machine. Funny little man, so intent on his tiny task of sewing little strips of white cloth inside our clothes for marking. I suppose he felt as important in his way as the Navigator.
Somebody passed out stencils with our names on them, and the C.P.O., rather out of breath from scooting all over the station, dropped in long enough to tell us how to mark our clothes—then he was off on the wing. Busiest man I ever saw. I bet he lost ten pounds a morning. Well, he could afford to.
We were dying for lunch. You are always ready to eat in the navy, and the food is great. Lots of it, too. A new bunch of men had arrived—we felt like veterans as we gave them a hand at cluing their hammocks—and say, advice! We told them all there was to know about climbing into your swinging bed.
That night, when I crawled in, I found I couldmanage much better. I was dead to the world, and I slept the sleep of the just. Nothing short of reveille or an earthquake could have made me open an eye.
Next morning we parted from our room-mates. In peace times you are supposed to spend twenty-one days in detention. This was war, so we had spent three. We were to be shipped straight off to our respective division stations.
We Hospital Corps men reported to the head doctor and were assigned to classrooms. It seemed queer to be going to class again, after you'd been out making your living for a few years in business, but we got used to it. The lecture was on regulations, then they marched us over to Barracks B, our new home. We three from Baltimore stuck together. We were all assigned to quarters on the second deck—it's really the second floor, but you don't call them that in the navy.
It was a big place, but with a hundred and fifty men in it there was scarcely room to turn around—packed like sardines. We found a tinyspace up by a window and put up our hammocks. Supper was in the mess hall, then back we'd go to school for a lecture; after that you could study or write letters until nine o'clock and taps.
We were up at five every morning, chow at six-thirty, mustered at seven-fifteen, and marched down to school in time to clean the lecture rooms inside and outside. Spick and span is the watchword of the navy. You get so you wonder how you ever lived inside of a house that didn't shine from top to bottom.
We didn't have to know much to pass exams—oh, no! Only Anatomy and Physiology, and First Aid, and Minor Surgery, and Operating Room Technique, and Nursing, and Hospital Management, and Pharmacy, and Materia Medica, and Toxicologies, and Chemistry, and Litter Drill, besides a little "lab" work in the compounding of medicines. Oh, no—anyone could learn that with one eye shut!
I stayed in Barracks B for three weeks, then the government sent down some big circus tents holdingabout one hundred and fifty, and we pitched them. We slept on cots for a change. Queer how we had to get used to them. Hanged if we didn't long for our hammocks.
I remember one night when we had a bear of a storm—a regular gale—and sure enough the old tent began to leak. I happened to be on watch so I spent about two hours going around keeping a sharp lookout for leaks—there were plenty of them. As wet a crowd of boys as I ever saw came forth, and I sent them to the lecture rooms to sleep. Funniest looking gang, sleepy and cross, their blankets around their shoulders dripping water. They made a run for the deck.
About twelve I woke my relief and started to turn in. There was no leak over my bed and I was half undressed when something rolled down my back. I beat it for the school. Not ten minutes later the whole tent collapsed, with thirty men in it. Rescue parties were formed, and the men inside needed it—a small Niagara had swept in on top of them.
But no one seemed any the worse for it. Wewere a hardened lot by that time. I thought of the day I had left Baltimore and the way I had shivered with the cold—here I was, only a few weeks later, only half dressed, drenched to the skin and not minding it a bit. The training had done wonders for me.
Next day a pile of lumber arrived—we carried it from the wharf to the Barracks and we were informed that after school we would find nails—plenty of them—one saw and one hammer for two hundred men to lay the floor, upright and erect tents before taps. Say, that was a staggerer! But orders were orders and we fell to. What did we do? Why, we got rocks or pipes or anything you could use for a hammer and with two hundred huskies working at top speed just to show the C.O. that they can do a thing once they make up their mind to it, we got those tents up that night right as a top!
Luckily for me, my site was 'way up on Strawberry Hill, back of the hospital, and with the crackingest view of Narragansett Bay—and a distant glimpse of the Atlantic. It was a wonderfullife up there. We'd become so used to outdoors that we used to talk about how strange it would feel to live in four walls again. We took everything as it came and enjoyed it. The government certainly did all in its power to make things comfortable. We used to wonder how the Sam Hill all the busy people up in Washington could keep every one of us in mind and see that we were all supplied. It is a queer feeling—that sensation that you don't have to worry about to-morrow or what it will bring, that you are clothed and fed and housed—and that your only problems are the ones that may come with the rising sun. Great life!
Other camps were all around us. The Yeoman's camp, the Seamen's camp—nothing but bluejackets from morning until night. We wondered if the whole U. S. Navy were there—it didn't seem as if there could be any more sailors in the world.
The Hospital Corps didn't have much drilling to do, just squad movements and litter drills and counter-marching. We used to parade throughNewport to boom recruiting, and on Saturday the whole school turned out for Captain's inspection on the green in front of the War College.
There was so much to learn that we spent most of our liberties in the study hall, but once in a while we would drop in at the Army-Navy Y. M., or go down to beaches for a swim, or take in a show.
At the end of three months we were through a course that takes, as a rule, eight months. Then I went to the Naval Hospital and there I made my rate. Gee, but I'm glad I'm going over at last. There's a girl down in Baltimore—I've promised her some souvenirs. Some of the fellows have been back and forth eight times without a glimpse of a submarine—but I hope we see one. I'd like to tell it what I think of it.
Yes, we're leaving pretty soon now. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
I joinedthe navy because I felt patriotic and all the rest of it. You couldn't help it down home. Everybody was doing it. My brother-in-law made the yeomanry, my chum went in for hospital corps work. Wherever you turned you found fellows discussing their branch of service and swearing it was the best in the pack. It didn't take me long to make up my mind. I sure was crazy to get "over there."
It's the English in me, I guess. Yes, I've got quite a slice. Before the war I was thirty-third in direct line for the title of Earl of Northumberland. Now I am about seventeenth.
It's queer how much I wanted to go to London. I just itched to. My family had come from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and settled there. That's where I was born—Johnny Rebs, you know. But that's ancient history—just plain all-round American now.
I never had a chance to forget the English part of me, though. I couldn't very well. You see the solicitors send me a notice every now and then telling me how good my chances are of inheriting a thirty-three-million dollar estate and a couple of dozen titles on the side.
Well, I don't care what I shipped on so long as it had a prow and a stern and kept afloat. They held me three months in the naval station waiting for a ship, and at last I got one—and what a one! An old oil tank! Ever see an oil collier? It resembles one of the countries of Europe. Which one?Greece.
Grease everywhere. You eat grease and you drink grease and you sleep grease and you breathe grease. You never get it off your hands or your clothes or your disposition until you land.
I was commissary. That meant I had charge of the cook and bought supplies and dished out food and made up the bill of fare. But I might as well have saved myself the trouble of that, because every little thing tasted alike. Why wouldn't it, with eighty-three barrels of oil on board?
None of us wore our uniforms. What was the use? We were saving them for London or Paris, and it's lucky we did! Instead, we slapped on our overalls—"dungarees," we call them in the navy. We looked like a crowd of rough-necks, instead of a crew of snappy bluejackets.
We left some time in September, and steamed up to Nova Scotia, then across. We had a speedy ship, all right. Eight knots was the best she was known to make. Say, did it give you the jumps! It sure did! I could walk a heap faster than that old tug could steam at full speed. It seemed as though every raider and submarine in the Zone would line up in a row and take a shot or two at us—it was too easy to miss.
We had rough weather all the way. That and grease are about all that happened until we hit the Zone. There we met our convoy—a British flagship, a number of merchantmen, and a flock of torpedo-boats.
My pal was a fellow from Newark, New Jersey, Bill Willsie. He was out for excitement.
"I certainly hope something will break beforewe land," he'd say, "so that I can have a real yarn to spin for the folks back home."
He got his wish. It was the fourth day in the Zone, at five twenty-seven in the afternoon. I was on deck sniffing air that wasn't full of grease. Suddenly I saw the red flag go up to the mast.. . . Danger!. . . Gee, I sure did wish Billhadn't wished for trouble out loud. I wondered which one of us would get it—the British flagship ahead of us, or the merchantmen behind.
It all happened in the fraction of a minute. I saw scudding across the water the black nose of a torpedo. You've heard of men having a premonition of death, but how about seeing it coming straight toward you at the rate of thirty miles an hour!
My God! I'll never forget it! I thought my heart had stopped beating. I gripped the railing and waited. She struck the flagship and sank her in seven and a half minutes. To this day I can see her going down—the explosion—the roar—the sudden list—the boats lowered, and, on the bridge, two figures pacing—pacing—the captain and the admiral.
Do you think they left their ship? Not they! Up and down—up and down—those two paced. Oh, I tell you the British are a great people, but I wished to God, as I stood there, that I had never had to see it proved to me that way.
Up and down they walked, talking together as though nothing out of the way were happening. I saw the ship settle for her last heave. No, they didn't leave her bridge. Why not? They were true British naval officers, that's the answer. They sank with her.
By that time every alarm on our ship was sounded—five long whistles, electric bells, a regular bedlam let loose. I never heard such a noise. The life-boats swung out ready to drop. All hands were on deck except the engineers. They stand by in the engine room until a ship is struck. As soon as she is hit their job is to put out the fires and turn off the water—that is, if they aren't blown into the middle of next week first.
About eighty yards away the submarine came up and fired point blank at us. She missed us again and she submerged. That was the last wesaw of her. The destroyers were working like little flashes of lightning, picking up the men in the water, darting here and there. You've seen those dragon flies in the pools—that's what the little gray fellows were, dragon flies—here, there, everywhere. I never saw such quick work.
Along about eight we pulled into Dover. All dark, except for a few smothered lights. We anchored and went up on deck. We were pretty glad to have land so near. You felt a lot safer. The comfort didn't last long, for we heard the queerest buzz in the sky above us—a long hum.
"Zeps! By Cracky!" yelled Bill in my ear. "We're in for an air raid!"
Out of the blackness of the city before us leaped a million lights, cutting the darkness like a knife, hunting—hunting for those Zeps. Searchlights turning their yellow blaze on the sky, whisking from one point to another, relentless in their scour of the heavens.
group of men crouched around a machine-type gunThe Colt gun is an important weapon for landing parties.
Now and then they would spot one of the great black bugs that buzzed on high with that tormenting hum keep it for a second in the radius of light, losing it as suddenly, and all the while the machine guns in the city pop-popped without taking a breath.
Now and then from the sky would be hurled a black something that flamed and thundered as it struck earth. . . . Bombs!. . . Their red glare lighting up a roof—a cornice—a water front—showing groups of frenzied little black figures scurrying to shelter—then blackness once more and the pop-popping of the machine guns, spiteful, biting sound that never paused.
It lasted about half an hour. The Zeps circled Dover and went back. The guns stopped firing one by one, as though they had run down. The lights died out, save for a few on guard. Did we sleep well? We did not, in spite of the fact that we hadn't had our clothes off a single night while in the Zone.
"I bet we're going to have a swell time in London," Bill told me. "We sure have started off right!" We certainly had!
We had three days shore leave and we started out next day—sixteen of us—in our best bibs andtuckers, to see the sights. Were we glad to get ashore? Chorus—we were! We took a little train—funniest train I ever saw. Reminded me of the Jim Crow cars back home. They were divided into first, second and third class, but over there uniforms can ride wherever they choose, and we are expected to pay only half of a third-class fare.
Remember, we were one of the first shipload of American sailors to put foot in London, and as such we were one of the sights of the city. Crowds! Say! New Year's Eve around Times Square or Mardi Gras back home had nothing on the mob we drew there in Charing Cross.
They fought to see us. They elbowed and pushed and wormed their way in. The girls threw their arms around us and kissed us, and the men cheered, but that wasn't all. They wanted to wish on the eagles on our sleeve—all of them did. And they wanted souvenirs—anything for souvenirs—buttons or American loose change.
"Give us American dimes," they'd cry. "Give us American dimes," and they fought for them.I had some Confederate money with me. They snapped it up.
Two bobbies—they are the English policemen, you know—came to our rescue, and packed us into taxies, but not before the crowd surged around us exclaiming about our caps—our little white canvas hats. They had never seen any like them. They wanted those, too. I don't know what would have become of us if the police hadn't taken a hand.
Say, by that time, we were hungry and thirsty, but we didn't dare get out for fear of starting another young mob. I felt like the President on inauguration day, or the King, or someone.
"Stop at a beanery," yelled Bill to our driver, a little old man with round shoulders and a shiny coat. He cocked an eye at us.
"Beg pardon, sir?" he said.
Bill replied, "As me Allies, the French, put it, 'Jay fame.'"
Our driver wasn't a French scholar. He looked at me.
"Where is it you want to go, sir?"
"Food," I said. "In plain Anglo-Saxon, I hunger—I crave nourishment."
"Oh," he said, "I see, sir," and he dumped us out before a restaurant. We went in.
"Ham and eggs," we all shouted. Every good American sailor always orders that, but our waiter didn't care.
"You can have either ham, sir, or eggs. Not both."
And we learned something else, too. You couldn't order more than thirty cents' worth of food at one sitting. It's against the law, and, what's more, you can't treat a pal; you can't even treat a girl, which ought to please some people I know back home.
We didn't stay in that joint. We tried four others with the same result. I never wanted to spend money so badly before in my life.
What got me was the work the women are doing in London. Women bus drivers—women street cleaners—women baggage smashers—and all of them the healthiest lot of girls I've ever seen—red cheeks and clear eyes and a smile for us always.
"Will you let us wish on you?" they'd cry. Of course we let them. I only hope their wishes came true.
But, say, night in London is one great party. It gets dusk, and, if you're on to what you are in for, you make a bee-line for where you are going, before the light fades entirely—or you don't get there. We didn't know that, so we planned to go to the Hippodrome; but we waited until dark. Say, talk about pitch black! It's pale beside London at night!
Imagine Broadway with not a single light—not even a pale glimmer. Imagine it filled with thousands and thousands of people, bumping into each other—talking, laughing, whispering.
No wagons or street-cars—nothing on wheels, except an ambulance, which crawls about with weird blue lights, very dim. Just crowds and crowds, knocking your hat off, stepping on your feet, taking your arm by mistake. Men apologizing. Girls giggling. Voices coming from nowhere. Forms brushing by and vanishing.
The streets are full. I think every last personin London must turn out after dark. It is one big adventure. You never forget it. You don't know where you are or where you are going—no one seems to. When you get tired you stop someone and ask the way to a rooming house. If they know they lead you along. You feel a door. You open it and close it cautiously behind yourself. You are in a dark vestibule. You cross a black hall groping before you. Suddenly your hand touches two curtains drawn close. You part them. Beyond is light at last. You enter the living-room of the house. Someone quietly draws the curtains so no faintest glimmer will penetrate the outer darkness. Say, it was some experience!
Next day a gentleman in a big motor picked us up, five of us, and showed us the sights. He wouldn't tell us who he was, but he was a big bug all right. All the bobbies came to a crack salute as he passed by, and he took us through Parliament and to Buckingham Palace. We couldn't find out his name. All he confessed to was that he sat in the House of Lords; so I asked him about the family estate. He knew all the facts but said noneof the crowd were in London just then. I thought of looking them up, but I didn't get a chance.
That night we took in the Hippodrome. It was all right, but it made us homesick for the one on Forty-fourth Street. When we got back to the ship next day we found we were going home to the U. S. A. That was the best news I ever heard.
We came back in sixteen days. Say, do I want to go over again? Well, rather! And I'll take a longer shore leave next time. Perhaps I'll run up to Northumberland and look over the old place. After all, seventeenth isn't so far down the line, now is it?
I don'twant to say anything that sounds like boasting, but the Marine Corps is the finest branch of service in the world. No exceptions. I guess you know that marines date back to days of ancient Greece. They had them then. They were the landing party on shipboard—the fighting force. They were right there with their bows and arrows and javelins and spears, and they carried out their contract as well as the men who rowed the ship. Each one had his own particular duties. It's the same today, but somehow the nation has got into the habit of saying, "Leave it to the Marines"—and we've tried to prove that we are worthy of the trust.
In the old days there used to be a bit of feeling between the sailor and the marine. You'll find the reason for it in English history. About 1803 there was a mutiny in the British navy, and the marines helped put it down. After that they were calledthe Royal Marines, but the sailors got an idea that they were on board a ship to prevent mutiny and they did not like them any too well. But they soon found that the marine had his own field—and that he had just one motto—"There's nothing I can't do."
It's funny the way our men tackle everything, particularly as they have never been specialized like other branches. For instance, there is no bridge-building company, yet over and over again when there has been need of bridges the marines have just gone out and made them.
There's nothing you can think of that you won't find some of them can do, from getting up a dance to rounding up a bandit. I was in Santo Domingo with my company. Most of the men were recruits, pretty soft from life in the barracks. We were ordered to a nearby post on the trail of a desperado. Before us lay a march of about four or five days. A hike is all right over level country that is fairly dry, but ours lay through a series of marshes winding upward over a mountain.
We started off at a brisk pace and we didn't let up. There were patches of land which sent us through mud up to our knees—our feet were never dry day or night—but there was no kick coming about that. We were going to reach our base at the time planned—no later.
The last day was the worst. We were on a level stretch at last, but there was no shade, and the sun beat down like a ball of fire. Our wet shoes dried and cracked on our feet—and we were blistered from heel to toe. But that didn't prevent our making thirty miles that day or doing the last four miles in forty-five minutes.
We were tired to death when we reached our destination. It was ten o'clock at night. The men dropped where they halted, just about all in. We hadn't been there fifteen minutes when word came to us of the bandit we were rounding up. It seems he was in hiding in the hills about twenty miles north of us. A woman brought us the tip. He had thrown her down and she was taking her revenge in the usual way.
There was no mistaking her earnestness. Therewas just one thing to do—go out after that rebel. I sent over to the men and asked for seven volunteers. When the boys heard what was wanted, sixty per cent of the whole company offered to go. They forgot they were tired, stiff, sore—you couldn't hold them back!
I had the horses saddled and every one who could commandeer an animal mounted one. Some of them had never been on a horse's back before, but that did not stop them. They were off like a shot, the whole crowd of them—thundering up that dark road in search of the outlaw.
They caught him, too, after an all-night ride, and they brought him back with them. I tell you a good rest was coming to them after that. They certainly needed it!
The men have a great pride in our service. They show it outwardly by keeping themselves trim as a whistle. On shipboard each man is allowed a bucket of water a day for his ablutions—no more. Well, a marine makes that bucket go a long way; with it he washes himself, brushes his teeth, cleans his clothes, and scrubs the deck—anyonewho claims he can do more than that with a bucket of water will have to show me!
And a marine takes his job seriously, whatever it is—yes, indeed. In the little French towns in which they have been landed they have become the traffic cops of the place. All the duties of a gendarme have been assumed by them with neatness and despatch.
The marines decided that no bluejacket was to hold conversation with a French girl. Once that was definitely passed upon they began enforcing the law. A particularly happy young bluejacket had received a flower from the hands of a little French maiden. She had pinned it to his coat. Along came the marine while Jack Tar was trying to thank her in his very best and limited French.
"Cut it out!" growled the marine.
"You beat it!" said the bluejacket.
In reply the marine quietly but quickly plucked off the flower to emphasize his command. There was nothing else to do but to fight, and the marine managed to beat up Jack mildly. Jack went to theship's doctor to have a stitch or two taken in his ear. He was still raging, and vowed he'd get that marine as soon as he was out. The doctor stopped stitching long enough to look up over his glasses.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," he said, "that marine was very gentle with you. Next time he might do some real damage."
Yes, the sailor respects the marine as a majesty of the law. One slim, young marine is enough to make a gay and irresponsible party of bluejackets along the docks sit up and take notice.
There was a young sergeant by the name of Watson. He was a particularly efficient chap. Seats were hard to get on the train going up to Paris, and, when a party of army, navy and marine officers arrived at the little station, we found that Watson had reserved seats for all of us. On our return trip we were surprised to meet him at a station some distance from the little town that he was policing. We asked him if he, too, had been up to Paris.
"Yes, sir," he said. We asked him how it happened he was so far away from his post.
Men loading a large deck gun"Stand by!"—getting ready for Fritz.
"I went up on my own, sir," he told us calmly enough. "I got to thinking that, perhaps, the bluejackets were starting something in Paris, and I thought I'd take a run up just to see they weren't putting anything over on the marine corps."
Evidently he found everything O. K. or he would have remained to adjust it.
It was Watson who had such trouble making the French peasants clean up their huts. Now, as everyone knows, the French peasant is an individual who wishes to be left alone to tend his little patch of ground. It is his own business if he has the cow beneath the same roof that covers him, and if the chickens have the freedom of the house it is, after all, an affair between himself and his poultry, so to speak. But not in Watson's eyes. He had orders to clean up that town, and there were no exceptions. Protests were in vain. He saw that sanitary conditions for the first time prevailed, and not until the houses fairly shone, and the streets resembled Spotless Town, did he relax and express himself.
"I see their point of view, of course, sir," hetold me, "but if it happens to be the wrong point of view there's nothing to do but to right it."
The marines aren't beaten often at any sport, but when they are they take it as a tragedy. A ship's crew had been trained to shoot. They knew they could shoot, and, on landing, they challenged the marines to a contest. The marines, under a grizzled old sergeant, long in the service, were immensely proud of their skill on the range. They accepted the challenge. They were dead sure of the outcome. There wasn't a nickel within hailing distance that wasn't wagered!
The marines got on the range before the bluejackets. No advantage was taken. Well, the bluejackets beat them at slow fire. They beat them at rapid fire. They beat them on skirmish, which the marines had boasted most about. Altogether, it was an unhappy day for the marines.
Next day the commander of the ship, rising very early, saw a sight which fascinated him beyond words. On the range were the crack shots of the Marine Corps. Glowering above them stood the sergeant, his beard fairly bristling with anger,his back ram-rod straight. He had the men all out, and he was teaching them, with a thoroughness incomparable, the rudiments of rifle practice.
With stony faces the men submitted to the insult of being returned to the kindergarten of shooting. Again and again they went through the manual. It was a just punishment for permitting bluejackets to defeat them!
"Join the Marines—and see the world"—and to do that our boys pride themselves on extra quick obedience to orders, for there is no telling when an expedition will be pulled up in a hurry and sent to the other end of the globe. But whether they go or whether they stay, they accept it all calmly. The words of the little marine, who was plying his shovel one hot day, seem to sum up their contentment. He had been shoveling dirt since early morning. The sun was warm, and he paused in his task to mop his face. He looked up with a grin.
"I enlisted to see the earth," he said; "and here I am, digging it up, turning it over, and looking at it!. . ."
I'ma home-loving man. I don't ask anything better of life than my little house in the country, with the wife bustling about and the kids waiting for a game of ball or a tramp in the woods.
Yes, I'm a peace-lover, but I'm the kind of peace-lover who wouldn't quit this war a minute before the German empire is wiped off the map. I'm going to stand by until that day comes to pass—as come it will!
I'd like to tear the heart out of every German for the work they have done to the French and British and Scotch and Irish—oh, I know what I'm talking about. Yes, you do, if you stay in Havre long enough. You can get all your facts first hand.
Just wander down to the station every other evening when the big seven-thirty express thunders in with her load of returned British prisoners. Yes, you can see with your own two eyeswhat German methods are, and I tell you it makes a man, who is a man, ready to give the last drop of blood in him to stamp out a nation that treats men that way—and what's worse—women and children. . . .
I'd been in the navy five years as a bugler. You are on the bridge all the time, standing by for duty. We were assigned to one of the prettiest yachts afloat. It was originally the famous pleasure boat of a great New York multi-millionaire. She certainly was a nifty craft—about three hundred feet long, almost as big as a destroyer, and graceful as a swan in the water.
There must have been great parties aboard her in the old days, and I wonder how she felt when they knocked out her mahogany staterooms and hauled down her real lace curtains and tore up her fine saloons, for transport duty.
Nothing classy about her then—just dirt and grease and the smell of pork and beans. As for her color, she was gray, same as any little ten-cent tug. But her lines didn't change. She was like a fine lady who takes off her ball gown andputs on rags, and in spite of it you can tell she's a fine lady through and through.
We carried the first American troops to land in France. The very first. That was making history, wasn't it? It seemed right and fit that the proud little yacht should have the glory of taking the first batch of Yankees to foreign shores.
It was a rough trip, though, and we felt sorry for the boys whose sea travels had been limited to the ferryboat between Hoboken and New York. Rough weather on shipboard is no joke. You can talk about the hardships of the trenches, but how about being aboard a pitching vessel, when you can't even get a light in your galley ranges, which means no food can be cooked and a steady diet of hard tack and bully beef?
Oh, we hadn't any kick coming. It was all part of the game, but we did wish the sea would calm down a bit and the fog lift. I never saw such a fog in all my days. From the minute we left, it wrapped itself around us like a damp blanket. You could hardly see your hand before yourface. We didn't need a smoke curtain that trip—nature provided one for us, all made to order.
Our first taste of excitement was on the thirteenth day out. We were just wishing for something, when we saw, through the mist that had let up a little, a strange ship ahead of us. We signalled her to make her colors, but instead she started off as though she were trying to run away. That promised hot excitement, so we went after her. We chased her for five hours—now losing her in the fog, now sighting her again, gaining on her inch by inch. We were sure she was a blamed German merchant vessel trying to sneak back to her base, and we had the guns primed to send her straight to the place all Germans come from.
When we got within a few hundred yards of her we hauled up the battle ensign on the foremast. We meant business. The gunners stood by. Just as they expected to hear the command, "Fire when ready," up came the British Jack to her mast!
Say, but we felt foolish, chasing one of ourown allies all over the broad Atlantic. We asked her why the deuce she hadn't made her colors before, and she signalled back that she was under the impression we were an enemy raider.
We calmed down after that and made port without pursuing the rest of the British navy to cover.
The base we established was the first naval base in France. We kind of like to think that some day, when our grandchildren cross the Atlantic on a pleasure trip—it having been made safe by us from those German vipers—they'll hunt out the little harbor, tucked away in a corner, where their grandfathers landed that June day, and went ashore with the first handful of American soldiers to set foot in France. They were there for just one purpose—to show what red, white and blue blood could do toward making the world a safe place to live in.
No fogs in France—just yellow sunshine and soft air and eager crowds waiting for us with open arms. Flags everywhere. It certainly madeyou catch your breath to see your own star-spangled banner flying from the windows of the little French town.
We went ashore pretty flush. Some of us had as much as a couple of hundred dollars, I suppose. We made our way to the railroad station. We wanted to get up to the "gay Paree" we'd been hearing about all our lives. We couldn't believe we were within hailing distance of it. It had always been a bright red spot on the map that we hoped to visit some day—and here we were just a few hours away from the liveliest city of Europe.
We made for the railroad station double quick. It was there I had my first real taste of French big-heartedness. In the crowd I noticed a beautifully dressed woman. She had all the French zip about her, but when she saw us she began to cry, and she just let the tears roll down her cheeks as though she didn't know she was doing it.
She stepped forward as we were passing, and the crowd let her through. They seemed to knowwho she was, for they whispered together and pointed her out. She hurried toward us and began to talk in broken English.
"You must be careful," she begged us. "All this money you have—it may tempt some of these poor people. Put it away, I implore you. Use only as much as you need. . . ."
Then she caught my hands. "Oh, how glad I am that you have come at last! How I bless you and your country!"
She bought our tickets to Paris for us and saw us safely on the train, putting us wise to the ropes. Nothing was too much trouble for her to do for us. I tell you we never forgot it. Even after the train pulled out of the station we could see her standing a little apart from the rest, waving her lace handkerchief to us until we rounded a curve and lost her from sight.
Now that we were started on our journey we felt great and I began to tune up. I can sing a little, my mates say, so I let out a few songs that made us think of home. While I was giving them "'Way Down upon the Suwanee River" the doorof the compartment opened and a big chap in a British uniform stood there grinning.
"Don't stop, boys," he said. "It sounds bully!"
It was Paul Rainey, the great hunter. Say, we certainly were glad to meet him, not only because he spoke our language, but because we knew from hearsay that he wasn't afraid of man or beast, and that's the kind of a fellow you like to know. He stayed with us the rest of the journey, and as he was to be in Paris a day on his way to Belgium, he took us with him to the American Ambulance Quarters, where he was stationed.
We arrived there in the evening. Next day he had to go on, so we found ourselves wandering around the Place de la Concorde and the Place Vendôme and the Champs Elysées without compass or rudder.
It was a pretty city, but all of a sudden I felt awfully blue. Everywhere you turned somebody hollered something at you in a language you couldn't make head or tail of—even the hack drivers and little kids in the street talked French.
I took a room at the Continental, and say, they almost robbed the shirt off me. Next morning I was wishing so hard for home you could almost hear me coming down the street. I found the American Express office and lingered there listening to people speaking English. I wondered where the gay part of "Paree" came in. It looked busy and prosperous and warlike to me—but gay? Nothing doing.
Just then someone spoke in my mother tongue and I whirled to see a French army officer at my elbow.
"If you have not already seen the sights of Paris, it will give me great pleasure to show them to you," he said.
I hadn't, so he proceeded to do the honors, and, like everything the French do—be it big or small—he made a thorough job of it. He was my host for two days and a half, and I'll guarantee I saw every little thing in Paris from the Apaches up. I wouldn't have missed that sight-seeing trip for all the gold in Europe. That's the French for you. Their hearts and their homes were openedwide to us. I bet there isn't a Yank living who wouldn't fight to the last breath for them.
Next I fell in with two French privates on furlough. They took me home with them and to show my gratitude I sang our songs for them and taught them some real live United States slang. They were good pupils, too, and were proud as peacocks of startling a crowd by calling out, "Wash you step!"
It was from them that I bought my best little souvenir—a German officer's helmet one of the Frenchies had picked up after shooting his man. It was a peach of a helmet, slashed across the patent leather crown, and still stained with blood. Inside was stamped the officer's name and regiment. He was of the Death Head Huzzars—the Kaiser's own.
I asked Frenchie if he didn't want to keep it, but he shrugged. He could get plenty more, I made out he meant. He was going back to the front soon; they'd be picking helmets off the trees once the French got really started. So I bought it from him for forty francs.