I have already written of the mixed feelings of curiosity and interest with which the British bluejackets awaited their first intimate meeting with the Yanks. It was no whit different on the part of the latter. With the Northern Base swept by its more or less unending succession of winter storms, there was not much chance for personal contact in the first few months after the Americans came over, and before better weather and lengthening spring days gaveopportunity for inter-fleet visits and foregatherings ashore the men of both Navies had had a good many chances to see each other handling their ships. From that alone a deep mutual respect was born, and it was on that solid foundation that the present astonishingly friendly relations between the men of the two allied Navies is based. The British, with four years of war experience behind them, were doing things with their ships, quite in the ordinary course of the day's work, that the Americans had never reckoned on attempting save in emergency. The shooting and the general efficiency of the British ships under the arduous North Sea winter conditions deepened and broadened the respect and admiration of the Americans the more they saw of it, and the more they discovered the extent to which they would have to exert and outdo themselves to equal it. The feeling of the American bluejacket on this score was concisely but comprehensively expressed by an old Yankee man-of-war's-man—one of the few real veterans I have encountered on this side—with whom I had a yarn not long after the arrival of U.S.S.New York.
Coming in from a "big-gun-shoot," the American squadron had sighted a squadron of British battle cruisers carrying out a series of intricate manœuvres with destroyers at a speed which would have been reckoned as suicidal as late as a year or two ago, and which there is little doubt would not be attempted outside of the Grand Fleet even to-day. The sun-pickled phizof the old sea-dog crinkled with a grin of sheer delight and wonder as the lean cruisers, each a mass of turrets, funnels, and tripod mast between tossing bow-wave and foaming wake, dashed in and out of the spreading smoke-screens with a unity of movement that might have been animated by the pull of a single string. Then, when to cap the climax the speeding warships opened up with their heavies and began to straddle a target that was teetering along on the edge of the skyline ten or twelve miles away, he gave his broad thigh a resounding slap and turned to me with:
"By cripes, things do move, believe me! I was on theOregonwhen we chased old Cervera's ships up the Cuba coast in the Spanish war, and we were nigh to busting our boilers doing half the speed of them battle cruisers. And as for keeping station—it was just a case of devil take the hindmost. But these Johnnies here would go straight through a scrap just as they're playing that little game over there. By cracky, I takes off my hat to them. They're sure on the job, and you just bet that's good enough for us."
I think if I was asked to sum up very briefly just what the American bluejacket thinks of the ships of the Grand Fleet and the men who man them, I would simply quote those final words—"They're sure on the job, and you just bet that's good enough for us."
With this foundation of respect and admiration to stand on once established, there was little to worry about on the score of personal relations.Both of them were as bashful as children on the occasions of their first tentative inter-ship visits, but this quickly wore off when they found that they both spoke the same language, and it was not very far from that to the "pal-ling" stage. Then they began to box and play occasional games of "soccer" together, and, where either could not play the other's sport, to give attention to baseball or "rugger," as the case might be, with the idea of trying to find out for themselves what there really was in the other man's game. This is still going on, and British sailors with baseball bats and gloves, or Yankee tars with cricket bats and shin pads, are becoming commoner and commoner sights at the recreation grounds in the vicinity of the northern bases.
I have already told how the feeling of the British bluejacket for the Yankee "gob"—as the latter appears to like to be called—changed from one of aloof curiosity, through a mild sort of "liking," to active affection; and to describe how the Americans' feelings have run the same gamut would be merely to tell the story in reverse. But I cannot refrain from setting down the personal tribute of one "gob" in particular to British bluejackets in general, for, in its way, it is quite as typical as the words I have quoted respecting the old Yankee gunner's estimate of the Grand Fleet.
The "gob" in question had been born on or very near the Bowery, but seven years in the Navy had obliterated all traces but the accent.He was a stoker, and as the champion "light-heavy" of the American squadron was being put on in an occasional special bout in the course of the British squadron eliminations. In spite of the fact that the British box only three rounds, where the American Navy had been boxing six, and a number of other variations in rules, he had done extremely well, having lost but a single bout, and that by being slightly out-pointed. He was still nursing a black eye from this latter contest—in which his sportsmanlike conduct no less than his cleverness had won the admiration of every one present—when I asked him if he had been satisfied with the decision. "Poifickly," was the instant reply. "He had too much steam for me from the first gong; but I'll do better when I've woiked out a lil' longer to go the three 'stead o' the six round course. Wot do I tink o' the British as sports? Say, they's the best ever. They's more than just gent'men. They's reg'lar fellers, take it from me, and wot more can you ask than that?"
If the Yankee sailor has any superlative beyond "regular feller" to apply to a mate who has met with his approval, I have yet to learn what it is.
The men of the American destroyers and submarines, working more by themselves than the battleships with the Grand Fleet, have seen rather less of the British bluejacket, and—with better opportunities for London leave—more of the British civilians than their mates in the latter units. They have all found much to entertainand interest them in Liverpool, London, Glasgow and the other large cities they have visited. They have enjoyed the theatres and art galleries, and are very appreciative of the various canteens that have been provided for their comfort. But it has been none of these that has made the greatest appeal to them, but rather those at first rare but now increasingly frequent visits to an English or a Scottish home. I don't mean the boat-on-the-river-with-band and the tea-party-on-the-lawn-of-some-ancestral-castle kind of thing, which are all very well as far as they go; but rather the quiet, unostentatious hospitality of a British home of somewhere near the same class as the visitor comes from in the States. This kind of kindness has gone straight to the heart. The Yankee sailor lad is a good deal more of a "mother's boy" than he will ever admit to any one save possibly some other boy's mother, and I have heard two or three pretty swaggery young "gobs" speak with rather more than a suggestion of a catch in their voices of the kindness that has been shown them—of the things they have seen and heard and learned—in one of these visits to a British home.
One day a quartermaster—his folding bed was triced up next to mine in the forward torpedo-flat, and we had fallen into the habit of exchanging confidences in the long quiet hours of submergence—of the American submarine in which I was recently out on its regular North Atlantic patrol told me how much the visit he had been privileged to make to a little Englishhome in Liverpool had meant to him. And presently, after a pause, as though the thought of one had awakened the thought of the other in his mind, he told me of something else he had seen on one of his leave trips.
"I happened to be in Cork for a few hours on my way through," he said. "We are not allowed to visit there, you know, for fear that we may be tempted to beat up a few Sinn Feiners; but if we are marooned there waiting for a connexion there is nothing against our strolling about the town. Well, just at one end of the main bridge across the River Lee, they have the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack floating side by side from the top of one of the iron poles of the electric car line. I don't know whose idea it was, except that the Sinn Feiners had nothing to do with it. Now the ordinary way to have handled them would have been to bend each flag to separate halyards, and to hoist and lower independently. But some man with a head on his shoulders (possibly he had been a sailor) evidently had the run of the show, and what had been done was this: Taking two crosspieces, he had bent the flags to the two lines joining their ends. Then a single halyard, rigged to run over a block to the upper crosspiece, hoisted and lowered the two flags, always side by side, at one operation. Well, now, looking at that, it chanced that I seemed to see something more than a very neat little contrivance for saving time in handling a couple of squares of coloured bunting. It seemed to me that itstood for a sort of symbol of the fact that the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack are being rigged to fly together for a good many years; and that they aren't going to be able to lower one without bringing down the other."
I do not know how many of the men of the American ships at the Irish bases have seen that particular little "bunting hoist," but I do know that the sentiment my young submarine friend read into it finds an echo in the breast of practically every one of them.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.
Transcriber's notes:The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.for'rard, wait till there was an interval in bothfor'ard, wait till there was an interval in bothputtin' that blinkin' pyrit down to DavyJones."'puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to DavyJones."'"than they had been right along up tothem. Wethan they had been right along up tothen. WeEmdenorKonigsberg. Just which it was weEmdenorKönigsberg. Just which it was wea shell-hole in thefo'c'sl'edeck, through whicha shell-hole in thefo'c'sledeck, through whichwith theKonigsbergturning up at any moment,with theKönigsbergturning up at any moment,had charge of in theEmdenshowVon Müller inhad charge of in theEmdenshowsVon Müller in"It's fair," he admittedgrudingly, "only fair."It's fair," he admittedgrudgingly, "only fair.contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--abroad.contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--aboard.became at once his own naturalselfThe sailorlybecame at once his own naturalself.The sailorly"Ihad been asked aboard theXerxesfor anIhad been asked aboard theXerxesfor andestoyers, submarines, ranged class by class anddestroyers, submarines, ranged class by class andbunksof the battleship, while perhaps a shadebunkersof the battleship, while perhaps a shade
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
for'rard, wait till there was an interval in bothfor'ard, wait till there was an interval in both
puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to DavyJones."'puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to DavyJones."'"
than they had been right along up tothem. Wethan they had been right along up tothen. We
EmdenorKonigsberg. Just which it was weEmdenorKönigsberg. Just which it was we
a shell-hole in thefo'c'sl'edeck, through whicha shell-hole in thefo'c'sledeck, through which
with theKonigsbergturning up at any moment,with theKönigsbergturning up at any moment,
had charge of in theEmdenshowVon Müller inhad charge of in theEmdenshowsVon Müller in
"It's fair," he admittedgrudingly, "only fair."It's fair," he admittedgrudgingly, "only fair.
contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--abroad.contracted ashore and carried--and often spread--aboard.
became at once his own naturalselfThe sailorlybecame at once his own naturalself.The sailorly
"Ihad been asked aboard theXerxesfor anIhad been asked aboard theXerxesfor an
destoyers, submarines, ranged class by class anddestroyers, submarines, ranged class by class and
bunksof the battleship, while perhaps a shadebunkersof the battleship, while perhaps a shade