Most shore-going people, after a look at a fleet of our destroyers, would not mark them high up for safe ships. They are too long and slim and floppety-like.
But no one can tell their officers and crews anything like that. They have tried them out and know. You take a destroyer in a ninety-mile breeze of wind, put her stern to it, give her five or six knots' headway, and there she'll lay till the North Atlantic blows dry.
And that is not their only quality. Speed, of course; but not that either. They have a way of staying up after being cut up. There was that one which was of the first to cross over for the U-boat hunting game. One dark night she was struck amidships by a 2,000-ton British sloop-of-war. In crowded quarters and steaming without lights those little collisions are bound to occur.
This one was hit amidships—bam!—and amidships is a bad place for a destroyer to behit—her big engine and boiler-room compartment lie amidships.
This one of ours was hit so hard that nobody aboard ever thought she would stay up. She did go down till her deck was flush with the water's edge, but there she stayed; and her crew, climbing back aboard, took a hawser from the sloop-of-war, which towed her back to port. She was a fine heartening sight coming in. If she could come back, why worry about minor mishaps?
One of them—the 343 say—had performed her duty, which was to see a small convoy to a point well on toward a large port, and was returning to the naval base.
She was in no great rush, and, it happening to be smooth water, which is a rare thing up this way at this time of the year, she stopped for a little needed gun practice.
There was no more thought than usual of U-boats. Nobody would have been surprised if one popped up—it was a coast where they had been regularly operating—but no one was particularly expecting one.
Destroyers are bad medicine if you do not get to them quickly, and lately the U-boatsseemed to care more to get merchant ships; but this day the lookouts were not loafing on their job on that account.
The 343 got through with her target practice, and, except for a few gunners' mates still coddling their pet guns, the crew were taking it easy around deck; and also, because of the smooth sea, the ship was making easy weather of it toward port.
Seeing a periscope is oftentimes a matter of luck. When they stay up it is easy enough, but when they are porpoising, shooting it up for just a look around, you have to be looking right at one. What they first saw on the 343 was the wake of this torpedo, coming on at a forty-knot clip for the waist of the ship.
The commander of the 343 was on the bridge at the time and saw the wake almost with the cry of the lookout. The wake was then pretty handy to the ship, and the torpedo itself would be fifty feet or so ahead of the wake.
There was no getting away from it then. The only hope was to take it somewhere else than amidships. Engine and boiler compartments were amidships. If it struck her there they might as well call it taps for all hands.So the commander put the wheel hard over—to take it on his quarter, where there was also a chance that it would pass under her.
Torpedoes generally strike twelve to fifteen feet under water, but just before this one could make the 343 it broached—came to the surface of the water—but without slacking her forty-knot speed. It was unusual and spectacular. The sun shone on the polished sides of her as she leaped from the sea.
She struck the 343 above her water-line and pretty well aft. Those on her deck who saw her make that last leap out of water hoped for the best, though waiting for the worst. But the resulting explosion was nothing tremendous—so officers and men say, and so adding a little more data to U-boat history. The bark of one of their own little 4-inch guns was more impressive. There was a flame and an up-shooting cloud of black smoke, followed instantly by another explosion, that of their own depth charges, of which there were two of 300 pounds each in the stern. Those who had any thoughts about it at the time were sure that if the torpedo did not get them the depth charges would.
When they went to look they found that thirty-odd feet of the after end of their ship had been blown clean off. The torpedo had hit them on the port side, and the wreckage was hanging from the starboard quarter. Of the after gun only the base was left; they never did see any of the rest of it. The gunner's mate, one of those men who love to keep a gun in shape, was swabbing it out at the time, and they never saw anything of him again.
The chief petty officers' quarters were farthest aft on the 343. The after bulkhead to their compartment was blown in, leaving the inside of the ship open to sea and sun. Fourteen men were in there at the time, lounging around or in their bunks. Many of them were bruised and all were shook up, but they all made the deck. They do not know how they made it, but they did. The after hatchway to the deck was closed with tumbling wreckage, so they must have gone up the midship hatch.
One man taking a nap in the cot bunk farthest aft had a part of the bulkhead blown past him. It cut off a corner of his cot and broke one of his legs, and blew him into the passageway in passing. Landing in the passagewayhe sprained his other ankle. He is not quite sure how he made the deck without help, but he did make it, and he says he beat some of them to it at that.
The man who was working on the after gun with the gunner's mate who was blown up, saw the shining torpedo leaping in the sun and heading straight for his part of the ship. If he did not do something he knew he was in for it, so he began to take long high leaps forward. The explosion came while he was in the air on his third long high jump. All he remembers happening to him after that was of an ocean of water flowing over him, and he not minding it at all. When he came to, the doctor was looking him over for broken bones, but did not find any. After the doctor left him he sat up and said: "I bet I've been as near to a torpedo exploding and getting away with it as anybody in the world, hah?" And "Yes," said one of his shipmates, "and I bet you made a world's record for three long high jumps, without a run, too. You sure did travel, boy."
When it was all over the two propeller shafts were still sticking out astern, one naked and shining in the sun; the other also shining andnaked, but with a propeller still in place on it. Spotting that, the skipper ordered the engines turned. To their delight the shaft revolved, the ship began to move. No record-breaking pace, but—God love the builder of a good little ship—she was making revolutions. The wreckage hanging from her starboard quarter acted as a rudder, and so, instead of going straight ahead, she began to go round in circles.
She continued to make circles, and her officers and men stood to stations and waited for what next would happen. Destroyer people have it that there are grades of U-boat commanders—some of nerve, some only ordinary. The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack a destroyer is a good one. He will bear watching; so what they expected was to see this U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did come up and at the right place to get another torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. So they waited, some thinking one thing, and some another, but all agreeing that the odds were against them.
The U-boat did show again. They saw her conning-tower slipping through the water at about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343was ready in so far as he could be ready with his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun stations, and that conning-tower had hardly got above the surface when two of the 343's guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, the fourth one pretty handy. But no more. She submerged to the discouragement of one earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the breech of his little 4-inch to say: "One more and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me next month's pay that I get her if she shows for two shots again."
She did not show again, but her not showing did not end the 343's troubles. They could steam in circles, but it was not getting them anywhere. A few miles away was one of the roughest shores in the world, the kind where green seas piled up against rocky cliffs—and a tide that was already setting them toward it. A bad enough place in any kind of weather, but with wind and sea making, and this time of year!
It was about two in the afternoon they were torpedoed. By dark they were being driven by the tide and white-capped seas to the shore. They had one hope left. Their radiooperator had managed to keep the radio gear in commission, and through all their troubles he had been sending out S O S calls, though not with too great hope that anybody would come in time. The U-boats had been pretty active thereabout, and it was not on any main sea route. There was always the chance, of course, that some war-ships would be somewhere near.
For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, six hours they drifted. Their wireless kept going out of commission, and their radio operator kept patching it up and getting it going again. S O S—he never let up with that call. It was midnight when a British mine-sweeper bore down and hailed. By then they could hear the high seas breaking on the rocks abeam. The Britisher got the word across the wind, and tried to pass a messenger—a light line, that is—across to the 343. They did not make it. They tried again and again, but no use. The 343 was then within a few hundred yards of the breakers.
The skipper of the Britisher then hailed that he would try to get a boat to them. They could hear him calling for volunteers to man the boat. He got the volunteers, and withoutbeing able to see every detail of it in the dark, the 343's people knew what was happening. They were making a lee of the trawler so as to get the boat over. But the boat was swashing in and out against the side of the ship—up on a sea and then bang! in against the side of the ship. Merely as a sporting proposition, their own lives not depending on it, the 343's people would have been praying for that boat to get safely away.
The boat managed at last to get away from the side of the mine-sweeper, and in time, pitching down on the rollers, they made out to heave a line aboard the 343. And on the deck of the 343 they were right there to grab it and bend it on to a hawser. Fine. Off went the mine-sweeper after she had taken her boat aboard, tugging heartily. She tugged too heartily for the length and size of the hawser. It parted.
They did it all over again—the lowering the boat in the rough sea, the passing the line, the bending on of the bigger line, the attempt to tow. And again it parted. Wouldn't that test men's faith in their good luck? The 343 thought so. Once more tried it, and once moreit parted, but this time not parting until they were far enough off the beach to be safe till daylight.
At daylight a British sloop-of-war came along with a real big hawser and gave them a real tow to our naval base. A group of us were steaming out with a fleet of merchantmen to sea as she was being towed in. Our fellows would have liked to turn out to give her a little cheer, also to inquire into the details of her mishap, but we had to keep on going, and wait until our return to port after a cruise to have a look at her.
She was in dry dock when we got back to port, and the most smashed-up-looking object that any of us had ever seen come in from sea. The wonder was how she ever stayed up long enough to make port. That gaping after end open to sea and sky, and the bare propeller shaft sticking out from the insides of her—she sure did look like she needed nursing! They agreed that they were a lucky bunch to get her home.
One poor fellow was killed—a wonder there were not more—and all hands were sorry for him; but tragedy and comedy so often bunktogether, and men who adventure are more apt to dwell on the humorous than the tragic side of things. There was that about the code-books. The instructions to all ships are to get rid of the code-books if there is ever any likelihood of the enemy capturing the ship. The code-books are bound in thick lead covers. They are kept in a steel box, and altogether they weigh—I do not know, I never lifted them—but some say they weigh 150, some say 200 pounds. After the 343 was torpedoed, an ensign grabbed up the code-book chest, tossed it onto his shoulder, and waltzed out of the ward-room passage and onto deck with it. You would think it was a feather pillow he was dancing off with. When the danger of capture was over our young ensign hooked his fingers into the chest handles to waltz back with it. But nothing doing. It took two of them to carry it back, and they did not trip lightly down any passageway with it either, proving once again that there are times when a man is stronger than at other times.
After the 343 made port the injured were handed over to the sick bay of the flag-ship. There were two of them who must have beenpretty handy to the storm centre of the explosion. At least, it took two young surgeons on the flag-ship all of one day to pick the gun-cotton out of their backs.
There was another man. The doctors, when they came to look him over, found the print of a perfect circle on the fleshiest part of his anatomy. It was so deeply pressed in that the blue and yellow flesh bulged out all around from it. The doctors said it must have been made by a wash-basin being blown against him as he ran up the ladder to the deck. But the man himself knew better than that. "Excuse me, doctor," he said, "but it was nothing so light and soft as a wash-basin hit me. It was something more solid and bigger than that. It was the water-cooler, and I didn't run up any ladder—I was blown up."
The destroyer people have great faith in the durability of their little ships. They are slim-built, and not much thicker in the plates than seven pages of the Sunday paper—they know that, but maybe that is their safety. There is no getting a fair wallop at them. They evade the issue. One man compared them to a hot-water bottle. Try to swat a loaded hot-waterbottle. And what happens? "When you poke it in one place don't it bulge out in another to make up for it? Sure it does. And how do you account for that other one we were talking about? A couple o' years ago—the one that had her stern cut off so that the men in the after compartment leaned out where the bulkhead had been, but wasn't then, and chinned themselves up to the deck from the outside? And how do you account for her bouncing along at twenty knots or more in a gale of wind and a rough sea, and nothing happening them? Get shook up—yes. But they come home, don't they? They sure do. Maybe it's luck, but also maybe it's the way they're thrown together—loose and limber-like."
Whatever it is, they are dashing in and out over there on their job of convoying merchant ships and hunting U-boats. They expect to get their bumps, and they do; but so long as they get an even break they are not kicking. The chart-house gang on the 343 say that they are satisfied they get an even break all right. If she did not fill her little three-straight that time then nobody ever did get any cards in the draw.
They were sticking a new stern onto the 343 when I left the naval base. When they get it well glued on she is going out again. Maybe that same U-boat—you can't always tell, some people have luck—maybe that same U-boat will come drifting her way again. And if they see her first—pass the word for the gun crews!
I have spoken earlier of meeting cargo boats—tramp steamers, we call them at home—while crossing the Atlantic. In peace times a fellow would naturally expect to see them here, or almost anywhere else on the wide ocean; but to see them in these war days was to set a man wondering about them.
Wondering, because more than 90 per cent of U-boat sinkings are of ships of less than 12 knots' speed; which means that these rusty old junk heaps, wheezing along at maybe 9 or 10, but more likely at 7 or 8 knots, furnish most of the sinkings. They surely must be having great old times getting by the U-boats, and their captains and crews must surely have a view-point of their own!
At this naval base of which I have been writing, you could look almost any day and see 5, 10, or 20 of these cargo boats to moorings. And ashore was a pub—there were other pubs, plenty of them—but to this one particular pubcame bunches of these cargo captains to forget things. (Without wishing to offend any prohibition advocate, I have to report that knocking around the world a man cannot help noticing that men who face peril regularly do sometimes take a drink to ease off things.)
A barmaid, answering to the name of Phyllis, presided over this pub, a blond, square-built, capable person, who had always about three or four of these captains standing on their heads. She was not without sentiment, but never letting sentiment interfere with business.
"Phyllis, my dear," a skipper would begin, and get about that far when she—her right hand reaching for the bottle of Scotch and her left for the soda—would be saying: "The same, captain?"—thereby choking off a great rush of words, and forwarding the business for which she drew one pound ten a week.
Before a creature of that kind these cargo captains were bound to preen themselves. They bought at frequent intervals, not at all like the ways of another group—not cargo captains—of whom one of our American warrant officers said: "You buy and buy and buy, and they drink and drink and drink. It comes timefor them to buy, and when it does they submerge, and don't come up for air."
These cargo skippers were always coming up for air. They would hunt a man three stories up in his room, wake him out of his sleep, and haul him down-stairs to have just one more. Between drinks, after they got to know a man pretty well, they would talk of their sea experiences; and, after the fashion of all true adventurers, their talk was almost always of the humorous side of things.
There was a skipper there one morning who bid all hands, especially Phyllis, good-by. He was off to Alexandria. He would not be back for three months—more likely five or six months. Phyllis pinned a flower in his coat and off he went. From the pub window they saw him board his ship, and an hour later saw her steam out of the harbor and to sea.
That was at ten in the morning. At five in the afternoon—the lights were just being turned on—those in the pub who happened to be looking out of the window thought they saw this captain's ghost coming up the waterside with his crew trailing behind him. The crew looked as if they had dressed in a hurry and werescampering along to keep warm. But our skipper was wearing all he wore when he left the pub.
He drew nearer. It was no ghost. It was himself, even to the rose in his coat. He hailed Phyllis. She was talking to another skipper. The other skipper turned to see who was butting in, and seeing who it was, said: "To Egypt and back in seven hours—the quickest voyage ever I 'eard of!" Which comment so depressed the voyager that he refused to say anything about what had happened, except that five miles outside of the harbor he had been torpedoed, and they had to take to the boats in a hurry.
The foregoing is by way of introducing the captain who commented on the quick voyage. A few mornings later I was up at the Admiralty House when he came into the waiting-room, let himself carefully down into a mahogany chair, dropped his new soft gray hat into his lap, and looked around.
"A solemn place, ain't it? Would they 'ang a chap, d'y' think, if he was to 'ave a bit of a smoke for 'imself while waitin'?"
I said that I thought the fashion nowadayswas to take a man out and stand him up against the wall and shoot him.
He was tall, heavily built, fresh-colored, with a way of seeming to reflect deeply before he replied to anything. By and by he said: "Oh, aye!" and lit his cigarette, but had not taken the second puff when the doorkeeper's feet sounded outside, at which sound he pinched the cigarette hurriedly by the neck, and looked around for somewhere to dump it. There was no ash-tray, and the table being bare mahogany, the floor all polished wood, the fireplace with no fire in it, so brassy and shiny that to put anything there would be treason—he dropped the cigarette into his hat.
The doorkeeper smelled something, but he wasn't one who looked on lowly things when he walked, and so did not see the little spiral of smoke curling up from the hat.
My seafarer was in a great stew. To sit there and watch him was to warm up to him. There he was, a man who regularly faced death by more ways than one at sea, but now in deep fear that this shore-going flunky would catch him smoking a surreptitious cigarette. He stared determinedly at every place exceptat his hat until the doorkeeper had passed on.
When he looked at his hat the cigarette had burned a hole in it. He viewed the hat sadly. "No gainsayin' it, war is 'ell, ain't it? I paid fourteen bob for that 'at three days back in Cardiff."
I went out to help him buy a new hat. Hat stores were scarce, but life does not end with hat stores; there were fleets of little places where a man could sit down and talk about more important things than hats.
In the hotel smoke-room after lunch there was no sugar for our coffee. His sea-training began to show at once. "The thing you 'ave to learn to do at sea is to go on your own. Nobody doing much for a chap that 'e don't do for hisself, is there?" From his coat pocket he drew an envelope which once held a letter from home—in place of the letter now was sugar. "Preparedness—'ere it is"—and sweetened our coffee from the envelope.
He spoke of his life at sea. "I can't say that I like it—I can't say I don't like it—but it was my life before the war and it 'as to be since. You've seen my ship, 'aven't you, lying tomoorings? Nothing great to look at, is she? but the managing director of our company—he has the 'andling of maybe a 'undred more like her—'Let 'em 'ave their grand passenger ships,' 'e says, 'but give me my cargo boats that pays for theirselves every two voyages.' The right idea 'e 'ad, I'll say for 'im. And for my part of it there is no everlastin' polishin' o' brahss and painting o' white work and no buying o' gold-laced uniforms at your own cost. And there's the bonus for me. Oh, aye! A bit of bonus ain't a bit of 'arm, you know, especially when you've a wife that's no eyesore to look at, and little kiddies growin' up.
"Torpedoed? Oh, aye. It's not to be expected of a man to escape that these days. My chum Bob, remember 'im—that was seven hours to Alexandria and back—with a rose in his coat? His fourth time torpedoed, that was. I've been blowed up only three times myself. Nothing much of anything special, the last time and the time before that—a matter of getting into boats and by and by being picked up—no more than that—no. But the first time—maybe it was a novelty-like then. 'Owever, I'd carried a load of coal to Naples andgetting twenty-two pounds a ton for coal that cost two pound ten in Cardiff maybe makes it a bit clearer what the managing director 'ad in mind when 'e said: 'let 'em have their grand passenger ships, but give me my little cargo boats.'
"From Naples I go on to Piræus in Greece, and we take a load on there—admiralty stuff, and not to be spoken of—and we put out for 'ome. She was a good old single-crew, this one o' mine. Twenty-five year old—not the worst, though I'd seen better. Well warmed up she could squeeze out eight knots, or maybe eight and a 'alf. I 'ung close to the land along that Greek shore, for if anything should 'appen ther's no sense 'aving too long a row to the beach in boats.
"Very good. We're rollin' along one morning when the radio man came in with a message which read: 'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. U-BOATS.'
"And without ado we puts into a little place down at the 'eel of Italy, and that night I 'ad a 'ot barth an' a lovely long sleep in my brahss bed which the missus 'ad given me for Christmas the last time 'ome. And a great pleasure it was, I say.
"Next mornin' we put to sea again, and next day after comes another radio, and it says: 'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. U-BOATS.' And we put into Malta, and that night again I 'ad another 'ot barth and a fine sleep in my brahss bed.
"We resume our voyage from Malta, and a two days later I gets another radio—more U-boats—and I puts into Algiers. Three times in one week that made with me 'aving me 'ot barth and a fine sleep in me brahss bed—grand good luck, I say now, and said it then to the mate, adding to it: 'There's a signal station west of Gibraltar—wouldn't it be delightful passing that signal station to get the word to put back to Gib and stop there for another night and I 'ave another 'ot barth and a lovely sleep in my four-poster bed.' But the mate 'e only says 'e didn't have no brahss bed aboard ship to sleep in, and he saved his 'ot barths, he did,'til he got 'ome to enjoy 'em proper.
"Summer-time it was, and I likes to take my little siesta after lunch—just like the Dons theirselves, y' know—and I'm 'aving me siesta next day after lunch when something woke me up. There's a shelf of books on the wall o'my room—chart-books and the like—and when all at once I see them pilin' down on top of me I say to myself: 'Somethin's 'appened.' And so it 'ad. The mate 'e sticks 'is 'ead in the door and says: 'We're torpedoed, sir.'
"'There goes my bonus,' I says, and goes on deck.
"We carried a 3-inch gun in a little 'ouse aft, and there was the mate firing at the U-boat, which was out of water and maybe two miles away. It was one of those out-of-date guns the navy would have no more to do with, and so they passes it on to us. New good guns would probably be wasted on us, and maybe that's true. None of us aboard ever fired a shot from the gory weapon till this day. The mate fired two shots at the U-boat, but 'e don't 'it anything. The U-boat fires two shots at us and she 'its something. One of 'em pahsses through the chart house, and the other tears a nice little 'ole in 'er for'ard.
"That'll do for that gun practice,' I says.
"'Aren't you goin' to 'ave a go at 'em?' says the mate.
"'You can 'ave all the go at 'em you please,' I says, 'after we leave the ship. Besides youthere's 19 men and 4 Eurasians in this crew, and some of 'em will maybe like to see 'ome again—I know I do!'
"We get into the boats, myself takin' along what was left of a second case of Scotch, and good old pre-war Scotch it was, not the gory infant's food they serve these days that a man 'as to take a tumblerful of to know 'e's 'aving a drink at all. I also took along three sofy cushions, hand-worked by the missus, with pink doves and cupids and the like—rare lookin' they was. 'A man might's well be comfortable,' I says.
"I 'ad a cook. 'If comfort's the word,' says the cook, 'I might's well take along the wife's canary,' and 'e takes it along in a cage in one 'and, and a bag of clothes in the other. 'E's in the boat when 'e thinks to go back for a package of seed 'e'd left for the canary on the shelf in the galley. 'Hurry up with your bird-seed,' I says, and as I do a shell comes along and explodes inside of 'er old frame somewheres, and the cook says maybe 'e'll be gettin' along without the seed—the canary not being what you'd call a 'eavy eater, anyway.
"The mate 'ad a cameraw, and when we'reclear of the ship he would stand up and set the cameraw on the shoulders of a Eurasian fireman, and take shots of the ship between shells.
"In good time one last shell 'its 'er, and down she goes. The U-boat moves off, and we see no more of 'er.
"It's a fine day and a lovely pink sunset, and there's a beautiful mild sirocco blowing off the African shore to make the 'ot night pleasant as we approach it in the boats. A man could 'ardly arsk to be torpedoed under more pleasant conditions, I say, and we continue to row toward the shore in 'igh 'opes. It's maybe two in the mornin' when we see the side-lights of a ship. She's bound east—a steamer—and we know she's a Britisher, because we're the only chaps carried lights in war zones at that time. Carryin' lights at night o' course made us grand marks for the U-boats, but there was no 'elp for it. A board o' trade regulation, that was, and no gettin' away from what the board o' trade says. We had our choice of carryin' lights and losin' our ships, or not carryin' lights and losin' our jobs. So we lost our ships. After a year and a 'alf of war some bright chap in the board said that maybe it would be a goodidea to change the regulation about carrying lights, and they did. And about time, we said.
"Some of the crew were for 'ailing the ship in the night. ''Ail 'ell!' I says. 'D'y' think I want to be took into that rotten 'ole of a Port Said, or maybe Alexandria, and that end of the Mediterranean fair lousy with U-boats. Besides, we'll get 'ome quicker this way,' I says, and allows her to pass on. In the mornin' we run onto the beach, and 'ardly there when a crowd of Ayrabs come gallopin' down on 'orseback to us. 'We'll be killed now,' says the mate, and talks under his breath of stubborn captains, who wouldn't 'ail a friendly ship's light in the dark, but the only killing the Ayrabs do is two young goats for breakfast. And they make coffee that was coffee, and we had a lovely meal on the sand. And by and by they steered us along the shore to where was a French destroyer, which takes us over to Gibraltar, and from Gib we passed on through Spain and France to Havre. Three weeks that took, and I never 'ad such a three weeks in all my life. 'Eroes, ragin' 'eroes—that's wot we were!
"At Havre the French authorities took themate's pictures out of the cameraw, and they never did give 'em back. Except for that, it was a fine pleasure, that land cruise 'ome.
"Lucky? Oh, aye, you may well say it. Three times in one week I 'ad me 'ot barth and my lovely sleep in me brahss bed—it's not to be looked for with ordinary luck, you know."
One day the destroyer to which I was assigned put to sea. There were other destroyers, and we were to take a fleet of merchantmen from the naval base to such and such a latitude and longitude, and there turn them loose. My friend's ship was of the convoy.
We made such and such a latitude and longitude, and there we turned them loose, signalling the position to them and waiting for acknowledgment. They acknowledged the signal. We then hoisted the three pennants which everywhere at sea means: Pleasant voyage! They answered with the three pennants which everywhere spells: Thank you. And no sooner done than away they belted, each for himself, and let the U-boats get the hindmost.
The hindmost here was the rusty old cargo boat of my friend. I could see her for milesafter the others were hull down; and long after I could see her I could picture him—walking his lonely bridge and his ship plugging away at her 7 or maybe 7½ knots across the lonely ocean.
Three times torpedoed and taking it all as part of his work! Some day they may get him and he not come back; and when they do the world will hear little about him. Hero? He a hero? Why a shore-going flunky had him bluffed for smoking a surreptitious cigarette in high quarters! 'Ero? Not 'im. Why 'e don't even wear a uniform.
So there they are, the wheezing old cargo boats and their officers and crew. British, French, Italian, American, but mostly British.
No heroes, but the Lord help their people if they hadn't stayed on the job.
We were a group of American destroyers convoying twenty home-bound British steamers. There was one ship, aP. & O.liner, a great specimen of camouflaging.
She was the only ship in the convoy that was camouflaged, and she rode in stately style two lengths out in front of the others. All of which made her a prominent object. Our officers felt like telling her to dress back; but she had a British commodore aboard, and for an American two or three striper to try to advise a British commodore—well, it isn't done.
All day long she rode out in front of the column, and all day long our fellows kept saying things about her.
"Isn't she the chesty one!"
"Look at the big squab with all that war-paint on—how does she expect any U-boat to overlook her?"
"That big loafer, she'd better watch out or she'll be getting hers before the day's gone!"
U-boats were thick around there. One ofthem must have come up, looked the convoy over, and said, "Well, there's nothing to this but the big one!" and, Bing! let her have it, for it was not yet quite dark when those who were looking at her saw a column like steam go into the air, a black column like coal follow it, and after that a column of water boiling white.
One of our destroyers hopped to twenty-five knots, dumped over a 300-pound "ash-can," and got Mister U-boat. At least, the British admiralty later gave her 100 per cent on the circumstantial evidence. Two other destroyers—the 396 and the 384, we will call them—went at once to the job of taking off passengers from the sinking ship.
That was at five minutes to six, just before dark. It had interrupted dinner on our ship; but by and by we went back to the ward-room to finish eating. It is always good business to eat—no knowing when a man will be needing a good meal to be standing by him inside. And we were still eating when the messenger came in with a radio. He passed it to the skipper, who read it to himself, whistled, and then read aloud:Torpedoed—Clan Lindsay.
TheClan Lindsaywas another of ourconvoy, and she had been within 1,000 yards of our ship when we last came about to zigzag back across the front of our column.
We looked at one another, and one said: "Well, you got to hand it to Fritz for being on the job every minute."
And another: "Yes, but it looks like a big night to-night. Two in an hour! And eighteen more ships and eight destroyers to pick from yet! If he starts off like that, what d'y' s'pose he'll be batting by morning?"
The ward-room on our ship opens onto the ship's galley; and from the ship's galley another door opens onto the deck. Through the open galley-door just then came a muffled explosion—a great Woof!
We all thought just one thing—they've got us too!—and we all sort of half curled up, and would not have been a bit surprised if the next instant we found ourselves sailing through the deck overhead. The feeling lasted for perhaps three seconds, and then our skipper, happening to look up, saw that the colored mess-boy George was grinning widely.
"What the devil you laughing at?" barked out our skipper.
George took his eyes off the galley-door, buthis grin remained. Said George: "Cap'n, I see de flame. The galley stove just done bust!"
The galley stove on our ship was an oil-burner. It had back-fired, and so the loud Woof!
Later it came out that theClan Lindsaywasn't torpedoed at all; but one of our destroyers dropped a depth charge so close to her to get a U-boat that she thought she was.
The camouflaged big liner sank, but not until the two of our destroyers standing by had taken off every one of the 503 passengers, one taking the people off the deck, the other picking up those in the small boats. One destroyer—the 396, say—took off 307 of these passengers. Her skipper passed the word by radio to the 384, which had gathered in 196 passengers, including the commodore. The 384 got the message, only she got it 7 instead of 307 people rescued.
"Seven survivors!" said the 384's skipper. "I wonder why she radioed that?" He meditated over the puzzle and by and by solved it to his satisfaction.
"Of course, what she wants is for us to take off the seven and add 'em to our own." He took measures to meet the emergency, and then followed this little incident:
Aboard the 396 they were busy trying to find space for their 307 passengers when a lookout heard a Putt! putt! putt! coming over the water. The officer of the deck listened. Everybody on the bridge listened. Putt! putt! putt! it came. The officer of the deck reported to the skipper. The skipper wondered who it could be, when just then a radio message arrived: "Am sending a boat—384."
"Sending a boat? What for?" He meditated over that puzzle and then he solved it—as he thought. "Sure. That British commodore she picked up is coming to see how the survivors aboard here are getting on. That's it"—he turned to the watch-officer—"you know how these Britishers are for regulations. Even in the midst of a mess like this we'll have to kotow to his rank or he'll probably be reporting us. So rouse out six side-boys, line 'em up, rig up the port ladder, have the bugler stand by for ta-ra-rums and all that stuff."
They did that, shoving their crowded survivors out of the way to make room for the ceremony.
The Putt! putt! putt! comes nearer and nearer. Next, from out of the blackness of the ocean they make out a little motor-dory. Balanced out on the gunwale of the little dory, when it comes nearer, they see an American bluejacket smoking a cigarette. No one else was in the dory.
The dory ran alongside. It was about a 14-foot dory—no smaller one in the flotilla. The skipper of the 396 looked down at him. "What you want?"
The bluejacket removed the cigarette from his lips. "I'm from the 384, sir."
"Yes, yes, but what do you want?"
"I've come, sir"—he waved his cigarette-stub airily—"to take off the survivors. The captain thought I might be able to make one load of 'em."
When the bigP. & O.liner reported herself torpedoed that evening, a destroyer—not one of ours—picked up the message 100 miles or so away; and at once radioed:Coming to Your Assistance—Give Position, Course, and Speed.
That was proper and well-intentioned, but as the 384 and the 396 were already standing by, a radio was sent back:Everything All Right—No Help Needed—Thank You.
That did not seem to satisfy the inquirer.Would Like to Help—Give Position, Speed, and Course.
Everybody being busy, nobody bothered to answer that. By and by came another radio:This is the Destroyer Blank—Give Position, Speed, and Course.
He was so evidently one of those Johnnies who are always volunteering to do things not needful to be done that nobody paid any further attention to him. But he kept right on sending radios. By and by, for perhaps the seventh time, came:This is the Destroyer Blank—Please Give Position, Speed, and Course of Torpedoed Ship.
At which some one—nobody seemed to know who, but possibly some undistinguished enlisted radio man whose ears were becoming wearied—sparked out into the night:Position of Torpedoed Ship? Between Two Destroyers. Her Speed? About Four Feet an Hour. Her Course? Toward the Bottom of the Atlantic.
Nobody ever found who sent that message; nobody inquired too closely; but all hands thanked him. The flotilla heard no more from the bothersome destroyer.