Over the Seas for Uncle Sam Part 8

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 ash.o.r.e 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 made you catch your breath to see your own star-spangled banner flying from the windows of the little French town.

We went ash.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sing, and the crowd let her through.

They seemed to know who 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 door of 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 Vendome and the Champs Elysees without compa.s.s 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 opened wide 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 grat.i.tude I sang our songs for them and taught them some real live United States slang. They were good pupils, too, and were proud as peac.o.c.ks 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Before taking"--a dose of military discipline makes them "Topnotch Americans."]

Our boat lay in the harbor. They were coaling it, and, once ready, we started our work of patrolling the coast. It was on one early afternoon that we got sudden orders to put to sea, and we started out at a fast clip. Somebody pa.s.sed the word that we were on a rescue party and to keep a sharp watch out for rafts or lifeboats.

Rescue party! Ever see men who have faced death in a leaky boat all through a black night? I'll never forget their faces--something was stamped there that will never come out--a grim, strained, white look you don't like to see. The few boats we spotted bobbed about like corks on the waves. The men were too numb to pull on their oars. They had been rowing all night. Some of them were half dressed.

Once we pulled them in and helped fit them out with clothes we heard their story. They had been struck amidships by a blasted torpedo along about midnight. Their boat was a yacht something like our own; the impact of the sh.e.l.l blew her to a thousand bits. The men asleep were killed like rats in a trap. The few on deck managed to launch some boats and rafts before they were sucked down with the vessel.

That midnight attack made our score against the Hun a little higher, not that I needed any incentive to hate him another notch. I had a vision stamped on my mind I could never forget. I could still see that black snake of a train crawling into the crowded station at Havre--hear the long-drawn grinding of the brakes and hissing of steam--see the guards keeping back the mob surging forward for a chance to welcome home its sons. There was endless noise and confusion--but occasionally you would find a silent watcher--a woman and sometimes a man, who stood motionless, staring at the cars--muscles taut, waiting for G.o.d knows what horror.

Yes, you don't forget the first sight of the returned prisoners, in their worn uniforms. White-faced boys looking about eagerly for the face of friends--friends at last, after three long years! No, you never forget those battle-scarred men, with here an arm gone, or a leg--or worse, the eyes blinded forever.

Oh, my G.o.d! you dream of it nights afterward; you see that endless line of maimed and broken men... .

Hate Germans! I tell you I'm a peace-loving man and all I want is my little home, with the wife and the kids, but do you think I'd stop fighting in this war while there is yet a drop of blood left in me? Not much! I love my own too well to let them suffer as those French and Belgian women have--that's the answer!

ENSIGN STAFFORD SPEAKS:

A YANKEE STANDS BY

I HAVEN'T anything to tell about. Being torpedoed is an old story now.

Any number of men have met Fritz on the way over, and, if they haven't been quick enough, he's managed to take a shot at them, but it isn't often we fail to get a chance to return fire. Just let a periscope stick its head out of water, and I'll show you action on deck that would make a Kansas cyclone look tame--not that I've seen one. My home is in the East. The best we can boast about is a blizzard or two, and a sixty-mile gale.

I enlisted as a signalman, and was a.s.signed to duty on a merchant ship.

There were two other U. S. N. signalmen aboard her, and we managed to make the time fly talking about home and the people we knew.

One of our prize ways of speeding up a long evening on shipboard was to swap notes on the summers we had spent. We all three, at different times, had "vacated" in the Maine woods, almost at the identical spot, and, do you know, we hailed the fact with something very close to triumph!

I guess we three hashed over every little incident of our trips. We found we had had the same close-mouthed Indian guide, that we had all fished on the same bank of a little lost lake, that we had all camped on the same site in a clearing by the water. But when we discovered that we had used the same sort of tackle, and the same-sized rifles, we were almost "moved to tears," as the lady novelists put it.

Those things, small as they seem, are the most important things in the world when you are far away from home. They certainly make men inseparable, and, aside from the fact that d.i.c.k Chamberlain and Tod Carlin and I were the only Americans aboard, we became, from the first, the best pals in the world.

We were proceeding as flagship of a convoy, and, as such, we kept an extra sharp lookout for trouble, once we were in the zone.

It was three o'clock on the afternoon of a clear September day. The sea was smooth and we were all on deck. The sky was so blue and the sun so bright that it seemed as though the lurking submarine we were always expecting was a myth like the sea serpent you read about but never see.

Night time is the time you are looking for an attack, but broad daylight always seems to dispel thoughts of danger. However, the danger was there.

We were struck close by the engine rooms. All I remember clearly was the terrific roar and splintering of wood, and the sudden listing of the ship. The order rang out to clear the ship and the crew immediately took to the life-boats in the event of rapid settling.

We three found ourselves a.s.signed to the same life-boat. There was a slight delay in lowering it. That delay was fatal. The explosion that we had been expecting blew our boat to pieces and we found ourselves struggling in the water.

The officers' boat had been lowered and it drew up alongside of us. They helped us in. The captain was all for going back to his ship. He was sure there was no immediate danger of her sinking. The water-tight compartments fore and aft were holding and he called for volunteers to go aboard and help in an attempt to beach the ship.

By this time the other life-boats were beyond hailing distance and we found out afterward that the men in them, including some British gunners, were picked up later by patrol boats.

Of course, all the occupants of the remaining boats volunteered. I didn't particularly like the looks of the ship, as her well docks were on the sea level, but she had stopped settling and we followed the rest aboard.