The U-boat hunters Part 2

The fleet was in direct column ahead, or should have been. Some were surely having their troubles staying there. This steaming close behind a ship, with another ship close behind you--and you have to be close up to see from one to the other on such a night--made me think as I stood under the bridge that night: "Give me all the submarines in the world before this with a fleet that has not had a chance to practise evolutions."

There was not a steaming light of any kind, not even one shaded little one in the stern, which an enemy might see and, seeing, swing in behind it. Rather than show even the smallest little guiding light, our fellows preferred to steam this way in the night.

The glad morning came, glad for the reason that an almost warm, bright sun came with it. The sun showed three ships gone from the column. There was more than one of us who wished that we too had gone from the column about six hours ago. We would have slept better. Still, it was a good experience to have--behind you. Wind and sea went down; all hands felt better--especially the lookouts. Those who came down from the crow's nest looked as if the grace of G.o.d had suddenly fallen on them.

By and by we picked up the drifters. They were looking just as hard for us as we were for them; and later that day we ran into our escorts from the other side. Everybody at once felt as if the trip was as good as over. The fact was that the worst part of the war zone was ahead of us.

All hands were still turning in with life-belts handy, and most of them with clothes on, but there was a feeling that now it was up to these new escorts.

Before we reached France on this run we were in a U-boat fight, which I shall tell of later. What I want to say now is that the submarine fight had an enjoyable side to it, but as for that night run of our troop-ships in gale and sea--a big ship just ahead, a big ship just behind, big high-bowed ships plunging down at fourteen knots an hour from roaring waters in the dark--there was no fun in that!

Of the scores of devices the fleet used to beat the U-boats on that run across, a man can say nothing here. But to get back: our naval officer stuck to his bridge until one most beautiful morning he took his ship into a most beautiful port on a most beautiful sh.o.r.e. I never before heard anybody so describe that same port, but the general verdict says it did look pretty good.

This story of our troop-ship's run across is given from the view-point of the naval officer in charge. It could just as well have been written from the view-point of the merchant captain or his officers aboard--all on the job; or the chief engineer or his a.s.sistants--all on the job, and who put in more than one hour guessing at what was going on above; or from the view-point of the quartermaster captain, or his clerks, or the oilers, or the firemen, or the water-tenders, or the cooks, or anybody else, high or low, in the ship's regular service.

This transport service is one tough game. It is well enough for us who have but one trip to make. But one trip after another! They had good right to look a bit younger when they made the other side. But before we can win this war we've got to get the million or two or three million men across; and the millions of tons of supplies. Somebody has got to see them across. These men on the troop-ships are doing it. May nothing happen to them!

THE U-BOATS APPEAR

The soldier lookouts in the forward crow's nest had been especially advised to have an eye out for the convoys which were to pick us up as we neared the other side; and they were very much on the job.

One bright morning came: "Smoke three points off the port bow.... Smoke broad off the starboard bow.... Smoke dead ahead.... One point off the ... Broad off the ..." and so on. Their excited calls rattled down like rapid fire to the bridge; the thrill in their voices rolled like a wave through the ship. That smoke, incidentally, meant that the strangers, whoever they were, had already identified us and so were not afraid to let us see them.

Everybody that was not already on deck came running up to have a look for himself. It was our escort. Darting across our bows they came--low-riding, slim, gray bodies. The ranking one reported to our flag-ship; and all, without any fuss or extra foam, took position and went to work as though they had been there for weeks. And as they did our big war-ship and the little ones which had come across with her wheeled about and went off. There was no ceremonious leave-taking. They simply turned on their heels and flew. They might as well have said: "We are glad to have met you and been with you, but we can do no more for you, so good-by and good luck; we're going back home as fast as we can get there."

A soldier watched them going and said: "The night before we left home I went to a show, and a fellow sang: 'Good-by, Broadway! h.e.l.lo, France!' I thought it was great. I know what they're saying aboard those ships there now. 'h.e.l.lo, Broadway! Good-by, France!' is what they're saying.

And I betcher it'll be a straight line with no time wasted zigzagging for them on the way back!"

He had it about right. They carried the most eloquent sterns that any of us had seen on ships for a long time. The big one in the middle, the others like chickens under either wing--away they went, belting it for about sixteen knots good. In one half-hour all we could see of them was a cloud of smoke to the west'ard. Just how far off the French coast we were at this time does not matter here, or from what direction we were approaching; but we were far enough off for that group of destroyers to show how they went about their work of guarding the troop-ships. To comb the sea about us was their mission; and they were attending to it every minute. The fleet steamed on.

We proceeded under advices not to fall asleep with too much clothes on, and never to get too far away from our life-belts. It may have been true that some men slept with their life-belts on, but it is probably not true that one man took his to the bathroom with him--not true because about the time we got that far along the steward refused to prepare any more baths. He had enough on his mind, he said, without fussing with baths.

There was one place we looked forward to pa.s.sing with lively feelings.

We may not name the place here, but here is how it was described: "Ever been to that big aquarium in Naples? Yes? Well, remember those devil-fish hiding behind the rock on the bottom? Along comes an innocent young fish who is a stranger to those waters. Mr. Devilfish, hiding behind, has a peek at it coming. He waits. Mr. Young Fish drifts by his hiding-place, and then--Good night, young fishie."

That kind of talk in the watches of the night sounded like lively action before us. We waited for--call it the Devilfish's Cave--and waited; and the first thing we knew when we came to inquire further about it, we were safely past it, with never a sign of any devil-fish, unless it would be the one torpedo which went by the bow of one of us from some distance one noontime. Some distance it must have been because it was a clear day with a smooth sea, and under such weather conditions, with the hundreds of wide-awake lookouts in the fleet, no U-boat could have put up a periscope within any near distance and not be seen by somebody. As for long-distance shots from submarines--there is small need to worry about them. Subs like to get within a thousand yards or less. Those three and four mile shots--it is like trying to hit a sea-gull with a rifle. Amateurs try that kind of shooting, but the professional, who has to reckon the cost of powder and shot, lets it pa.s.s. Not that the Germans are sparing of the cost of war, but a sub which has to make a voyage of three thousand miles to take on a fresh load of torpedoes is not firing too many for the mere practice.

We drew near the coast of France, and still nothing had happened. We were getting hails, of course, from the lookouts. There was one who called it a dull watch when he did not see at least one periscope. He had never seen a periscope in his life, but he had read about periscopes.

One night just at dark he stood us all on our heads by reporting one just alongside. We all got a flash at it then, an ominous object, bobbing under our port quarter, and then it went down into our wake. It bobbed up again, and we all had another look. It was a beer-keg. The ship's first officer, the one who had a gold medal as big as a saucer for saving life at sea, eyed the keg, and then he eyed the lookout, saying: "An empty one too! If you'd only report a full one, we might gaff it aboard."

When that same first officer was one day asked if he intended taking his big medal with him in case we had to take to the boats, he replied: "With twenty-eight persons in the boat! Good Lord, don't you think she'll be carrying enough freight?"

We steamed along, dark night astern this time and the white morning above our bow. The bridge--three naval and two ship's officers--had for some time been using the gla.s.ses. From aloft forward came the sudden yell: "Land ho!"

The bridge nodded that it heard. "Land ho!" repeated the lookout stentoriously. "Two points off the port bow," and then, peering doubtfully down at the bridge: "Am I right?"

"You are," said the bridge sweetly; "we've been looking at it for half an hour." Which was rather rough, for to sh.o.r.e-going eyes land does at first look like a low cloud on the horizon and, naturally, a fellow wants to make sure.

Pretty soon we could most of us see it from the deck, and it did look good. I once saw the flat, bleak Atlantic coast of Patagonia after ten days at sea, and the high iron wintry coast of Newfoundland after another period at sea, and I clearly recall that even they both looked like fine countries. And the coast of France was neither bleak nor icy, so you may guess that it was a pleasing sight on this summer morning. It was a dream of a day, the sea like a green-tinted mirror, the sky blue as paint, and the softest little breath of air floating off the land to us. We were perhaps ten miles offsh.o.r.e.

The enchanted land lay before us and our troubles behind us--or so we thought--and yet we were many of us disappointed. After our more than three thousand miles we had not even caught sight of a U-boat.

Now, we probably did not want to see one, but we sort of had an idea that we were ent.i.tled to have one pop up and then disappear. Something to talk about, without anybody coming to harm through it--that was about our composite idea.

However, there are compensations for all things; we could now prepare peacefully for going ash.o.r.e. I was in the lounge-room below sharpening a pencil, and, there being no waste-basket handy, carefully shunting the shavings into a writing-desk drawer.

The fire-alarm rang. That was the signal to hurry on deck with your life-belt, take your station by your boat, and prepare to abandon ship.

But we had been doing that every day since we left home. The first time we heard that call we had gone jumping, but after the third or fourth time we moved more leisurely.

Some took their life-belts from their rooms and started up. Every soldier, of course, grabbed one from where they were piled up in the pa.s.sageways and went at once. They had no option. Their officers would get after them if they did not.

I thought I would finish sharpening my pencil. I thought I heard a blast from a ship's whistle somewhere outside; but I was not sure. Then I heard a blast from our own ship's whistle. Wugh-wugh-wugh! I did not wait for any more. I did not finish sharpening the pencil. I did not wait to shut the desk drawer. I did not do anything but move. There were six blasts from the whistle, and six blasts meant U-boats.

There was a heavy-set officer coming down the pa.s.sageway. He was heavier by twenty pounds than I was, but I had more speed. I know I had. Not since the winter's day on George's Bank a quartering sea chased me down the cabin companionway of the _Charles W. Parker_ of Gloucester have I moved so fast on a ship, and I was fifteen years younger then. We bounced off each other. We did not stop to talk when we straightened out. He went his way and I went mine, and if I looked anything like him, then my jaw was thrust out and my eyes had an earnest look in them.

My life-belt was under my bunk. It did not stay there long. I went back down the pa.s.sageway jumping. There was a fine crush going up to the boat-deck. Only a seagoing man knows how to take a ship's ladder with speed. You just got to have practice at it. There were some fine athletic boys among the troopers, but "Sweet mother," wailed a ship's man, "are those new army shoes made of leather, or are they lead that they move so slow?" And that comment did not have to travel a lonesome road.

While scooting up the ladder we heard a gun; and another gun. As we made the boat-deck there was another ship barking out six short blasts.

The ships of the fleet, when we got to where we could see them, were headed every which way. We could feel our own ship heel over--she turned so sharply. Every ship in the fleet was going it--right angles, quarter angles, all degrees of angles. But what impressed us most--we almost laughed to see her--was the lubber of the fleet. She was twice the tonnage of most of us, and early in the run across she had brought anguish to our souls by the way she lagged. "You b.u.m, you loafer, you old cart-horse, why don't you move up?" our soldiers used to yell across at her. She had not then enough men in her steam department to keep her engines warm, so she reported. But now she had steam enough. She was wide and high, a huge hulk of a ship, and here she was now charging--charging was the word--like a motor-boat at where somebody said the U-boat had just submerged. Whether she got her U-boat, I don't know; but she certainly did cut through the water for about a mile.

The ship next behind us went after something; and the ship next ahead went tearing away after something else, and another ship--but, man, a battalion of eyes could not follow them all. A destroyer went--zizz-sh zizz--a thirty-odd knot clip--and the next thing we saw was a ten-foot column of solid white water shooting straight up beside that destroyer.

And then came the terrific Bo-o-om! Our ship shook from one end to the other. I thought it came from inside of us--that it was a loading-port door let drop by some careless ship's man below. The ship's officer in charge of our life-boat thought so, too. He stepped to the ship's side to look down. "That one, he should be put in the brig--scaring us all like that!" I agreed with him heartily, only I thought he should be put in a second brig after he got out of the first one. Some time later we learned that it was the shock from the bomb dropped by the destroyer, from which you can gauge what chance the submarine will have which happens to catch one of those bombs on its back.

We carried two 5-inch guns in our bow and two astern. Those gun crews had been standing by those guns from the first day out. For the last three days they had been sleeping near them in their life-jackets and taking their meals standing beside them. They were not going to be left out of it. About a thousand yards away some one reported a floating torpedo. Whether it was a live or a spent one made no matter. It was too soft a target; besides, some ship in the hurry of manoeuvring might run into it. Bang! went two of our 5-inch fellows, one from each end of the ship and both together.

That was when we heard from our chief engineer. He had been below from the beginning, and knew from the way the bells were coming down from the bridge that there was something doing topside. When the destroyer dropped her first bomb he wondered if the ship was torpedoed. He waited, and his men, with their shovels and slice-bars and oil-cans--they waited, every one of them, with one sharp eye to the nearest ash-hoist, which reminded the chief that he would never leave home again--and this time he meant it--without installing those four more ladders leading up from the engine and fire-room quarters to the decks. No, sir, he would not.

But nothing happened! And then those two 5-inch guns went off together.

War-ships are built to withstand impact, but merchant-ships--no. This time the chief was sure she was torpedoed. His fire-room force were mostly Spaniards. He used to talk at table about his fire-room gang.

"You would think, with your ship coming through the war zone and your watch down in the bottom of her, that you would want to go up topside when your watch was done, for, of course, if any U-boat got the ship, it would be the fellows below who would first get the full benefit." But that gang of his! "Doggone, they'd sit there when their watch was over, six or eight of 'em, and play some cross-eyed Spanish card-game for a peseta a corner. What d'y' know about them?"

The chief's gang could not talk English, but they had speaking eyes.

They now looked at the chief, and he went up to have a peek. He came back soon. "They are having target practice," he told them. He had been running the Caribbean ports long enough to be able to say that much in Spanish; but more than all he smiled as he said it. You want to smile to get away with anything like that in the fire-room of a troop-ship in the U-boat country.

Every ship in the fleet was now having something to say with her guns; and with their incessant manoeuvring at such close quarters the sea was all torn up by their wakes. Two or three wakes or bow waves would cross each other, and the sea would roll up with a bounding white crest.

There were also the wakes of hidden submarines. You could tell them if you saw any by the way they did not stop in one place; they moved on.

When a gunner saw a submarine wake he fired; where he wasn't sure he fired anyway. What was he there for? Bang! Boom! Solid shot were ricochetting, piling up little white splashes, and the shrapnel were making little holes and bursting into little white smoke puffs all over the place.

You must not forget that it was a beautiful day and a perfectly calm sea with the sh.o.r.e of France looming like a blue mirage on the horizon. It lasted about forty minutes altogether, and through it all the little destroyers--don't forget them--were weaving in and out among the big ships; and on the big ships were thousands of troopers, white life-belts around their olive-drab uniforms, standing steadily by life-boats and rafts.

Our fellows on the destroyers did handle their little ships well. And the troop-ships were handled well--no collisions and no gun-sh.e.l.ls going aboard anybody else. A few went across other people's bows and sterns, but not too near to worry. And in the middle of it all, our guns made so much noise that before we heard them we saw them--two airplanes, whirring and cavorting about and above us. Whenever they saw a destroyer turn and shoot, they would turn and shoot after the destroyer. They could move about three times as fast as a destroyer, and so quite often beat the destroyer to it.

Later the airplanes escorted us into port. They were big, powerful biplanes, and carried a sky-pointing gun mounted forward and the colors of France painted on their little wings aft. They kept circling about us until we made our harbor. Whenever they swooped low enough our troopers gave them a fine cheer.