The U-boat hunters Part 4

She shrieked again. "Ma Gud, she's a dyin' woman!" said Scotty.

She was not. She had found her pa.s.sport. The business of waiting was resumed by the rest of us.

The little cafes along the water-front were closing; loads of soldiers and sailors began to flow out on to the jetty. One began to sing, and another; others to whirl along in grotesque dance steps. Two began to talk loudly. They came to blows. A third one stepped in to stop it, whereupon one of the first two turned on him to inquire what he was interfering for.

"But he's a friend o' mine," explained the third man.

"Is he a better friend o' yours than o' me? Answer me that. Is he? Do you know him longer than I know him? No? Then mind your own and do not be interferin'." The third man felt properly rebuked. He withdrew his objections and the other two resumed their fight.

We were inside the shed at last; and by and by I came before a man in a little office inside the shed. He was a Frenchman, but spoke good English.

"Your pa.s.sport, please."

I produced it. He took a look and pa.s.sed it back.

"Any gold on your person?"

"Thirty dollars--American."

"Hand it over, please. Wait. Are you American?"

"I am."

"In that case keep it. That is all. Pa.s.s out. Next."

Next came a little house with a row of men sitting at a long, narrow pine-board table. The first had a quick look at my pa.s.sport and handed it on to a man who sat on his left before a card index in boxes. That one dug into his boxes, found what he was looking for, and slid the pa.s.sport along to the next on his left, who slid it along to the man on his left, and he to the man on his left, and he to the last one.

You chased that pa.s.sport down the line, answering the questions which each one put in turn, as to where you last came from, where before that, and before that, and the date, your business, where you were going in England, why, for how long, and where you would stay. They were all pleasantly put, but you had the feeling that let you stumble and it would be G.o.d help you. Each asked a question or two that n.o.body else had thought of. The last one had the least of all to say. He probably thought that if, after all, you were a German spy, you had earned your exemption. He only made a note of your name, handed out a red card, said to give it to the soldier at the out-going door, claim your baggage, have the customs inspector pa.s.s it, and go aboard the steamer when you liked. All I saw liked to go aboard at once.

There was a man of many b.u.t.tons behind a shining bra.s.s grill on the steamer--French, apparently, but also speaking plain English. I handed in my ticket and asked for a berth. He was snappy. "Have you one reserved?"

"Why, no. When I bought my steamer ticket I was told that there would be no need to reserve a berth--there would be plenty."

"He told you wrong. There are no berths."

"But is he not your agent--the man who sold me the ticket?"

"No."

"But you accept his ticket?"

"There is no berth."

"You mean that I pay for a first-cla.s.s ticket on your steamer and then have to walk the deck?"

"There is no berth, I say." He talked like a machine-gun, and the marble Roman G.o.ds were not more impa.s.sive as he turned to the next. I saluted him. You just have to honor a man who knows exactly what he wants to say and says it, which did not prevent me from saying over the next one's shoulder what I thought of his manners, the ethics of his company, and the cheek of the well-known tourist agency which had sold me the ticket in Paris.

But it did not get me anything. He went right on about his business of turning more people away.

I had a look around. The smoking-room air was all blue, and all khaki as to chairs and tables. Also all khaki as to sleeping-quarters. They had been campaigning for a year or more on the western line, and had not lost any time here. And every blessed one of them had a whiskey and soda before him. They were talking, but not of the war. They were going home for a ten days' leave after a year at the front and were trying to forget the war. There was also a lounge-room and a dining-saloon, but bunks there were also already commandeered by the strategic military.

It could be a worse night to walk the deck. To see what was doing a man would want to walk the deck anyway.

There was a fine bright moon mounting above the housetops of the water-front when we slid away from our jetty berth. Slid is the word.

She was all power, this Channel steamer of hardly 1,500 tons, yet with two great smoke-stacks, three propellers, turbine-engines, and burning oil for fuel. That last is a cheerful item when you have to walk the deck--it means no cinders in your eyes.

Fuss? A strange word to her. She slipped like running oil from the jetty, past the breakwater lights, out by the few craft anch.o.r.ed there--a fast one for sure. To get a line on her speed, you had but to watch the sh.o.r.e marks fall away or the water slide by her side as out into the Channel she went.

People without berths, but with a chair and a rug from the head steward, began now to tuck away. At first they sat mostly by the rail watching things. Later they sought snugger corners; but two o'clock of a September morning in 50 north is still two o'clock in the morning. They began to go inside. The lights were turned off inside the ship, so when you walked around in there and felt your foot come down on something soft, you needed to tread lightly--that would be somebody's neck or stomach. There were life-rafts on the top deck, of a homelike sort of model, in the form of two benches with the air-tanks under the benches.

If anything happened to the ship, you could go floating off with all the comforts of a seat on a bench in the park--if too many did not try to have seats at the same time. It was a fine night for anybody to spot us, but just as fine a night for us to spot them. And a ship cutting out devious courses at twenty-one knots, or whatever she was logging--she is not too easy to hit. To lay out for the ten and eleven knot cargo boats is more economical. Still, who knows? We paid tribute to the U-boats by making detours. All the big stars of the night were out, and by them we could follow her shifting courses. But no harm; she had speed enough to sail the Channel sidewise and still bring us in by morning. The night grew older and cooler. The last of the people who had paid toll to the steward for a chair and rug went inside. Only one couple were left; and they had not hired any chair. He was a young officer, and they sat under his olive-drab blanket, on a life-raft bench athwartship. From there without moving they could get sidewise peeks at the climbing moon. At five o'clock in the morning they were still sitting there, heads together and arms across each other's shoulders.

When we grew tired of walking we sought little anchorages. By two o'clock any man on deck could have had his pick of abandoned chairs, but they were not good chairs--the extension part too short. One very young Canadian officer opened up his kit, made a bed and what lee he could of the forward smoke-stack. A round smoke-stack makes a poor lee, but once tucked in he stuck, and was there in the morning when clear light came.

The moon went behind clouds, and from the clouds little cold showers of rain came peppering down. Heavier clouds came, and heavier squalls with rain; and a mean little cross sea began to make. Straight ahead, above the little seas a light showed, and soon another--this a powerful one.

We were still going at a great clip. We might know it anew by the way that big light jumped forward to meet us. Soon we had it off our bow, abeam, on our quarter; we were insh.o.r.e.

A destroyer came out to meet us and blinked a message from screened lights. More ships met us. We pa.s.sed other ships--all kinds of ships, of which in detail a man must not write here.

In good time and in smooth waters we made our landing. There was another long wait, the same pa.s.sport grilling, but in a different way, and then a fast train to London. A taxi then, a room, a shave and bath, clean linen, and--oh boy!--the roast beef of old England and people you knew to talk to!

THE CENSORS

Before a visiting correspondent can do anything on the other side he has to report to a censor somewhere. In London the Chief Admiralty Censor was a retired Royal Navy captain and a Sir Knight, but not wearing his uniform or parading his knighthood. He was quartered in an old dark building where Nelson used to hang out in the days before Trafalgar.

There was a sign on the door:

DON'T KNOCK. COME IN

He was a good sort, with not a sign about him of that sw.a.n.k which so many of the military caste seem to think it necessary to adopt. He was perfectly willing to pa.s.s me on to our naval base and go right ahead with my work; but he did not have charge of the naval base. There was an admiral over there--not an American admiral--who had full charge of our war-ships there. Without his permission not one of them could tie up to a mooring in the harbor. I would have to get his permission even to visit the base. My very human censor in London said he would cable to him and let me know just as soon as word came.

Awaiting the pleasure of the naval base dictator held me two weeks in London. While waiting I had a look over the city. It was during a period when the moon was ripe for air-raids. There were seven of them in nine nights. My business in life being to see things and then to write about them, I walked the streets during two of them and viewed some of the others from club and hotel windows.

The underground railway stations did a great business while the raids were on; also bomb-proof bas.e.m.e.nts. In a newspaper office, where I used to visit, were precise directions how to get to their bomb-proof cellar.

And be sure to take the right one. They had two cellars, but only one was bomb-proof. Shops in the expensive shopping districts had signs up, advertising their bomb-proof cellars and inviting their patrons to make use of them; but the trouble with the shops was that most air-raids took place after they had shut up for the day.

There was a local regulation which said that when an air-raid was on any person at all might knock at the door of any house he pleased and claim admittance. If he were not admitted at once he could call a policeman, who would have to see that he was admitted. We used to speculate on what would happen if some hobo knocked at the front door of the town house of the Duke of Westminster, say, and demanded of the butler in plush knee-breeches that he be let in.

The chief defense against the Goths was a barrage of guns mounted mostly on the roofs of buildings. An expected air-raid would be announced by policemen running through the streets on bicycles, on their chests and back were signs: AIR RAID ON. They also blew whistles.

The great search-lights would sweep the skies, and by and by there would be a great banging of barrage guns. Bang, bang, bang--that would be the defense guns. Boom! That would be a bomb. Bang, bang, bang, and Boo-oom!

The guns fired 3-inch shrapnel. Three miles into the air the shrapnel sh.e.l.ls would go! And what goes up has to come down. The next thing would be shrapnel showering into the streets. It seemed to me that I would rather take my chance with the bombs than with the shrapnel. A bomb came down, exploded, and had done with it; but the shrapnel fell all over the place.

You could see the shrapnel sh.e.l.ls bursting high in the air--a beautiful sight--twinkling like big yellow stars, and then fading out. They would look more beautiful if only the pieces of them would stay up there after they burst. I was in Oxford Circus one night when a hatful of shrapnel fell about 20 feet away. One piece was about 5 inches long. Imagine that falling down from a height of 3 miles and hitting a fellow on the head.

It would go clear on down through to your toes. Before any American city is raided I hope some chemist will invent a barrage sh.e.l.l which will dissipate all its energy and substance in the bursting. Surely an airplane can be wrecked by concussion.