With the Battle Fleet Part 3

There were only one or two slight mishaps to ship machinery reported on the journey down, really nothing worthy of note, a pump or something of that kind being out of order. The fleet went along in splendid style.

Three days out the intervals and distances were almost perfect at all hours of the day and night. The voyage soon became a double procession of warships, with just the ordinary routine going on.

On Sunday, December 22, the first death on the fleet was reported. It was that of Robert E. Pipes, an ordinary seaman on the Alabama, enlisted at Dallas, Tex., in August last. He died of spinal meningitis. Nothing was known of the death on the fleet until eight bells were sounded at 4 P.M. Admiral Evans had gone ahead of the fleet at noon to make a four or six hour test of the new fuel called briquettes, and his ship was out of sight. Admiral Thomas on the Minnesota was in command. His ship was leading the second squadron, 1,600 yards to port.

The men on watch saw the national colors being raised on the mainmast.

There was a scurry on every ship to get up the colors. Every one wondered whether land or a ship had been sighted. Slowly the colors went up and then down to half mast. All colors on the other ships went to half mast. The order for half speed was given and then came a signal to stop. The rails of the ships were crowded at once. Up and down the columns the men looked and then it was seen that the quarterdeck of the Alabama was crowded. The order had been given there: "All hands aft to bury the dead!"

The captain read the burial service. An opening in the lines of the men on the lee side was made and Pipes's body, sewed in a hammock and weighted with shot, was slipped gently over the side. It made very little splash. Three volleys were fired by the marines, taps were sounded, the colors were run up to the gaff on the mainmast on all the ships and standard speed was ordered again as the flags came down. The ceremony occupied exactly nine minutes and Admiral Thomas sent a wireless telegram to Admiral Evans notifying him of what had been done.

The burial cast a gloom for a few minutes on all the ships.

Much to the regret of many officers and men, Admiral Evans took the Virgin instead of the Anegada pa.s.sage into the Caribbean and then headed straight for Trinidad. Many had hoped that he would sail along the chain of islands and that they might catch a glimpse at least of Martinique and some of the other historic places. But business is business on a fleet as well as on sh.o.r.e. Coal must be saved, and the way to go to a place is to go on the shortest possible line consistent with safety.

So it was that on Monday, December 23, Trinidad, just off the Venezuelan coast, came in sight, the ships entered the Dragon's mouth into the Gulf of Paria and swung around the point and anch.o.r.ed in the roadstead off Port of Spain just before sunset.

The first leg of the journey was over. It was merely the warming up stage. To-morrow will be Christmas. A bunch of mistletoe is already hanging in the Louisiana's wardroom. Some of the ships brought their Christmas trees and greens along. There'll be sports of all kinds--boxing, rowing by officers and men, athletic contests on ship--good cheer generally.

Just fancy a Christmas with the thermometer at 90 degrees!

CHAPTER II.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE FLEET

Gay Day on the Battleships off Port of Spain--"Peace on Earth"

the Motto on the Big Guns--Officers' Reception on the Minnesota-- Boat Races and Athletic Sports for the Crew--How the Fleet Charged Into Port--Men on Their Good Behavior--Official Visits--Coaling Coaling Day.

_On Board U. S. S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet_, PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD, Dec. 28.

The officers of the battleship Minnesota gave a reception Christmas Day on board their ship to all the officers of the other ships. The visitors were received at the gangway by the officer of the deck, who had the usual side boys stationed there for the guests to pa.s.s by. The visitors were first presented to Capt. Hubbard, after which they paid their respects to Admiral Thomas. Then, turning around on the beautifully decorated deck, they saw depending from the great 12-inch guns of the after turret a board festooned with greens, and on it painted in large letters:

"Peace on earth; good will to men!"

The first effect on the visitor was to startle him. What place was there on a warship, whose primary purpose is destruction, for such a motto and in such a place? Some of the more thoughtless visitors thought it was satire, or perhaps a naval man's idea of a grim joke.

Those who thought it a mockery, a satire or a joke were never more mistaken. The sentiment was made the most prominent decoration on the ship in all sincerity. Scores of naval officers pointed to it with pride and said it exemplified truly the spirit of the American Navy. All declared that if there was one thing more than any other which American naval officers and all true Americans wished for it was world-wide peace and brotherly love. It was declared that no better place outside a Christian church could be found for its display than on an American warship. Many an officer said he hoped it would always be prominent on our warships at the Christmas season.

Certainly good will to man was exemplified at the Christmas celebration on this fleet. It was the most impressive Christmas festival that the nine civilians with the fleet ever saw. Here was a city of 14,000, exclusively of men, some rough, some refined, some educated, some illiterate, some Christian, some with no religion, celebrating the season of good cheer on sixteen battleships in a foreign port five miles from sh.o.r.e. Port of Spain might as well have been 5,000 miles away, so far as its influence was concerned. More than one-half of the American Navy was holding its Christmas festival in its own way, with none else to look on. From first to last its spirit was kindly; from colors in the morning until the last serenading party, gliding over the smooth water in a floating city that had a Venetian aspect, singing songs to the accompaniment of guitars and mandolins, disappeared at midnight, the celebration was in absolute keeping with the sentiment of the day. All was merry and all were merry.

Perhaps a song sung by the Vermont's officers who were towed about the fleet at night in a sailing launch as they called on every warship best reveals the tone of the occasion. They came to the Louisiana on their last call just before midnight. They allowed none of the Louisiana's officers who had gone to bed to dress, and pajamas were almost as common as dress clothes in the company that a.s.sembled in the wardroom. When the visitors were going away the last song which came across the water, a song which they sang as they came up the gangway strumming their instruments and lifting up their voices, was this:

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

We're happy and well; Here comes the Vermont, Say, don't we look swell?

We're a highrolling, A lob-e-dob crew, Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you!

Probably that lob-e-dob crew sang that song two hundred times that night. It was adapted from a new Naval Academy song. It has a merry tune and the jingle and the swing of it was infectious. The crew was highrolling only in a naval sense, the rolling wave sense, and in five minutes after they first sang the song to their hosts the hosts were joining in with them. It meant merry Christmas to everybody. Certainly this fleet had one.

For two days boating parties had gone to the heavily wooded sh.o.r.es of this beautiful island and had brought in greens for Christmas. They were mostly palms and bamboo, with trailing vines in profusion. When darkness came on Christmas eve the work of decoration began. Late into the night some of the men toiled. When daylight came every ship was dressed in greens. From truck to water line, on signal yards, rigging, turrets, gangways, there were branches of trees and festoons of vines. Inside the ships the wardrooms and cabins were elaborately decorated. Every wardroom had its Christmas tree and around it were grouped gifts for all. No one was overlooked. Christmas boxes, brought from home with orders not to be unsealed until Christmas Day, were broken open in every part of the ship.

Then came a day of visiting, of sports--rowing in the morning, athletics aboard ship in the afternoon and boxing in the evening--of the big reception on the Minnesota and of the merriest kind of dinner parties with the distribution of Santa Claus gifts in the evening. The gifts were mostly trinkets, but they had hits and grinds in them, and the presentation elicited shouts of laughter. Although the matter of rank was not ignored, apparently the high and low officers, from Admiral and Captain down to midshipman, were seated on the good fellowship basis and as equals. The Fourth Ward at the foot of the table went out of business for one night. The middies and ensigns could burst into song when they chose, and if any one forgot to say sir no one thought it strange. Here on the Louisiana ten minutes after we sat down to dinner came an instance of the feeling that makes the whole world kin on Christmas. The youngsters had been singing the Louisiana song, the chorus of which runs thus:

Lou, Lou, I love you; I love you, that's true; Don't sigh, don't cry, I'll see you in the morning; Dream, dream, dream of me And I'll dream of you, My Louisiana, Louisiana Lou.

Capt. Wainwright had been toying with a tin whistle which he had pulled from a bonbon. Stealthily he put it to his lips and blew it loud, and then that eye of his, which has the piercing power of a 12-inch sh.e.l.l, grew bright with the light of geniality and kindness that lie deep set and yet overflowing behind it, and he was a youngster, too. The Fourth Ward men might sing "Louisiana Lou," but he was willing to show that he could blow a tin whistle when the occasion demanded it.

One might fill columns with the songs that were sung. There is room for the chorus of just one more. The game is for about one-half of the company to sing the chorus and just before the finish the others shout an interrogatory of astonishment at the top of their voices. The chorus runs:

Dreamin', dreamin', dreamin' of dat happy lan,'

Where rivers ob beer aboun', Where big gin rickeys fill de air And highb.a.l.l.s roll on de groun'.

_Great shout_: What! Highb.a.l.l.s roll on de groun'.

_Melody_: Yas, highb.a.l.l.s roll on de groun'.

The merriment on the Louisiana was not exceptional. It was a mere copy of what was going on in sixteen wardrooms. Every ship was sure it had the merriest dinner and the merriest time all around in the fleet, and that was true strictly.

The bluejackets had their own fun, and they yielded to none in their belief that they had the best time of all. Of course they were right.

Look at this menu that Uncle Sam provided for their dinner:

Cream of Celery Soup Roast Turkey Roast Ham Sage Dressing Giblet Gravy Cranberry Sauce Mashed Potatoes Lima Beans Peach Pie Mixed Nuts Raisins Coffee.

And here is the music that Bandmaster Cariana provided:

1 March "The Man Behind the Gun" _Sousa_ 2 Overture "The Bridal Rose" _Lavaller_ 3 Waltz "I See Thee Again" _Estrada_ 4 Selection "Woodland" _Luders_ 5 Habanera "Escamilla" _Redla_ Star Spangled Banner.

And didn't the first cla.s.s men have liberty to go ash.o.r.e? Didn't they come back loaded down with souvenir postal cards, baskets of fruit, parrots and monkeys? And wasn't every man of them able to toe a seam as he answered to his name on the liberty list? If there was a suspicion of a rolling gait in two or three couldn't they lay it to the heat? Certain it was that not one of them had drunk any of that stuff down here that they call biograph whiskey, the kind that makes you see moving pictures, for the only moving pictures that any of them saw that night were the dozen sparring matches and two wrestling contests on the quarter deck, where the bluejackets were piled high on high under the awning clear up over the turret to the after bridge--as packed a house for the s.p.a.ce as Caruso ever sang to.

And didn't John Eglit, the Louisiana's American champion naval boxer, who knocked out the English champion, Leans of the Good Hope, last May, take on a man from another ship and promise only to tap him and not knock him out, so that the boys could admire him and cheer him? Eglit is a master at arms, a ship policeman at other times, and it isn't safe to say things to him, even flattering things, but here the boys could cheer him and he couldn't answer back. And didn't the officers sit close to the ropes just where President Roosevelt sat on his trip to Panama? And didn't Midshipman McKittrick, the recent champion boxer of the Naval Academy, referee the bouts? And didn't Midshipman Brainerd, the well known oarsman of the Naval Academy not long ago, act as time keeper? And it made no sort of difference to him that he sat next to a negro coal pa.s.ser!

And then didn't the men who didn't have liberty have comic athletic sports in the afternoon? You bet they did! "Spud" races, obstacle races, sack races, three-legged and wheelbarrow races; lemon races, where the contestants held a lemon in a spoon between their teeth and the first man that crossed the line in the running won; shoe races, where a man's shoes were tied in a bag and shaken up and he had to open the bag after a run and then put them on and lace them up, the winner to be the first man reporting to the referee. It was all fun and the bullies shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e over it. What matter if a dozen men reported at the sick call the next morning with feet so sore that they could hardly walk from the running in bare feet on the hard decks? Oh, yes, the bluejackets had the best time of all!

And then there was rowing in the morning. You who have seen the Poughkeepsie and New London contests may think you have seen great rowing spectacles, and so you have, but you want to see rowing contests in a fleet of 14,000 Jack Tars to know what enthusiasm is. The men lined the rails, turrets, bridges, masts and tops and danced and yelled like Comanches as the crews pa.s.sed down the line of ships. They yelled just as loud when fourteen officers' crews contested. A pretty incident occurred after this race. There had been great rivalry between the officers of the Vermont and the Louisiana. Each thought it would win.

Neither did, the Louisiana coming in fourth and the Vermont fifth. The Vermont crew immediately rowed to the Louisiana and the two crews in their rowing clothes sat in the wardroom and pa.s.sed the bowl around.

When the Vermont's men went home the entire crew of the Louisiana gathered at the rail and cheered. The Vermont men tossed their oars and then the crew sang their Merry Christmas song, the first of the 200 or more times that it was heard by the fleet.

The reception on the Minnesota was also memorable. Henry Reuterdahl, the artist, who was with the fleet to make pictures of it, had carte blanche in the matter of decorations. The "Peace on Earth" emblem was his idea.

He canopied the wardroom with flags. He put up sh.e.l.ls and revolvers and cutla.s.ses and other implements of war in effective places and he mingled the bunting in color and arrangement so deftly that the naval men were astonished over it. Old friends in the fleet gave greetings. It was brought out in one of the conversations that Rear Admiral Evans, the Commander-in-Chief of the fleet, was the only man in the fleet who fought in the civil war. And it was also revealed that he was in the greatest pageant of warships that ever left Hampton Roads before this one. That was in December, 1864, almost forty-two years to the day that the present fleet left. That fleet went out to capture Fort Fisher, where Admiral Evans was wounded and where, with a revolver, he prevented a surgeon from cutting off his right leg. There were 14,000 men in that fleet, about the same number as in this. There were sixty naval vessels and the rest were ninety transports under command of Gen. B. F. Butler.

Admiral Porter was the naval officer in charge. It took the fleet from 10 o'clock in the morning until after 4 in the afternoon to pa.s.s Cape Henry. This fleet did it in two hours. When Admiral Evans was asked about it he said that the little tender Yankton, which goes with this fleet for use on ceremonious or other useful occasions, could have whipped that entire fleet of itself. Its modern small guns--3-inch ones--could shoot so far that it could lie completely out of the range of any of the guns on that fleet and simply bombard the vessels to pieces.

But to return to Trinidad. The Venezuelan coast had been in sight for an hour on Monday, December 23, before Trinidad was made out a little after noon. A haze obscured things on sh.o.r.e. Gradually a dark lump on the horizon took shape, then it a.s.sumed color, a deep green, and then on the highest point, something like 400 feet above the sea, a white needle pierced the haze in the sky. It was the lighthouse that points the way to the four entrances into the Gulf of Paria from the Caribbean, called the Dragon's Mouths. The lighthouse was a visible sign of the care of British for shipping. It is said to be one of the best in any of England's colonial possessions.

Admiral Evans headed his ships toward the narrow entrance to the east of the main one. It is called Boca de Navios, one of the many reminders of the old Spanish days before England swept down through these waters. The Admiral had ordered his ships in single file of the open order or wing and wing formation. Approaching more closely he ordered exact column, one directly behind another, at a distance of 400 yards. When within three miles of the entrance he veered off to take the large pa.s.sage to the west, Boca Grande. Then he made a sharp turn after he had cleared the entrance to the gulf. For some time he stood in toward the sh.o.r.e.

Then came another turn to the south, and then followed what Admiral Evans said afterward was one of the finest naval sights he had ever witnessed. Orders had been signalled for the four ships of the first division of the fleet to turn to the east and come up the bay of Port of Spain in parallel formation. The other divisions were ordered to follow the same plan when they arrived in position. Here was a long line of warships that had been turning and twisting around headlands and in muddy waters, going in single file, as if headed for the Serpent's Mouth, the other entrance to the Gulf of Paria. A flag fluttered from the Connecticut's signal yards. At once the first four ships turned at right angles. You could have run a tape line across the bows of the Connecticut to the Louisiana and found the Kansas and Vermont exactly on the mark. The change in the course came so suddenly that it made even naval men jump. Like four chariot horses the ships stood in as if on a battle charge.

Port of Spain could just be made out on the beach eight miles away. The ships were pointed directly for it, and if they had intended to bombard it they could scarcely have been more aggressive looking in the way they swung into that bay. The second division kept on in the lead of the single file of ships until they reached places directly behind the ships of the first division. Then they made a dramatic swing also. The third and fourth division in turn did the same thing.

The fleet was then in four columns headed directly for the beautiful little port with its shallow harbor. As long as standard speed of 11 knots was maintained the four leading vessels kept on a line that was as well dressed as a squad of fours in a military company. For two miles this formation kept up. Then half speed was signalled. The Vermont and Kansas being new in fleet evolutions and not yet being standardized completely as to speed revolutions, did not keep the line so well, but Admiral Evans was not displeased and said they did very well. The Vermont fell back nearly half a length by the time slow speed was ordered and the engines were stopped finally. The signal to come to anchor was hoisted and when it went up sixteen mud hooks splashed into the bay simultaneously. Before it had been slowed down the Louisiana had received its second special commendation for smart manoeuvring from the Admiral.