_ He had been on what most anybody would agree was pretty trying sort of work; and so, having an idea that a furlough was coming to him, he applied for it, but did not get it. The department had other things in view. Instead of going home, he took time to write a few letters, printing the one to his little girl in big capitals, so that--being six going on seven--she might, with mama's help, be able to read it.
They sent him to a ship that had been running between north and south ports on our own coast, shifting in winter-time to tropical waters. She was one of a group of thirty or forty that the department had on its little list to be made over into transports. She was the handsomest boat, but war makes nothing of beauty. Our officer ordered all her gleaming black underpaint off, also her pure white topside enamelling with the gold decorations here and there; then he swabbed her top and bottom with that dull blue-gray which the naval sharps say does blend best with a deep-sea background.
She had the prettiest little lounging-room. Our officers retained that--for even in war officers must have some place aboard ship to gather for a smoke and gossip--but they threw out the large, lovely fat pieces of furniture. In case of submarine attack or an order to abandon ship, the men might want to make a passage of that room in a hurry and no time there--in the dark it might be--to be falling over chairs and tables.
There was a sun-parlor, a large, splendid room with wide windows and the deck on three sides. There were thick draperies, filmy laces, and many easy chairs. In the old days cabin passengers used to sit there and absorb the soft tropic breezes while digesting their breakfasts. An army quartermaster-captain surveyed it with our naval officer. "Swell," said the Q. M. C. "We'll haul down that plush and fluffy stuff, dump those chairs and rugs over the side, plant my desk here, my chief clerk's there, my other clerks' desks over there, open those fine wide windows and let the north Atlantic breezes blow on our beaded brows while we're doing our paper work. Fine!"
Our naval officer did that and a hundred other things to the inside and outside of the beautiful ship and reported her fit for transport service, or as fit as ever a made-over ship could be made to be, whereupon he was ordered to take her to such and such a dock in such and such a port--which he did. Then many large, heavy cases were lowered into her hold, and troops and troops and more troops filed aboard and took up what was left of the spaces between decks with themselves and their war gear.
She lay then with her water-line a foot deeper than anybody around there ever remembered seeing her in her swell passenger days; then she shoved out into the stream and kicked her way down the harbor, and as she did so, though there was not a single trooper's head showing above her rail, everybody seemed to know. Passing tugs, motor-boats, ferry-boats blew their whistles--every kind of a boat that had a whistle blew it--and there was an excursion boat loaded down with women and children. Her band had been playing ragtime, but it suddenly stopped and broke into "Good-by, Good Luck, God Bless You," to the troop-ship bound for France.
There was a war-ship waiting below--not the biggest by a good deal in our fleet, but big enough to have hope one day of firing her broadside on the battle-line. But the great duty of a war-ship is to be immediately useful. She was there, and smaller war-ships with her, to see that the troop-ships got protection on the run across.
Our troop-ship, other troop-ships, every one in turn, steamed up, reported her presence, and tucked into a berth under the wings of the big war-ship; and there they stayed until night, until the signal came to get under way. When it did, one after the other they up-anchored and kicked into line. They had been warned to make no fuss in going, and they made none. From somewhere ashore a great search-light swept our top structure, swept every top structure as we filed out. Some one on each top structure must have given the proper sign, for that was all.
All that night, and next day, for days and days thereafter, with shifting formations and varying speeds, we steamed. All were good, seaworthy ships, but little things will happen. There was one that was always lagging. The flag-ship, meaning the war-ship of most tonnage, inquired why. The answer came, whereat the war-ship of most tonnage showed right there that she was fit to do something more than furnish long-reaching guns for the fleet's protection.
The next thing the fleet knew they were ordered to shut off steam. They did so. It was a perfect, calm day, and the ships lay, still as paint between a clear blue sky and a deep-blue sea while a boat-load of bluejackets from the big fighting ship rowed across a swell so gentle that it seemed to be only serving to put life into a picture. The lagging steamer had been short a few oilers or firemen or water-tenders. The big ship had them to spare. After that the slow one picked right up. Soon it was standard speed with everybody in proper alignment again.
Not often do seagoing people get the chance to see a fleet of merchant steamers cruising the wide ocean. A full-rigged sailing-ship, a steam-collier, a tramp steamer, all came out of their way in one day to view the strange sight. As they did so, one of our smaller and faster war-ships would trot over to have a closer peek in turn at the curious ones; to ask them questions; probably also to tell them to keep their wireless mouths shut, if they had any.
One day one big freighter did not answer signals promptly. Perhaps she could not read them. In these war times it is not too easy to get crews who are sea-wise in every detail--the expert signalman among the officers might have been off watch and having a nap. Anyway, one of our little fighting fellows went bounding after her. It was like watching a sheep-dog at work. The war-ship moved up from behind, drew up, and then, showing her teeth, headed the freighter the other way and held her headed that way while she put an officer aboard and asked an explanation, which was probably given and doubtless all right, for the officer came back and the freighter resumed her regular course. Day in and day out that was the way of it, every passing ship being viewed as suspect and our own ships, of varying speeds and tonnage, trying to keep a good alignment.
The weather generally was fine, but one morning we ran into a fog. A fog has its virtues; a submarine cannot see you in a fog. But neither can you see a submarine. And somewhere handy to you is a bunch of your own ships, and no telling when one of them may come riding out of the mist and climb aboard by way of your port or starboard quarter!
A whistle by day or a search-light by night would have been a great help to our naval officer on the bridge during that fog, but he was denied that. So he made out (as did every other commander on every other bridge during the fog) with whatever other means he could devise. Nothing happened to us.
The fog passed on, and then one day came a slaty gray sea and a slaty sky. Gray seas look hard; white crests moving across gray seas look hard too. Our naval officer took time to look around on them. Gray hulls were smashing high bows into them, making boiling white water of the hard gray sea and throwing it to either side in fine, high-rolling billows as they pressed on. They were a fine sight then, with the smoke pouring out and trailing low from some of them. They were not trying to make smoke, but if a ship must make smoke, it will not be seen so far on a gray day.
Our naval officer held the bridge from early that morning to nine o'clock that night. He had an idea that he might be able to sneak in a couple of hours' sleep against the strain of the later night. It was not bad weather when he left--a good breeze blowing and plenty of white showing. It was dirty, but not bad weather. He got in one hour in his bunk, turning in with his clothes on, when he was called to go on the bridge again. Something had happened. He could feel the increasing wind before he was fairly rolled out of his bunk.
As he stepped out on deck he could see that the lookouts had adopted life-belts for the night. The lookouts were men from among the troops, and now each man as he went off watch was handing over his life-belt to the next coming on. They had had to use the soldiers for lookouts. In these war days no merchant ship can supply from her regular crew one-tenth of the men needed for lookout work in the war zone. The soldiers were all right, but just then our naval officer felt sorry for them. He had been having them up before him afternoons, lecturing them on their duties as lookouts. That very afternoon he had had a bunch of them before him while he explained a few new things. He had spent extra time on the men who were to be on forward watch this very night, with the men who were to go into the bow or into the forward crow's nest. And now they were there, buried as the bow went smash into it, or--those of them who had drawn the crow's nest--swinging a hundred feet in the air. All right for old seagoers, but most of these boys had never in their lives before been on an ocean-going ship. Some had never even seen a big ship until they came to the seacoast for their trip. They had great eyesight, some of these young fellows--men who had lain on the bull's-eye at a thousand yards regularly were bound to have that--and they made good lookouts once they got the idea, but climbing the last twenty feet of that ladder to the crow's nest, leaning back under part of the time with life-belt stuffed under their overcoats--they surely must have been thinking that a soldier's duties were difficult as well as various in these days of war.
A ship on tossing seas and the wind blowing a dirge through the rigging--well, a man may be brave enough to fight all the Germans this side the Russian line, but if he is new to sea life he is apt to see things. Two soldiers were standing on deck when our naval officer came out of his room. They were not on guard. They did not have to be there--they were staying awake on their own account. One said to the other: "There, there--look! Ain't that a submarine?"
It was a shadow as high as a house. "If that is a submarine," thinks our officer, "then it is good night to us, for she's a whale of a one!"
It was no submarine. It was the shadow of one of their own ships which had been driven out of column.
It was blowing hard when our officer made the bridge. He could not see far, but far enough to see that the ocean was black, and that across the black of it the white patches were flying--dead white patches leaping high in the night.
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 God 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 shore. 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 assistants--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! _