_ Every American destroyer over here rates a young surgeon. What some of these surgeons don't know about seagoing can be found in about six hundred pages of Knight's "Modern Seamanship," but that does not matter much. Let them look after the casualties; there are capable young naval officers to look after the seagoing end.
Most of these young surgeons have a taste for adventure. If they had not, they would not be over here. The 352 drew one, born and raised in a Southern State. Before coming over here he had viewed the Atlantic once or twice from a distance, which did not quite content him. His ancestors must have crossed that same Atlantic to get to America, and somewhere within him was a high-pitched string that vibrated to every thrill of that same ocean now.
He used to speak of these things in the smoking-room of the King's Hotel here, which is where every destroyer officer comes at least once between cruises to get a--cup of coffee. He would have liked to make a few sea voyages when he was a little younger, but if a fellow is ever going to amount to anything he has to settle down sometime and become a respectable member of society--so his folks were always saying, and so he took up medicine. He liked his profession. A doctor can do a heap of good in a suffering world--especially if people will only let him. But so many people want a young doctor to be experienced before they ever will call him in! "Get experience," they say; and not a doggone one in a dozen'll ever give a fellow any chance to get the experience. "What the most of 'em want is for some one else to give us the experience." He did as well as the next young doctor, but at times he would grow almost melancholy sitting before the smoking-room fire telling of his waiting for business in his home town.
He was not at all melancholy by nature. He could keep the ward-room mess ringing with darky stories on a quiet night in port. His messmates called him Doc; and when the ship was at sea they were all glad to see him on the bridge studying things out. He had plenty of time for that. In two cruises his only cases were one quartermaster, who got hove across the bridge and broke his nose, and a gunner's mate who broke his leg by being bounced out of his bunk one windy night. They were a disgustingly healthy lot, these destroyer crews.
But he felt pleased just to be out to sea. These high hills of moving water sure did give a little ship heaps of action sometimes. He would watch them from the bridge. He would watch the officer of the watch too, and the man at the wheel, and the lookouts with their eyes skinned for U-boats, and the signal quartermasters balanced on the flying bridge and sending their messages in a jumping sea-way. He would go down to the chart house with the navigator and stand by to pass him dividers and parallels. He would stop to sigh when he thought that if somebody had only tipped him off in time he might have gone to Annapolis and right now be a young naval officer dashing around on one of these same destroyers. Still, being a surgeon on one of them wasn't too bad. If they had a battle or anything, a ship's doctor wasn't going to be too far away.
It was in his third cruise that the 352 got the S O S which resulted in the rescue of the big steamer spoken of. There had been other S O S's--any number of them--but this time there was something doing for our young doctor. When she signalled that nine of her people had been wounded by shell and shrapnel fire, and the 352's skipper ordered a deck officer and a whale-boat away, he also told Doc to break out his medical gear and go along. Doc already had his surgical gear ready; from the first word of the shelling he had gone below, and now everything was laid out ready for action on the ward-room transom.
Over to the ship they went, all hands in life-vests, and while the deck officer of the 352 was cross-questioning the captain and engineer, and looking around to see how much damage had been done and so on, Doc was rigging up an operating-table between the chart house and the chart deck rail, slinging the table in sort of hammock style so that when the ship rolled she would not roll his patients overboard.
Doc was no mean little operator. The great danger to most of the wounded men was of infection. One after the other, he had his cases up, asked about four questions, had about four looks, and went to it. No knowing that the U-boat might pop up again and try a few more shells, or that a bulkhead would not give way, or a boiler blow up when they tried to make steam below. No knowing; no.
Up they came to his swinging table, where Doc took a probe, poked into the wound, wrapped cotton around the probe, soaked it in iodine, jabbed it in, twisted it around, swabbed it out, dressed it down, slapped the patient on the chest, said "Next," and did it all over again.
"Next! You'd think it was a blessed barber's shop," Doc heard one of them say. Only he was an officer--by the back of his head Doc knew it--some of them would have told him what they thought of his rapid-fire action. But it was no time for canoodling--it was war, and they were all rated as grown men and so able to stand a few little painful touches.
One terribly wounded patient gave him worry. On him Doc worked with great care. He was working on him, all the others being attended to, when the 352's deck officer came to say that he was going back to the destroyer to report. "The captain of this ship wants to abandon her," said the deck officer.
"Abandon ship and we will never be able to get this man I got here now off her--not in this sea, sir," said Doc. "And if he's left alone for two hours, he'll sure die."
"I'll signal what the skipper says." The officer went off with his crew in the whale-boat, leaving a hospital steward and a signal quartermaster to stay with the doctor.
Doc was working away on his hard case when his quartermaster came to say that the 352 had signalled that they were to stay aboard and that the steamer was to get under way and steer a course south half east magnetic.
The doctor, without looking up, said: "All right."
"Shall I tell the steamer's captain, sir?"
This time Doc looked up. "Why, of course, tell him. Why not? Why do you ask me that?"
"You are the ranking naval officer aboard here, sir. I take orders from you now, sir."
For about four seconds Doc neglected his patient. That was so; so he was.
"Yes, tell the captain."
The quartermaster ran up the bridge ladder. Doc gazed over the chart-rail down to the deck, up and around on the ship. "Doggone!" he breathed. "I am the ranking--I'm the only naval officer present." Then he shook his head and bent to his patient. He might have the rank, but the last thing he was going to do was to butt in on any regular ship's officers.
The disabled ship went on to her new course, south half east magnetic, with the destroyer steaming twenty-knot circles around her. And late in the afternoon they made the convoy. By night she was tucked in the rear of twenty other ships, the doctor and his emergency staff still aboard. They were to remain aboard until the steamer made port.
That same night something happened. On the steamer they did not know just what it was. They saw a column of white, a column of black--those who happened to be looking--another column of white, from the big ship of the fleet. And then dark came. There were radios flying about, but they were code messages and the radio man could not decode them because the first thing the steamer captain had done that morning when it looked as though the U-boat was going to make them take to the boats was to heave the code-books overboard. In the morning they would know.
Morning came, but with it not a ship in sight. Of twenty ships and a group of destroyers the night before, not one now. It was his signal-officer who thought it out first. "U-boats thick last night, sir, and the convoy must 'a' got orders to disperse or else change course," he said to the doctor.
"That sounds like good dope to me too." He turned to the steamer's captain. "Where were you bound, sir?"
"To Havre."
The doctor could see nothing else but to proceed to Havre, and on a zigzag course. The old captain did not know about the zigzagging; he had never done any zigzagging and did not know why he should now--besides, it mixed his reckoning all up.
The doctor said he would fix the zigzagging part of it, and, telling his hospital steward to have a special eye out for the very sick man, went into the chart house and proceeded to explain the zigzagging stuff. He paused to recall all he had ever learned while elbowing the 352's navigator over the chart-table; also the answers he had got to his questions while so doing.
You steer 45 degrees off the course you really want to make for so many minutes and then you steer 90 degrees from that for the same number of minutes back toward the course you really want to make--see, so--and that gives so many minutes to the good--see. That was one way.
"How many minutes?" asked the captain.
Doc had to stop and think that over. "Twice the square of the total minutes--no, no. Take twice the sum of the squares of the minutes on the two legs--and get the square root and then you have the hypothenuse of the two sides of the triangle; that is, you have the number of minutes' steaming you make good on your real course."
The old skipper knew nothing of square roots or hypothenuses or anything that looked like 'em, and he had always laid his course out by compass points.
"All right," said Doc, and after a while laid out the zigzag courses in compass points.
The old fellow did not quite like it, so all that day Doc alternated between his bad patient and the bridge to keep the skipper reassured about the zigzagging. Also he urged the crew to have a special watch out for U-boats.
That night Doc and the seasoned signal quartermaster stood alternate watches on the bridge. Doc would take a nap; the quartermaster would take a nap; between them they were figuring to keep a sort of official navy lookout. There were ship's crew men on the lookout too, but the reaction from the shelling had set in. Doc used to find them asleep in the bridge wings.
Just before dawn of the second morning Doc saw a shadow looming on their starboard bow. He had another look. It was another steamer--a big one. She was drawing nearer. "See that?" he called to the man at the wheel.
"See what?" sort of drowsed out the man at the wheel.
The trusty quartermaster from the 352 was getting a wink under the bridge-rail. Doc yelled to him, at the same time grabbing up the megaphone and roaring into the night air: "Where you-all going? Where the devil you-all going? Can't you-all see where you're going? Keep off--keep off."
"Can't
you see where you're going?--keep off yourself."
By that time the signal quartermaster was awake and bounding across the bridge. He grabbed the wheel and began to spin it around. The ship's bow turned. Doc saw the big hulk go by him in the dark.
"Good work," said Doc. "How'd you spot him so quick?"
"I didn't spot him, sir. I don't see him yet. I went by the sound of his voice."
"Special little angel perched up aloft to look out for Jack when at sea--" sang Doc. "I thought that was a nursery rhyme. Now I know it's true. Between you and me, quartermaster, we'll get this ship to port yet."
They finished that night and the next day without seeing anything or having anything happen. Nothing except the argument about the forward compartment.
Among the shells which had come aboard the steamer was one which had punched a fine big hole in her bow. The ship's crew had put a plug there which worked all right till the ship took to rolling, which it did this day. The hole was just at the water-line. Before they knew anything about it there was the plug gone and the water up to a man's knees in the forward compartment. Doc said it should be stopped.
The old skipper wanted to know who was going to stop it. His crew? No, sir. He wouldn't ask any of 'em to go down there--besides, they wouldn't go. They were all used up since the battle with the U-boat. It made no difference if the ship sank. He'd had so much trouble that trip anyway that he wasn't too sure he wouldn't just as soon see her sink. He wasn't too sure they wouldn't all be better off in the boats. The U-boat had ordered them into the boats, and, only the destroyer had come along when it did, they would 'a' taken to the boats, and then they'd 'a' been picked up and no more watches or ships or holes in the for'ard compartment to worry about.
There was nothing left but for Doc to call for volunteers from among the gun crew. They were bluejackets, and their only complaint on the trip had been that the U-boat's guns had outranged their guns. They volunteered in a body--even the three wounded members. Doc took all the sound ones and went down into the forward compartment with a mattress and some scantling he found in the hold. The water was by then about up to the men's waists. It was hard, cold work, but they got it done--the mattress stuffed into the hole and the scantling shoring it up. It still leaked, but not much--a little auxiliary steam in there at intervals did not quite keep her dried out, but it kept her head above water, so that was all right. All that day she was a lone steamer plugging her halting way over a wide sea. Seven knots was her speed, and all hands tickled to be making that because of weak places showing from time to time in her steam department--damages by shell fire which they did not appreciate properly at first.
They were nearing the coast of France. They would have to make a landfall soon, and running without lights, as they were, made things hard, so the old skipper began to talk to Doc. If the doctor didn't mind, he would take full charge of the ship himself. She was a big ship with a three-million-dollar cargo, and if anything happened her, the owners would naturally look to him, the master, for it.
Doc thought it was a pretty cool way to wash out all record of what his little force had done, but he also recognized the old fellow's position. "It sounds reasonable," said Doc, "but I think you ought to give me an idea of what you're going to do."
"There's been no sun for a sight these two days, but we were here"--he made a new dot over an old one on the chart--"and logging so many knots to-day noon we ought to be"--he made another dot--"about here now."
"How about the tides?"
"The tides? Oh, yes! Well, I don't know about the tides. You see, I never made a port in France before."
"You didn't?"
There was a coast chart-book in the rack. Doc took it down and began to read it. He made regular trips down to see how his wounded patient was getting on, but always hurried back to his coast chart-book. Interesting things in chart-books--he used to read them aboard the destroyer.
That night the first mate came up on the bridge. Doc asked him what kind of a light he expected to pick up. The mate told him. Doc thought he was wrong, and said so.
Well, that was the light the old man had said they would make. Where was he now? Asleep, and Lord knows he needed it.
Doc did not wake him up. He had argued enough with him, but he didn't think the old man had allowed for the tides, and if anything happened there would be no more arguments--he would just assert his rank and take charge of the ship.
Doc went below, gave his worst wounded patient a night potion and saw him to sleep. He also went down to see the chief engineer, who had been wounded three times--once in the head. The Doc talked to him awhile--he was inclined to rave--gave him a half-grain jolt of morphine and saw him to sleep. He told the signal quartermaster that he had better have a nap before he dropped in his tracks.
"But the night-watches, sir?"
"We'll leave the night-watches to the ship's crew and Providence. The watch may sleep on the job, but the Lord won't--at least I hope not. Anyway, I know I'm doggone tired," said Doc, and turned in.
Doc could have slept longer--about twenty-four hours longer, he thought, when he found himself awake. It was a sort of grinding under the ship which had wakened him.
By his illuminated wrist-watch he saw that it was three o'clock--three in the afternoon, he hoped. But it wasn't. It was three in the morning. He had been asleep two hours.
He went on deck just as his signal-officer came to tell him the ship was ashore.
Doc found the old man and the mate looking over charts under a hand-light in the chart house. "I could 'a' bet we'd 'a' picked up that other light," the old man was saying.
"The bettin' part don't explain it," said the mate. "A fine place to be high and dry and a U-boat come along in the morning and plunk us another few shells between our livers and lights. I'm tired of keeping my mind on U-boats."
That was when Doc horned in on the old skipper. "I been pretty easy with you-all. You ought to been twenty miles farther east. You listened to me and you-all would have been. Look here"--he hauled down the chart-book and showed them. "And now I'll take charge."
It was low tide when she ran on to the beach. With the flood-tide and the engines kicking back they had her off at daylight. After that, with Doc on the bridge, everything seemed to go all right. The mate said he must have come over the side with a medicine-chest full of horseshoes. By eleven o'clock next morning they were taking on a pilot outside Havre.
Havre is a regular French port with jetties leading down from the heart of the residential places almost. The people, seeing her coming, she bearing the evident marks of her late battle, crowded down to greet her. About five minutes was enough for her story to circulate. The bluejacket gun crew, being in uniform, caught their eyes first. They cheered them, the brav' Américains. And then the wounded came. Oh, the pity! Three or four of the wounded, who had all that day been cavorting around deck, saw the dramatic values and assumed most languid poses. Oh, the great pity! Whereat two more almost fainted.
The worst wounded one--there was no pretense about him--had to be carried down the gang-plank. Doc went with him. Good nursing was what he needed; and he was going to see that he got it.
He got it in the port hospital; and then Doc and his two assistants turned in and slept sixteen hours by Doc's illuminated wrist-watch.
After cabling and getting his orders, Doc headed for his base. Their journey back by train and steamer--the two men in dungarees and life-vests, and Doc in sea-boots and one of those sheepskin coats they wear on destroyers--was noteworthy but not seagoing, so it is passed up here.
Doc made his port. We met him in the King's Hotel smoke-room, and he told us all about it. We had had it already from the quartermaster and the hospital steward, but Doc was to have a little touch of his own.
"There she was, a little down by the head, but safe in port," concluded Doc; "and while I was waiting for my orders I had a look around the place. There was a little square there with little cafés all around the square, and I sat in front of one of them and had my coffee."
"So this was France," I kept saying to myself. All my life I had been reading more or less about France, and it used to be a sort of dream to me to be thinking I might some day get there. And there I was--only a little corner of France, but it was France, and a pretty sunny little place after our week to sea.
"And while I sat there people came up and looked me over. I thought it was my needing a shave, but it wasn't. I had my cap on, and by my cap they knew me for the officer of the heroes of the ship. After a while they came up and spoke to me. I didn't get quite what they were all saying, but I was one brave man--we were all brave men, there was no doubt about that part. When they all got through one little girl came up and gave me a bunch of flowers."
He pulled out some kind of a faded flower and sighed. "She was about eight years old."
"No use talking," I said, "it's a great life." And the quartermaster--he stood with his signal-flags sticking out under his armpit--said:
"Yes, sir, a great life if we don't weaken."
"What's there to weaken about? Something doing every doggone minute since we left our ship." _