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9. picked themselves out of corners, one with the blood streaming down his
face from a bad gash over his eye. Many of them told later of "seeing stars"
when the vibration of the depth charge travelled through the hull and their
own bodies; some averred that "white light" seemed to shoot out of the Z3's
walls. Each man stood at his post waiting for the next charge.
Crash! A second depth charge. To every one's relief, it was less violent
than the first. A few more lights went out. Meanwhile the Z3 continued to
sink and was rapidly nearing the danger point. Having escaped the first two
depth charges, Captain Bill hastened to bring the boat up to a higher level.
Then to make things cheerful, it was discovered that the Z3 showed
absolutely no inclination to obey her controls.
"At first," said Captain Bill, "I thought that the first depth bomb must
have jammed all the external machinery, then I decided that our measures to
rise had not yet overcome the impetus of our forced descent. Meanwhile the
old hooker was heading for the bottom of the Irish Sea, though I'd blown out
every bit of water in her tanks. Had to, fifty feet more, and she would have
crushed in like an egg shell under the wheel of a touring car. But she kept on
going down. The distance of the third, fourth and fifth depth bombs,
however, put cheer in our hearts. Then, presently, she began to rise. The old
girl came up like an elevator in a New York business block. I knew that the
minute I came to the surface those destroyer brutes would try to fill me full
of holes, so I had a man with a flag ready to jump on deck the minute we
emerged. He was pretty damn spry about it, too. I took another look-see
through the periscope, and saw that the destroyer lay about two miles away,
and as I looked she came for me again. Meanwhile, my signal man was
hauling himself out of the hatchway as if his legs were in boiling water."
"We've got her!" cried somebody aboard the destroyer in a deep
American voice full of the exultation of battle. The lean rifles swung,
lowered.... "Point one, lower." They were about to hear "Fire!" when the
Stars and Stripes and sundry other signals burst from the deck of the misused
Z3.
"Well what do you think of that?" said the gunner. "If it ain't one of our
own gang. Say, we must have given it to 'em hard."
10. "We'll go over and see who it is," said the captain of the destroyer. "The
signals are O.K., but it may be a dodge of the Huns. Ask 'em who they are."
In obedience to the order, a sailor on the destroyer's bridge wigwagged
the message.
"Z3," answered one of the dungaree-clad figures on the submarine's deck.
Captain Bill came up himself, as the destroyer drew alongside, to see his
would-be assassin. There was no resentment in his heart. The adventure was
only part of the day's work. The destroyer neared; her bow overlooked them.
The two captains looked at each other. The dialogue was laconic.
"Hello, Bill," said the destroyer captain.
"All right?"
"Sure," answered Captain Bill, to one who had been his friend and class
mate.
"Ta, ta, then," said he of the destroyer, and the lean vessel swept away in
the twilight.
Captain Bill decided to stay on the surface for a while. Then he went
below to look over things. The cook, standing over some unlovely slop
which marked the end of a half dozen eggs broken by the concussion, was
giving his opinion of the undue hastiness of destroyers. The cook was a child
of Brooklyn, and could talk. The opinion was not flattering.
"Give it to 'em, cooko," said one of the crew, patting the orator
affectionately on the shoulder. "We're with you."
And Captain Bill laughed.
11. IV
RUNNING SUBMERGED
It was breakfast time, and the officers of the submarines then in port had
gathered round one end of the long dining table in the wardroom of the
mother ship. Two or three who had breakfasted early had taken places on a
bench along the nearer wall and were examining a disintegrating heap of
English and American magazines, whilst pushed back from the table and
smoking an ancient briar, the senior of the group read the wireless news
which had just arrived that morning. The news was not of great importance.
The lecture done with, the tinkle of cutlery and silver, which had been
politely hushed, broke forth again.
"What are you doing this morning, Bill?" said one of the young captains
to another who had appeared in old clothes.
"Going out at about half past nine with the X10. (The X10 was a British
submarine.) Just going to take a couple of shots at each other. What are you
up to?"
"Oh, I've got to give a bearing the once over, and then I've got to write a
bunch of letters."
"Wouldn't you like to come with us?" said the first speaker, pausing over
a steaming dish of breakfast porridge. "Be mighty glad to take you."
"Indeed I would," I replied with joy in my heart. "All my life long I have
wanted to take a trip in a submarine."
"That's fine! We'll get you some dungarees. Can't fool round a submarine
in good clothes." The whole table began to take a friendly interest, and a
dispute arose as to whose clothes would best fit me. I am a large person.
"Give him my extra set, they're on the side of my locker." "Don't you want a
cap or something?" "Hey, that's too small, wait and I'll get Tom's coat." "Try
these on." They are a wonderful lot, the submarine officers.
12. I felt frightfully submarinish in my outfit. We must have made a
picturesque group. The captain led off, wearing a tattered, battered, old
uniform of Annapolis days, I followed wearing an old Navy cap jammed on
the side of my head and a suit of newly laundered dungarees; the second
officer brought up the rear; his outfit consisted of dungaree trousers, a kind
of aviator's waistcoat, and an old cloth cap.
The submarines were moored close by the side of the mother ship, a
double doorway in the wall of the machine shop on the lower deck opening
directly upon them. A narrow runway connected the nearest vessel with the
sill of this aperture, and mere planks led from one superstructure to another.
The day, first real day after weeks of rain, was soft and clear, great low
masses of vapour, neither mist nor cloud, but something of both, swept down
the long bay on the wings of the wind from the clean, sweet-smelling sea;
the sun shone like ancient silver. Little fretful waves of water clear as the
water of a spring coursed down the alley ways between the submarines;
gulls, piping and barking, whirled like snow flakes overhead. I crossed to
one grey alligatorish superstructure, looked down a narrow circular hatch at
whose floor I could see the captain waiting for my coming, grasped the steel
rings of a narrow ladder, and descended into the submarine. The first
impression was of being surrounded by tremendous, almost incredible
complexity. A bewildering and intricate mass of delicate mechanical
contrivances, valves, stop cocks, wheels, chains, shining pipes, ratchets,
faucets, oil-cups, rods, gauges. Second impression, bright cleanliness,
shining brass, gleams of steely radiance, stainless walls of white enamel
paint. Third impression, size; there was much more room than I had
expected. Of course everything is to be seen by floods of steady electric
light, since practically no daylight filters down through an open hatchway.
"This," said the captain, "is the control room. Notice the two depth
gauges, two in case one gets out of order. That thick tube with a brass thread
coiled about it is a periscope, and it's a peach! It's of the 'housing' kind and
winds up and down along that screw. The thread prevents any leak of water.
In here," we went through a lateral compartment with a steel door, thick as
that of a small safe, "is a space where wee eat, sleep and live; our cook stove
is that gadget in the corner. We don't do much cooking when we're running
submerged; in here," we passed another stout partition, "is our Diesel engine,
and our dynamos. Up forward is another living space which technically
13. belongs to the officers, and the torpedo room." He took me along. "Now
you've seen it all. A fat steel cigar, divided into various compartments and
cram jammed full of shining machinery. Of course, there's no privacy,
whatsoever. (Readers will have to guess what is occasionally used for the
phonograph table.) Our space is so limited that designers will spend a year
arguing where to put an object no bigger than a soap box. We get on very
well however. Every crew gets used to its boat; the men get used to each
other. They like the life; you couldn't drag them back to surface vessels. An
ideal submarine crew works like a perfect machine. When we go out you'll
see that we give our orders by Klaxon. There's too much noise for the voice.
Suppose I had popped up on the surface right under the very nose of one of
those destroyer brutes. She might start to ram me; in which case I might not
have time to make recognition signals and would have to take my choice
between getting rammed or depth bombed. I decide to submerge, push a
button, the Klaxon gives a yell, and every man does automatically what he
has been trained to do. A floods the tanks, B stands by the dynamos, C
watches the depth gauges and so on. That's what we call a crash dive."
"Over at the destroyer base," I said, "they told me that the Germans were
having trouble because of lack of trained crews."
"You can just bet they are," said the captain. "Must have lost several boats
that way. Can't monkey with these boats; if somebody pulls a fool stunt—
Good Night!" He opened a gold watch and closed it again with a click.
"Nine o'clock, just time to shove off. Come up on the bridge until we get out
in the bay."
I climbed the narrow ladder again and crept along the superstructure to
the bridge which rose for all the world like a little grey steel pulpit. One has
to be reasonably sure-footed. It was curious to emerge from the electric
lighted marvel to the sunlight of the bay, to the view of the wild mountains
descending to the clear sea. The captain gave his orders. Faint, vague noises
rose out of the hatchway; sailors standing at various points along the
superstructure cast off the mooring ropes and took in bumpers shaped like
monstrous sausages of cord which had protected one bulging hull from
another; the submarine went ahead solemnly as a planet. Friendly faces
leaned over the rail of the mother ship high above.
14. Once out into the bay, I asked the second in command just what we were
up to. The second in command was a well knit youngster with the coolest,
most resolute blue eyes it has ever been my fortune to see.
"We're going to take shots at a British submarine and then she's going to
have a try at us. We don't really fire torpedoes—but manoeuvre for a
position. Three shots apiece. There she is now, running on the surface. Just
as soon as we get out to deep water we'll submerge and go for her. Great
practice."
A British submarine, somewhat larger than our American boat, was
running down the bay, pushing curious little waves of water ahead of her.
Several men stood on her deck.
"Nice boat, isn't she? Her captain's a great scout. About two months ago a
patrol boat shot off his periscope after he made it reasonably clear he wasn't
a Hun. You ought to hear him tell about it. Especially his opinion of patrol
boat captains. Great command of language. Bully fellow, born submarine
man."
"I meant to ask you if you weren't sometimes mistaken for a German," I
said.
"Yes, it happens," he answered coolly. "You haven't seen Smithie yet,
have you? Guess he was away when you came. A bunch of destroyers almost
murdered him last month. He's come the nearest to kissing himself good-bye
of any of us. Going to dive now, time to get under."
Once more down the steel ladder. I was getting used to it. The handful of
sailors who had been on deck waited for us to pass. Within, the strong,
somewhat peppery smell of hot oil from the Diesel engines floated, and there
was to be heard a hard, powerful knocking-spitting sound from the same
source. The hatch cover was secured, a listener might have heard a steely
thump and a grind as it closed. Men stood calmly by the depth gauges and
the valves. Not being a "crash dive," the feat of getting under was
accomplished quietly, accomplished with no more fracas than accompanies
the running of a motor car up to a door. One instant we were on the surface,
the next instant we were under, and the lean black arrow on the broad moon-
15. faced depth gauge was beginning to creep from ten to fifteen, from fifteen to
twenty, from twenty to twenty-five.... The clatter of the Diesel engine had
ceased; in its place rose a low hum. And of course there was no alteration of
light, nothing but that steady electric glow on those cold, clean bulging
walls.
"What's the programme, now?"
"We are going down the bay a bit, put up our periscope, pick up the
Britisher, and fire an imaginary tin fish at him. After each shot, we come to
the surface for an instant to let him know we've had our turn."
"What depth are we now?"
"Only fifty-five feet."
"What depth can you go?"
"The Navy Regulations forbid our descending more than two hundred
feet. Subs are always hiking around about fifty or seventy-five feet under,
just deep enough to be well under the keel of anything going by."
"Where are we now?"
"Pretty close to the mouth of the bay. I'm going to shove up the periscope
in a few minutes."
The captain gave an order, the arrow on the dial retreated towards the left.
"Keep her there." He applied his eye to the periscope. A strange, watery
green light poured out of the lens, and focussing in his eye, lit the ball with
wild demoniac glare. A consultation ensued between the captain and his
junior.
"Do you see her?"
"Yes, she is in a line with that little white barn on the island.... She's
heading down the bay now.... So many points this way (this last direction to
16. the helmsman) ... there she is ... she's making about twelve ... she's turning,
coming back ... steady ... five, ... six ... Fire!"
There was a rush, a clatter, and a stir and the boat rose evenly to the
surface.
"Here, take a look at her," said the captain, pushing me towards the
periscope. I fitted the eyepieces (they might have been those of field glasses
embedded in the tube) to my eyes, and beheld again the outer world. The
kind of a world one might see in a crystal, a mirror world, a glass world, but
a remarkably clear little world. And as I peered, a drop of water cast up by
some wave touched the outer lens of the tube, and a trickle big as a deluge
slid down the visionary bay.
Twice again we "attacked" the Britisher. Her turn came. Our boat rose to
the surface, and I was once more invited to accompany the captain to the
bridge. The British boat lay far away across the inlet. We cruised about
watching her.
"There she goes." The Britisher sank like a stone in a pond. We continued
our course. The two officers peered over the water with young, searching,
resolute eyes. Then they took to their binoculars.
"There she is," cried the captain, "in a line with the oak tree." I searched
for a few minutes in vain. Suddenly I saw her, that is to say, I saw with a
great deal of difficulty a small dark rod moving through the water. It came
closer; I saw the hatpin shaped trail behind it.
Presently with a great swirl and roiling of foam the Britisher pushed
herself out of the water. I could see my young captain judging the
performance in his eye. Then we played victim two more times and went
home. On the way we discussed the submarine patrol. Now there is no more
thrilling game in the world than the game of periscope vs. periscope.
"What do you do?" I asked. "Just what you saw us do to-day. We pack up
grub and supplies, beat it out on the high seas and wait for a Fritz to come
along. We give him a taste of his own medicine; given him one more enemy
to dodge. Suppose a Hun baffles the destroyers, makes off to a lonely spot,
17. and comes to the surface for a breath of air. There isn't a soul in sight, not a
stir of smoke on the horizon. Just as Captain Otto, or Von Something is
gloating over the last hospital ship he sunk, and thinking what a lovely
afternoon it is, a tin fish comes for him like a bullet out of a gun, there
comes a thundering pound, a vibration that sends little waves through the
water, a great foul swirl, fragments of cork, and it's all over with the Watch
on the Rhine. Sometimes Fritz's torpedo meets ours on the way. Then once
in a while a destroyer or a patriotic but misguided tramp makes things
interesting for a bit. But it's the most wonderful service of all. I wouldn't
give it up for anything. We're all going out day after to-morrow. Can't you
cable London for permission to go? You'll like it. Don't believe anything you
hear about the air getting bad. The principal nuisance when you've been
under a long while is the cold; the boat gets as raw and damp as an
unoccupied house in winter. Jingo, quarter past one! We'll be late for dinner."
Some time after this article had appeared, the captain of an American
submarine gave me a copy of the following verses written by a submarine
sailor. Poems of this sort, typewritten by some accommodating yeoman, are
always being handed round in the Navy; I have seen dozens of them. Would
that I knew the author of this picturesque and flavorous ditty, for I would
gladly give him the credit he deserves.
A SUBMARINE
Born in the shops of the devil,
Designed by the brains of a fiend;
Filled with acid and crude oil,
And christened "A Submarine."
The posts send in their ditties
Of battleships spick and clean;
But never a word in their columns
Do you see of a submarine.
So I'll endeavour to depict our story
In a very laconic way;
18. So please have patience to listen
Until I have finished my say.
We eat where'er we can find it,
And sleep hanging up on hooks;
Conditions under which we're existing
Are never published in books.
Life on these boats is obnoxious
And this is using mild terms;
We are never bothered by sickness,
There isn't any room for germs.
We are never troubled with varmints,
There are things even a cockroach can't stand;
And any self-respecting rodent
Quick as possible beats it for land.
And that little one dollar per diem
We receive to submerge out of sight,
Is often earned more than double
By charging batteries all night.
And that extra compensation
We receive on boats like these,
We never really get at all.
It's spent on soap and dungarees.
Machinists get soaked in fuel oil,
Electricians in H2SO4,
Gunner's mates with 600 W,
And torpedo slush galore.
When we come into the Navy Yard
We are looked upon with disgrace;
And they make out some new regulation
To fit our particular case.
19. Now all you battleship sailors,
When you are feeling disgruntled and mean,
Just pack your bag and hammock
And go to a submarine.
V
THE RETURN OF THE CAPTAINS
The breakfast hour was drawing to its end, and the very last straggler sat
alone at the ward room table. Presently an officer of the mother ship, passing
through, called to the lingering group of submarine officers.
"The X4 is coming up the bay, and the X12 has been reported from signal
station."
The news was received with a little hum of friendly interest. "Wonder
what Ned will have to say for himself this time." "Must have struck pretty
good weather." "Bet you John has been looking for another chance at that
Hun of his." The talk drifted away into other channels. A little time passed.
Then suddenly a door opened, and one after the other entered the three
officers of the first home coming submarine. They were clad in various
ancient uniforms which might have been worn by an apprentice lad in a
garage, old grey flannel shirts, and stout grease stained shoes; several days
had passed since their faces had felt a razor, and all were a little pale from
their cruise. But the liveliest of keen eyes burned in each resolute young
face, eyes smiling and glad. A friendly hullaballoo broke forth. Chairs
scraped, one fell with a crash.
"Hello, boys!"
"Hi, John!"
20. "For the love of Pete, Joe, shave off those whiskers of yours; they make
you look like Trotsky."
"See any Germans?"
"What's the news?"
"What's doing?"
"Hi, Manuelo" (this to a Philipino mess boy who stood looking on with
impassive curiosity), "save three more breakfasts."
"Anything go for you?"
"Well, if here isn't our old Bump!"
The crowd gathered round Captain John who had established contact (this
is military term quite out of place in a work on the Navy) with the eagerly
sought, horribly elusive German.
"Go on, John, give us an earful. What time did you say it was?"
"About 5 A.M.," answered the captain. He stood leaning against a door
and the fine head, the pallor, the touch of fatigue, all made a very striking
and appealing picture. "Say about eight minutes after five. I'd just come up
to take a look-see, and saw him just about two miles away on the surface,
and moving right along. So I went under to get into a good position, came up
again and let him have one. Well, the bird saw it just as it was almost on
him, swung her round, and dived like a ton of lead."
The audience listened in silent sympathy. One could see the
disappointment on the captain's face.
"Where was he?"
"About so and so."
"That's the jinx that got after the convoy sure as you live."
21. The speaker had had his own adventures with the Germans. A month or
so he shoved his periscope and spotted a Fritz on the surface in full noonday.
The watchful Fritz, however, had been lucky enough to see the enemy
almost at once and had dived. The American followed suit. The eyeless
submarine manoeuvred about some eighty feet under, the German evidently
"making his get-a-way," the American hoping to be lucky enough to pick up
Fritz's trail, and get a shot at him when the enemy rose again, to the top. And
while the two blind ships manoeuvred there in the dark of the abyss, the keel
of the fleeing German had actually, by a curious chance, scraped along the
top of the American vessel and carried away the wireless aerials!
All were silent for a few seconds, thinking over the affair. It was not
difficult to read the thought in every mind, the thought of getting at the
enemy. The idea of our Navy is "Get after 'em, Keep after 'em, Stay after
'em, Don't give 'em an instant of security or rest." And none have this
fighting spirit deeper in their hearts than our gallant men of the submarine
patrol.
"That's all," said Captain John. "I'm going to have a wash up." He lifted a
grease stained hand to his cheek, and rubbed his unshaven beard, and
grinned.
"Any letters?"
"Whole bag of stuff. Smithie put it on your desk."
Captain John wandered off. Presently, the door opened again, and three
more veterans of the patrol cruised in, also in ancient uniforms. There were
more cheers; more friendly cries. It was unanimously decided that the
"Trotsky" of the first lot had better take a back seat, since the second in
command of the newcomers was "a perfect ringer for Rasputin."
"See anything?"
"Nothing much. There's a bit of wreckage just off shore. Saw a British
patrol boat early Tuesday morning. I was on the surface, lying between her
and the sunrise; she was hidden by a low lying swirl of fog; she saw us first.
When we saw her, I made signals, and over she came. Guess what the old
22. bird wanted ... wanted to know if I'd seen a torpedo he'd fired at me! An old
scout with white whiskers, one of those retired captains, I suppose, who has
gone back on the job. He admitted that he had received the Admiralty notes
about us, but thought we acted suspicious.... Did you ever hear of such
nerve!"
When the war was young, I had a year of it on land. Now, I have seen the
war at sea. To my mind, if there was one service of this war which more than
any other required those qualities of endurance, skill and courage whose
blend the fighting men so wisely call "guts," it surely was our submarine
patrol. So here's to the L boats, their officers and crews, and to the Bushnell
and her brood of Bantry Bay!
VI
OUR SAILORS
In the lingo of the Navy, the enlisted men are known as "gobs." This word
is not to be understood as in any sense conveying a derogatory meaning. The
men use it themselves;—"the gobs on the 210." "What does a real gob want
with a wrist watch?" It is an unlovely syllable, but it has character.
In the days before the war, our navy was, to use an officer's phrase, more
of "a big training school" than anything else. There were, of course, a certain
number of young men who intended to become sailors by profession, even
as some entered the regular army with the intention of remaining in it, but
the vast majority of sailors were "one enlistment men" who signed on for
four years and then returned to civilian life. The personnel included boys just
graduated from or weary of high school, young men from the western farms
eager for a glimpse of the world, and city lads either uncertain as to just what
23. trade or profession they should follow or thirsting for a man's cup of
adventure before settling down to the prosaic task that gives the daily bread.
To-day, the enlisted personnel of the Navy is a cross section of the
Nation's youth. There are many college men, particularly among the
engineers. There are young men who have abandoned professions to enter
the Navy to do their bit. For instance, the yeoman who ran the little office on
board Destroyer 66 was a young lawyer who had attained real distinction.
On board the same destroyer was a lad who had been for a year or two a
reporter on one of the New York papers, and a chubby earnest lad whose
father is a distinguished leader of the Massachusetts bar. Of my four best
friends, "Pop" had worked in some shop or other, "Giles" was a student from
an agricultural college somewhere in western New York, "Idaho" was a high
school boy fresh from a great ranch, and "Robie" was the son of a physician
in a small southern city. The Napoleonic veterans of the new navy are the
professional "gobs" of old; sailors with second enlistment stripes go down
the deck the very vieux de la veille.
The sailor suffers from the fact that many people have fixed in their
minds an imaginary sailor whom they have created from light literature and
the stage. Just as the soldier must always be a dashing fellow, so must the
sailor be a rollicking soul, fond of the bottle and with a wife in every port. Is
not the "comic sailor" a recognized literary figure? Yet whoever heard of the
"comic soldier"? This silly phantom blinds us to the genuine charm of
character with which the sea endows her adventurous children; we turn into
a frolic a career that is really one of endurance, heroism, and downright hard
work. Not that I am trying to make Jack a sobersides or a saint. He is full of
fun and spirit. But the world ought to cease imagining him either as a
mannerless "rough-houser" or a low comedian. Our sailors have no special
partiality for the bottle; indeed, I feel quite certain that a majority of every
crew "keep away from booze" entirely. As for having a wife in every port,
the Chaplain says that a sailor is the most faithful husband in the world.
As a lot, sailors are unusually good-hearted. This last Christmas the men
of our American battleships now included in the Grand Fleet requested
permission to invite aboard the orphan children of a great neighbouring city,
and give them an "American good time." So the kiddies were brought
aboard; Jack rigged up a Christmas tree, and distributed presents and sweets
24. in a royal style. Said a witness of the scene to me, "I never saw children so
happy."
One of the passions which sway "the gobs" is to have a set of "tailor-
made" liberty blues. By "liberty blues" you are to understand the sailor's best
uniform, the picturesque outfit he wears ashore. Surely the uniform of our
American sailor is quite the handsomest of all. On such a flimsy excuse,
however, as that "the government stuff don't fit you round the neck" or
"hasn't any style," Jack is forever rushing to some Louie Katzenstein in
Norfolk, Va., or Sam Schwartz of Charlestown, Mass., to get a "real" suit
made. Endless are the attempts to make these "a little bit different," attempts,
alas, which invariably end in reprimand and disaster. The dernier cri of
sportiness is to have a right hand pocket lined with starboard green and a left
hand pocket lined with port red. A second ambition is to own a heavy seal
ring, "fourteen karat, Navy crest. Name and date of enlistment engraved
free." Sailors pay anywhere from twenty to seventy dollars for these
treasures. To-day, the style is to have a patriotic motto engraved within the
band. I remember several inscribed "Democracy or Death." The desire of
having a "real" watch comes next in hand, and if you ask a sailor the time he
is very liable to haul out a watch worth anywhere from a hundred and fifty to
two hundred dollars.
Our sailors are the very finest fellows in the world to live with. I sailed
with the Navy many thousand miles; I visited all the great bases, and I did
not see one single case of drunkenness or disorderly behaviour. The work
done by our sailors was a hard and gruelling labour, the seas which they
patrolled were haunted by every danger, yet everywhere they were eager and
keen, their energy unabated, their spirits unshaken.
VII
THE BASE
25. The town which served as the base of the American destroyers has but
one great street; it is called The Esplanade, and lies along the harbour edge
and open to the sea. I saw it first in the wild darkness of a night in early
March. Rain, the drenching, Irish rain, had been falling all the day, but
toward evening the downpour had ceased, and a blustery south-east wind
had thinned the clouds, and brought the harbour water to clashing and
complaining in the dark. It was such a night as a man might peer at from a
window, and be grateful for the roof which sheltered him, yet up and down
the gloomy highway, past the darkened houses and street lamps shaded to
mere lifeless lumps of light, there moved a large and orderly crowd. For the
most part, this crowd consisted of American sailors from the destroyers in
port, lean, wholesome-looking fellows these, with a certain active and eager
manner very reassuring to find on this side of our cruelly tried and jaded
world. Peering into a little lace shop decked with fragile knickknacks and
crammed with bolts of table linen, I saw two great bronzed fellows in pea
jackets and pancake hats buying something whose niceties of stitch and
texture a little red-cheeked Irish lass explained with pedagogic seriousness;
whilst at the other end of the counter a young officer with grey hair fished in
his pockets for the purchase money of some yards of lace which the
proprietress was slowly winding around a bit of blue cardboard. Back and
forth, now swallowed up in the gloom of a dark stretch, now become visible
in the light of a shop door, streamed the crowd of sailors, soldiers, officers,
country folk and townspeople. I heard Devon drawling its oe's and oa's;
America speaking with Yankee crispness, and Ireland mingling in the babel
with a mild and genial brogue.
By morning the wind had died down; the sun was shining merrily, and
great mountain masses of rolling white cloud were sailing across the sky as
soft and blue as that which lies above Fiesole. Going forth, I found the little
town established on an edge of land between the water and the foot of a hill;
a long hill whose sides were in places so precipitous that only masses of dark
green shrubbery appeared between the line of dwellings along the top and
the buildings of the Esplanade. The hill, however, has not had things all its
way. Two streets, rising at an angle which would try the endurance of an
Alpine ram actually go in a straight line from the water's edge to the high
ground, taking with them, in their ascent, tier after tier of mean and grimy
dwellings. All other streets, however, are less heroic, and climb the side of
the hill in long, sloping lateral lines. A new Gothic cathedral, built just below
26. the crest of the hill, but far overtopping it, dominates and crowns the town;
perhaps crushes would be the better verb, for the monstrous bone-grey mass
towers above the terraced roofs of the port with an ascendancy as much
moral as physical. Yet for all its vastness and commanding situation, it is
singularly lifeless, and only the trickery of a moonlight night can invest its
mediocre, Albert-Memorial architecture with any trace of beauty.
The day begins slowly there, partly because this south Irish climate is
such stuff as dreams are made of, partly because good, old irreconcilables
are suspicious of the daylight saving law as a British measure. There is little
to be seen till near on ten o'clock. Then the day begins; a number of shrewd
old fish wives, with faces wrinkled like wintered apples and hair still black
as a raven's wing, set up their stalls in an open space by a line of deserted
piers, and peasants from near by villages come to town driving little donkey
carts laden with the wares; now one hears the real rural brogue, the shrewd
give and take of jest and bargain, and a prodigious yapping and snarling
from a prodigious multitude of curs. Never have I seen more collarless dogs.
The streets are full of the hungry, furtive creatures; there is a fight every two
or three minutes between some civic champion and one of the invading rural
mongrels; many is the Homeric fray that has been settled by a good kick
with a sea boot. Little by little the harbour, seeing that the land is at last
awake, comes ashore to buy its fresh eggs, green vegetables, sweet milk and
golden Tipperary butter. The Filipino and negro stewards from the American
ships arrive with their baskets and cans; they are very popular with
Queenstown folk who cherish the delusion that our trimly dressed, genially
grinning negroes are the American Indians of boyhood's romance. From the
cathedral's solitary spire, a chime jangles out the quarters, amusing all who
pause to listen with its involuntary rendering of the first bar of "Strike up the
band; here comes a sailor." And ever and anon, a breeze blows in from the
harbour bringing with it a faint smell from the funnels of the oil-burning
destroyers, a smell which suggests that a giant oil lamp somewhere in the
distance has need of turning down. After the lull of noon, the men to whom
liberty has been given begin to arrive in boatloads forty and fifty strong. The
patrollers, distinguished from their fellows by leggins, belts, white hats, and
police billie, descend first, form in line, and march off to their ungrateful
task of keeping order where there is no disorder; then, scrambling up the
water side stairs like youngsters out of school, follow the liberty men. If
there is any newcomer to the fleet among them, it is an even chance that he
27. will be rushed over the hill to the Lusitania cemetery, a gruesome pilgrimage
to which both British and American tars are horridly partial. Some are sure
to stroll off to their club, some elect to wander about the Esplanade, others
disappear in the highways and byways of the town. For Bill and Joe have
made friends. There have been some fifty marriages at this base. I imagine a
good deal of match-making goes on in those grimy streets, for the Irish
marriage is, like the Continental one, no matter of silly sentiment, but a
serious domestic transaction. All afternoon long, the sailors come and go.
The supper hour takes them to their club; night divides them between the
movies and the nightly promenade in the gloom.
The glories of this base as a mercantile port, if there ever were any—and
the Queenstown folk labour mightily to give you the impression that it was
the only serious rival to London—are now over with the glories of Nineveh
and Tyre. A few Cunard lithographs of leviathans now for the most part at
the bottom of the sea, a few dusty show cases full of souvenirs, pigs and
pipes of black, bog oak, "Beleek" china, a fragile, and vanilla candy kind of
ware, and lace 'kerchiefs "made by the nuns" alone remain to recall the
tourist traffic that once centred here. To-day, one is apt to find among the
souvenirs an incongruous box of our most "breathy" (forgive my new-born
adjective) variety of American chewing gum. If you would imagine our base
as it was in the great days, better forget the port entirely and try to think of a
great British and American naval base crammed with shipping flying the
national ensigns, of waters thrashed by the propellers of oil tankers,
destroyers, cruisers, armed sloops, mine layers, and submarines even. A busy
dockyard clangs away from morning till night; a ferry boat with a whistle
like the frightened scream of a giant's child runs back and forth from the
docks to the Admiralty pier, little parti-coloured motor dories run swiftly
from one destroyer to another.
From the hill top, this harbour appears as a pleasant cove lying among
green hills. On the map, it has something the outline of a blacksmith's anvil.
Taking the narrow entrance channel to be the column on which the anvil
rests, there extends to the right, a long tapering bay, stretching down to a
village leading over hill, over dale to tumble-down Cloyne, where saintly
Berkeley long meditated on the non-existence of matter; there lies to the
right a squarer, blunter bay through which a river has worn a channel. This
channel lies close to the shore, and serves as the anchorage.
28. Over the tops of the headlands, rain-coloured and tilted up to a bank of
grey eastern cloud, lay the vast ambush, the merciless gauntlet of the
beleaguered sea.
VIII
THE DESTROYER AND HER PROBLEM
About a quarter of a mile apart, one after the other along the ribbon of
deep water just off the shore, lie a number of Admiralty buoys about the size
and shape of a small factory boiler. At these buoys, sometimes attached in
little groups of two, three, and even four to the same ring bolt, lie the
American destroyers. From the shore one sees the long lean hull of the
nearest vessel and a clump of funnels all tilted backwards at the same angle.
The air above these waspish nests, though unstained with smoke, often
broods vibrant with heat. All the destroyers are camouflaged, the favourite
colours being black, West Point grey and flat white. This camouflage
produces neither by colour nor line the repulsive and silly effect which is for
the moment so popular. Going aboard a destroyer for the first time, a lay
observer is struck by their extraordinary leanness, a natural enough
impression when one recalls that the vessels measure some three hundred
feet in length and only thirty-four in width. Many times have I watched from
our hill these long, low, rapier shapes steal swiftly out to sea, and been
struck with the terror, the genuine dread that lies in the word destroyer. For it
is a terrible word, a word heavy with destruction and vengeance, a word that
is akin to many an Old Testament phrase.
Our great destroyer fleet may be divided into two squadrons, the first of
larger boats called "thousand tonners," the second of smaller vessels known
as "flivvers." Another division parts the thousand tonners into those which
have a flush deck from bow to stern, and those which have a forward deck
on a higher level than the main deck. All these types burn oil, the oil burner
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