 Preface of Full Speed Ahead Tales from the Log of a Correspondent with our Navy. These tales are memories of several months spent as a special correspondent attached to the forces of the American Navy on Foreign Service. Many of the little stories are personal experiences, though some are written up from the records and others sat down after interviews. In writing them, I have not sought the laurels of an official historian, but been content to chronicle the interesting incidents of the daily life, as well as the achievements and heroisms of the friends who keep the highways of the sea. To my hosts of the United States Navy, one and all, I am under deep obligation for the courtesy and hospitality everywhere extended to me on my visit. But surely the greatest of my obligations is that owed to Secretary Daniels for the personal permission which made possible my journey, and for the goodwill with which he saw me on my way. And no acknowledgement, no matter how studied or courtly its phrasing, can express what I owe to Admiral Sims for the friendliness of my reception, for his care that I be shown all the Navy's activities, and for his constant and kindly effort to advance my work in every possible way. To Admiral Hugh Rodman of the Battleship Squadron, his sometime guest here renders thanks for the opportunity given him to spend some ten days aboard the American flagship, and for the welcome which makes his stay aboard so pleasant a memory. I would not end without a word of thanks to the enlisted men for their unfailing goodwill and ever courteous behavior. Lucky is the correspondent sent to the Navy. H. B. B. Topps Field and Quincy, 1919. End of Preface Part One A London Day of Soft and Smoky Skies darkened every now and then by capricious and intrusive little showers was drawing to a close in a twilight of gold and gray. Our table stood in a bay of plate glass windows overlooking the embankment close by Cleopatra's needle. We watched the little double-decked tram cars gliding by, the opposing inter-threading streams of pedestrians, and a fleet of coal barges coming up the river, solemn as a cloud. Behind us lay splendid and a somewhat theatric, the mottled marble stiff white napery and bright silver of a fashionable dining hall. Only a few guests were at hand. At our little table sat the captain of a submarine, who was then in London for a few days, on richly merited leave, a distinguished young officer of the mothership accompanying our underwater craft and myself. It is impossible to be long with submarine folk without realizing that they are a people apart, differing from the rest of the naval personnel, even as their vessels differ. A man must have something individual to his character, to volunteer for the service, and every officer is a volunteer. An extraordinary power of quick decision, a certain keen, a resolute look, a certain carriage. Submarine folk are such men as all of us pray to have by our side in any great trial or crisis of our life. Guests began to come by twos and threes, girls in pretty shimmering dresses, young army officers with wound stripes and clumsy limbs, a faint murmur of conversation rose, faint and continuous as the murmur of a distant stream. Because I requested him, the captain told me of the crossing of the submarines. It was the epic of an heroic journey. After each boat had been examined in detail, we began to fill them with supplies for the voyage. The crew spent days maneuvering cases of condensed milk, cans of butter, meat and chocolate, down the hatchways, food which the boat swallowed up as if she had been a kind of steel stomach, until we had it all neatly and tightly stowed away. The Z looked like a corner grocery store. Then early one December morning we pulled out of the harbor. It wasn't very cold, merely raw and damp, and it was misty dark. I remember looking at the winter stars riding high just over the meridian. The port behind us was still and dead, but a handful of navy folk had come to one of the wars to see us off. Yes, there was something of a stir, you know, the kind of stir that's made when boats go to sea. Shouted orders, the splash of dropped cables, vagrant noises. It didn't take a great time to get under way. We were ready, waiting for the word to go. The flotilla, mothership, tugs and all, was out to sea long before the dawn. You would have liked the picture, the immense stretch of the grayish winter-stricken sea, the little cubby of submarines running awash, the gray mothership going ahead, casually as an excursion steamer into the featureless dawn. The weather was wonderful for two days, a touch of Indian summer on December's ocean. Then, on the night of the third day, we ran into a blow, the worst I ever saw in my life. A storm! Oh boy! He paused for an instant to flick the ashes from his cigarette with a neat deliberate gesture. One could see memories living in the fine, resolute eyes. The broken noises of the restaurant, which had seemingly died away while he spoke, crept back again to one's ears. A waiter dropped a clanging fork. A storm! Never remember anything like it! A perfect terror! Everybody realized that any attempt to keep together would be hopeless, and night was coming on. One by one the submarines disappeared into that fury of wind and driving water. The mothership, because she was the largest vessel in the flotilla, being the last we saw. We snatched her last signal out of the teeth of the gale, and then she was gone, swallowed up in the storm. So we were alone. We got through the night somehow or other. The next morning the ocean was a dirty brown gray, and knots and wisps of cloud were tearing by, close over the water. Every once in a while a great hollow-bellied wave would come rolling out of the hullabaloo and break thundering over us. On all the boats the lookout on the bridge had to be lashed in place, and every once in a while a couple of tons of water would come tumbling past him. Nobody at the job stayed dry for more than three minutes. A bathing suit would have been more to the point than oilers. Shaken, you ask? No, not very bad. A few assorted bruises and a wrenched thumb, though poor Jonesy on the Z3 had a wave knock him up against the rail, and smash in a couple of ribs. But no, being sick for him, he kept to his feet and carried on in spite of the pain, in spite of being in a boat which registered a roll of seventy degrees. I used to watch the old hooker rolling under me. You've never been on a submarine when she's rolling. Talk about rolling. Oh boy. We all say seventy degrees because that's as far as our instruments register. There were times when I almost thought she was on her way to make a complete revolution. You can imagine what it was like inside. To begin with the oily air was none too sweet, because every time we opened a hatch we shipped enough water to make the old hooker look like a start at a swimming tank, and then she was lurching so continuously and violently that to move six feet was an expedition. But the men were wonderful, wonderful. Each man at his allotted task, and what's that English word? Carrying on. Our little cook couldn't do a thing with the stove. Might as well have tried to cook on a miniature earthquake. But he saw that all of us had something to eat. Doing his bit, game as could be. He paused again. The embankment was fading in the dark. A waiter appeared and drew down the thick light-proof curtains. Yes, the men were wonderful, wonderful. And there wasn't very much sickness. Let's see how far had I got. Since it was impossible to make any headway, we lay two for forty-eight hours. The deck began to go the second morning, some of the plates being ripped right off. And blow! Well, as I told you in the beginning, I never saw anything like it. The disc of the sea was just one great ragged mass of foam, all being hurled through space by a wind screaming by with the voice and force of a million express trains. Perhaps you were wondering why we didn't submerge. Simply couldn't use up our electricity. It takes oil running on the surface to create the electric power, and we had a long, long journey ahead. Then ice began to form on the superstructure, and we had to get out a crew to chop it off. It was something of a job. There wasn't much to hang on to, and the waves were still breaking over us. But we freed her of the danger, and she went on. We used to wonder where the other boys were in the midst of all the racket. One was drifting towards the New England coast, her compass smashed to flinders. Others had run for Bermuda, and others were still at sea. Then we had three days of good easterly wind. By jingle, but the good weather was great. Were we glad to have it? Oh boy. We had just got things ship shape again, when we had another blow. But the second one was by no means as bad as the first. And after that we had another spell of decent weather. The crew used to start the phonograph and keep it going all day long. The weather was so good that I decided to keep right on to the harbor, which was to be our base over here. I had enough oil, plenty of water. The only possible danger was a shortage of provisions. So I put us all on a ration, arranging to have the last grand meal on Christmas Day. Can you imagine Christmas on a little storm-bumped submarine, some hundreds of miles off the coast? A day or two more, and we ran calmly into, shall we say, deleted harbor? Hungry, dirty, oh so dirty, we hadn't had any sort of bath or wash for about three weeks. We were all green-looking from having been cooped up so long, and our unshaven, grease-streaked faces would have upset a dinosaur. The authorities were wonderfully kind, and looked after us and our men in the very best style. I thought we could never stop eating, and a real sleep, oh boy. Did you fly the flag as you came in, I asked. You bet we did, answered the captain, his keen, handsome face lighting at the memory. You see, he continued in a practical spirit, they would probably have pumped us for the holes if we hadn't. And that is the way that the American submarines crossed the Atlantic to do their share for the great cause. 2. Into the Dark I got to the port of the submarines just as an uncertain and rainy afternoon had finally decided to turn into a wild and disagreeable night. Short, drenching showers of rain fell, one after the other, like the strokes of a lash, a wind came up out of the sea, and one could hear the thunder of surf on the headlands. The mothership lay moored in a wild desolate and indescribably romantic bay, she floated in a sheltered pool, a very oasis of modernity, a marvelous creature of another world and another time. There was just light enough for me to see that her lines were those of a giant yacht. Then a curtain of rain beat hissing down upon the sea, and the ship and the vague darkening landscape disappeared, disappeared as if it might have melted away in the shower. Presently the bulk of the vessel appeared again, gliding and tossing at once, we drew alongside, and from that moment on I was the guest of the vessel, recipient of a hospitality and courtesy for which I here make grateful acknowledgement to my friends and hosts. The mothership of the submarines was a combination of flagship, supply station, repair shop, and hotel. The officers of the submarines had rooms of order, which they occupied when off patrol, and the crews off duty slung their hammocks between decks. The boat was pretty well crowded, having more submarines to look after than she had been built to care for, but thanks to the skill of her officers everything was going as smoothly as could be. The vessel had, so to speak, a submarine atmosphere. Everybody aboard lived, worked, and would have died for the submarine. They believed in the submarine, believing in it with an enthusiasm which rested on pillars of practical fact. The chief of staff was the youngest captain in our navy, a man of hard energy and keen insight, one to whom our submarine service owes a very genuine debt. His officers were specialists. The surgeon of the vessel had been for years engaged in setting the hygiene of submarines, and was constantly working to free the atmosphere of the vessels from deleterious gases and to improve the living conditions of the crews. I remember listening one night to a history of the submarine told by one of the officers of the staff, and for the first time in my life, I came to appreciate, at its full value, the heroism of the men who risks their lives in the first cranky, clumsy, uncertain little vessels, and the imagination and the faith of the men who believed in the type. Ten years ago a descent in a sub was an adventure to be prefaced by tears and making of wills. Today submarines are chasing submarines hundreds of miles at sea, are crossing the ocean, and have grown from a tube of steel, not much larger than a lifeboat, to underwater cruisers which carry six inch guns. Said an officer to me, the future of the submarine? Why sir, the submarine is the only war vessel that's going to have a future. On the night of my arrival, once dinner was over, I went on deck and looked down through the rain at the submarines moored alongside. They lay close by, one beside the other, in a pool of radiance cast by a number of electric lights hanging over each open hatchway. Beyond this pool lay the rain and the dark. Within it, their sides awash in the clear green water of the bay, their gray bridges and rust stained superstructures shining in the rain, lay the strange bulging crocodilian shapes of steel. There was something unearthly, something not of this world or time in the picture. I might have been looking at invaders of the sleeping earth. The wind swept past in great booming salvos. Rain fell in sloping liquid rods through the brilliancy of electric lamps burning with the steadiness that had something in it of strange incomprehensible and out of place in the motion and hullabaloo of the storm. And then, too, a hand appeared on the topmost rung of the nearer ladder, and a bulky sailor, a very human sailor in a very human dungarees, poked his head out of the aperture, surveyed the inhospitable night, and disappeared. He's on Branch's boat. We're going out tonight, said the officer who was guiding me about. Tonight, how on earth will he ever find his way to the open sea? Now's the bay like a book. However, if the weather gets any worse, I doubt if the captain will let him go. George will be wild if they don't let him out. Somebody has just purported wreckage off the coast, so there must be a hun around. But are not our subs sometimes mistaken for Germans? Oh, yes, was the calm answer. I thought of that ominous phrase I had noted in the British records, failed to report. And I remembered the stolid British captain who had said to me, speaking of submarines, sometimes nobody knows just what happened. Out there in the deep water, whatever happens, happens in a hurry. My guide and I went below to the officer's corridor. Now and then, through the quiet, a mandolin or guitar could be heard, far off, twanging some sentimental island ditty, and beneath these sweeter sounds lay a monotonous mechanical humming. What's that sound? I asked. That's the Filipino mess boys having a little festino in their quarters. The humming? Oh, that's the mother ship's dynamo, charging the batteries of Branch's boat, saves running on the surface. My guide knocked at a door. Within his tidy little room, the captain, who was to go out on patrol, was packing the personal belongings he needed on the trip. Hello, jelly. He cried cheerily when he saw us. Come on in. I'm only doing a little packing up. What's it like outside? Raining, same as ever. But I don't think it's blowing up any harder. Hooray! cried the young captain with heartfelt sincerity. Then I'll get out tonight. You know the captain told me that if it got any worse, he'd hold me till tomorrow morning. I told him I'd rather go out tonight. Perfect sench once you get to the mouth of the bay. All you have to do is submerge and take it easy. What do you think of the news? Smithy thinks he saw a hun yesterday. Got anything good to read? Somebody's pinched that magazine I was reading. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. That ought to be enough handkerchiefs. Hello, there goes the juice. The humming of the dynamo was dying away slowly, fading with an effect of lengthening distance. The guitar orchestra, as if to celebrate its deliverance, burst into a triumphant rendering of Susa's Stars and Stripes. My guide and I waited till after midnight to watch the going of Branch's Z-5. Branch and his second, wearing black oil skins down whose gleaming surface ran beaded drops of rain, stood on the bridge. A number of sailors were busy doing various things along the deck. The electric lights shone in all their calm, unearthly brilliance. Then slowly, very slowly, the Z-5 began to gather headway. The clear water seemed to flow past her green sides, and she rode out of the pool of light into the darkness, waiting close at hand. Good-bye! Good luck! we cried. A vagrant shower came roaring down into the shining pool. Good-bye! cried voices through the night. Three minutes later all traces of the Z-5 had disappeared in the dark. Three. Friend or foe. Captain Bill of the Z-3 was out on patrol. His vessel was running submerged. The air within, they had but recently dived, was new and sweet, and that raw cold, which eats into submerged submarines, had not begun to take the joy out of life. It was the third day out, the time, five o'clock in the afternoon. The outer world, however, did not penetrate into the submarine. Night or day, on the surface or submerged, only one time a kind of emotionless electric eye noon existed within those concave walls of gleaming cream, quite enamel. Those of the crew, not on watch, were taking it easy. Like unto their officers, submarine sailors are an unusual lot. They are real sailors, or machinist sailors, boys for whose quality the navy has a flattering, picturesque, and quite unprintable adjective. A submarine man, mind you, works harder than perhaps any other man of his grade in the navy, because the vessel in which he lives is nothing but a tremendously intricate machine. In one of the compartments, the phonograph, the eternal, ubiquitous phonograph of the navy, was bawling its raucous rags and mechano-nasal songs, and in the pauses between records, one could just hear the lo-ham of the distant dynamos. A little group in blue dungarees held a conversation in a corner. A petty officer, blue cap tilted back on his head, was at work on a letter. The cook, whose genio art was customarily under an interdict while the vessel was running submerged, was reading an ancient paper from his own hometown. Captain Bill sat in a retired nook, if a submarine can possibly be said to have a retired nook, with a chart spread open on his knees. The night before he had picked up a wireless message, saying that a German had been seen at sundown in a certain spot on the edge of his patrol. So Captain Bill had planned to run submerged to the spot in question, and then pop up suddenly in the hope of potting the hunt. Some fifteen minutes before sundown, therefore, the Z-3 arrived at the place where the frits had been observed. I wish I knew just where the bird was, said an intent voice. I drop a can right on his neck. These sentiments were not those of anybody aboard the Z-3. An American destroyer had also come to the spot looking for the German, and the gentle thought recorded above was that of her captain. It was just sundown, a level train of splendor burned on the ruffled waters to the west. A light, cheerful breeze was blowing. The destroyer, ready for anything, was hurrying along at a smart clip. This is the place all right, all right, said the navigator of the destroyer. Come to think of it, that chap's been reported from here twice. Keen eyes swept the shining, uneasy plane. Meanwhile, some seventy feet below, the Z-3 maneuvered, killing time. The phonograph had been hushed, and every man was ready at his post. The prospect of a go with the enemy had brought with it a keen thrill of anticipation. Now, a submarine crew is a well-trained machine. There are no shouted orders. If a submarine captain wants to send his boat under, quickly, he simply touches the button of a klaxon, the horn gives a demonic yell throughout the ship, and each man does what he ought to do at once. Such a performance is called a crash dive. I'd like to see him come up so near that we could ram him, said the captain, gazing almost directly into the sun. Find out what she's making. The engineer lieutenant stooped to a voice tube that almost swallowed up his face, and yelled a question to the engine room. An answer came quite unheard by the others. 24, sir, said the engineer lieutenant. Get her up to 26, said the captain. The engineer cried again through the voice tube. The wake of the vessel roared like a mill race, the white foam tumbling rosely in the setting sun. Seventy feet below, Captain Bill was arranging the last little details with the second in command. In about five minutes we'll come up and take a look-see, stick up the periscope, and see if we see the bird, and we're in a good position to send him a fish, torpedo. We'll let him have one. If there is something there, and we're not in a good position, we'll maneuver till we get into one, and then let him have it. If there isn't anything to be seen, we'll go under again and take another look-see an half an hour. Riley has his instructions. Riley was chief of the torpedo room. Something around here must have got it in the neck recently, said the destroyer captain, breaking a silence which had hung over the bridge. Did not you think that wreckage a couple of miles back looked pretty fresh? Wonder if the boy were after had anything to do with it. Keep an eye on that sun streak. An order was given in the Z3. It was followed instantly by a kind of commotion. Sailors opened vows, compressed air, ran down pipes, the ratchets of the wheel clattered noisily. On the moon-faced depth gauge, with its shining braves and rim, the recording arrow fled swiftly, counterclockwise, from seventy to twenty to fifteen feet. Captain Bill stood crouching at the periscope, and when it broke the surface, a greenish light poured down it and focused in his eyes. He gazed keenly for a few seconds and then reached for the horizontal wheel, which turns the periscope round the horizon. He turned, gazed, jumped back, and pushed the button for a crashed eye. She was almost on top of me, he exclaimed afterwards, coming like hell! I had to choose between being rammed or depth-bombed. There was another swift commotion, another opening and closing of vows, and the arrow on the depth gauge leaped forward. Captain Bill was sending her down as far as he could, as fast as he dared. Fifty feet, seventy feet, ninety feet, hoping to throw the destroyer off, the Z3 doubled on her track. A hundred feet. Crash! Depth charge number one. According to Captain Bill, who is good at similes, it was as if a giant, wading along through the sea, had given the boat a vast and violent kick, and then leaning down had shaken it as a terrier shakes a rat. The Z3 rocked, lay on her side, and fell through the depths. A number of lights went out. Men 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 traveled through the hull and their own bodies. Some have heard 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 everyone's relief, it was less violent than the first. A few more lights went out. Meanwhile, the Z3 continued to sink, and it 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 eggshell 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 it saw that the destroyer lay about two miles away, and as I looked, she came to for me again. Meanwhile, my signalman was hauling himself out of the hatchway as if his legs were in boiling water. We got her, cried somebody aboard the destroyer in a deep American voice full of the exaltation of battle. The lean rifle swung, lowered, point one lower. They were about to hear fire when the stars and stripes and the sundry other signals burst from the deck of the misused Z-3. 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 them hard. We'll go over and see who it is, said the captain of the destroyer. The signals are okay, but it may be a dodge of the Huns. Ask them who they are. In obedience to the order, a sailor on the destroyer's bridge wigwagged the message. Z-3 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 classmate. Tata 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 aft as an 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 him, cuckoo! said one of the crew, patting the orator affectionately on the shoulder. We're with you. And Captain Bill laughed. End of Part 1 Part 2 Of Full Speed Ahead by Henry B. Besten This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 2 4. 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 mothership. Two or three who had breakfast 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 X-10. The X-10 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, apposing 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, I will get you some zungarees, can't fool around 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, there 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. I felt frightfully submarine-ish in my outfit. We must have made a picturesque group. The captain let 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 a 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 mothership, 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 vapor, 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 alleyways between the submarines, gulls, piping and barking, whirled like snowflakes overhead. I crossed to one gray, alligator-ish superstructure, looking 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, bowels, stock 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 around 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, he went through a lateral compartment with a steel door, thick as that of a small safe, is a space where we 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, he passed another stout partition, is our diesel engine and our dynamos. Up forward is another living space, which technically 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 crammed 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, and 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 surefooted. 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 gourd which had protected one bulging hull from another. The submarine went ahead solemnly as a planet. Friendly faces leaned over the rail of the mothership high above. 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 maneuver 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 Smithy 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. Goodbye 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 to powerful knocking spitting sound from the same source. The hatch cover was secured. A listener might have heard a steel thump and a grind as it closed. Men stood calmly by the depth gauges and the valves. Not being a crash dive, the feet 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-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 program now? We are going down the bay a bit, put up our periscope, pick up the Britisher, and fire an imaginary ten 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, focusing in his eye, lit the ball with wild, demonic glare. A consultation ensued between the captain and his junior. Do you see her? Yes, she is in 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 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 at the outer world. The kind of a world one might see in a crystal, a mirror world, a glassy 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 and a pond. We continued our course. The two officers appeared 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 hat-pen-shaped trail behind it. Presently, with a great swirl and a 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 versus periscope. What do you do? I ask. Just what you saw us do today. 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, and comes to the surface for a breath of air. There isn't a soul in sight, not a stirrup smoke on the horizon. Just as Captain Otto, or Von, something or other, 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 rind. Sometimes Fritz's torpedoes 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 tomorrow. 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, will 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, type written 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 of 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 endeavor to depict our story in a very laconic way. So please have patience to listen, until I've finished my say. We eat wherever 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 cannot 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, gunners mates with 600W, 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. Now all you battleship sailors, when you are feeling disgruntled and mean, just pack your bag and hammock, and go to a submarine. 5. The Return of the Captains The breakfast hour was drawing to its end, and the very last straggler sat alone at the wardroom table. Presently an officer of the mothership passing through called to the lingering group of submarine officers. The X-4 is coming up the bay, and the X-12 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, but you, John, has been looking for another chance at that hon 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 homecoming submarine. They were clad in various ancient uniforms, which might have been worn by an apprentice lad in a garage. Old gray 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 crews. But the liveliest of keen eyes burned at each resolute young face, eyes smiling and glad. A friendly hullabaloo broke forth. Chair scraped, one fell with a crash. Hello, boys. Hi, John. For the Lava Pete, Joe. Shave off those whiskers of yours that make you look like Trotsky. See any Germans? What's the news? What's doing? Hey, Manuello. This to a Philippine mess boy who stood looking on with impassive curiosity. Save three more breakfast. Anything go for you? Well, if here isn't our old bump. The crowd gathered around 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? Oh, about five 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 around, 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? Oh, about so-and-so. That's the jinx that got after the convoy, sure as you live. 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 maneuvered about some eighty feet under. The German evidently making his getaway, 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 maneuvered 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 him, keep after him, stay after him, don't give him 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? Oh, bag of stuff! Smithy 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? Oh, nothing much. There's a bit of wreckage just offshore. 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 squirrel afog. She saw us first. When we saw her, I made signals, and over she came. Guess what the old bird wanted? Wanted to know if I'd seen a torpedo he'd fired at me. An old scout with white piskers, one of those retired captains, I suppose, who has gone back on the job. He admitted that he had received the admirable notes about us, but thought we acted suspicious. Did you ever hear 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 is one service of this war, which more than any other, required those qualities of endurance, skill, and courage, whose blend of the fighting men so wisely called 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. Six. 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 wristwatch? It is in 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 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. Today 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 Robbie 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 beer de la vie. 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, some 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 darn right hard work not that I am trying to make Jack a sober size or a saint he is full of fun and spirit but the world ought to cease imagining him either as a mannerless roughhouser 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 the 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 neighboring city and give them an american good time so the kitties were brought aboard jack rigged up a christmas tree and distributed presents and sweets 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 around the neck or hasn't any style jack is forever rushing to some louis catzenstein in norfolk virginia or sam schwarz of charleston massachusetts to get a real suit made endless are the attempts to make these are a little bit different attempts alas which invariably end in reprimand and disaster the denier tree of a 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 14 carat navy crest name and date of enlistment engraved free sailors pay anywhere from 20 to 70 dollars for these treasures today the style is to have a patriotic motto engraved within the band i remember several inscribed a democracy or death the desire of having a real watch comes next in hand and if you ask a sailor the time is very liable to haul out a watch worth anywhere from 150 to 200 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 behavior the work done by our sailors was a hard and grueling labor the seas which they patrolled were haunted by every danger yet everywhere they were eager and keen their energy unabated their spirits unshaken end of part two part three of full speed ahead by henry b beston this libra box recording is in the public domain part three seven the base 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 harbor 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 southeast wind had thinned the clouds and brought the harbor 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 two 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 and port lean a 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 p jackets and a 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 gray 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 at the crowd of sailors soldiers officers country folk and townspeople i heard devin drawing its oyes and oahs america speaking with yankee christmas and ireland mingling in the babble with a wild and a 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 fiercely going forth i found the little town established on an edge of land between the water and the foot of a hill along 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 tear after tear of mean and grimy dwellings all other streets however are less heroic and climbed the side of the hill in the long sloping lateral lines a new agaithic cathedral built just below 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 gray 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 moonlit night can invest its mediocre albert memorial architecture with any trace of beauty the day began 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 10 o'clock then the day begins a number of shrewd old fish wives with faces wrinkled like wintered apples and air still black as a raven's wing set up their stalls in an open space by a line of deserted beers and peasants from nearby 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 curves never have I seen more colorless 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 the sea boot little by little the harbor seeing that the land is at last awake comes ashore to buy his fresh eggs green vegetables sweet milk and a golden tipperary butter the Filipino and negro stewards from the american ships arrive with their baskets and cans they are very popular with queen's town folk who cherish the delusion that are trimly dressed genial 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 renderings of the first bar of strike up the band here comes a sailor and ever and anon a breeze blows in from the harbor 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 a need of turning down after the lull of noon the men to whom liberty has been given begin to arrive in boatloads 40 and 50 strong the patrollers distinguished from their fellows by leggings belts white adsom police billy 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 will be rushed over the hill to the lucetania cemetery a gruesome pilgrimage to which both british and american tours are horribly 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 50 marriages at this space i imagine a good deal of matchmaking goes on in these 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 court if there ever were any and the queen's town folk labor mightily to give you the impression that it was the only serious rival to london are now over with the glories of ninova and chire a few kunard lithographs of lobio thins now for the most part at the bottom of the sea a few dusty showcases full of souvenirs pigs and pipes of black bog oak belic china a fragile and vanilla candy kind of wear and lace kerchiefs made by the nuns alone remains to recall the tourist traffic that once centered here today one is apt to find among the souvenirs an incongruous box of our most breathy forgive my newborn 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 incense of waters thrashed by the propellers of oil tankers destroyers cruisers armed sloops mine layers and submarines even a busy dockyard that climbs away from morning till night a ferry boat with a whistle like the frightened stream of a giant's child runs back and forth from the docks to the admiralty pier little party colored motor dories run swiftly from one destroyer to another from the hilltop this harbor appears as a pleasant cold lying among the 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 pline where saintly berkeley long meditated on the non-existence of matter there lies to the right a swearer blunter bay through which a river has worn a channel this channel lies close to the shore and serves as the anchorage over the tops of the headlands rain colored and tilted up to a bank of gray eastern cloud lay the vast ambush the merciless gauntlet of the beleaguered sea eight 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 boys about the size and shape of a small factory boiler at these boys 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 of vibrant with heat all the destroyers are camouflaged the favorite colors being black west point gray and flat white this camouflage produces and neither by color 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 300 feet in length and only 34 in width many times have I watched from our hill these long low rapier shapes steel swiftly out to see 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 a great destroyer fleet may be divided into two squadrons the first of larger boats called thousand tonners the second of smaller vessels known as flippers another division parts the thousand tonners into those which have a flush deck from the 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 being nothing more than a kind of sprayer whose mist of fuel a forced draft whirls into a roar of flame all can develop a speed of at least 29 knots the armament varies with the individual vessel the usual outfit consisting of four four-inch guns two sets of torpedo tubes two mounted machine guns and a store of depth charges these charges deserve a eulogy of their own they have done more towards winning the war than all the giant howitzers whose caliber has stupefied the world in appearance and mechanism they are the simplest of affairs the navy always refers to them as cans i dropped a can right on his head it was the last can that did the business imagine an ash can of medium size painted black and transformed into a ponderous thick walled cylinder of steel primed with some 300 pounds of tnt and you have a perfect image of one now imagine at one end of the cylinder a detonator protected by an arrangement which can be set to resist the pressure of water at various levels a sub appears and sinks swiftly if it is just below the surface the destroyer drops a bomb set to explode at a depth of 70 feet the bomb then sinks by its own weight to that level at which the outward force of the protective mechanism is overbalanced by the inward pressure of the water the end yields the detonator crushes the bomb explodes and your submarine is flung horribly out of the depths almost clear of the water and while he is up the destroyer's guns fill the hull full of holes or as supposed the submarine to have gone down 200 feet then you drop a bomb geared to that depth upon him and blow in his size like a cracked egg the sound of these engines travels through the water some 20 or 25 miles and there have been ships who have caught the vibration of a distant depth bomb through their hulls and thought themselves torpedoed i once saw a depth bomb roll off a british sloop into a half-filled dry dock the men scrambled away like mad but returned in a few minutes to fish out a can that had 60 more feet to go before it would burst it lay on the bottom harmless as a stone the charges rest at the stern of a vessel lying one above the other on two sloping runways and can be released either from the stern or by hydraulic pressure applied at the bridge the credit for this exceedingly successful scheme belongs to a distinguished american naval officer the destroyer has but one deck that is arranged in the following manner i take one of the thousand tonners as an illustration from an incredibly lean high bow a first deck falls back a considerable distance to a four inch gun behind the gun lies another open space closed by a two storage structure whose upper section is the bridge and his lower section a chart room at the rear of this structure the hull of the boat is cut away and one descends by a ladder from the deck which is on the level of the chart room floor to the main deck level some eight feet below beyond this cut but one deck lies the mere steel covering of the hull guns and torpedo tubes are mounted on it the funnels rise flush from the plates a lifeline lies strung along its length and strips of cocoa matting try to give something of a footing the officers quarters are to be found under the forward deck the sleeping rooms are situated on both sides of a narrow passageway which begins at the bow and leads to the open living room and dining room space known as the wardroom in the hall in the space beneath the wardroom lie the quarters of the crew amid ships lie the boilers and the engine room and beyond them a second space for the crew and the petty officers a destroyer is by no means a paradise of comfort though when the vessel lies in a quiet port she can be as attractive and livable as a yacht but heaven help the poor sailor aboard a destroyer at sea the craft rolls dips shutters plunges like a horse straight up at the stars sinks rapidly and horribly and even has spells of seesawing violently from side to side its worst motion is an unearthly twist a swift appalling rise at a dreadful angle a toss across space to the other side of a wave a fearful descent sideways and down and a ghastly shutter you need an iron stomach to be on a destroyer is a navy saying some indeed can never get used to them and have to be transferred to other vessels the destroyer is the capital weapon against the submarine she can outrace a sub can fight him with guns torpedoes or depth charges she can send him a bubbling to the bottom by ramming him amid ships she can confuse him by throwing a pall of smoke over his target she can beat off his attack either above or below the surface he fires a torpedo at her she dodges runs down the trail of the torpedo drops a depth bomb and brings her prey to the surface an actual incident this her problem is of a dual nature being both defensive and offensive today her orders are to escort a convoy through the danger zone to a position in latitude x and longitude y tomorrow her orders are to patrol a certain area of the beleaguered sea or a given length of coast based upon a foreign port working in strange waters the destroyer flotilla added to the fine history of the american navy a splendid record of endurance heroism and daring achievement nine torpedoed if you would understand the ocean we sailed in wartime do not forget that it was essentially an ambush that the foe was waiting for us in hiding nothing real or imagined brooded over the ocean to warn a vessel of the presence of danger for the waters engulfed and forgot the tragedies of this war as they have engulfed and forgotten all disasters since the beginning of time the great unquiet shield of the sea stretched afar to pale horizons the sun shown as he might shine on a pretty village at high noon the gulls followed alert and clamorous yet a thundering instant was capable of transforming this apparent calm into the most formidable insecurity in four minutes you would have nothing left of your ship and its company but a few boats some bodies and a miscellaneous litter of wreckage strewn about the scene of the disaster of the assassins there was not a sign all agreed that the torpedo arrived at a fearful speed like a long white bullet through the water said one survivor honest to god i never saw anything come so fast said another where did it strike i asked the first speaker a fine intelligent english seaman who had been rescued by a destroyer and brought to an american base in a line with the funnel sir a great calm of steam and water went up together and the pieces of the two port boats fell all around the bridge i think it was a bit of one of the boats that struck me there he held up a bandaged hand what happened then all the lights went out it was just dusk you see so we had to abandon the boat in the darkness a broken steam pipe was roaring so that you couldn't hear a word anyone was saying she sank very fast did you see any sign of the submarine the captain steward thought he saw something come up just about 300 yards away as we were going down but in my judgment it was too dark to see anything distinctly and my notion is that he saw a bit of wreckage perhaps a hatch the next man to whom i talked was a chunky little stoker who might have stepped out of the pages of one of jacob stories i shall not aim to reproduce his dialect it was a what about it order we were heading into fall month with a cargo of steel and barbed wire i had a lot of special supplies which i bought myself in new york some sugar two very nice ams and one of those round dutch jesus i was always thinking to myself how glad my old woman would be to see all those vitals just as we got off the sillies one of those bloody swine hit us with a torpedo between the boiler room and the thwart ship bunker forward of the engine room and about sixteen feet below the waterline understand i was in the boiler room down came the bunker doors off with the tank tops in the engine room two of the boilers threw out a mess of burning coal and the water came pouring in like a flood let me tell you that cold seawater soon got bloody hot the room was filled with steam couldn't see anything i expected the boilers to blow up any minute i yelled out for my mates suddenly i heard one of them say where's the ladder and there was poor jam with his face and chest burned cruel by the flying coal and he had two ribs broke too though we didn't know it at the time says he wears ed and just then ed came wading through the scalding water pawing for the ladder so up we all went never expecting to reach the top then when we got into a boat we heard that the wireless had been carried away and that we'd have to wait for somebody to pick us up so we waited for two days and a Yankee destroyer found us yes both my mates are getting better though sister here tells me that poor ed may lose his eye sometimes the torpedo was seen and avoided by a quick turn of the wheel there were other occasions when the torpedo seems to follow a ship i remember reading this tale at 214 i saw the torpedo and felt certain that it would mean a hit either in the engine or the fire room so i ordered full speed ahead and put the rudder over hard left at a distance of between two and three hundred yards the torpedo took a shear to the left but righted itself for an instant it appeared as if the torpedo might pass a stern but purposing again it turned toward the ship and struck us close by the propellers so much for blind chances one hears curious tales the column of water caused by the explosion tossed on to the forward hatch of one merchant ship a twisted half of the torpedo there was a french boat struck by a torpedo which did not explode but lay there at the side violently churning and clinging to the boat as if it were possessed of some sinister intelligence i heard of a boat laden with high explosives within whose hold a number of motor trucks had been arranged a torpedo got her at the mouth of the channel an explosion similar to the one at halifax raked the sea the vessel blown into fragments disappeared from sight in the twinkling of an eye and an instant later there fell like bolides from the startled firmament a number of immense motor trucks one of which actually crashed on the deck of another vessel meanwhile i suppose some 150 feet or more below fritz seated at a neat folding table wrote it all down in his log 10 the end of a submarine two days before in a spot somewhat south of the area we were going out to patrol a submarine had attacked a convoy and sunk a horse boat i had the story of the affair months afterward from an american sailor who had seen it all from a nearby ship this sailor no other than my friend giles had been stationed in the lookout when he heard a thundering pound and looking to port he saw a column of water hanging just amid ships of the torpedoed vessel a column that broke crashing over the decks in about three minutes the ship broken to the bow and the stern rising like the points of a shallow v and in five minutes she sank the sea was strewn with straw there were broken stanchions floating in the confused water and a number of horses could be seen swimming about all you could see was their heads they looked awful small in all that water some of the horses had men hanging to them there was a lot of yelling for help the other ships of the convoy had run for dear life the destroyers had raced about like hornets whose nest is disturbed but the submarine escaped we left a certain harbor at about three in the afternoon many of the destroyers were out at sea taking in a big troop convoy and the harbor seemed unusually still the town also partook of this quiet the long lateral lines of climbing houses staring out blankly at us like unresponsive acquaintances very few folk were to be seen on the streets we were bound forth on an adventure that was drama itself a drama which even then the fates unknown to us were swiftly weaving into a tragedy of vengeance yet i shall never forget how casual and undramatic the esplanade appeared a loafer or two lounged by the door of the public house a little group of sailors passed a jaunting car went swiftly on its way to the station there was nothing to suggest that these aisles were beleaguered nothing told of the remorseless enemy at the gates of the sea all night long under a gloomy starless sky we patrolled waters dark as the very waves of the sticks the hope that nourished us was the thought of finding a submarine on the surface but we heard no noise through the mysterious dark and a long interminable dawn revealed to us nothing but the high crumbling cliffs of a lonely and ill reputed debate where were they then i have often wondered when had they their last look at the sun had they any consciousness of the end which time was bringing to them with a giant's hurrying step at about six o'clock we swung off to the southward and in a short time the coast had faded from sight from six o'clock to about half past ten we swept in great circles and lines the mist encircled disc of the pale sea which had been entrusted to our keeping we were at hand to answer any appeal for aid which might flutter through the air to investigate any suspicious wreckage above all to fulfill our function of destruction i have spoken elsewhere of the terror which lurks in the word destroyer we were hunters beaters of the ambush of the sea about us lay the besieged waters yellow green in color vexed with tied rips and the modeled with shadows of haze and appearances of shoal we were on the bridge suddenly a voice called down the tube from the lookout on the mast smoke on the horizon just off the port bowser in a little while a vague smudging us made itself seen along the humid southeast and some 15 minutes later there emerged from this smudge the advanced vessels of a convoy now one by one now in twos and threes the vessels of the convoy climbed over the dim edge of the world a handful of destroyers accompanying the fleet almost every ship was camouflaged though the largest of all a great ocean drudge of a cargo boat still preserved her decency of dull gray a southeast wind blowing from behind the convoy sent the smoke of the funnels over the boughs and down the western sky there was something indescribably furtive about the whole business the ships were going at the very fastest but to us they seem to be going very slowly to be drifting almost across the southern sky we advanced as our report read later to take up a position with the convoy the watch always keen on the six sixty redoubled its vigilance the bait was there the hunt was on now if ever was the time for submarines i remember somebody saying we may see a sub the destroyer advanced to within three miles of the convoy which was then across her bow the morning was sunny and clear the sun high in the north periscope port bow suddenly cried the surgeon of the ship then on watch on the bridge about three hundred yards away near that sort of a barrel thing over there see it it's gone now powerful glasses swept the suspected area the captain a cool as ice took his stand by the wheel there it is again sir about seventy five yards nearer this way this time it was seen by all who stood by the periscope was extraordinarily small hardly larger than a stout ho handle and not more than two feet above the choppy sea both feet ahead said the captain sound general quarters i do not think there was a heart there that was not beating high but outwardly things went on just as calmly as they had before the periscope had been cited the fans of the extra boilers began to roar the general quarters alarm a continuous ringing sounded its shrill call men tumbled to their stations from every corner of the ship some going to the torpedo tubes some to the guns others to the depth charges at the stern the wake of the destroyer now tearing along at full speed resembled a mill race and now the destroyer began a beautiful maneuver she became the killer the avenger of blood leaving her direct course she turned hard over to port and at the point where her curve cut the estimated course of the german she tossed over a buoy to mark the spot at which the german had been seen and released a depth bomb the iron can rolled out of its shocks and fell with a little splash into the foaming wake the buoy a mirror wooden platform with a bit of rag tied to an upright stick wobbled sillily behind for about four seconds nothing happened then the seas behind us gave a curious convulsive lift one might have thought that the ocean had drawn a spasmodic breath over this lifted water fled a frightful glassy tremor and an instant later there broke forth with a thundering pound a huge turbid geyser which subsided splashing noisily into streaks and eddies of foam and purplish dust the destroyer then dropped three more in a circle around the first a swift cycle of thundering crashes meanwhile the convoy warned by our signal and by the uproar turned tail and fled from the spot great streamers of heavy black smoke poured from the many funnels revealing the search for speed in the area we had bombed a number of dead fish began to be seen floating in the scum by this time some of the vessels from the escort of the convoy had rushed to our assistance and round and round the buoy they tore dropping charge after charge the ocean now became literally speckled with dead whiting and i saw something that looked like an enormous eel floating belly upwards the convoy disappeared in a cloud of smoke little by little the excitement died away finally the only vessel left inside on the broad shield of the sea was another american destroyer our partner on patrol the 305 was fitted with listening devices and she agreed to remain behind to keep an eye and ear open we were to have a word from her every half hour from 12 noon to two o'clock there were no tidings of importance at 2 20 however this laconic message sent us hurrying back to the scene of the morning's combat signs of oil coming to surface what had happened in the darkness below those yellow green waves i am of the opinion that our first bomb dropped directly upon her crushed the submarine in like an eggshell that she had then sunk to the bottom and developed a slow leak the 660 returned through a choppy sea to the battleground of the morning we caught sight of the other destroyer from afar she lay on the flank of a great area defiled by the bodies of fish purple tnt dust and various bits of muddy wreckage which the explosions had shaken free from the use gulls already attracted to the spot were circling about uttering horse cries in the heart of this disturbed area lay a great still pool of shining water and into this pool from somewhere in the depths huge bubbles of molasses brown oil were rising reaching the surface these bubbles spread into filmy pancakes round whose edges little waves curled and broke end of part three