I joined the navy because I felt patriotic and all the rest of it. You couldn't help it down home. Everybody was doing it. My brother-in-law made the yeomanry, my chum went in for hospital corps work. Wherever you turned you found fellows discussing their branch of service and swearing it was the best in the pack. It didn't take me long to make up my mind. I sure was crazy to get "over there."

It's the English in me, I guess. Yes, I've got quite a slice. Before the war I was thirty-third in direct line for the title of Earl of Northumberland. Now I am about seventeenth.

It's queer how much I wanted to go to London. I just itched to. My family had come from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and settled there. That's where I was born—Johnny Rebs, you know. But that's ancient history—just plain all-round American now.

I never had a chance to forget the English part of me, though. I couldn't very well. You see the solicitors send me a notice every now and then telling me how good my chances are of inheriting a thirty-three-million dollar estate and a couple of dozen titles on the side.

Well, I don't care what I shipped on so long as it had a prow and a stern and kept afloat. They held me three months in the naval station waiting for a ship, and at last I got one—and what a one! An old oil tank! Ever see an oil collier? It resembles one of the countries of Europe. Which one? Greece.

Grease everywhere. You eat grease and you drink grease and you sleep grease and you breathe grease. You never get it off your hands or your clothes or your disposition until you land.

I was commissary. That meant I had charge of the cook and bought supplies and dished out food and made up the bill of fare. But I might as well have saved myself the trouble of that, because every little thing tasted alike. Why wouldn't it, with eighty-three barrels of oil on board?

None of us wore our uniforms. What was the use? We were saving them for London or Paris, and it's lucky we did! Instead, we slapped on our overalls—"dungarees," we call them in the navy. We looked like a crowd of rough-necks, instead of a crew of snappy bluejackets.

We left some time in September, and steamed up to Nova Scotia, then across. We had a speedy ship, all right. Eight knots was the best she was known to make. Say, did it give you the jumps! It sure did! I could walk a heap faster than that old tug could steam at full speed. It seemed as though every raider and submarine in the Zone would line up in a row and take a shot or two at us—it was too easy to miss.

We had rough weather all the way. That and grease are about all that happened until we hit the Zone. There we met our convoy—a British flagship, a number of merchantmen, and a flock of torpedo-boats.

My pal was a fellow from Newark, New Jersey, Bill Willsie. He was out for excitement.

"I certainly hope something will break before we land," he'd say, "so that I can have a real yarn to spin for the folks back home."

He got his wish. It was the fourth day in the Zone, at five twenty-seven in the afternoon. I was on deck sniffing air that wasn't full of grease. Suddenly I saw the red flag go up to the mast.
... Danger!... Gee, I sure did wish Bill
hadn't wished for trouble out loud. I wondered which one of us would get it—the British flagship ahead of us, or the merchantmen behind.

It all happened in the fraction of a minute. I saw scudding across the water the black nose of a torpedo. You've heard of men having a premonition of death, but how about seeing it coming straight toward you at the rate of thirty miles an hour!

My God! I'll never forget it! I thought my heart had stopped beating. I gripped the railing and waited. She struck the flagship and sank her in seven and a half minutes. To this day I can see her going down—the explosion—the roar—the sudden list—the boats lowered, and, on the bridge, two figures pacing—pacing—the captain and the admiral.

Do you think they left their ship? Not they! Up and down—up and down—those two paced. Oh, I tell you the British are a great people, but I wished to God, as I stood there, that I had never had to see it proved to me that way.

Up and down they walked, talking together as though nothing out of the way were happening. I saw the ship settle for her last heave. No, they didn't leave her bridge. Why not? They were true British naval officers, that's the answer. They sank with her.

By that time every alarm on our ship was sounded—five long whistles, electric bells, a regular bedlam let loose. I never heard such a noise. The life-boats swung out ready to drop. All hands were on deck except the engineers. They stand by in the engine room until a ship is struck. As soon as she is hit their job is to put out the fires and turn off the water—that is, if they aren't blown into the middle of next week first.

About eighty yards away the submarine came up and fired point blank at us. She missed us again and she submerged. That was the last we saw of her. The destroyers were working like little flashes of lightning, picking up the men in the water, darting here and there. You've seen those dragon flies in the pools—that's what the little gray fellows were, dragon flies—here, there, everywhere. I never saw such quick work.

Along about eight we pulled into Dover. All dark, except for a few smothered lights. We anchored and went up on deck. We were pretty glad to have land so near. You felt a lot safer. The comfort didn't last long, for we heard the queerest buzz in the sky above us—a long hum.

"Zeps! By Cracky!" yelled Bill in my ear. "We're in for an air raid!"

Out of the blackness of the city before us leaped a million lights, cutting the darkness like a knife, hunting—hunting for those Zeps. Searchlights turning their yellow blaze on the sky, whisking from one point to another, relentless in their scour of the heavens.

Now and then they would spot one of the great black bugs that buzzed on high with that tormenting hum keep it for a second in the radius of light, losing it as suddenly, and all the while the machine guns in the city pop-popped without taking a breath.

Now and then from the sky would be hurled a black something that flamed and thundered as it struck earth.... Bombs!... Their red glare lighting up a roof—a cornice—a water front—showing groups of frenzied little black figures scurrying to shelter—then blackness once more and the pop-popping of the machine guns, spiteful, biting sound that never paused.

It lasted about half an hour. The Zeps circled Dover and went back. The guns stopped firing one by one, as though they had run down. The lights died out, save for a few on guard. Did we sleep well? We did not, in spite of the fact that we hadn't had our clothes off a single night while in the Zone.

"I bet we're going to have a swell time in London," Bill told me. "We sure have started off right!" We certainly had!

We had three days shore leave and we started out next day—sixteen of us—in our best bibs and tuckers, to see the sights. Were we glad to get ashore? Chorus—we were! We took a little train—funniest train I ever saw. Reminded me of the Jim Crow cars back home. They were divided into first, second and third class, but over there uniforms can ride wherever they choose, and we are expected to pay only half of a third-class fare.

Remember, we were one of the first shipload of American sailors to put foot in London, and as such we were one of the sights of the city. Crowds! Say! New Year's Eve around Times Square or Mardi Gras back home had nothing on the mob we drew there in Charing Cross.

They fought to see us. They elbowed and pushed and wormed their way in. The girls threw their arms around us and kissed us, and the men cheered, but that wasn't all. They wanted to wish on the eagles on our sleeve—all of them did. And they wanted souvenirs—anything for souvenirs—buttons or American loose change.

"Give us American dimes," they'd cry. "Give us American dimes," and they fought for them. I had some Confederate money with me. They snapped it up.

Two bobbies—they are the English policemen, you know—came to our rescue, and packed us into taxies, but not before the crowd surged around us exclaiming about our caps—our little white canvas hats. They had never seen any like them. They wanted those, too. I don't know what would have become of us if the police hadn't taken a hand.

Say, by that time, we were hungry and thirsty, but we didn't dare get out for fear of starting another young mob. I felt like the President on inauguration day, or the King, or someone.

"Stop at a beanery," yelled Bill to our driver, a little old man with round shoulders and a shiny coat. He cocked an eye at us.

"Beg pardon, sir?" he said.

Bill replied, "As me Allies, the French, put it, 'Jay fame.'"

Our driver wasn't a French scholar. He looked at me.

"Where is it you want to go, sir?"

"Food," I said. "In plain Anglo-Saxon, I hunger—I crave nourishment."

"Oh," he said, "I see, sir," and he dumped us out before a restaurant. We went in.

"Ham and eggs," we all shouted. Every good American sailor always orders that, but our waiter didn't care.

"You can have either ham, sir, or eggs. Not both."

And we learned something else, too. You couldn't order more than thirty cents' worth of food at one sitting. It's against the law, and, what's more, you can't treat a pal; you can't even treat a girl, which ought to please some people I know back home.

We didn't stay in that joint. We tried four others with the same result. I never wanted to spend money so badly before in my life.

What got me was the work the women are doing in London. Women bus drivers—women street cleaners—women baggage smashers—and all of them the healthiest lot of girls I've ever seen—red cheeks and clear eyes and a smile for us always.

"Will you let us wish on you?" they'd cry. Of course we let them. I only hope their wishes came true.

But, say, night in London is one great party. It gets dusk, and, if you're on to what you are in for, you make a bee-line for where you are going, before the light fades entirely—or you don't get there. We didn't know that, so we planned to go to the Hippodrome; but we waited until dark. Say, talk about pitch black! It's pale beside London at night!

Imagine Broadway with not a single light—not even a pale glimmer. Imagine it filled with thousands and thousands of people, bumping into each other—talking, laughing, whispering.

No wagons or street-cars—nothing on wheels, except an ambulance, which crawls about with weird blue lights, very dim. Just crowds and crowds, knocking your hat off, stepping on your feet, taking your arm by mistake. Men apologizing. Girls giggling. Voices coming from nowhere. Forms brushing by and vanishing.

The streets are full. I think every last person in London must turn out after dark. It is one big adventure. You never forget it. You don't know where you are or where you are going—no one seems to. When you get tired you stop someone and ask the way to a rooming house. If they know they lead you along. You feel a door. You open it and close it cautiously behind yourself. You are in a dark vestibule. You cross a black hall groping before you. Suddenly your hand touches two curtains drawn close. You part them. Beyond is light at last. You enter the living-room of the house. Someone quietly draws the curtains so no faintest glimmer will penetrate the outer darkness. Say, it was some experience!

Next day a gentleman in a big motor picked us up, five of us, and showed us the sights. He wouldn't tell us who he was, but he was a big bug all right. All the bobbies came to a crack salute as he passed by, and he took us through Parliament and to Buckingham Palace. We couldn't find out his name. All he confessed to was that he sat in the House of Lords; so I asked him about the family estate. He knew all the facts but said none of the crowd were in London just then. I thought of looking them up, but I didn't get a chance.

That night we took in the Hippodrome. It was all right, but it made us homesick for the one on Forty-fourth Street. When we got back to the ship next day we found we were going home to the U. S. A. That was the best news I ever heard.

We came back in sixteen days. Say, do I want to go over again? Well, rather! And I'll take a longer shore leave next time. Perhaps I'll run up to Northumberland and look over the old place. After all, seventeenth isn't so far down the line, now is it?

[104]
[105]