Part 11

"Not in everything," I barked back.

Then, and not till then, did he soften. We had a little more conversation, and then he said he wanted that night to think over the unprecedented request. He would let me know next day.

A perfect bigot; and yet there were worse than he. He dared to say what he thought about the rights of his station. Some of his judgments may have been childish, but his convictions were deep and honest. I respected him, and later came to have almost a liking for him.

I have expended many paragraphs in telling of this interview, but it is meant to be more than a statement of one American correspondent. It is meant to explain a point of view which Americans may find it hard work to understand. That admiral in charge of our naval base can be multiplied all the world over. We have them in our own departments.

While waiting the admiral's pleasure I had a look at the port. A fine harbor, a beautiful harbor, but disfigured now by big, ugly war-buildings. The houses of the port set mostly up on terraces. There were several streets, but only one real one in the place, and that ran along the waterside. All the pubs of the port were naturally located on this waterside street, and so no tired seafarer had to walk far to get a drink. Not many of our fellows were to be seen on the streets in daylight; but at night they were plentiful. A couple of movie theatres took care of about three hundred of them; the rest walked the waterside street. There was a port order there that no sailor of ours could stay in a pub after eight in the evening, so at one minute past eight that waterside street looked like a naval parade. For the rest the port offered little or nothing to tempt a man. It was as rainy a place as ever I was in, and the back streets were crowded with children playing. Barefooted, healthy children! If they had not been healthy the weather would surely have killed them off. It was a most moral port, too; too moral for some people, who thought to put a little life into the place by making nightly calls there, and made the nightly calls till a local clergyman protested from the altar, whereupon some muscular young Christians ran the visitors back aboard their train and out of the port's history.

Next day the admiral gave me permission to make a cruise with our destroyers. He seemed to be giving it in the same stubborn fashion that he had at first refused it--as though he saw his duty in so doing. I was told that he said he did not think much of my manners; which, of course, worried me.

I knew quite a few officers in the navy who were commanding destroyers over there. Any one of them, known or unknown to me, was good enough for me as a skipper. No man not ready to take a chance puts in for command of a destroyer over there; and no man not fit is given a command. But I took passage with one that I had cruised with before--the alert, resourceful kind with plenty of nerve. If anything should happen, I knew he would be there with all his crew and his ship had.

What happened while with him and at the naval base I have tried to tell as separate incidents when I can, in the chapters which follow.

ONE THEY DIDN'T GET

We were one of a group of American destroyers convoying a fleet of inbound British merchant steamers.

The messenger handed a radio in to the bridge.

"We are being shelled," said the radio; latitude and longitude followed, as did the name of the ship, J. L. Luckenbach. One of us knew her; an American ship of 6,000 tons or so.

Another radio came: "Shell burst in engine-room. Engineer crippled." S O S signals were no rare thing in those waters, but even so they were never passed up as lacking interest; the skipper waited for action. Pretty soon it came, a signal from the senior officer of our group. The 352--let us give that as the number of our ship--was to proceed at once to the assistance of the Luckenbach.

The skipper's first act was to shake up the second watch-officer, who also happened to be acting as chief engineer of the ship, and to pass him the word to speed the ship up to twenty-five knots. We were steaming at the head of the convoy column at eighteen knots at the time. The first watch-officer, having finished his breakfast and a morning watch, was just then taking a little nap on the port ward-room transom with his clothes and sea-boots still on. The active messenger shook him up too. The two officers made the deck together, one buttoning his blouse over a heavy sweater, the other a sheepskin coat over his blouse.

Word was sent to the Luckenbach that we were on the way. Within three minutes the radio came back: "Our steam is cut off. How soon can you get here?"

Up through the speaking-tube came a voice just then to say that we were making twenty-five knots. At the same moment our executive officer, who also happened to be the navigator, handed the skipper a slip of paper with the course and distance to the Luckenbach, saying: "That was at nine-fifteen."

It was then nine-seventeen. Down the tube to the engine-room went the order to make what speed she could. Also the skipper said: "She ought to be tearing off twenty-eight soon as she warms up. And she's how far now? Eighty-two miles? Send this radio: 'Stick to it--will be with you within three hours.'"

By this time all hands had an idea of what was doing and all began to brighten up. Men off watch, supposed to be asleep in their cots below, began to stroll up and have a look around decks. Some lingered near the wireless door, and every time the messenger passed they sort of stuck their ears up at him. He was a long-legged lad in rubber boots who took the deck in big strides. His lips never opened, but his eyes talked. The men turned from him with pleased expressions on their faces.

There was a little steel shelter built on to the chart house to port. It was for the protection of the forward gun crew, who had to be ready for action at any minute. Men standing by for action and not getting it legitimately, try to get it in some other way. So they used to burn up their spare energy in arguing. It did not matter what the argument was about--the President, Roosevelt, the Kaiser, the world series--any subject would do so long as it would grow into an argument. The rest of the crew could hear them--threatening to bust each other's eyes out--clear to the skid deck sometimes. But now all quiet here, and soon they were edging out of their igloo and calling down to the fellows on the main deck: "That right about a ship being shelled by a sub? Yes. Well!" They went down to their shelter smiling at one another.

Ship's cooks, who rarely wander far from their cosey galley stoves, began to show on deck; ward-room stewards came out on deck; a gang black-painting a tank hatch--they all slipped over to the rail and, leaning as far out as they could and not fall overboard, had long looks ahead. And then they all turned to see what 352's smoke-stacks were doing. There was great hope there.

The black smoke was getting blacker and heavier. They were sure feeding the oil to her. The chief came up the engine-room ladder. An old petty officer waylaid him. Doing well, was she, sir?--She was. Hem! About how well, sir?--Damn' well. She was kicking out twenty-eight--twenty-eight good--and picking up.

Twenty-eight and picking up? And the best she showed in her builders' trial was twenty-nine-one! What d'y' know about her? Some little old packet, hah?

It was a fine day, the one fine day of the trip, a rarely fine day for this part of the northern ocean at this time of year. It was cloudy, but it was calm. There was a long, easy swell on, but no sea to make her dive or pitch. The swell, when she got going in good shape, set her to swinging a little, but that did not hurt. A destroyer just naturally likes to swing a little.

Swinging along she went, rolling one rail down and then the other, but not making it hard to stand almost anywhere around deck, except that when you went aft there was a drive of air that lifted you maybe a little faster than you started out to go. Swinging along she went, a long, easy swing, carrying a long white swash to either side of her, vibrating a thousand to the minute on her fantail, streaming out a long white and pale-blue wake for as far as we could see, and just clear of her taffrail piling up the finest little hill of clear white boiling water.

Twenty-nine, they say, she was making, and still picking up. What! Thirty? And a little more left in her? What d'y' know--some little baby, hah?

Another radio came to the bridge: "A shell below our water-line. Settling, but still afloat and still fighting."

"Good work. Stick to it," they said on the bridge, and wondered whether it was the skipper or the radio man who was framing the messages. He had the dramatic instinct, whoever he was.

Perhaps twenty minutes later came: "Water in our engine-room."