World's War Events Volume III Part 2

Once in a while some one of us gets a torpedo fired at him, and only luck or quick seamans.h.i.+p saves him from destruction. Some day the torpedo will hit, and then the Navy Department will "regret to report."

But the laws of probability and chance cannot lie, and as the total U-boat score against our destroyers so far is zero, you can figure for yourself that they will have to improve somewhat before the Kaiser can hand out many iron crosses at our expense.

[Sidenote: Picking up survivors.]

We had a new experience the other day when we picked up two boatloads of survivors from the ----, torpedoed without warning. I will say they were pretty glad to see us when we bore down on them. As we neared, they began to paddle frantically, as though fearful we should be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from them at the last moment. The crew were mostly Arabs and Lascars, and the first mate, a typical comic-magazine Irishman, delivered himself of the following: "Sure, toward the last, some o' thim haythen gits down on their knees and starts calling on Allah; but I sez, sez I, 'Git up afore I swat ye wid the axe-handle, ye benighted haythen; sure if this boat gits saved 't will be the Holy Virgin does it or none at all, at all! Git up,' sez I."

[Sidenote: The deep sea breeds a certain fineness of character.]

The officers were taken care of in the ward-room--rough unlettered old sailormen, who possessed a certain fineness of character which I believe the deep sea tends to breed in those who follow it long enough.

I have known some old Tartars greatly hated by those under them, but to whom a woman or child would take naturally.

What you say about my possibly being taken prisoner both amuses and touches me. The former because it seems so highly unlikely a contingency. Submarines do not take prisoners if they can help it, and least of all from a man-of-war. But I have often thought of just what I should do in such a case, and I have decided that it would be far better to die than to submit to certain things. In which case, I should use my utmost ingenuity to take along one or two adversaries with me.

AUGUST 11.

[Sidenote: The case for universal conscription.]

So the boys at home don't all take kindly to being conscripted, eh?

Well, I wish for a lot of reasons that the conscription might be as complete and far-reaching as it is in, for instance, France. I think for one thing that universal conscription is the final test of democracy.

Again, I think it would do every individual in the nation good to find out that there was something a little bit bigger than he--something that neither money, nor politics, nor obscurity, nor the Labor Union, nor any one else could help him to wriggle out of. It would go far towards disillusioning those many who seem to feel that they do not have to take too seriously a government because they have helped to create it.

[Sidenote: Not a question of courage but of mental process.]

While I have precious little sympathy for slackers of any variety, one must not judge them too harshly because their minds do not happen to work the same as ours. In nine cases out of ten it is not a question of courage, but one of mental process. Some people come of a caste to whom war or the idea of fighting for their country is second nature. They take it for granted, like death and taxes. If they ever permitted themselves seriously to question the rightness of it; to submit patriotism and courage to an acid a.n.a.lysis, they might suddenly turn arrant cowards. How much harder is it, then, for people who have never even faced the idea of it before to be suddenly placed up against the actual fact!

AUGUST 18.

I have been having a little extra fun on my own hook recently. The poor captain has had to have an operation, and will be on his back for some weeks.

[Sidenote: Double duty on the bridge.]

Do I like going to war all on my own? Oh no, just like a cat hates cream. It is a wee bit strenuous, as I have to do double duty; and one night I was on the bridge steadily from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. But the funny part is that I didn't feel especially all in afterward, and one good sleep fixed me up completely.

[Sidenote: A submarine escapes.]

I had a big disappointment on my first run out. I nearly bagged a submarine for you. We got her on the surface as nice as anything, but it was very rough, and she was far away, and before I could plunk her, she got under. If she had only--but, as the saying goes, if the dog hadn't stopped to scratch himself, he would have got the rabbit (not, however, that we stopped to scratch ourselves).

AUGUST 27.

[Sidenote: Responsibility for lives and s.h.i.+p.]

I am still in command of the s.h.i.+p and love it, but there is a difference between being second in command and being It. It makes you introspective to realize that a hundred lives and a $700,000 s.h.i.+p are absolutely dependent upon you, without anybody but the Almighty to ask for advice if you get into difficulty.

It is not so much the submarines, which are largely a matter of luck, but the navigating. Say I am heading back for port after several days out, the weather is thick as pea-soup, and I have not seen land or had an observation for days. I know where I am--at least I think I do--but what if I have miscalculated, or am carried off my course by the strong and treacherous tides on this coast, and am heading right into the breakers somewhere, or perchance a mine-field! Then the fog lifts a little, and I see the cliffs or mountains that I recognize, and bring her in with a slam-bang, much bravado, and a sigh of relief.

Don't you remember the days when you thought son was dying if he cried--or if he didn't? Well, that's it!

[Sidenote: Recreations ash.o.r.e.]

Don't get the idea that I have no recreations. We walk and play golf, go to the movies on occasion, and there is always a jolly gang of mixed services to play with.

SEPTEMBER 9.

Life here doesn't vary much. The captain is up and taking a few days'

leave, though I doubt if he will take command for two or three weeks yet. But I am having a lovely time running her.

[Sidenote: A veteran New Zealander for dinner.]

The other night we had a very interesting chap for dinner--a New Zealander he was, who has served in Egypt, Gallipoli, the trenches in France, and is now in the Royal Naval Reserve. The tales he told were of wonderful interest. He was modest and seemed to have been a decent sort, but you could sense the brutalizing effect of war on him. Some of the things he told were such jokes on the Germans that we laughed right heartily.

[Sidenote: The beast in man is near the surface.]

The beast in man lies so close to the surface. We think we are human and law-abiding of our own volition, whereas, as a matter of fact, nine-tenths of it is from pure habit. It doesn't occur to us to be anything else. But let all standards and customs be sc.r.a.pped, let us see the things done freely that never even entered our minds before, and a lot of us are liable to develop ape and tiger proclivities. We nearly all put unconscious limits to our humanity. The most chivalrous and kindly Westerner or Southerner would admit that ma.s.sacring Chinamen, Mexicans, or Negroes is not such a great crime; and the most devoted mother or father is p.r.o.ne to regard as unspanked brats children who to a third party appear quite as well as the critic's own.

SEPTEMBER 20.

I am still in command and loving every minute of it. With any other captain than ours it would be a come-down to resume my place as a subordinate. But in his case I think that all mourn a little when he is away.

SEPTEMBER 29.

[Sidenote: New knowledge of navigation and s.h.i.+p handling.]

Oh, it's great stuff, this being in command and handling the s.h.i.+p alone.

Particularly I enjoy swooping down on some giant freighter, like a hawk on a turkey, running close alongside, where a wrong touch to helm or engine may spell destruction, and then demanding through a megaphone why she does or does not do so and so. I have learned more navigation and s.h.i.+p-handling since being over here than in all my previous seagoing experience. In the old ante-bellum days one hesitated to get too close to another s.h.i.+p, even in daytime, far more so at night, even with the required navigation lights on. Now, without so much light as a glowworm could give, we run around, never quite certain when the darkness ahead may turn into a s.h.i.+p close enough to throw a brick at.

However, I am back in the ranks again now, as the captain has come back and resumed command.

OCTOBER 9.

[Sidenote: Job of an executive officer is thankless.]

You must not be resentful because of things you have gone through, unappreciated by those perhaps for whom you have undergone them. It is one of the laws of life, and a hard law too, but it comes to everybody, either in a few big things or a mult.i.tude of little ones. Do the people who keep the world turning around ever get due recognition? I was thinking in much the same resentful vein myself to-day, in my own small way, how thankless the job of an executive officer is; how you never reach any big end, or even feel that you have made progress, but just keep on the job, watching and inspecting and fussing to keep the whole personnel-materiel machine running smoothly, and knowing that your recognition is purely negative, in that, if all goes well, you don't get called down. And then I calm down and realize that it is all in the game, and that it is the best tribute so to handle your job in life that nothing has to be said. If your car runs perfectly, you neither feel nor hear it, and give it little credit on that account. But let it strip a gear or something go!!

[Sidenote: Roller-skating for amus.e.m.e.nt ash.o.r.e.]

I hate to tell you what I was doing this afternoon. You will think I am not at war at all when I tell you that I have been roller-skating. I was a bit rusty at first, but warmed up to it. It is about the only exercise we can get on sh.o.r.e, for it rains all the time. Each shower puts an added crimp in my temper, as I have been trying to get a new coat of camouflage paint on the s.h.i.+p. I think, if some of the old paint-and-polish captains and admirals could see her now, they would die of apoplexy.

[Sidenote: No chance for wives to come over.]

I fear there is no chance for you to come over. Admiral Sims disapproves--not of you personally--one cannot find a place to live here, and there would be too many hards.h.i.+ps. How would it be for you when we had said good-bye, and you saw the s.h.i.+p start out into a howling gale or go out right after several s.h.i.+ps had been sunk outside? With you at home among friends, I can keep my mind on my job, which I couldn't if you were alone over here.

Let me say right now that the destroyer torpedoed was not ours. It was hard on you all to have the news published that one had been and a man killed, and not say what boat, as that leaves every one in suspense. I suppose the relatives of the man were notified, but that doesn't help other people who were anxious.