The U-boat hunters Part 15

Which caused her papa to recall that from where he was born and lived the first years of his life he had only to look out of his top window and across the harbor to see a big navy-yard; and while he was still too young to read a paper, he had seen marines boarding s.h.i.+ps and marching off to trains; and just as sure as he did the older people would read from that night's or next morning's paper of trouble somewhere abroad.

And always they went without any fuss. Most of us would have more to say about going to the office of a snowy morning than do the marines on leaving for some far-away country, from where, as they know by past records of the corps, quite a few of them are never coming back. They were the original efficiency boys. They slung their rifles, hooked on their packs and went; and that ended that part of it.

But after they were gone people living near naval quarters waited for the next word; and that next word so often came in the form of one laconic sentence, the same cabled back by the topside naval officer or some American consul, that we used to wonder if they had a rubber stamp for it--that laconic, rea.s.suring sentence! When our country erects a memorial structure to the United States Marine Corps, she should chisel over the main front:

_The Marines Have Landed and Have the Situation Well in Hand_

Landed in some tropic port with some hard-p.r.o.nouncing name, they have, shoving off from the s.h.i.+p's side with their rifles and their packs, to get a toe-hold somewhere against two, five, ten times their number blazing away at them from behind sand-hills, or roof-tops, or a fine growth of jungle, it may be.

The others are not always as well equipped as our fellows and they may have no advance supply-base; but they know how to campaign. South of us are mult.i.tudes who will take a bag of corn, a water-bottle, and a pair of straw sandals and go shuffling over the hill trails for forty or fifty miles a day. And don't think they won't fight. They will. In countries where boys of twelve and thirteen pack a gun and go off with their fathers in the army, they probably do not worry overmuch about dying early.

From their retreats they like to sally forth at intervals and have a wallop at our fellows. There was a corporal in Haiti, on outpost, with half a dozen loyal natives acting as policemen with him. The native guards slept in barracks by themselves; our marine in a little low shack set up on posts a hundred yards away, with a native who acted as cook and general helper. The next outpost was six miles away.

A band of outlaws rushed the native police in their barracks at this post one night, and such as they did not shoot up they ran into the brush. Our corporal was awakened from sound slumber by the firing and shouting at the barracks. A few volleys through the sides of his own shack waked him up good. He pulled on his trousers, taking time to fasten them only by one b.u.t.ton at his waist. There was no time for socks; he pulled on his shoes, but had no time to lace them. A marine is trained to be neat in his attire, and so our corporal apologetically explained later that he had got no farther than that in his dressing when he heard them trying to burst in his front door.

The corporal sent his native cook to the rear door, while he fixed his bayonet to his rifle and stood guard over the front door. They had it all but stove in when he began cutting loose like three men with his rifle through the door. He killed a man there.

They then began to smash in the window nearest the door. He pried open the window with his bayonet, and got there before them. There was a big black fellow at the broken window. Our marine shot him dead, which gave him time to turn to the side window, which they had now broken in with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles. He got one there. There was another close up whom he hit but did not kill; and he dropped another one on the edge of the shadows outside. The cook, catching the spirit of the thing, killed one at the rear door on his own account.

The bandits had enough, and left. Next evening, when his officer came along with a squad, he found our corporal with his wounded under guard, his four dead ones in a neat row, and himself and his cook frying chicken in the twilight, cheerfully able to report that he had the situation well in hand.

They are a sharpshooting rifle outfit. Down in Vera Cruz during the late trouble a platoon of marines were at the foot of a street leading up from the water-front. They had cleaned up things all about them and thought they were in for a rest; and they wanted their rest--a hot tropic day with the heat rolling off the asphalt where they lay.

There came a ping! of a rifle bullet among them; and half a minute or so later another ping! They watched, and up the street they saw the head, arm, and shoulder of a man with a rifle come poking around the corner of a building, and ping! another one, and this time one of their men hit. A bad hombre, that one.

"Get him!" said their officer, and named two of them to get him.

The two men lay down on the asphalt; and when their friend next poked his head and shoulders around the corner, they fired. They saw the adobe plaster spatter from a corner of the building just under the man's chin; but that wasn't getting him. They jacked their sights up 50 yards, making it 800 yards; and when next the native showed around the corner they both got him--one plumb between the eyes.

It was good shooting; but there was no special comment after it. The talk would have come if they hadn't got him.

But it is not always a matter of fighting or shooting efficiency. There was that bad hombre, Juan Calcano of Santo Domingo--Juan the Terrible, the natives called him. Juan and his gang had a headquarters in the mountains. From there they came riding down into the valleys--shooting, robbing, standing quiet natives on their heads generally. Juan had quite a little territory under tribute. He came down into La Ramona, where was a custom-house and guard. He shot up the guards, took all the gold in the custom-house, and rode away, saying: "Come after me who dares!"

The marines did not worry about the daring part; but he was too strongly intrenched for a direct attack. Your professional soldier, above all men, prefers not to throw away good men's lives. They considered matters; and one day they set out, three marine officers and thirty men, for Juan's country. One of those tropical hurricanes came along the same day they started, blew down trees, filled rivers to over their banks, and made them wade waist-deep in the mud of the roads. It was tough going, but it had its good side--there were not many people abroad.

They arrived near the village where Juan was known to be. An American marine would not have stood much chance to get back if Juan had known one was around; but one of the officers rigged up as a mule trader and went looking for Juan. He found him, taking it easy until the roads after the storm should become pa.s.sable, and allow himself and his men to sashay into the valley again.

All kinds of people--white, and black, and brown--came Juan's way to do business--to buy mules and horses, for instance. In the course of his travels in the valley Juan had helped himself to some very fine mules and horses. Along comes this man this day--American, English, French, Spanish, who knows? Or cares? He talked money--cash--for a good pair of mules. No old spavined creatures, but young, strong, sound ones.

Yes, Juan had just such a pair of mules. Oh, a superb young pair! He would see. Truly yes. Would the stranger senor come into his house so that Juan might speak more confidentially of them? The stranger would.

And did. But before Juan could unload all he had to say about his mules the mule buyer drew a large service automatic and slipped Juan out to where thirty-two marines, officers and men, were in hiding. And they put Juan in jail, and all it cost was one mule--not Juan's--drowned while crossing a stream during the hurricane.

The marines have a great fighting record; but the marines do more than fight. After all, men cannot be handling rifle and bayonet every waking minute--they would become abnormal creatures if they did, of use only in war time; and it would be a terrible world if war were our end and aim.

The marines get aviation, search-light, wireless, telegraphic, heliograph, and other signal drill. They plant mines, put up telegraph and telephone lines in the field, tear down or build up bridges, sling from a s.h.i.+p and set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for their advance base work.

It is a belief with marines that the corps can do anything. Right in New York City is a marine printing plant with a battery of linotypes and a row of presses. They set their own type, write their own stuff (even to the poetry), draw their own sketches, do their own photography, their own color work--everything. Every man in that plant is a marine, enlisted or commissioned. Every one has seen service somewhere outside his country.

One was in a tropic country one time after an all-night march to a river where the ferry was a water-soaked bamboo raft. They had to wait until some native might happen along with a bull--or it might be a cow--to tow the raft across. After crossing the river twice in that day, the young marine commander halted on the bank and said: "That's sure not crossing in a hurry if we had to. Might's well go to it and build a bridge right now."

They cut down trees, got a portable pile-driver from their transport, rigged it up and set to work. They hoisted the hammer--a good heavy one--and let it drop. Bam! she struck, and into the mud for about two feet went the pile. Fine! They hoisted the hammer again--four men hauling on pulley blocks did the hoisting--and let her go again. This time instead of a fine bam! the hammer went a fine splasho! into the river. The great heat and dampness of the place had warped the runways; almost every other time they let that hammer drop, it jumped the runways and into the river.

But that was all right. They could fish her out and hoist her up by man power again. It was when they left the solid bank and had to put out into the river that their troubles began. A pile-driver ought to have a pretty solid foundation. Ought to have! They took two dugout canoes, lashed them together, put a bamboo deck across, set their pile-driver on the deck and turned to again. It made a kind of a wabbly base; besides hauling the hammer out every time it jumped into the river, they had to see that it didn't come bouncing down atop of their own heads or through the canoe deck. However, they were getting action. They finished driving the piles and setting up the stringers.

For their bridge floor they laid down wood s.h.i.+ngles, and over that a mat made out of woven bamboo strips. For a top deck? Well, it was a coral island and the roads of that country were of pounded coral; they put a top dressing of pounded coral across the bridge.

And then the young marine commander looked her over and figured on the dimensions of his struts and stringers, and said: "Some cla.s.s! She'll stand a two-ton load." And then along came a steam-roller from off the transport, and the roller weighed five tons and it was important that it be pa.s.sed across. "Go ahead," said the marine commander--"only I hope you can swim!" And they all camped on the bank to watch. The steam-roller man was an optimist and a literary person: "You may have builded better than you know, captain!" The bridge settled down another foot, but the roller got across, and back and over many more times; which set the younger marines to standing on the bank and saying: "That's us--bridge builders!"

The fight in the shack, the capture of Calcano, the sharpshooting at Vera Cruz, the building of that coral-floored bridge, are not set down here as wonderful stunts. They are set down because the writer happened to b.u.mp into them during a casual hour's inspection of their records.

Scores of more heroic or ingenious samples could be served up by anybody who cared to dig deep into the records. These are detailed here, because they could be briefly told and at the same time show the marine's characteristic qualities: courage, ingenuity, technic, and industry.

Here we might mention that it is not in itself an act of war to land marines on foreign soil. It was sending ash.o.r.e the bluejackets at Vera Cruz that made it an act of war. To protect American lives and property in Nicaragua a battalion of marines landed there a few years ago. They had some sharp fighting, but it was not an act of war. Do you begin to see him as a diplomatic a.s.set? And perhaps why all this landing action comes his way? Most of us have probably forgotten the details of that Nicaraguan landing; but--unless they have been jacked out lately--a company of those marines are still there, looking out for American interests. Only a company, but still hanging on.

Courage, ingenuity, industry--they need them all. Most of us will probably have to stop to remember that the marines who landed in Haiti and Santo Domingo are still there. And running things in their usual efficient fas.h.i.+on. There was the usual fighting to get a toe-hold, the usual fighting to retain place, the usual establis.h.i.+ng of outposts, with the usual killed and wounded already probably forgotten by most of us.

Perhaps they are too far away to make absorbing newspaper items; perhaps it is the Big War overshadowing all else.

In Haiti and Santo Domingo it was the old story of political factions, each faction having its own little gang of fighting men till our fellows came in and ran most of them into the hills. When the marines took charge they found that pretty much everything on the island had gone to wrack. As, for instance, under the old French regime there had been some splendid roads in Haiti, but now they were hardly more than sewers in the towns and a drainage for the hill slopes of the country.

The marines repaired the roads; not always using the picks and shovels themselves, but seeing to it that somebody did, paying a living wage for such work to the natives. Sometimes bandits--who are quite often gentle creatures when out of training--captured bandits were allowed to quit jail to do useful work in this line. The marines installed sanitary methods, saw that courts of justice were resumed, marine officers themselves serving as justices until they found natives who could do that service. Likewise they collected and disbursed taxes.

Above all, they did away with the old reign of terror, when no man's life was safe if he happened to be on the wrong side. When the bandits were running around unchecked, it was not safe for a whole family to go to market together. Generally the women went to sell their little produce, while the men stayed behind to guard the little property at home. Now--the natives speak of the wonder of it--the roads on market-days are crowded with both men and women.

At first they had distrust of the marine; not altogether because he was a foreigner (the tropical people probably are less distrustful of us than we of them)--he was an armed soldier. But they learned to know him, and now the native salutes and smiles without effort at the marine in pa.s.sing. When one particular marine officer left there to come home recently, crowds of native men, women, and children came down, some to weep, but all to wish him G.o.dspeed in going.

The marine is sometimes termed soldier and sailor too, which is not correct. He is not a sailor and does not claim to be. When not in barracks ash.o.r.e he lives aboard some war-s.h.i.+p afloat; and on s.h.i.+pboard he does certain guard work and handles the secondary batteries. But he does not have to sailorize; the bluejacket takes care of that part, and takes care of it well. The notion that a marine must qualify as a sailor aboard s.h.i.+p has probably cost the corps many a prospective recruit.

To call him a seagoing soldier is more nearly correct. When it is not an act of war to land marines on foreign soil, it is good business to keep them where landings can be quickly made with them. So his being kept aboard s.h.i.+p, perhaps. Bluejackets have taken part in landing-parties, too, but it is not to black the bluejacket's eye to say that it is not his regular job. The bluejacket's work is aboard s.h.i.+p--on the bridge, in magazines, in turrets, below decks. Advance sh.o.r.e work is the marine's specialty, and he goes to it pretty much as a man with a dinner-pail goes to work in the subway.

He is the first to land, the last to leave, and to name the places where he has seen service--well, one of them wrote a song once.

"From the hills of Montezuma to the sh.o.r.es of Tripoli," it began. But he has seen more than Mexico or the Mediterranean since. He could now say:

"From the hills of Montezuma to the gates of old Peking He has heard the shrapnel bursting, he has heard the Mauser's ping!

He has known Alaskan waters and the coral roads of Guam, He has----"

But it's like calling a roll--Egypt, Algeria, Tripoli, Abyssinia, Mexico, China, j.a.pan, Korea, Cuba, Porto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Alaska, the Philippines, Formosa, Sumatra, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam--like calling the roll of tropic countries and a few less warm to say where he has been.

He has been most everywhere, done most everything. Did you ever see any mounted marines? There is a guard of mounted marines right now with the legation in Peking; and once a platoon of marines, on duty in Africa, not being able to get big enough horses, rode camels through the wilds of Abyssinia to the palace of old Menelik.

In speaking here of the marines, no man or officer has been named.

That is done of a purpose. In talking of the corps, from the topsiders down--generals, colonels, majors, captains lieutenants, and enlisted men--one fact stuck out: They all played up the corps.

All individuals--officers and men--were made subordinate to the corps.

So here, taking the tip, no names are named. A soldier speaks of his regiment, a bluejacket of his s.h.i.+p. The Marine Corps is made up of companies, regiments, battalions, divisions; but it is the corps of which the marine always speaks.

If you ask the members of any other outfit to name the model military unit, they may name their own branch of the service first; but if they do, it is almost a sure bet that they will name the United States Marine Corps next. When they do not name themselves first, they name the marines first. And this does not apply to outfits in this country alone.

By the look of things now, there probably will be plenty of war before we are done. If any young fellow is wishful to be in the middle of it, we would say: Consider the marines. You may not see them mentioned every morning in the press reports, but be sure of this--they are there and on the job.