The A. E. F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces

THE A. E. F.
BY HEYWOOD BROUN
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America
TO RUTH HALE
Some of the material in this book is reprinted through the courtesy of the New York Tribune .
VOILÀ UN SOUSMARIN, said a sailor, as he stuck his head through the doorway of the smoking room. The man with aces and eights dropped, but the player across the table had three sevens, and he waited for a translation. It came from the little gun on the afterdeck. The gun said Bang! and in a few seconds it repeated Bang! I heard the second shot from my stateroom, but before I had adjusted my lifebelt the gun fired at the submarine once more.
A cheer followed this shot. No Yale eleven, or even Harvard for that matter, ever heard such a cheer. It was as if the shout for the first touchdown and for the last one and for all the field goals and long gains had been thrown into one. There was something in the cheer, too, of a long drawn ho-old 'em.
I looked out the porthole and asked an ambulance man: Did we get her then?
No, but we almost did, he answered. There she is, he added. That's the periscope.
Following the direction of his finger I found a stray beanpole thrust somewhat carelessly into the ocean. It came out of a wave top with a rakish tilt. Probably ours was the angle, for the steamer was cutting the ocean into jigsaw sections as we careened away for dear life, now with a zig and then with a zag, seeking safety in drunken flight. When I reached the deck, steamer and passengers seemed to be doing as well as could be expected, and even better.
The periscope was falling astern, and the three hundred passengers, mostly ambulance drivers and Red Cross nurses, were lined along the rail, rooting. Some of the girls stood on top of the rail and others climbed up to the lifeboats, which were as good as a row of boxes. It was distinctly a home team crowd. Nobody cheered for the submarine. The only passenger who showed fright was a chap who rushed up and down the deck loudly shouting: Don't get excited.