Not much imagination is required to picture the confusion on board the U. S. S. Sherman when she was turned around and headed for Brest, the port from which the craft had so recently sailed. And also it is easy to guess something of the many and rapid questions that were fired from all directions, without any counter-barrage in the way of replies being given.
“What does it mean?”
“Aren’t they going to let us go home after all?”
“Have the Germans started another war?”
“Did we strike a mine?”
“Has a torpedo hit us?”
The two last were the questions most often asked, for it was easily within the bounds of possibility that the craft might have been damaged by some floating mine, nor was it out of the bounds of possibility that she might have been torpedoed. Some German captain of a submarine, not having heard of the signing of the armistice, or choosing to ignore it, perhaps pleading ignorance later, might easily have taken this method of revenge for the fancied wrongs to the “Fatherland.”
And so it was that on all sides arose the question:
“What has happened?”
But no one answered it. At least the returning soldiers, among whom were Ned, Bob, and Jerry, had no one to answer it for them. They “milled around” on the decks, surging this way and that until they threatened the equilibrium of the vessel and the officers had to go among them ordering them to remain quiet.