Smith then went to the leading driver, and whispered something to him, got into the leading cab, and shut the door.
“Follow me to the transport dock, fellers,” bawled the leading driver to the others, and secretly, a dozen taxis with officers and field clerks, wheeled out in column. We hoped that the civilians we passed in California Street and Van Ness Avenue toward Fort Mason, en route to the transport dock, would not notice us.
The transports Dix, Sheridan and Logan were at the piers, the latter with naval guns mounted forward, the Sheridan with field-pieces lashed on the forecastle-head, and machine-guns on the after bridge. Blue Peters, the signal-flags which announce that a vessel sails that day, hung limply from the fore-trucks of the Sheridan and Logan. The troops to go with us marched in from nearby military posts all day, and swarms of relatives, friends and sightseers, gathered on the hills near Fort Mason to watch the transports.
It was all a matter of regular routine to the dock-workers. The Pacific transports had been sailing on their regular schedule to the Philippines, Honolulu and Guam during the war, and looked no different in their gray paint than they had in the old days of the Philippine campaigns, except that the red, white and blue bands were missing from their funnels.
Smith cautioned us not to leave the dock, and not to send any messages outside, such as telegrams or letters. All day our little party stood round in the sheds and waited, except when they went to the dock-workers’ mess nearby for lunch. I had occasion to go aboard the Sheridan, and finding the room to which I had been assigned, put a deck-chair by the door, on the side away from the dock, and spent the afternoon reading, while Smith kept the others herded together on the dock.
On five o’clock in the evening of September 2, 1918, the Sheridan cast off her lines and we pulled out into the bay, to anchor, with the Logan. At eight o’clock, under cover of darkness, the Sheridan got under way and began moving toward the Golden Gate. I made out the Logan astern, without side-lights, but a single light at her mast-head to mark her position.
We moved out at low speed secretly. As we came abreast of Fort Scott, we made out red and white lights ahead, drawing in toward our bows. We had been careful to burn no lights in our cabins, and refrained from smoking on deck. We were willing to do everything to prevent being torpedoed, and we realized that if we were to sneak away in the night, we must take every precaution against being discovered. This was war, you know.
The lights we had seen approaching drew nearer, until they were close under our port bow. Somebody said it was a destroyer which was to convoy us. We now heard the propeller of the strange craft threshing the water as she stopped her way, and then a raucous voice bawled at us: “What ship is that?”
Silence from our bridge.
Once more, in tones that could be heard from Lime Point to City Hall, came the challenge out of the dark: “What ship is that?” And the swaying red light below took on a baleful gleam.