Impassioned, with many gestures, these weather-beaten Breton sailors cursed the Germans who had placed bombs under the hatches of their beloved bark. The Corsair’s men listened eagerly while they cheered their weary guests with sandwiches and coffee. Presently a hail from the bridge announced that another boat was adrift to the westward, and the mariners of the Sadi Carnot yelled vociferous joy. Five more comrades of theirs were deftly picked up, leaving three boats still unaccounted for, and the Corsair searched for them in vain.
Another boat was discovered a little later, it is true, but the men in it made no sign—four of them, all corpses which washed about in the water under the thwarts or were grotesquely doubled up like bundles of old clothes. They were English seamen and the boat bore the name of the British steamer Malda. As one of the Corsair’s signal-men wrote in his diary; “It was a ghastly sight. The French fishermen we have on board were almost starved and frozen. They could not have lived more than another day or so. Imagine their feelings when they saw the Malda’s boat with the dead men and knew that this would soon have been their own fate.”
It was later reported in Brest that another ship had picked up the Malda’s boat in passing and had discovered that the bodies of the English sailors were riddled with bullets from a machine gun, presumably after they had abandoned their steamer.
The Corsair kept on her way and had no trouble in finding her convoy of four vessels with which she started for Saint-Nazaire at thirteen knots. Off Belle Isle, the Montanan developed a fit of hysterics and opened fire on an imaginary flock of submarines which turned out to be blackfish in a sportive mood. The other merchant steamers promptly joined in the bombardment and banged away for all they were worth, at the same time stampeding most zealously. They scattered over the sea like hunted ducks and the indignant Corsair endeavored to recall and soothe them.
“We could see what they were shooting at,” noted a quartermaster on the yacht, “but believed it to be the splash of a big fish. However, they were thoroughly convinced that Fritz was out to pull some of his morning hate stuff. The ships of the convoy were so excited that they shot all over the ocean. One of their shells missed us by a hundred yards or so and we got sore. I sent them a signal, ‘Cease firing at once and come within hail.’ They paid no attention, but we rounded up the bunch and escorted them safely into port and then beat it out to sea again.... We passed close to a submarine last night, but could not find him. We got the smell of his Diesel engines and I guess he was charging his batteries and ducked under when he heard us.”
The emotions of this startled convoy were not easily calmed, for the commander of the Corsair records, an hour after the alarm, “Proceeding again in close formation. The Edward Luckenbach fired one shot at a flock of gulls on the water.” Concerning the general bombardment he officially observes:
The Montanan opened fire at a disturbance made by a large fish, abeam and to port, distance about one mile. The fish was clearly seen and observed from this ship when it jumped from the water twice and then swam away near the surface. A few minutes later a school of porpoises appeared and all the transports opened fire. The firing was widely dispersed and apparently not aimed at any visible object. The shells from the Montanan landed abreast of the Corsair. None of them burst. The Oise, a French vessel of the escort, attempted to investigate the splash made by the fish but had to draw away when fire was opened at the porpoises.
These false alarms happened often, and during her next tour at sea the Corsair sounded the call to battle stations on two different occasions, reported as follows:
(1) Sighted an object which was believed to be a submarine about four miles ahead. Two submarine warnings were received, one before and one after sighting object. Upon arriving at point where object had been sighted, no evidence could be detected of the presence of a submarine.
(2) Sighted object on starboard beam, distance 3000 yards, which appeared to be a periscope. Informed convoy and headed for object. No. 1 gun crew opened fire when object became visible in gun-sight telescopes, followed by fire from convoy. When we approached close to object it proved to be a black spar, riding about vertical, six feet out of water. The heavy swell running caused the spar to disappear at intervals, which gave it the semblance of a submarine operating.