The Corsair in the war zone

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

ASSISTANT ENGINEER HAWTHORN AND HIS WATCH

THE CREW OF NUMBER THREE GUN

Throughout the ship men were endeavoring to do their duty and to perform the allotted tasks, just as this quartermaster had struggled to his station on the bridge when he thought that the Corsair had been blown up. When one of the boats was in danger of being whisked away by a breaking sea, young Henry Outwater climbed into it and rove new falls, sticking to it until he had finished the job of working the stiff rope through the blocks. He was under water part of the time, and the fury of the wind was such that “he whipped straight out like a pennant,” as he afterwards told his mates. At any moment he and the boat were likely to go careering off together on the back of a thundering sea. No officer of the Corsair would have ordered him to risk his life in this fashion. He did it because he thought it ought to be done, a detail in the line of duty. The same spirit was shown by Boatswain’s Mate Mulcahy, who noticed that the port anchor needed to be secured. The ship was plunging her bows clean under as he crawled forward and fought the smothering seas while he wrestled with the lashings.

It was bad enough on deck, but worse to be far down below in the engine- and fire-rooms where the black water swashed to and fro and rose higher and higher. The pumps had choked with coal and ashes and it was touch and go before they were finally cleared. In this immensely difficult task, working mostly under water, Carpenter’s Mate Evans bravely helped to free the bilge suctions. Engineers, oilers, water-tenders, and the grimy watches of the furnace gang had dumbly, courageously run the chance of death by a torpedo through voyage after voyage. Now the sea had become an enemy even more ferocious than the U-boat, showing every intention of drowning them where they stood; but these were no quitters and the ship had steam enough to hold her hove to or to send her surging off before it. They were alert and steady for the signals from the bridge and they kept the heart of the ship beating strong and responsive to the need.

The twin screws helped to steer her, now with a thrust to starboard, again with a kick to port, whenever the hurricane would have rolled her helpless. One of the bridge watch, yarning about it in Lisbon, recalled this incident:

“I went below to roost on the steam pipes and thaw out, and you couldn’t call that outfit excited at all. What made a hit with me was a kid of an oiler who stood in the water between the two throttles, with a grip on each of ’em while he nursed the engines along. He had to help steer the ship as he got the word, opening up a little on one, shutting off on the other. Getting drowned was the least of his worries. All he had on his mind was coaxing the ship as she needed it, and the water was splashing around his legs, at that.”

“It reminds me,” chipped in another of this reminiscent group. “In the morning of the big blow, a guy of my division appeared on deck all dressed up in his liberty blues. The bo’s’n’s mate asked him what he meant by turning out all dolled up like that. ‘Why, Jack,’ answered this cheerful gob, ‘I have a date with a mermaid in Davy Jones’s locker.’”

“Like a couple of huskies of the black gang,” said some one else. “They were in their bunks snoring away like a pair of whistling buoys, dead to the world, although the fo’castle was flooded and the water was sloshing under ’em. The hurricane had worked itself up and was going strong, but they were off watch and the important business was to pound their ears. The first depth charge exploded and shook the ship up, and all hands were beating it for the deck, leaving their clothes behind. These two birds rolled over and sat up and yawned. ‘Say, bo, do you suppose we’re torpedoed?’ observes one, sort of casual-like. ‘It sounds and feels like that same little thing,’ replies the other. ‘I guess we might as well dress and see what it looks like.’ They were calm and deliberate, just like that, waiting to put on their shoes and pea-jackets and oilskins, and sort of strolling topside. My theory is that they had dreamed of being torpedoed and talked about it until the real alarm had no pep to it at all.”