Three days before we reached the British shores both the captain and the commander vanished from sight. They never came into the dining saloon again during the voyage. They spent their time on the bridge tirelessly watching. Up in the crow’s nest two sailors also watched. With strong glasses they swept the horizon and never ceased.
The life-boats which hitherto had been swung high up and level with the boat deck, now were lowered to the level of the promenade deck. Everything was in readiness. Far out across the gray and tumbling sea the early dawn had seen the approach of two American destroyers, the swiftest, slimmest, smartest little craft afloat. It is no secret that these American destroyers are and have for some time been patrolling British waters, and magnificent work they have done.
Exactly how many submarines our little destroyers have sent to the bottom has not been given out, but Mr. Lloyd George has more than once in the House of Commons reported that the American boats were having continuous successes.
All the rest of the way those two swift destroyers convoyed us. They swept in great circles all around us. They plowed through the waves like dolphins, the water sometimes completely engulfing them. They never rested, and the passengers sat all day and watched them with fascinated eyes. Nothing could happen with those destroyers at hand.
Such is the sea voyage on which our sons and our daughters are traveling in these times of great peril and uncertainty. As far as it is humanly possible their lives are safeguarded against the enemy. There is little difference in the precautions taken to defend the transports. That each ship has traveled back and forth so many times in safety is one of the marvels of the war.
To sink an American transport with several thousand soldiers on board, any U-boat commander in the Germany navy would almost barter his chances in the next world. Can you imagine to what fame he would spring overnight? They would have to invent a new decoration to express the kaiser’s gratitude—his and Gott’s. But nobody has won that decoration yet, and nobody stands much chance of winning it, if only the American father and mother keep cool and stand by their government.
We have sent over, Secretary Baker told us in early July, more than a million soldiers, and we have lost less than three hundred men at sea. Think of it! The sea at that rate, even now, with U-boats on both sides of the Atlantic, is safer to cross than Broadway and Forty-second Street. Shall we keep it safe? Or shall we do what the kaiser is probably praying for every day of his life? Shall we please him, help him, by demanding that some of those destroyers be sent home to guard our shores? Never, while we keep our intelligence.
CHAPTER XXIX
CLEMENCEAU THE TIGER
It must be plain to everybody, even to the people of the German empire and her vassal states, that the allies will certainly win the war. The only thing that could possibly alter that fact would be for one of the great powers, England, France or the United States, to make a very serious political blunder. We need not be afraid now that such a thing will happen. We know that President Wilson will stand firmly by the policies which have brought him fame and gratitude throughout the civilized world.
Great Britain has had her worst political crisis, and she has survived it. We trust David Lloyd George to work wholeheartedly with Woodrow Wilson for a fight to the finish with German militarism. But what of France? What manner of man is at the helm in the French capital? What about Clemenceau?