"All you men who iss got clothes ver de sun isn't iss, put 'em ver de sun iss iss. . . ."
Say, that got us! and Ole never did hear the end of "ver de sun iss iss." That was all right, as it turned out, but next time—well, this is what happened.
"Boresighting"—a 3-inch gun on board a merchant ship.
We anchored in an English port and like every good "bloomin' bloody Yank," as our British cousins call us, we got out our bats and balls ready to play United States baseball. We had four cracking good teams on the ship. The first and fourth would play, then the second and third. The competition was pretty close and we were tickled to death when the American Consul got a tract of land for us and we went ashore to show those Johnnies a regular game, after watching cricket for an hour or two.
Well, after several days of games, some of the men began abusing their shore privileges, and the officers knocked it off and kept us aboard—no liberty at all!
Gee, we certainly longed to get off the boat. There was land only a hand's throw away—and there was a whole diamond going to waste and games tied. One afternoon, after talking the matter over, we plucked up courage and drew lots. It fell on me to go up to the Officer of the Deck and ask for a Recreation Party.
I did.
He didn't waste any breath at all. "No," he said, so I slunk back to my mates. But we didn't let the matter rest. Every ten minutes another one of us would march up with the same request. The O. D. got sore. Ole was on watch.
"Pass the word," the O. D. commanded crisply, "No Recreation Party whatsoever!"