A YANKEE STANDS BY
I haven't anything to tell about. Being torpedoed is an old story now. Any number of men have met Fritz on the way over, and, if they haven't been quick enough, he's managed to take a shot at them, but it isn't often we fail to get a chance to return fire. Just let a periscope stick its head out of water, and I'll show you action on deck that would make a Kansas cyclone look tame—not that I've seen one. My home is in the East. The best we can boast about is a blizzard or two, and a sixty-mile gale.
I enlisted as a signalman, and was assigned to duty on a merchant ship. There were two other U. S. N. signalmen aboard her, and we managed to make the time fly talking about home and the people we knew.
One of our prize ways of speeding up a long evening on shipboard was to swap notes on the summers we had spent. We all three, at different times, had "vacated" in the Maine woods, almost at the identical spot, and, do you know, we hailed the fact with something very close to triumph!
I guess we three hashed over every little incident of our trips. We found we had had the same close-mouthed Indian guide, that we had all fished on the same bank of a little lost lake, that we had all camped on the same site in a clearing by the water. But when we discovered that we had used the same sort of tackle, and the same-sized rifles, we were almost "moved to tears," as the lady novelists put it.
Those things, small as they seem, are the most important things in the world when you are far away from home. They certainly make men inseparable, and, aside from the fact that Dick Chamberlain and Tod Carlin and I were the only Americans aboard, we became, from the first, the best pals in the world.
We were proceeding as flagship of a convoy, and, as such, we kept an extra sharp lookout for trouble, once we were in the zone.
It was three o'clock on the afternoon of a clear September day. The sea was smooth and we were all on deck. The sky was so blue and the sun so bright that it seemed as though the lurking submarine we were always expecting was a myth like the sea serpent you read about but never see. Night time is the time you are looking for an attack, but broad daylight always seems to dispel thoughts of danger. However, the danger was there.
We were struck close by the engine rooms. All I remember clearly was the terrific roar and splintering of wood, and the sudden listing of the ship. The order rang out to clear the ship and the crew immediately took to the life-boats in the event of rapid settling.