He was a quiet sort of chap, with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that won for him the name of "Specs." He was as funny off duty as a goat, but the best corps man I have ever seen on his job. We were always together. We had plugged through the course together, and worried about the exams together, and we had hoped that fate would be kind to us and send us across on the same ship. But nothing doing. I parted from him with all kinds of promises to write and went aboard the destroyer.
The first man I saw on deck was "Specs," double glasses and all. I couldn't believe my eyes. I stared at him like a fool. And by cracky, it turned out to be his brother, who was coxswain and enough like "Specs" to pass for himself. Well, needless to say, Trace and I hit it up from the word go.
We had a few accident cases which kept me fairly busy going over, but as we came nearer the Zone I got the fever that runs in every man's blood to catch a sight of Fritz. There were some fellows aboard who had crossed a half-dozen times without a squint at a submarine and with nothing fiercer to take a shot at than a sleepy whale.
We were escorting a merchant ship flotilla—a whole flock of us. It had been an exciting day all right! Early that morning, while it was yet dark, we had made out what seemed to us to be a ring of little lights upon the water. Take it from me, we don't rush in on anything like that. It may be a German's coy trap for blowing you sky high. But we sure were curious and we circled the lights swiftly, by no means certain but that every minute would be our last. As we approached them we made them out. They were lifeboats full of men signaling wildly for help.
We flew to their rescue and picked them up. The lot of them were half frozen and barely able to tell us the old story of Fritz's stab in the dark. I had some work to do then! There were frostbitten hands and feet and ears to care for, and chills and fever to ward off. I worked over them for hours. We found out that they were the crew of a British cargo ship and as soon as it was light we landed them at a nearby port and set out to sea again.
It was a wild morning. The wind had risen to what was fast becoming a gale. Think of a gale at sea in November! Icy waves sweep your deck and toss your ship about like a ball in the water. No chance to cook a mouthful, as nothing would stay on the range long enough—hardtack for all hands and lucky to get it—stand by as best you can in case of a lurking Fritz.
The gale grew worse. I had never seen such an ugly storm. The sky was almost black and the sea was running so high that it seemed as though green mountains were crashing down upon us as the combers fell. I don't know how we happened to weather it, but once the wind died down, we saw some distance away a British destroyer, bobbing about aimlessly on that wild sea. Her decks had been swept clean, her propellers smashed, her wireless gone. She was just a plaything of the waves. We went to her rescue. What was left of her crew was certainly glad to see us. They had given up all hope of help coming before Fritz saw her.
We towed her to her base and on the way we caught a signal warning us to keep an extra sharp lookout as a cruiser had been sent to bottom by a submarine not five miles away. We left the disabled destroyer at her base and set out for our own; it was about four in the afternoon. The storm had died down, but the waves still looked wicked and the sky was a dirty gray.
Fritz was laying for us. I suppose he had seen us taking the destroyer in and he figured we'd start for home. I guess he decided to make a good day's work of it by sinking us before he sat down to dinner. Trace was lookout, and he sighted a small periscope some distance off the port bow. It extended about a foot out of water and was visible only a few seconds, but say, did he let out a yell? . . .