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[Illustration: Cover]

[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
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OVER THE SEAS FOR UNCLE SAM

[Illustration: "Only the hits count!"]




OVER THE SEAS FOR UNCLE SAM

BY ELAINE STERNE

    _Author of "The Road of Ambition," "Sunny Jim" Stories, Etc._


    "We're ready _now_!"--Navy slogan.


    NEW YORK
    BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY




    Copyright, 1918
    BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.

    Made in U. S. A. All rights reserved.




    _To the Honorable Josephus Daniels
    Secretary of the Navy,
    whose devotion to the interests of the men in the
    American Navy has been an inspiration to them
    no less than to the nation as a whole._




CONTENTS


                                       PAGE
    THE WHEREFORE OF MY LITTLE BOOK      11
    SUNK BY A SUBMARINE                  21
    WAR CLOUDS GATHER                    35
    THE STUFF HEROES ARE MADE OF         49
    DEPTH BOMBS AND DESTROYERS           61
    IN TRAINING                          73
    ZEPS AND TORPEDOES                   91
    "THE LEATHER NECKS"                 107
    THE WAY WITH THE FRENCHIES          119
    A YANKEE STANDS BY                  135
    A TASTE OF HELL                     147
    THE WANDERLUST AND THE WAR          161
    UNDER THE RED CROSS BANNER          175
    "ABANDON SHIP!"                     191
    PRISONERS OF WAR                    209
    FRITZ GETS TAGGED                   221
    THE FLOWER OF FRANCE                233




THE WHEREFORE OF MY LITTLE BOOK


We have learned some things in war times that we did not know in days of
peace. We have made the amazing discovery that our own fathers and
brothers and husbands and lovers are potential heroes. We knew they were
brave and strong and eager to defend us if need be. We knew that they
went to work in the morning and returned at night just so that we might
live in comfort; but we never dreamed that the day would come when we
would see them marching off to war--a war that would take them far from
their own shores. We never dreamed that, like the knights of old, they
would ride away on a quest as holy as that of the Crusaders.

As for army and navy life--it had always been a sealed book to us, a
realm into which one was born, a heritage that passed from father to
son. We heard of life at the army post. We saw a uniform now and then,
but not until our own men donned khaki and blue did we of the outside
world learn of the traditions of the army and of the navy, which dated
back to the days of our nation's birth.

We did not know that each regiment had its own glorious story of
achievement--a story which all raw recruits were eager to live up to--a
story of undaunted fighting in the very face of death that won for it
its sobriquet.

Because the army lay at our very door, we came to know it better, to
learn its proud lesson more swiftly, but little by little the navy,
through the lips of our men, unlocked its traditions, tenderly fostered,
which had fired its new sons to go forth and fight to the finish rather
than yield an inch.

As a first lieutenant in the Girls' National Honor Guard, I was
appointed in May, 1917, for active duty in hospital relief work. It was
then that I came to know Miss Mary duBose, Chief Nurse of the United
States Naval Hospital, whose co-operation at every turn has helped this
little volume to come into being.

The boys of the navy are her children. She watches over them with the
brooding tenderness of a mother. Praise of their achievements she
receives with flashing pride. With her entire heart and soul she is
wrapped up in her work. Through her shines the spirit of the
service--the tireless devotion to duty.

I had never before been inside a naval hospital. I had a vague idea that
it would be a great machine, rather overcrowded, to be sure, in war
times, but running on oiled hinges--completely soulless.

I found instead a huge building, which, in spite of its size, breathed a
warm hominess. Its halls and wards are spotless. Through the great
windows the sun pours in on the patients, as cheery a lot of boys as you
would care to see.

There are always great clusters of flowers in the wards--bright spots of
color--there are always games spread out on the beds. There is always
the rise of young voices--laughter--calls. And moving among the patients
are the nurses--little white-clad figures with the red cross above their
heart. Some of them appear frail and flower-like, some of them very
young, but all impress one with their quiet strength and efficiency.

I have spoken to a great many of them. They are enthusiastic and eager.
They praise highly the splendid work done abroad by their sisters, but
they are serious about the work to be done here as well. Their tasks are
carried on with no flaunting of banners, but they are in active service
just the same, nursing our boys to health every hour of the day--giving
sons back to their mothers--husbands to their wives.

It is a corps to be proud of and a great volume of credit should be laid
at the feet of Mrs. Leneh Higbee, the national head of the Naval Nurse
Corps. It was Mrs. Higbee who built up the Corps--who has given her
life's work to keeping up the standard of that organization--of making
it a corps whose personnel and professional standing in efficiency
cannot be surpassed in the world to-day.

As my visits to the hospital became more frequent, I began, bit by bit,
to gather a story here and there, from the men who lay ill--stories of
unconscious heroism--deeds they had performed as part of a day's work on
the high seas.

They did not want praise for what they had done. They are an independent
lot--our sailors--proud of their branch of service. "No drafted men in
the navy," they tell you with a straightening of their shoulders.

And from the officers I learned of that deeper love--that worship of the
sea--of the vessel placed in their hands to command. From them I heard
for the first time of the value of a discipline iron-bound--rigid--a
discipline that brooks no argument. There were stories of men who had
hoped and dreamed all their lives of a certain cruise, only to find
themselves transferred to the other end of the world. Did they utter a
word of complaint? Not they! "Orders are orders"--that was enough for
them!

And because those of us who send our men to sea are burning to know the
tales they have to tell, I have made this little collection--the men's
own stories, told in the ward to other round-eyed youths who gathered
about the bed to hear, full of eager questions, prompting when the
story moved too slowly.

What you read here are their stories--stories of whole-souled youths,
with the sparkle of life in their eyes, with the love of adventure in
their hearts. Jack Tar is an American clear through to his backbone!

                                       ELAINE STERNE.

    New York,
      May 15, 1918.

[Illustration: Jack is his own "chambermaid."]




JACK TAR


    We're not long on recitation,
    We're just rough and ready gobs,
    But we rate ten gadgets higher
    Than some smug civilian snobs.
    When we're out on well-earned shore leave
    Drummin' up a little cheer,
    Oh, we meet sleek city dandies
    Who object to sailors here.
    They are togged in pretty shirts
    Like a lady on parade,
    And they wouldn't touch a sailor
    With a hoe or with a spade.
    We may not be ornamental
    In the tinselled dancing halls,
    When the nation needs defenders
    We are there when duty calls.
    Though we can't hob-nob with laggards
    Who sleep in sheltered bed
    And we can't enjoy peace pleasures,
    We can join the hero dead.




CHIEF GUNNER BLAKE SPEAKS:




SUNK BY SUBMARINE


SOMEWHERE along in January, 1915, I shipped on the U. S. S. _Utah_.
Always had a hankering after the sea, and then, to tell the truth,
civilian jobs were pretty hard to land in 1915--you bet they were!

Once you're in the Navy you stay for a while. I liked it from the start.
I got to know a thing or two about the guns, went to gunnery school;
that's how I came to be made chief gunner's mate, I guess, and told to
report for armed guard duty on May 29, 1917.

I drew an old tub. I suppose it had been used to carry a cargo of salt
fish from Maine to Newfoundland, and here it was, painted fresh, and
ready to cross the old Atlantic, which was fairly bristling with mines
and lurking sea-devils.

We put to sea June 19th, and we reached the War Zone on July 3rd. I know
what I'm doing, writing War Zone with capitals. You don't have to be
told when you get there. You feel it in the air--it's like a wire
vibrating; everyone's on edge, keyed up to G pitch.

It was my job to see that all lights were doused and all ports closed as
soon as it got dark. I wasn't particular about the way I enforced orders
just so I got them obeyed--and I saw to it that every man who carried a
match was parted from it and that all pocket lights were put in a neat
little pile--officers excepted, of course. They kept theirs.

Every hour I made a round of the ship, watching out sharp for a light.
Important! Say, just suppose Fritz's sea-baby were lying off a few miles
or so without the faintest idea that a merchantman, chuck-full of
munitions, was a stone's throw away. Think how that German crew would
feel if across the darkness they saw the flare of a match. Well, it
would be apt to be lights out for us all that time--that's what.

The watch was doubled--four on and four off--a watch of good sixteen
hours at a clip, with a life preserver on every minute of the time--that
is, you were supposed to. On the transports the rule is carried out to
the letter. Catch a man without a life belt and he can be pretty sure
he'll be up for court-martial when he gets back to port.

But with us it was different. We kept them close by; some of the men
slept in them. I had mine over my feet ready to snatch up in case of
trouble.

It was July 3rd, remember, and we were feeling pretty good. My bunky was
McCaffrey--Mac for short--a little red-headed, freckled Irishman from
Wisconsin, the best that comes west of the Mississippi. We had it all
fixed up to fire a gun off on the Fourth.

"Sure, it's a fine opinion Fritz'll have of us if he's thinkin' we're
scared to let him know it's our big day back home," he argued.

I thought it was a great idea--I told him I'd stand by if he'd share the
blame. Of course we knew darned well we'd never really pull it off, but
it was good fun planning the whole thing just the same.

The sea was calm that night, for a wonder--just a gentle swell. We were
on watch at eight, all on good lookout. Orders were to stand by, and the
guns were primed, ready to shoot red hell into anything short of an
ally.

I wish we could have had a close-up of us. Faces grim, tense from
excitement, joking a bit under our breaths, wishing to Moses we could
have a smoke, betting we'd get through without sighting anything better
than our own reflection in the water.

Somehow we felt peppy. I guess it was thinking about the Fourth and what
it stood for. Seemed queer to be in mid-ocean on the night before the
Declaration of Independence was signed--yep, in the middle of a blooming
black sea, with nothing in sight but a dash of white foam against your
keel, where you cut along through a swell.

I'd just glanced at my radium watch and blessed the girl who gave it to
me. It was nine. I glanced up. Not fifty yards away was a ribbon of
white foam flung out on the water like a scarf, and, sticking straight
out, by God, was the periscope of a German submarine.

No one waited for the command, "Fire when ready...."

The ship was action electrified. I never saw a crew work like that. They
fired point-blank and sent that periscope straight up to where all good
periscopes go. Ripped her clean off.

We weren't sure we'd sunk her, but we figured we had. How did we feel?
How do you think? That was celebrating the Fourth right and proper!

Mac, sweating like a horse, panting from excitement, managed to breeze
by and chuckle.

"Didn't I tell you we'd shoot one off to show 'em who's who?"

It was a great night. We were heroes. We had knocked the stuffings out
of a periscope; it stood to reason we'd sunk her.

We figured out how it happened. The submarine, when she was 'way out on
the horizon line, must have seen us coming. She had evidently made a
long detour, plotting our course and planning to arrive where she could
take good aim and fire. What happened was that we changed our course, so
that when she popped up she was plumb across our bow. Surprised! Wow! I
bet her commander, if he's alive, hasn't closed his mouth yet!

It was something like this:

[Illustration]

Well, we pretty well patted ourselves on the back, but German submarines
must travel in pairs, like rattlesnakes, or else she came back to life,
for an hour later she struck us amidships.

You know it when you're struck. Rather! The crash--the roar--the
tremendous vibration--for a full minute, as the big hulk trembles and
shudders--the hiss of water rushing into the boilers, the steam
gushing, the sudden listing, and, worst of all, the throb of the engines
silenced....

You never forget that silence, felt rather than heard. It means you're a
goner for fair. Above all the orders, rapped out like the clip of a
hammer on steel--that noisy silence sounds loudest in your ears.

"Stand by your guns...." Sure we did. While there was still a chance
we wanted to get a whack at that sub., but all the time I was worrying
about Mac. He was taking a watch off. Could I reach him?

"... Get back, you damned fools...."

"... Man the life-boats!"

"... Gee, that's a close one! Look spry or you'll wash overboard...."

We didn't leave our post until the last life-boat swung clear and landed
with her crew. A couple of boats had been smashed against the side of
the ship and we heard the yells of their crew--nasty sound, that.

I forgot about my life-belt--I wanted to find Mac. I couldn't. It was
pitch black. The water was waist deep and washing over you in gigantic
waves. There was only one chance--to jump for it. I took it. I landed
near the propellers. I could hear them churning fiercely--I could feel
their suction drawing me to them. I guess I fought like a fiend. I'd
heard about the death men die drawn into that blasted hole the ship
makes when she goes down to Davy Jones.

I didn't think of home. I didn't think of my past sins. I just thought
with every ounce of my strength that if I could keep swimming for a few
seconds more I could be clear of that undertow. I made it.

All around me men were calling for help. I made out a life-boat a few
yards away and hollered to them, and just then an oar floated by.

I never was so glad to see anything in my life. I rested on it and
caught another. Two oars! Why, it was as good as a raft. I was safe--if
only I could find McCaffrey in that black hell.

I yelled his name and heard a sputter behind me.

"For God's sake, save me----"

"Can't you swim?"

"No."

"Stay where you are; I'll get you."

It was Spick, one of the oilers--a big chap, weighing a good one-ninety.

"Steady! I'm coming."

He grabbed the oar and lay across it, a dead weight. Someone else pulled
me down.

"Help!"

It was little Tucker, mess attendant, a kid of seventeen. He was all in.
I shoved them both along, and they were heavy, let me tell you. Someone
in the boat saw us and drew alongside. They lifted us in.

"Where's McCaffrey?" I asked them.

Just then I saw him. He was swimming straight for us. I let out a yell,
but it died in my throat.

Straight out of the water, not twenty yards away, rose the gray bulk of
the submarine, its greenish light casting a weird glow over that awful
scene of struggling men. Fritz's war-baby had come back to gloat over
the damage it had done.

Our captain, with his pocket light, was flashing the Morse code on the
water as he floundered about.

From the deck of the submarine the commander's voice rang out. He spoke
as good English as I do.

"What ship have I hit?"

Someone told him.

"Where is your captain?"

Silence.

"_Where is your captain?_"

Then it was that little Tucker, sitting forward, tense, leaned far out
and yelled:

"Douse yer glim, Cap, douse yer glim...."

Out it went. The commander gave an order. We couldn't hear it, but we
were afraid he meant to make straight for us and cut us in two. We
pulled away, but, instead, he was wishing us the best of luck to lie
there and rot, and then they submerged--just vanished into the black
water from which they had appeared.

We waited trembling, but nothing happened. There wasn't a boat in sight.
The old hulk of our ship had gone down forever. I thought of the
Captain and of McCaffrey.

"Let's get 'em now, mates," I urged. But from the direction in which
we'd last heard them there came no sound. They weren't there. Nobody
was. So we pulled away.

It was a leaky boat and we stripped off our shirts--anything we had on
that was white, so that in case Fritz came back he could not sight us.
We needed the shirts, all right, to stuff up the holes in the boat.
Those who weren't stopping up the holes took turns bailing. We bailed
like fiends--no time to think--no time for anything but to hope a convoy
would pick us up.

Along toward dawn, at six-thirty to be exact, our own convoy sighted us.
The boys were pretty stiff from exposure, but I was all right--all right
and fighting mad--my matey had gone down.

"I