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We were steaming at the head of the convoy column at eighteen knots at the time. The first watch-officer, having finished his breakfast and a morning watch, was just then taking a little nap on the port ward-room transom with his clothes and sea-boots still on. The active messenger shook him up too.
Pretty soon it came, a signal from the senior officer of our group. The 352 let us give that as the number of our ship was to proceed at once to the assistance of the Luckenbach. The skipper's first act was to shake up the second watch-officer, who also happened to be acting as chief engineer of the ship, and to pass him the word to speed the ship up to twenty-five knots.
The forward gun was trained a point to right of the smoke. One senior watch-officer, now in the foretop, called down that he could now see the ship. Smoke was coming out of her hull. Soon he reported shells splashing alongside of her. Those would be from the U-boat. Soon we all could see the ship from the bridge. The foretop then reported the U-boat. She was almost dead ahead.
That's it" he turned to the watch-officer "you know how these Britishers are for regulations. Even in the midst of a mess like this we'll have to kotow to his rank or he'll probably be reporting us. So rouse out six side-boys, line 'em up, rig up the port ladder, have the bugler stand by for ta-ra-rums and all that stuff."
"The boiler-riveted nerve of him!" gasped Chiz. "But let him wait!" The sea grew yet rougher. The 323 was bouncing pretty lively, but hanging onto her twenty knots. "And at twenty you let her hang if she rolls her crow's nest under!" said Chisholm to his watch-officer, "and I'll betcher we won't be acting rudder to this bunch going into port!"
And one watch-officer of every destroyer has the extra job of acting as chief engineer of the ship; and when a watch-officer had to go aboard a torpedoed ship, or to go in the crow's nest in a critical time, to spend hours, it may be, the time so spent is in addition to his regular eight hours.
We did slow down and stop when it came time to clear away a whale-boat and send it over to the steamer with our senior watch-officer and the surgeon, with the needful surgical supplies. We continued to steam circles around the steamer all the time they were aboard, with our lookouts keeping eyes skinned for the U-boat.
Bridge appurtenances are housed also, and sailors dive down through the deck-holes. The commander follows. Water begins to gurgle into the ballast-tanks while the crew seal every opening. Down goes the U-47-1/2 until only her periscope shows, a periscope painted sea-green and white camouflaged. The eyes of the watch-officer are glued to the periscope. "She is a Dutchman, sir," he says at length.
After leaving the cruiser that afternoon, I was so miserable that I could have jumped into the East River. It was the sight of the big, brown guns did it, and the cutlasses in their racks, and the clean- limbed, bare-throated Jackies, and the watch-officer stamping the deck just as though he were at sea, with his glass and side-arms.
He could hear on the quiet deck soft footfalls, the breathing of some man lounging on the doorstep; the low creak of swaying masts; or the calm voice of the watch-officer reverberating aloft, hard and loud, amongst the unstirring sails. He listened with avidity, taking a rest in the attentive perception of the slightest sound from the fatiguing wanderings of his sleeplessness.
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