Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 250, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1917 — The Whaler [ARTICLE]

The Whaler

All day the warship had watched steam trawlers going to and fro in this lonely region of the ocean. All day the mother ship had cruised along the horizon, her lookouts manned and keeping a close watch upon the sea. The steam trawlers moved in response to the mother ship’s signals,! easUy read. They had made great havoc with the whales, towing their carcasses to the larger vessel. The odor tilled the air and carried conviction to the warship’s crew. The warship exchanged only customary signals with the whaler. It would have been pleasant to go away from her odorous neighborhood. But this was Impossible. It was about here that the German raider might be expected on her way home from southern waters.

Night fell, a velocity darkness closing over the smooth surface of the ocean. —There were at first a few twinkling stars, in particular the Southern Cross. Then, on a little gust of wind, a cloud rode over these bright specks of the cradling sky. It grew pitch dark, with rumbles of thunder. The red and green sidelights of the whaler flickered across the hidden waters. Pretty soon she would be lighting great fires to try out oil. Some time went by and a ghastly spot of flame wickered and danced in the whaling ship’s rigging. A corposant, spirit of some poor dead sailor, skipping about aloft and yelling, as he loosed the canvas, a hoarse and cheery message to deck below: “Sheet homel” And now you could not see your hand before your face. The warship, unlit and moving slowly, loomed dimly in the darkness, like a great shape of fate in ambush waiting to pounce on her prey. Then came the betrayal. Phosphorescence marked the ripples along the whalers’s sides; -phosphorescence, a gleaming streak of gold, charted the path of the warship; the same bright luminous magic played around certain oval shapes emerging suddenly from underseas. Whales? Never were whales like these, appearing suddenly out of the ocean depths and thronging about their hunter. It was necessary to strike swiftly or perish. Once the _meth6F ship established contact with her nfonstrous brood it would be too late. The brilliant phosphorescence limned the targets clearly. The warship brought her guns to bear instantly, there was a noise heavier than thunder and more enduring, red flames lit the night.

All three submarines were apparently sunk by the destroyer’s gunfire. The mother ship, which had not dared to flee by day, was riddled and left to sink or rot in the midst of the carcasses of the whales. From papers on board her her rendezvous with the raider was ascertained, and the warship, under full speed, drove suddenly ahead through the night, the velvety night with gleams of phosphorescence glinting the surface of the sea.