Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 239, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1918 — When Sailors Sing Good-bye [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

When Sailors Sing Good-bye

IT WAS not a place to expect thrills, the Fall River Line pier at Newport, R. I. And especially not on a dismal evening. The dingy, low 7 buildings and sheds were wrapped in the raw murk swept in from the sea. The fog almost hid the lights of the torpedo station across a stretch of black water from the pier. Up the bay a red lighthouse eye winked dimly through the mist. A cold drizzle kept the few early arrivals for the New York boat in the waiting room. Outside a dozen loungers hugged sheltering walls, coat collars turned kp against the wet. It was getting along toward 8:30. A few more passengers appeared, growling at the weather. Then, down Long wharf from the city, came swinging a long line of blue. They were new-made sailors from the training station, 190 of them, bound for New York and thence to sea; off on their first service. The men broke ranks when they reached the wharf, and scattered about with pea-coat collars around their ears, laughing, skylarking, their youthful exuberance proof for a time against a night like this. School was done —and their work lay before them.

Here and there a lucky boy had somebody to tell him good-by—a friend made in town, perhaps; sometimes a mother or a father who lived hear enough to be on hand for the parting. But most of them had nobody. In a little while the laughter died, though a few irrepressibles kept up their horseplay. They were very young, these boys. And they were going somewhere very far away. It was the big adventure really beginning, and hardly one failed to be touched a little by the seriousness of it. Into the crowd on the wharf there came a khaki-clad figure. He was dressed like an officer, except that his cap bore no insignia, nor his sleeve any braid. From group to group he went, with a cheery “Hello, boys!” and the men, with shouts and calls one to another, flocked after him as if following some new sort of military Pled Piper. The man in khaki climbed on a baggage truck. He raised his hand and silence came upon the blueclad throng gathered before him. “ “The Long, Long Trail,” he called. “Ready ” And then the thrill! Out into the thick night, out over the old harbor, floated the strains of that wistful chorus, borne by those earnest, boyish voices: “There’s a long, long trail unwinding Into the land of my dreams; Where the nightingales are singing And the white moon beams; There’s a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true, Till the day when I’ll be going down The long, long trail with you.” And after that, the old, simple melodies of the South and the swinging tunes of another, and a different, war —“Suwanee River,” “Old Black Joe,” “Tramp, Tramp. Tramp, the Boys Are Marching,” and the stirring, measured: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored —” carried inspiringly by the full volume of those fresh voices. The man in khaki, beating time from his truck, under the dim lights of the freight shed, sang too. And the mass of faces, turned up to his beneath the flat blue caps, shone with the fervor he inspired in them. Through the fog up the bay loomed the white, lighted bulk of the boat.

still with the long swing around the islands before she would reach the pier. They sang “Nancy Lee,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag,” “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” “Indiana,” and in lighter vein, with much enthusiasm, that funny, choppy Niagara song, the burden of which seems to the hearer to be “My haircut is as short as yours.” The boat slid out of the fog and alongside the pier, blotting out the torpedo station lights, as the sailors shouted in lusty chorus: “Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?” and returned without a stop the tuneful reply: “Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word, Over there ” winding up with a tremendous shout “And we won’t come BACK! Till it’s over, over there!” Ensued a little pause, the singers rather breathless. The boat was being made fast. In another ten minutes they would be on their way—to ships, to life at sea, to the varied chances of the ocean and war. The man in khaki raised his hand. “One more song,” he called. "What shall it be?” Remember. these were happy-go-lucky youngsters; remember they were not on parade, nor showing off; what they were doing was out of the fullness. of hearts that groped for some outlet for the feelings within — rough hearts, untutored hearts, many of them. But at the leader’s question a shout went up, a concerted shout, as if it had been rehearsed: “The Star-Spangled Banner!” Off came their hats. They straightened to attention. The leader gave them the first line, and they sang! How they sang! Reverently, solemnly, it rang through the murky night, the hymn of the land they loved. • The song ended, succeeded by a hush. The man tn khaki spoke: “Good-by. boys,” he said. “Keep up your singing. Good luck.” That was all. But to the boys the words rang truer than any speech. And they cheered him —three Cheers, and three more, and a tiger. As he stepped from his truck he was lost in a mob of sailors, each striving to grasp his hand. The sailors crowded toward the gangplank. The man in khaki stood one side, wiping his brow. It takes it out of a man to lead such singing as that Soon the boat sailed away into the fog and the man in khaki turned back toward Newport and bed. This was no part of his job; he did it because he liked to say one last word to his boys. For at the. training station he had thousands more like them, and . there his real task lay—strenuous, tax-

ing, all-day Work; personal leadership in song, leadership into which must go just the amount of energy, of enthusiasm, that is to be got out of the singers. The man in khaki was one of the song leaders of the war and navy department commissions on training camp activities. Under the direction of Lee F. Hanmer, a member of the commission, these earnest, eager men, —trained singers and leaders of singing—labor in cantonments and naval stations, in forts and encampments. And like the man who gave up a comfortable evening at home to stand in the rain and give a few of his boys one last song, they live for the work they do. Their hearts are in it.