Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 43, Number 240, 20 August 1918 — Page 2

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THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, TUESDAY, ANGUST 20, 1918. H'lilli!!!! It!',lir''l!l,il!!,!tl' ItlalihilliillliB! illllililllil MILE AMERICAN ENEMY

QIRL'S S

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ATS WORST

Boysof Mosquito Fleet, Who Find French Ports Dreary and Full of "Homesickness Germs," Go Back to Their Ships Cheerful and Ready for Anything after Meeting the Women Workers Who have Gone "Over There" to Make France Look as Much Like Home as Possible. BY REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN

ALTHOUGH he was a mere lad he didn't look a day over seventeen he wore the uniform of a sailor in the United States Navy. He had come into this little room, opening off the main street of the dreary French port, with just a bit of a swagger. "Dea cigarettes," he said, and flung upon tha counter a fifty-franc bill. "What brand do you prefer?" asked the girl-behind-the-counter. Instantly, that faint hint of bravado passed from the boyish face, leaving it clean and manly glad, too, and yet wistful. "Gee!" he cried. "You're an American, aren't you? Great guns, but it's good to hear American talked la this town." Ho drew out, as long os he dared, the details of his purchase. He went away slowly, and presently returned end bought some more cigarettes. He hung abo-it the room, and then bought still more. He ostentatiously pulled out a shining cigarette case from a pocket, and filled it. The clerk couldn't help a smile. ""You must smoke a great deal," che said. The sailor blushed. "It's not that," lie confessed, "but well, just to hear you talk is liko home!" ne fumbled with the cigarette case. "See that?" he said. "I got it today from my folks in Boston. That monogram they're my initials. I guessed maybe they'd send me cigarettes, but I didn't expect the case. As it was, the case came alone." "It's very pretty," suid the clerk. "It's the first word I've had from home for tbrco months," said the boy. "They don't write?" II turned away. "I guess the mails are all balled-up." "Still, you did get the case." LETTERS, THE DEMAND "Sure; but I'd rather had a letter than a hundred cigarette cases. Of course I'm glad I enlisted; but, gee, if the people at home knew how bad Us fellows wanted letters, they'd write every day, even if they didn't hove cothin' to say except 'Yours truly.' If they only knew!" That sailor was a fair example of our young seamen in Franco: unfaltericg in his determination to do his duty, but unremittingly homesick. The room in which he revealed his ieart ws one of many such rooms where, daily, many of our enlisted men are moved to similar confessions : their one healthy substitute for home, the Y. M. C. A. headquarters at a French port. These boys are the kecpers-up of commerce, the food-bringers, the sleepless guides nad guardians of our troops that cross the sea. "The work of the Mosquito Fleet is nothing short of wonderful," a French admiral recently declared. "In the last Teport of two hundred and fifty ships convoyed, only three losses were reported ; since the Mosquito Fleet canoe here, the S. O. S. calls due to ralues and submarine attacks have decreased fifty per cent." These results are achieved only by labor that is hard, dangerous, and ' without recorded praise. There are days when men have to stand on watch for fourteen hours without relief; whole voyages when the guncrews have never moved more than five feet from their guns, snatching alee? on the rain-washed decks; cruises when the men in the fire room and before the engines have never once been able to come up for a breath of fresh air. WITHOUT A WHIMPER. Yet all that Is borne without a whimper. The sailors read, now and then, a stray home paper and see the accounts of cheering crowds bidding Godspeed to this or that departing regiment; they feel that all the public's heart is going out to the Th.t Ann't at all realize their own devotion, and their attitude is almost that of apology for not moie spectacularly serving their country. They will tell you that they are glad they "jumped to the guns," but every mail brings news of friends that stayed behind and have won commissions at the Reserve Officers' TrainAnd then the ship comes back to port, and there are liberty parties going ashore. The British sailor Is given his drink ration ; the British Y. M. C. A. crres light beer. It isn't thus with nn At spa there obtains only the taut rule of Eat virtue, and the rjau that goes ashore is nia own carter. tv, hfrin tn see now the prob 1am that Atir Y. M. C. A. has to face? Any American sailor man will get v,-!oL- mtter a week here, and it's jcat homesickness that's the matter w:l!i most of these kids: if they cnr.'t be cured of it, they'll DO someTo be homesick and, if you rev imiit first boarding school uvuf, " - itTt after Tour nother'd kissed you

goodbye and cried a little and told you to send home all your socks for mending, and your father'd shaken bands with you and cleared his throat and ' said you'd be coming back to put him out of business, and you'd

held your head high and joked if you remember that, you will agro.; with me that to be homesick is ti be as miserable as it is possible for the human being to become. But t be homesick and yet to give a home to the homeless is to be something very nearly heroic. Of that I saw, in this port, a recent instance : I came across three little children boys standing in a doorway on a quiet street, the eldest perhaps twelve years old, the youngest not a day over five. They would have been remarkable among the other children of this somewhat rowdy port if only for their cleanliness and for the cleanliness of the elderly woman that was manifestly caring for them. They were tho more remarkable because each wore a sailor's cap, on the band of which was inscribed the name of a certain boat in the Mosquito Fleet, and because they were all dressed in an infantile replica of the uniform of able seamen in the United States Navy. They were shy little boys, but the woman in charge of them explained their habiliments: WHY SAILORS ARE WORTHY. "But, yes, monsieur. They were all that was left of a family. The father was killed at Verdun, the mother died in an accident at a factory of munitions; so that good sailors upon one of your country's little ships have adopted them, and are keeping them, and will educate them. They have rented for them rooms in this house, and they have employed me to keep them, and, whenever their ship is in port, these sailors, they fail not to come here and receive word of their wards, and they give them chocolates till the litle one3 are ill." What do the chocolates matter ? There Is something worth doing for men who will take upon themselves such obligations as this. Something worth doing and the Y. M. C. A. is trying to do it. There are a headquarters and other buildings in every French port that is used by our navy fifty buildings in all conducted by workers whose pay does not quite meet their expenses and whose tasks continue from sun to sun. MANY DIFFICULTIES. At no one dace are there often more than three hundred men ashore at a time, and so it is easier to establish the personal relationship between the association worker and tho sailor than between worker and soldier in the soldier huts at the American camp. But the ports are cities, whereas the camp stretches among mere villages, so that the forces against which the naval lranch of the Y. M. C. A. has to contend are tho stronger. I went to an evening entertain ment given by the British Y. M. C. A. for tho American Y. M, C. A.'s patrons in the rooms of the French equivalent of the association. There was a reading room inn of magazines and a growing library, free writing materials, a piano around which was grouped a day-long chorii3 of sailormen, moving picture shows, a nail for basket ball, a baseball grounds, fifty clean beds at a franc apiece a night and a clean bed is a luxury as well as a moral force an apartment house for seventeen pettyofficers permanently employed ashore, a phonograph over which I've seen a lonely lad sit all afternoon running off songs reminiscent of his child hood, a canteen that sold chewinggum, and candv. These mav sound like trifles to Americans at home, but to the American sailor abroad, to whom only the Y. M. C. A. provides them, they become something large and vital. They become America. "There s good grub on our tun, but not enough that's sweet. Gimme some more of those gum-drops." "Yhat's this? Lemonade T Ye, but what's it made of? Citronsyrup and seltzer! And you call that Irmonndet Oh, well, give us another glass of it; it's as close as a fellow can come to it over here. Whn are you goin' to be able to afford a soda-fountain ? MEETING FRENCH GIRLS. If I heard those comments once during an afternoon that I passed in a naval Y. M. C. A., I heard them a dozen times. Unbelievable quantities of chocolate are sold in a form that may be easily heated and drunk during night-watches at sea, and the millionaire that wants to do effective work against alcoholism could do none more effective than to donate soda fountains and hot chocolate machines to the association in these ports. One innovation introduced recently is thus far working well: parties of young French women of the best up-

bringing are formed, under maternal chaperonage, to meet sailors of their own sort that have some knowledge of the French language. It is at these gatherings that the sailor talks most freely, and most lightly, of hi3 work. "Looking for subs?" I heard one say to his newly met companion. "I am going blind doing it! There is the sub that makes up to look like a sailing vessel, and the one that hides its periscope behind an imitation sharkfin, and now they've got one that spouts water like a whale. The porpoises drive us crazy: something came dashing at our boat the other dav: its track was exactly like a tor pedo's. Humphrey saw it first. Ho pointed it out to me. 'We're gone this time!' he yelled. Then it jumped, and we saw it was a porpoise. We call porpoises Humphrey torpedoes' now." The French girl wanted to know about rescues at sea. PICK UP SURVIVORS , "Last trip," she was informed, "we picked up three small boats with fifty-nine men in them. About half of those men were from a ship that had been torpedoed the day before. They got away and were taken on a passing steamer, and they hadn't been aboard her for twelve hours before she was torpedoed, too. We got those fellows into the drum-room and laid them over the boilers. Whenever we sight a life boat the commissary steward starts supplies of soup and coffee, so we had plenty of the warm stuff ready for them, and we lent them our clothes while their own were drying." His companion laughed. "Why don't you tell the rest?" he "Oh, what's the use !" grumbled the first sailor. "Then I'll tell it," persisted the second. "Our crew's clothes were w much better than the slops the rescued men had come aboard in that some of the rescued forgot to change back to their own duds before thev went ashore. If you see any stray uniforms walking around this town, they're ours." However, if good company is a moral force not to be neglected, so is good food, and in that particular the Y. M. C. A. has thus far been fortunate. There i3 a story told in one port, where Vincent Astor has been staying "when on shore leave, to the effect that he was complaining of the restaurant in his hotel. "You can't get a really good meal there," said Astor. WHERE TO GET GOOD MEAL Tfia auditor hnnnened to be satis factorily fresh from another sort of rostanrnnt. ' I iust now had a good dinner at the Y. M. C. A.," he ven tured. "flh tWp!" said Astor. "Of course you did. The Y. M. C. A.'s the best eating place in town. Mr. Astor ought to know, because mat eating piace is ui nc.-. making. Sne bought and turned over to the association the one reaiiy goM restaurant that couici De iouna, aim she has ever since been personally active in its arrangements. "You get real tooci there,' a sauor rsnonflv nld mo "'Real food. YOU know what I mean ham-an'-eggs an' steaK-an -inea-onions. It is said that Mrs. Astor used to Tiolr. waif on taKlrt w"hp? thp service was shorthanded, and that one of the first persons upon whom sne wauea was a newly enlisted man in the United States Navy who, until a month previous, had been the dining room steward on Mrs. Astor's own yacht. "Gee," the steward it reported to have commented, "when I used to wait on her, I had to wear evening clothes." The sort of men, then, with which,

at our navy's ports in France, tho Y. M. C. A. has to deal, is all sorts. They are of the two extremes and every grade between, but once they are in Uncle Sam's navy there is no distinction. Each man is offering all he has to his country; that makes them kin. Let me exemplify: I was just coming in from my first cruise with the Mosquito Fleet. The BY

FINDING FRITZ OBSERVER'S JOB

Up at the front with the American army are two jobs so closely related they are one the artilleryman's and the observer's. The first delivers the goods, the second tells him what doorstep to leave it on, and corrects any misapprehensions he may have as to where he is leaving it. During the night there had been a tremendous barrage. Hundreds of guns of all sizes and voices had made it exceedingly uncomfortable for Fritzie, who is perched on a famous mountain which seem3 only a stone's throw away. The guns had fired for two hours and our fellows had gone over the top and come back with prisoners and captured machine guns. In the morning I went back to the nearest battery to ask how they went about it. The battery consisted of French nineties and seventy-fives. They were hidden away in bomb proof emplacements of interesting construction. The construction had to be interesting Lecause Fritz knew the battery was there, and paid it considerable attention. Every once in a while he would drop a shell near by. A general showed us hi3 wall map of the vicinity on which was marked every German trench and post, every stone and blade of grass, It seemed, and then explained the barrage. PURPOSES OF BARRAGE "The theory was to wall in that section of trenches," he said. "Part of the guns enclosed the locality in a barrage while others of us played on the communicating trenches to keep reinforcements from coming up. The idea is to keep in the area all the men who are there and to let nobody come in to help them." "But you can't see those trenches. How do you know you are hitting them?" "Observers," was the curt answer. "We know the location of the trench and then register upon it. The observers correct our fire until we have the range exactly, and then we wait for the time. Orders come that there will be such and such a barrage on "J" day and zero hour. And we are ready." The thing that tapped one on the shoulder about these boys was their attitude toward the guns. They seemed to feel toward them as a person might feel toward a splendid fighting bull dog. The seventy-fives called out the highest esteem. The nineties were good; they did the business, but the seventy-fives! Now there were guns. "They won't let us fire but six times a minute," a sergeant said with the air of a man who had been personally offended. TORN BY HUN SHELLS All around the emplacements the ground was torn and upheaved by Hun shells which had been sent over as a compliment tb this battery. Out in the field -were two great craters sharply visible over the rest. "Hey," called a man from the other end of the line of bomb proofs, "here comes a Y. M. C. A. man with eats.'' Boys oozed out of caves and bomb proofs with their tongues fairly hanging out. Their station Is with their guns, and their mess Is on the spot so they have little chance to get over to the canteen. The "Y" man, being competent to fill his job, knew this, and made Irequent trips over with a pack of his

"Gee It's Great To Hear 'American' Talked

quartermaster leaned against the starboard rail. "That boy," he said, as he nodded to a blackened, barefoot lad emerging from a hatchway, "got honors in French at Harvard last spring." "And he's here as a common seaman?" I wondered. "As a coal heaver," the quartermaster corrected me. "We've got a

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

wares on his o-nns i saw ne

in France!"

lot of college men aboard. They'te volunteers. Of course, they've all had yachting experience, but the bred-to-the-service fellows laughed at them till a certain litle thing happened on the voyage over. "A fire started in our port coalbunkers when we were three days out of the port w-e were bound for. A hatch 'd been left open and there 'd pack cakes, cookies, canned 6tuff,

cigarettes. "Much obliged for running over," said the lieutenant. "We sure appreciate it." That seems to be the attitude of the officers and men at the front towards the Red Triangle. "Much obliged and we appreciate it. Say, if it wasn't for the "Y" we sure would be up against it." "I'm going ahead to some of the observation posts," the "Y" man told me. "Want to take a chance?" We arrived at a town and found a lieutenant sitting down in a trench. Before him a narrow slit opened Into a pile and into utter blackness. HOW OBSERVER WORKS "Observation post," said my conductor. The lieutenant was glad to see us, especially when I told him I was so recently from home, and took us within. There, in a little room in which one could barely stand upright, was the paraphernalia by which the Hun Is supervised in bis goings and comings, and by which our artillery is informed if it la hitting the mark. Facing the Hun was a narrow horizontal slit across the wall. Over this hung a curtain, because Fritz in his observation pests across No Man's Land might see that slit through his glasses If light were allowed to pass through it and then very shortly there would be no observation post. Provided it suited Fritz's humor to abolish it. We looked through the glasses at the beautiful mountain slope opposite, famous in the history of the war, and which now is the most formidable bar in the way of our troops if they set out to take back from Germany a city which France claims for her own. With the naked eye this mountain slope seems quiet and peaceful. There is no sign of life, not even of smoke from a mess fire. Through the glasses, as they are directed by the lieutenant, barbed wire entanglements, lines of trenches, concrete gun emplacements and what not can be sharply distinguished. WHAT FRITZ IS DOING "Look along the top of that ridge. What do you make out?" "Nothing." "Right under the hair in the glass now. Sharp. The hair is touching the top of it." Still I made out nothing. "Camouflage." Just then a shell came over and burst on top of a stone wall behind us. Maybe it was intended for us, and maybe it was just a warning for us to behave ourselves. Anyhow I was impressed. "See," said the lieutenant, "They could get us if they wanted to. Say, Wharton," Whaton was the "Y" eecretary, "Give me a can of peaches on the strength of that." High in the air over our heads we could hear the planing-mill hum of a couple of American aeroplanes taking a look-see. They-were not fighting planes, but observation planes. Their duty was to get more direct and accurate information than could be had from any listening post. "This morning the Boche got one out there," said the lieutenant. "They were after him with machine

was in trouuie ana saw mm coming

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with his hands up. He hadn't a chance. And they came out and got him."

been a shower water causes such fires, you know and now, away at the bottom of the pile, that coal was white hot. All we could do at first was to play the steam-hose on it and hold it from gaining for twenty-four hours. 'T was on the bridge at 2:30 next morning had the midnight to 4 A. M. watch when the starboard bunker blew out. The fire had crossed the ship. We did our best, but before 4 o'clock there were threa explosions on the port side, and then we knew that it was time for desperate measures. "The captain called for volunteer He said he wanted men that won go down into that furnace buhr'n with fatal gas fellows that wSuli walk straight into those lungs of death and shovel away the top roal so as to uncover the burning core. That was the only way to save tha ship.

COLLEGE BOYS FIRST. "Well, sir, the first to volunteet were the college kids and FourStripes gave them the job. "By squads of four, with a petty officer to each, they jumped into that hell. Shovel? You ought to hav seen them! Three minutes a shift they were to work, but they were' gased so quickly that eleven ktfs were carried out, one right after the other, on the backs of their ship, mates. Sawbones stood on deck with the pulmotor and pumped them through, but a lot were cauht sneaking out of their bunks to go back and fight the gas again. It was as tough a job as I've ever seen at sea, but those boys did it; they conquered the fire and saved tho ship. Since then, you don't hear much laughing at the College Kids." Somehow that quartermaster had given me a hint about himself. "What's your college?" I asked. "Yale, 'ninety-four," he said. "But I'm an old hand. It was these kids I was talking about Don't mention my being a college man to anvbody aboard. I don't want to seem to be putting on side." That is one example. Here's another: To an orderly entertainment at a Y. M. C. A. building came one night, a brilliantly illuminated boatswain's mate. He was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, six feet thr? inches, and as hard as nails. But he was intent on "starting something." He stopped, with one bellowing command, the singer on tho stage. He knocked down two of his protesting friends, spilled a crowded bench ATI? VL'Q crimmA .,vi 4a . - I - iuc crti el, . ill charge with the majesty of a breaker Bvn-fpiug- towara me ueacn. "I'm eov,!T to hrenlr i?n M he said. ' It looked verv much it ha would, too. Now. the secretary in chare n-na auiet and unassuming tnin TT Virt done wonders in his work among our 1 A , -.I 1 , . . . " . nect in rrencn waters, out ne spoke in a small voice ar.d moved gently. "If I were you," said trie secretary, "I wouldn't interfere." "The hell you wouldn't!" said t!i boatswain's mate and shook mighty fist. A MISS AND A HIT. "Please don't," said the secretary. The big fist shot forward It didn't hit anything. It was shunted aside as a little twist of the slim switch shunts a train of coal cars. It dragged the boatswain's mate after it into vacant space and, as the boatsmain's mate went by, something caught him something uncommonly like an express engine on the point of the jaw, and sent him smashing to the floor. Then the quiet secretary picked the giant up in his arms and carried him to a back room, cf which the two were the only occupants. "I hope I haven't hurt you," said the secretary. 'T tried not to." Tho secretary was a Presbyterian minister. He was also a Colorado rancher. And also he had been tha best boxer in Princeton during his day there : his name is O. F. Gardner. He nursed that boatswain's mato back to sobriety and got hira on his ship in time to escape reprimand. The next night the sailor turned up again at the Y. M. C. A. building. "I've come here to apologize," be said. "That's all right," said the secre ts ry. "No, it ain't," the sailor pcrsistcd. "J made a nuisance of un'self bcfo.A all this crowd, and it' lfora tha whole crowd that I've get to apolo gize, lowed. Here, you swipes!" he bclBOATSWAIN'S APOLOGY. . Every man in the room fell silent'. The boatswain's mate adircsol them: "I want to tell you fellows," be said, "that I was a fool last night. and cot what was comin' to me; but C?. . .... , . V I'm not such a tool nut wnat j learn a lesson. I'm cuttin' out tho booze. That man there treated me sauare. and saved me from Iroubla aboard ship, and after tonight if any lob tries to get fresh around this place, why any such guys got tackle the two "of us." Some college men and some mm that have hardly been to ecliool Jt all, a group of millionaires nd a scattering of rough-necks, but every one sound at heart and brave action these make up the Mosqu;t; Fleet. The worst tren't bad, they are onlv lonely. The beat are enduring a dangerous and, what is more, a hideously monotonous, life afloat an ! one beset with the temptation of emotional reaction ashore. For beta corts the choice lies solely between (he sordidness of a rorcign port iia V M. C A i. Which are you fr the Y. M. C. A, J or the port t

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