The sun., 1918-10-20
Crews of College Men
Enthusiastic Despite
Hardships That
Might Stagger the
Toughest Sailors

SohiucoL iIdlSCtHu S'ESsIT > IDduueSt
visions. National paranoia, like history,
appears TO repeat itself.
Long before we reached them my gaze
went to three yachts which lay at anchor
under the lea of long breakwater. They
did look small. But just rs little mans
courage adds TO his inches, 50 their per
fornance in the last year caused them to
loom in my sight large as battleships.
When, stepping aboard, noted the guns
fore and aft, quick firers on the boat deck
above, nest of deck mines astcrn, real
lied the secret Of the Tin Fleets power
these weapons could not be more effective
if fired at submarine from a ship half
mile long with arms a foot thick.
Crew as Unusual as the Ship.
The officers and crew were rs remark
able rs their ship. Only the Captain was
an Annapolis man. The other officers,
from the Naval Reserve, counted a stock
broker, bond clerk, Staten Island ferry
engineer, Montana cattle man and so
forth. All were following the pursuits Of
peace when we went into war. One, /
believe, had never even seen the sea before
he came on board. Yet now, after years
study backed by arduous practical appi-
cation, they were capable officers.
The crew was still more astonishing.
Fully third of the men before the mast
were Harvard, Yale or Princeton students,
scions of our wealthcst families, shipped
for the duration" Said Duration" as
one of them put it, As like the indeter-
inmate sentences the judges pass on you
nowadays-you stay in as long as you're
good"
One quartermaster, man over 40 years
of age, was once a tax commissioner In
New Jersey and had served two terms in
its State Legislature. It was quite star
thing to hear the cultivated college speech
issuing from group Of tarry sailors who
were heaving up anchor forward.
Tall, straight and strong, they are as
fine lot of sailor men as ever hauled
upon a rope. The anchor apeak, they
hoisted the depth mines into position
astern, set the time machinery, shotted
the guns; ready for war the yacht threaded
her way through the shipping to pick
up channel convoy in the outer harbor
Before we sailed the shippers of all the
ships and two French pilots came aboard
for conference; representatives of al
most all the allied and neutral marines.
Not man of them but had been tor
pedoed once, some a couple of times; yet
quiet, ordinary looking men, to whom you
would never have accorded a second
glance on the street, they were still pur-
suing the path of duty through those
dangerous seas.
All of Them Dreaded the Fog.
They accepted with little mods their
places in the convoy; listened quietly to
the Captains directions in ease of at
taek-to beat it for all they were worth
while the yachts laid down depth mine
barrage between them and the U-boats.
Not till he spoke Of fog, more dreaded
by conveys than the U-boats, did the
worry which dogs their footsteps day and
night make itself felt.
"Let's hope that won't be added to our
troubles" said one.
Another added, "We've got enough az
it is"
Quiet, unheroic, commonplace, pro-
saicl Quieter than children in church,
commonplace as the baker who sells you
your bread; yet the more powerfully, be-
cause their appearance was so badly out
of key with the glowing romance of war,
one felt the sinister dangers amid which
they live The life history of any one
Of those prosaic shippers would outthrin
a Dumas romance.
/ am in a position TO write one chap
ter, which began when, the next morning,
fog caught us in dangerous passage be-
tween shore and shoals and rolled US up
in a thick gray blanket. A heavy sea