Cleveland County herald., 1918-11-21

and coat and clogs, and, believe me, it
 was not a case of all dressed up and
 no place to go
 Then I swam hard and caught up to the Limeys who had jumped first. They
 were asking each other if they were downhearted and answering, "Not a
 bit of it, me lads," and trying to sing
 "Pack up your troubles in your old kit
 bag" only they coald not do much
 singing on account of the waves that
 slipped into their mouths every time
 they opened them. That was just like
 Limeys, though.
 Some of the boys were just climbing
 up the Jacobs ladder on the Moewe
 when the old Georgic let out an awful
 roar and up went the deck and the
 hatches high in the air in splinteys.
 One fellow let go his hold on the lad
 der and went down and he never came
 up. The Germans were making for the
 Moewe in the lifeboat and we reached
 it just before they did. Up the ladder
 we went and over the side and the
 first thing we caught sight of was the
 German revolvers in our faces drilling us all into line.
 The lifeboat brought back the ships papers from the Georgic and we had roll call. They kept us up on deck in our wet underwear and it was very cold indeed. Then the first mate and the old man and one of the German officers called off the names and we found we had fifty missing.
 The Boche commander had gall enough to say that he was not there to kill men but to sink all ships that were supplying the allies! He said England was trying to starve Germany, but that they would never succeed and that Germany would starve the allies very soon.
 After roll call some of us asked the Germans for clothes, or at least a place to dry ourselves in, but Fritz could not see us for the dust on the ocean and we just had to stand there and shiver till we shook the deck, al- most. Then I went and sat down on the pipes that feed the deck winches. They had quite head of steam in them and was beginning to feel more comfortable when I got good clout alongside of the head for sitting there and trying to keep warm. It was German garby and he started callinad | e.all the various kinds of schweihI hunde he could think of and he could think of a lot.
 Finally they mustered us all on Io of ort nf .J,,;TIo sI us down into the forecastle and read the martial law of Germany to us. At least I guess that is what it was. It might have been the "Help Wanted Dog Catchers" column from the Ber- lin Lokal Taggabble for all most of us knew or cared. It shows what cards the Germans are-reading all those four-to-the-pound words to us shiver- ing garbies, who did not give dime a dozen whether we heard them or not. Fritz is like some other hot sketches he Is funniest when he does not mean to be. Every German is a vaudeville skit when he acts natural.
 There were hammocks there and we jumped into them to get warm, but the Germans came down with their re- volvers and bayonets and took the hammocks away and poured water on the decks and told us to sleep there. They could not have done a worse trick than that.
 Then they put locks on the portholes and told us that anyone caught fiddling with the locks would be shot at once. This was because we might sight British or French man-of-war at any time and as the Moewe was sailing un- der the British flag and trying to keep out of trouble they did not want us at the ports signaling our own war ships for help. If they had bucked any of the allied ships and had a fight we would have died down there like rats.
 The Moewe had already captured the Voltaire, Mount Temple, Cambrian Range and the King George and had the crews of these vessels between | decks with us. These men told us how the Germans were treating them 1 and it looked to me as though the eve ming would be spent in playing games and a pleasant time would be had by all-not.
 The crew of the Mount Temple were on deck working when the raider sud- denly opened fire on them. Two or three men jumped into the water and the Germans turned a gun on them | while they were swimming and killed | them. That was just sample of what had happened to them.
 The men now began running up and down in line to keep warm, but l took a little run on my own hook and | treated myself to as much of once over of the ship as I could. I do not | believe the Moewe had more than | three-fourths-inch armor plate, but be- hind that she had three rows of pig iron, which made about foot in thick ness. There was nothing but cable strung along the deck and when I saw that I would have given anything to have had crack at her with a 14-ineh