Grand Forks herald., 1918-08-29
CHATTER III.
With Pershing In France.

Il .
Here. at last. we were face to face
with that dread mechanical monster
OF the deep-the German submarine.
Singing with excitement, we
crowded to the rail and strained our
eyes to port over the dancing sea.
All was a-bustle on the transport;
ofhcers issued sharp, quick orders,
and felt for the range. Sailors in
blue yanked the lids from munition
boxes and lifted out shells.
The cruiser ahead swung about.
pointed her prov due north, and
forged along swiftly in response to
the quickening Of her engines. The
guarding destroyers darted about like
that had temporarily eluded them.
This Is the life," I heard COM
rade say through gritted teeth.
l stood tense. expecting every Sec
ond to hear shell go screeching out
into the brine.
About quarter Of a mile away I
could see something sticking up out
Of the sea.
THAT rubberin' periscope," I
hit"
Then came the sickening reaction.
False alarm; nothing but one OF
those d-n' porpoises." cried the
lookout, lowering his glasses.
ship.
Wouldn't it make you sick?" OBJ
served a Californian. Here we were
all primed for the best movie Of our
lives, and the lights go out and the
screen goes on the blink, I'd like to
skin that hell of porpoise."
AS for me, was as mad as devil,
Tor felt that our trip across would
! mr. ha ~ a.
argument with one of Germany's u
boats. I.
Anyway, that was our introduction
to- the much-talked-of submarine
zone.
Taking No Chances.
A porpoise at distance does look
very much like a spying periscope.
and the pesky mammals fooled our
lookouts several times before we
Preached France. But then, these in
stances only showed that our men
were ever on the alert for the lzaiser's
under-the-sea dogs.
Our officers took no chances while
we were passing through tina terri
tory of the U-boat. For three nights
the transport travelled without lights,
and our guardians, the cruiser and
the destroyers, redoubled their Wig
ilance. We were routed out Of our
| NNAAho oS 0~ Alt. o1 OdSAA VI IuOS0
| three days. and were compelled to re-
main on deck until Z a. m. with our
life preservers buckled on, and our
shoes and trousers unlaced. The
favorite time, for the average subma-
rine to attack is around dawn.
We didn't sight single U-boat
all the way over but we had lot Of
fun at the expense of these sneaking
craft. Naturally we were all think
ing about subs when we entered the
fzone, and hardly an hour would pass
but that some jokester would yell:
"Hey. boys. there's a SUBJ
Then, we fall guys would crowd to
the rail- and put our eyes out looking
for periscopes.
was taking my turn at poker one
day around noon when the subma-
rllie chestnut came along and caught
me an awful wallop. My hand was a
pretty good one-well it was nothing
less than royal flush. something
quaihtance with me during my brief
experience as poker player.
4 = I was about to proceed with this
poker knockout when "a voice
screeched at my elbow:
Holy smoke, lads, here comes q
torpedo; going to hit us midships."
| Zowie I was on my feet in an in
l u,
The other players followed suit
I'VE did our little marathon to the
rada, only to find that we had been
p6perly guyed again.
when we returned to the table, of
course, we found the cards al mixed
up and had to make new deal. I
spent an hour looking for the joke
ster, but he was wise enough to stay
out Of sight until 1 had cooled down.
| One Of the breeziest, brightest lit.
tie personalities on the ship was our
chaplain, man by the name of Dix
on from Illinois That fellow was
just one human bottle Of sunshine
with the cork out so that the glad
stutf could pour out and warm up the
whole boat.
Well, the chaplain sure did love
that song "Uncle Sammy" Every
time he found a bunch Of us together
ne would say with one of his. blithe
IA cigarette for every boy who will
sing Uncle Sammy"
| We would obediently yelp all three
verses of the song. and after we had
roared forth the last stanza the little
chaplain would deal out the cigar
cites. We dubbed him Uncle Sam
my" though he didn't look any more
like Uncle Sam than the man in the
moon.> He really looked like a pock-
ct edition of Theodore Roosevelt,
with his eyeglasses, mustaahe and
cleaning teeth, which he displayed
( iabundantly when he smiled