Chapter XXII: The American Squadron

The morning found me a guest aboard the flagship of the American battleship squadron attached to the Grand Fleet. Going on deck, I found the sun struggling through thin, motionless mists. A layer of webby drops lay on wall and rail, on turret and gun. Presently a little cool wind, blowing from the land, fled over the calm water in mottled, scaly spots, bringing with it a piping beat of rhythmic music. Half a mile beyond the flagship, the crew of a British warship were running in a column round and round her decks to the music of the ship's band. An endless file of white clad figures bent forward, a faint regular tattoo of running feet. Round and about several of the giants were signalling in blinker. Beyond us stood a titanic bridge, whose network was here and there smouched with clinging vapour, and beneath this giant, a tanker laden with oil for the fleet passed solemnly, followed by wheeling gulls. Presently two American sailors, lads of that alert, eager type that is so intensely and honestly American, popped out of a doorway and began to polish bright work.

America was there.

Surely it was one of the finest thoughts of the war to send this squadron of ours. Putting aside for the instant any thought of the squadron as a unit of naval strength, Americans and Britons will do well to consider it rather as a splendid symbol of a union dedicated to the most honourable of purposes, to the defence of that ideal of fraternity and international good faith now menaced. They say that when the American squadron came steaming into the fleet's more northern base one bitter winter day, cheer after cheer broke from the British vessels as they passed, till even the forlorn, snow-covered land rang with the shouting.

It has recently been announced that our battleship squadron is under the command of Admiral Hugh Rodman, which announcement the Germans must have taken to heart, for Admiral Rodman is a man of action if ever one there was. Tall, strongly built, vigorous and alert, he dominates whatever group he happens to find himself in by sheer force of personality. It would fare ill with a German who brought his fleet under the sweep of those keen eyes. Admiral Rodman is a Kentuckian, and a union of blue grass and blue sea is pretty hard to beat, especially when accompanied by a shrewd sense of humour.

I talked with Admiral Rodman about the squadron and its work.

"Always remember," said he, "that this squadron is not over here, as somebody put it, 'helping the British.' Nor are we 'coöperating' with the British fleet. Such ideas are erroneous, and would mislead your readers. Think of this great fleet which you see here as a unit of force, controlled by one ideal, one spirit and one mind, and of the American squadron as an integral part of that fleet. Take, as an instance of what I mean, the change in our signalling system. We came over here using the American system of signals. Well, we could not have two sets of signals going, so in order to get right into things, we learned the British signals, and it's the British system we are using to-day.... There are American _ships_ here and British ships but _only one fleet_.

Everywhere I went, I found both British and American officers keen to emphasize this unity. Said a Briton---"Why we no longer think of the Americans of 'the Americans'; we think of squadron X of the fleet. It's just wonderful the way your chaps have got down to business and fallen in with the technique and the traditions. We expected to see you spend some time getting into the life of the fleet and all that, you know; the sort of thing that a boy in a public school goes through before he gets the spirit and the ways of the place, but your people came along in the morning and had picked up everything by the afternoon." And I found the Americans proud of the fleet's essential oneness, proud to share in its great tradition, and to be a part of its history. America is taking no obscure place. Her hosts have given her the place of honour in the battle line.

Battle--that was the thought of everybody aboard the fleet. If only the German "High Canal" fleet would really come out and fight it to a finish, or as an American lieutenant put it, "start something." The Germans, however, knew only too well that the famous betoasted _Der Tag_ would turn swiftly into a _Dies Iræe_ and preferred to surrender. So for lack of an antagonist, the fleet had to be content to keep steam up all the time and to know that everything was prepared for a day of battle. But the fleet did far more than wait. No statement of the Germans was more empty of truth than the silly cry that the British fleet lies "skulking in harbour for fear of submarines." The fleet was busy all the time. Again and again, a visible defiance, it swept by the mine sealed mouths of the German bases. For five years now, the fleet has been on a war footing prepared for instant action, a tremendous task this. "If they only had come out, the beggars."

A day with the fleet in port passed casually and calmly enough. There was none of that melodrama which invests the war of the destroyer and the submarine, and human problems seemed to lack importance, for in the fleet man is somewhat shadowed by the immense force he has created. On board there were various drills, perhaps a general quarters practice drill that sends everybody scurrying to his station. Hour after hour, the visitor sees the continuous and multitudinous activity needed to keep a dreadnaught in shape as a fortress, an engine, and a ship. Then, when the evening has come, such officers as are off duty may sit down to a game of bridge or go to their rooms to read or study quietly. There are great days when kings and queens come aboard and are royally entertained. Twice a week the entertainment committee of the fleet sent round a steel box full of "movies." However, everybody enjoys them, and laughs. But it is good to escape on deck again, and see the squadron and the fleet beneath the haloed moon.

The shores about are quite in darkness, though now and then a glow appears over the hidden dockyard as if some one there had opened a furnace door. A little breeze is blowing a thin, flat sheet of cloud across the moon; one can hear water slapping against the sides. The sailors on watch walk up and down the decks, shouldering their guns. In the light one might believe the basketry of the woven masts to be spun of delicate silver bars. Behind us ride the other vessels of the squadron, a row of dark, triangular shapes. The great columnar guns, sealed with a brazen plug, seem mute and dead. The curtain of a hatchway parts, and a little group of officers come on deck to watch a squadron go to sea. One by one the vessels, battleships and attendant destroyers glide past us into the dark, and so swift and silent their motion is that they seem to be less self-propelled than drawn forward by some mysterious force dwelling far beyond in the moonlit sea. A slight hiss of cleaving water, the length of a hurrying grey fortress beneath the moon, and the last of the squadron vanishes down the roads. For a little time one may see the diminishing glares of blinker lights. Squadrons of various kinds are forever leaving a fleet base to go on mysterious errands, squadrons are ever returning home from the mystery and silence of the sea.

A friend comes to tell me that we have been put on "short notice," and may leave at any instant.