Chapter III: The Cruise of the “nestor”

By the time the space and hammocks were assigned to platoons and squads, the ship was under way. Orders were to keep below decks until out of the harbor; and for many, their last look at America was a glimpse of the harbor front through a port hole.

At this point Lt. Gibbs reappeared, with the cheerful order that life preservers would be donned at once, and kept on for the rest of the voyage. For the next ten days all waddled about feeling like motherly hens. The apparatus I drew seemed particularly dirty, and most unbecoming to my figure, which is built close to the ground anyway.

Breakfast had been nothing more than a cracker and bully beef, snatched at odd moments. The good ship hadn’t started to roll much yet, so all looked forward to dinner with a robust interest. Then it evolved that this was an Australian transport, the “Nestor;” and as such, sailed under the British flag; and hence and therefore, the next meal would be tea at 5 o’clock. Eternity passed, and about half an hour thereafter the steward came around, and in queer, clipped cockney English introduced us to “dixies” and “flats.” Another half hour, and the first messes to be served saw their hash-grabbing detail returning, bearing through aisles of famished Yanks--bread and cheese and tea! A planked steak would have been more to the point, we felt, and a towering, raw-boned countryman in a corner,--Lory Price, I imagine--opined dismally that we were being mistaken for an orphan asylum. However, what there was aroused the boys sufficiently to take a less morbid view of life, and as the officers departed to the cabin, cards and books appeared, and the mystic words were softly chanted: “Natural, bones”--“Read ’em and weep.”

But there was not what you might call a festive air to that first evening; nor to many thereafter. Of course, for some fellows who had no one dependent on them, who were setting out foot loose for a great adventure, there was nothing to interfere with the thrill of the unknown before them. But the majority of these men had been taken out of their civilian life but two or three weeks before; they were among strangers, and in an absolutely foreign environment; their new uniforms still uncomfortable and scratchy, and army regulations and discipline an incomprehensible set of shibboleths. Far down in each heart the love of their country burned, steadily enough for the most part; white hot in some; in others, but recently kindled. All hid it diligently, of course, from the general view. They had been so fed up with windy orators, with politicians waving the flag with one hand and keeping the other on exemption certificates, that the real thing was jealously concealed.

As I made my final inspection that night, looking out from the companion-way over the rows of close slung hammocks, I wondered what their occupants were thinking; what forms of dear ones were present to their minds; to what homes their thoughts went back--a Harlem flat, a Jersey farmhouse, a great hotel, a tiny pair of rooms in Jersey City; comfortable, well-off American homes; tenements in the foreign districts--each one dear for its memories, each one the home to fight for. Would we have time to train these men into a fighting machine, or would we be thrown in at once to stop the great Hun drive in Flanders, then at its height? How many of us would see these homes, these dear ones again?--But a company commander has little time to indulge in reflections; and thoughts of the morning report, and how to distribute the chow more evenly, and a large budget of orders I had to read, soon chased away everything else.

The NESTOR carried the 1st and 2d Bns. and Headquarters Co. of the 311th Inf., a Machine Gun battalion, and Brig. Gen. Dean, our brigade commander, and his staff. Our colonel was in command of the troops on board, such things being below the dignity of general officers. He was in his element; he had an officers’ meeting the first thing, and dished out about 4 square acres of orders to be read and put into effect at once.

Now no one knows better than I how many orders you men received, and how it was often beyond human power to obey all of them. But I call any company commander to witness that we got them coming and going. The Co. Cmdr. is the one man who can’t pass the buck on responsibility. We had to take the bushels of orders we received, eliminate those utterly impossible, select from those remaining what seemed essential and what we thought the Major and Colonel would deem essential, and then get those things done by the company--that is, issue orders to the 1st Sgt. for details, Supply Sgt. for supplies, Mess Sgt. for mess, officers for drill and instruction, company clerk for paper work, and then see to it that the whole is carried out. And then one usually amasses a balling out for something or other that he has left out.

One of these orders was the censorship order, of which we had heard so much. Instead of having all letters censored at post offices by clerks, some genius had decided to follow the British plan of having officers censor their own men’s mail. Thus at one brilliant stroke a situation was created which embarrassed men and officers alike, imposed an irksome and continual task on over-burdened officers, delayed the mail, and was in every way sweet incense in the nostrils of the little tin gods of the red tape; the exponents of the theory of How Not to Do It.

The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship’s inspection. The holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the call would be sounded, and all except the day’s orderlies would be massed on decks in their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded by a bugler, who blew a seasick “Attention” at each deck. Everybody would then step on everyone else’s feet, and make a little lane for the procession. The adjutant, the ship’s captain, the colonel, the ship supply officer--poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job--would play “follow my leader,” and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand.

The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills--one company using the deck at a time--and fire and boat drills. It was given out at first that four long blasts of the boat’s whistle would be the signal for “Abandon ship.” This was changed later by the ship’s captain, but somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about 10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once--twice--heads began to appear over the hammocks; thrice--the hammocks began to be agitated; four times--two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .45 and a few choice remarks in the vernacular.

Then the chow--oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was none too much in quantity. There were here and there newly made n. c. o.’s who were not above holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How did we know it was currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save the ship’s cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony.

“Tea” was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was hardly a success so far.

The officers were fed well and in civilized fashion in the cabin, which didn’t help matters much for the men. Also some members of the boat’s crew took advantage of the situation by running a sub-rosa restaurant in the forecastle, gouging such as had the price. Of course the Americans thought right away that they were holding out part of our rations for this purpose, and international relations began to get very strained. The officers were finally informed, and the practice stopped.

There were ten or twelve other ships in the convoy, which was headed by the battleship Montana. At last one morning the latter was missing, and we knew that we must be nearly across. Precautions were redoubled and life preservers were not removed even at night.

On the morning of May 31st we sighted land--a welcome sight indeed. Capt. Breen at once identified it as dear auld Ireland, and was much disgusted when we learned later that it was Scotland. We had sailed around the north of Ireland, and were dropping down the Irish sea to Liverpool.

This was the submarine zone indeed. Destroyers appeared from the horizon and hovered on the outskirts of the convoy. A great silver dirigible swung lazily from the clouds and floated along above us. The Irish coast came into view on our right.

At about 2:00 P. M. there was a scurry among the destroyers. The dirigible descended above a spot some half mile off our port bow. Guns began to speak from the transports and destroyers. It only lasted for about five minutes, however, and we couldn’t see any visible results. But we were told that a sub had been spotted and destroyed.

Late that night we took the pilot aboard and proceeded up the Mersey. Few of us slept a wink. After the long strain it was good to see ourselves surrounded by the lights of shipping, and to see the shore on either side, though as few lights as possible were shown even then. However, we could open the portholes, and the long, long line of docks slipped by until we wondered if this great harbor had any end. At last, about 2:00 A. M., we docked and settled down to wait until morning for a glimpse of Merry England.

The next day we waited around until 1:30, when we disembarked. We were marched about half a mile through the streets to a railroad terminal. The people hardly glanced at us. They were well used to soldiers by that time. Not a cheer, not a sign of curiosity. Another herd for the slaughter house. A few wounded soldiers, in their flaring “blues,” looked us over with some professional curiosity.

At the railroad station we were halted on a cobbled street for a weary three hours’ wait. There was an English-American Red Cross canteen there, and we bought them out of buns in short order and distributed them to the companies. An aviator appeared on the scene and amused us for a while by doing all sorts of acrobatics--loops, whirls, twists through the air--such as we had never seen before.

Finally we were formed and marched into the station, and boarded the funny little English coaches, and were locked up in different compartments. Canteen girls gave each of us a printed letter of welcome from King George, and finally we jolted out of the station, rolled along between factories and munition plants--manned mostly by girls and women--and so out into the countryside.

That was a wonderful ride through England on the last day of May. It was a perfect evening, the air soft and balmy; light until ten o’clock. It was like a toy country to us, beautifully ordered and groomed, with little villages here and there, and green hedgerows, and usually one or two Tommies on leave walking down the lane with their sweethearts--that made us homesick already. And the train sped along, stopping only once for us to get out and have some coffee and a drink of water; and we were all thrilled and excited and felt a little tickly in the stomach, as you do before a big football game. We were fast drawing near the greatest game, now being played to a finish.

As the night wore on, and it became dark, and we couldn’t look out the windows any more, our cramped quarters were anything but comfortable. Also, sanitary arrangements on European trains are conspicuous by their absence. When at last, at 2:00 A. M., we were told to detrain, we were pretty thoroughly uncomfortable.

After the usual hubbub of detraining--“which way’s comp’ny form?”--“I dunno”--“First squad”--“Ninth squad”--“Where’s me bayonet?”--“Oh, thanks”--“D’ja get the can open all right?”--We departed into the night, filing past a little station out into a dark road, and then at a good round pace on through silent, dark streets, for about a mile. There we were introduced to our first billet.

It was a large empty stone house in a row of similar ones. Bare floors, bare walls, but clean, and not so bad. After a vast amount of unnecessary fussing about the company got itself settled. Sixty men were to leave at six o’clock under Lt. Foulkes.

That night and early the next morning we heard for the first time the distant rumble of the guns in France.

In the morning we discovered that we were in an embarkation camp at Folkestone, near Dover. A beautiful place it was, something like Atlantic City, only everything seemed more permanent, and the boardwalk was lacking. The camp was a section of the town set apart for the purpose. Everything was well ordered. These Englishmen had been at the game a long time, and after some chafing and fussing around we discovered that though no one displayed any particular “pep,” nevertheless things really got done quite well; in the British way, of course. But woe be unto the ambitious Yank who sought to alter anything.

Most of the company had not even been in the service long enough to master the manual of arms, and part of the day was used in instilling the rudiments of this essential into them. Time was still left for a short ramble about Folkestone, however; and the promenade, town, pubs, Tommies and Waacs were all investigated enthusiastically and as thoroughly as time and opportunity permitted.

The next morning the battalion was formed at 6 A. M. and marched along cobbled streets to the pier, where we were sardined into a fast channel steamer, and donned those confounded lifebelts again for a short farewell wearing. Then, with an American destroyer racing along on either side, we slipped swiftly down under the Dover Cliffs, then swerving out and across the channel to Calais. A dock, a Red Cross train on the other side of it, a fisherman in a little boat alongside us--France at last.