"Aye, aye, sir," boomed Ole's big bass,--then he gave the command.
"All you men who iss got clothes ver de sun isn't iss, put 'em ver de sun iss iss. . . ."
Say, that got us! and Ole never did hear the end of "ver de sun iss iss." That was all right, as it turned out, but next time--well, this is what happened.
[Illustration: "Boresighting"--a 3-inch gun on board a merchant ship.]
We anchored in an English port and like every good "bloomin' bloody Yank," as our British cousins call us, we got out our bats and balls ready to play United States baseball. We had four cracking good teams on the ship. The first and fourth would play, then the second and third. The competition was pretty close and we were tickled to death when the American Consul got a tract of land for us and we went ashore to show those Johnnies a regular game, after watching cricket for an hour or two.
Well, after several days of games, some of the men began abusing their shore privileges, and the officers knocked it off and kept us aboard--no liberty at all!
Gee, we certainly longed to get off the boat. There was land only a hand's throw away--and there was a whole diamond going to waste and games tied. One afternoon, after talking the matter over, we plucked up courage and drew lots. It fell on me to go up to the Officer of the Deck and ask for a Recreation Party.
He didn't waste any breath at all. "No," he said, so I slunk back to my mates. But we didn't let the matter rest. Every ten minutes another one of us would march up with the same request. The O. D. got sore. Ole was on watch.
"Pass the word," the O. D. commanded crisply, "_No Recreation Party whatsoever!_"
"_No Recreation Party what's er matter?_" he hollered.
That finished him. He lost a rank on account of it. Poor Ole, he got in dutch for fair!
We were convoying merchant and troop ships, going out to meet them and bringing them back to port. We started out one cold October day with a raging gale blowing. The sea was like a seething caldron--the waves were mountain high. We had on all the warm things we owned, but, at that, we were ice wherever the water struck us.
I was muffled to the eyes. Esquimos had nothing on me and I could see we were in for some stiff duty. It wasn't a matter of one day--it was a matter of eight days on a raging sea--no chance to take off your socks even--life-preservers on every minute of the time--watching out sharp for Fritz.