U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [204]
Another American came in to the dump and they got to talking and he said he'd been torpedoed on the Oswego right in the mouth of the Loire river. They gave him some of the cognac and he said how it had been, that Uboat had blowed the poor old Oswego clear outa the water and when smoke cleared away she'd split right in two and closed up like a jackknife. They had another bottle of cognac on that and then the fel er took them to a house he said he knew and there they found some more of the bunch drinking beer and dancing around with the girls. Joe was having a good time parleyvooing with one of the girls, he'd point to something and she'd tel him how to say it in French, when a fight started someway and the frog cops came and the bunch had to run for it. They al got back aboard ship ahead of the cops but they came and stood on the dock and jabbered for about a half an hour until old Cap'n Perry, who'd just gotten back from town in a horsecab, told 'em where to get off.
The trip back was slow but pretty good. They were only
-60-a week in Hampton Roads, loaded up with a cargo of steel ingots and explosives, and cleared for Cardiff. It was nervous work. The Cap'n took a northerly course and they got into a lot of fog. Then after a solid week of icy cold weather with a huge fol owing sea they sighted Rockal . Joe was at the wheel. The green hand in the crowsnest yel ed out,
"Battleship ahead," and old Cap'n Perry stood on the bridge laughing, looking at the rock through his binoculars.
Next morning they raised the Hebrides to the south. Cap'n Perry was just pointing out the Butt of Lewis to the mate when the lookout in the bow gave a scared hail. It was a submarine al right. You could see first the periscope trailing a white feather of foam, then the dripping conning tower. The submarine had hardly gotten to the surface when she started firing across the North Star's bows with a smal gun that the squareheads manned while decks were stil awash. Joe went running aft to run up the flag, al-though they had the flag painted amidships on either side of the boat. The engineroom bel s jingled as Cap'n Perry threw her into ful speed astern. The jerries stopped firing and four of them came on board in a col apsible punt. Al hands had their life preservers on and some of the men were going below for their duffle when the fritz officer who came aboard shouted in English that they had five minutes to abandon the ship. Cap'n Perry handed over the ship's papers, the boats were lowered like winking as the blocks were wel oiled. Something made Joe run back up to the boat deck and cut the lashings on the liferafts with his jackknife, so he and Cap'n Perry and the ship's cat were the last to leave the North Star. The jerries had planted bombs in the engine room and were rowing back to the submarine like the devil was after them. The Cap'n's boat had hardly pushed off when the explosion lammed them a blow on the side of the head. The boat swamped and before they knew what had hit them they were swim--61-ming in the icy water among al kinds of planking and junk. Two of the boats were stil afloat. The old North Star was sinking quietly with the flag flying and the signal-flags blowing out prettily in the light breeze. They must have been half an hour or an hour in the water. After the ship had sunk they managed to get onto the liferafts and the mate's boat and the Chief's boat took them in tow. Cap'n Perry cal ed the rol . There wasn't a soul missing. The submarine