me
to sit on, whisper into his cocked ear that they were going to try to
catch a Hun in the next day or two for him to sharpen his teeth on.
* * * * *
These boys told me a number of stories in connection with the survivors
they had rescued, or failed to rescue, from ships sunk by U-boats. Most
of them were the usual accounts of firing on open boats in an attempt to
sink without a trace, but there was one piquant recital which revealed
the always diverting Hun sense of humour at a new slant. This was
displayed, as it chanced, on the occasion of the sinking of "Ole's"
ship, the Norwegian barque. After this unlucky craft had been put down
by shell-fire and bombs, the U-boat ran alongside the whaler containing
the captain and mate, and they were ordered aboard to be interrogated.
Under the pretence of preventing any attempt to escape on the part of
the remainder of those in this boat, the Germans made them clamber up
and stand on the narrow steel run-way which serves as the upper deck of
a submarine. No sooner were they here, however, than the Hun humorist on
the bridge began slowly submerging. When the water was lapping round the
necks of the unfortunate Norwegians, and just threatening to engulf
them, the nose of the U-boat was slanted up again, this finely finessed
operation being repeated during all of the time that the captain and
mate were being pumped below by the commander of the submarine. No great
harm--save that one of the sailors, losing his nerve when the U-boat
started down the first time, dived over, struck his head on one of the
bow-rudders and was drowned--was done by this little pleasantry, but it
is so illuminative of what the Hun is in his lightsome moods that I have
thought it worth setting down.
[Illustration: "KAMERADING" WITH UPLIFTED PAWS]
[Illustration: HELPING THE COOK TO PEEL POTATOES]
The American is more violent in his feelings than the Briton, and much
more inclined to say what he thinks; and I found these boys--to use the
expressive phrase of one of them--"mad clean through" at the Hun pirate
and all he stands for. America--with more time to do that sort of
thing--has undoubtedly gone farther than any other country in the war in
trying to give her soldiers and sailors a proper idea of the beast
they have been sent out to slay. These lessons seem to have sunk home
with all of them, and when it has been supplemented--as in the case of
the sailors in the
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