THIS IS THE DESTROYER BLANK--GIVE POSITION, SPEED,
AND COURSE.

He was so evidently one of those Johnnies who are always volunteering to
do things not needful to be done that nobody paid any further attention
to him. But he kept right on sending radios. By and by, for perhaps the
seventh time, came: THIS IS THE DESTROYER BLANK--PLEASE GIVE
POSITION, SPEED, AND COURSE OF TORPEDOED SHIP.

At which some one--nobody seemed to know who, but possibly some
undistinguished enlisted radio man whose ears were becoming
wearied--sparked out into the night: POSITION OF TORPEDOED SHIP? BETWEEN
TWO DESTROYERS. HER SPEED? ABOUT FOUR FEET AN HOUR. HER COURSE? TOWARD
THE BOTTOM OF THE ATLANTIC.

Nobody ever found who sent that message; nobody inquired too closely;
but all hands thanked him. The flotilla heard no more from the
bothersome destroyer.

* * * * *

The business of hunting U-boats is a grim one. The officers and men
engaged in it do not like to dwell on the hard side of it. They do like
to repeat stories of the humorous side of it.

One of our destroyer commanders over there has a personality that the
others like to hang stories onto. He is a quick-thinking, quick-acting
man named--well, say Lanahan. He was one day on the bridge of his ship
when the lookout shouted: "Periscope!"

"Charge her!" yelled out Lanahan.

Away they went hooked-up for the periscope, which everybody could now
see--about 200 yards ahead.

"He's a nervy one--see her stay up!" said the officer of the deck, who
was standing beside the wheel, and had glasses on the periscope. And
then, hurriedly: "I don't like the looks of her, captain--it looks like
a phony periscope to me--as if there was a mine under it!"

"To hell with her--ram her anyway!" snapped Lanahan.

The deck officer had not once taken the glasses off the periscope.
Suddenly he let drop his glasses, grabbed the wheel and pulled it hard
toward him.

Lanahan had stepped to the wing of the bridge and was leaning far out to
get a glimpse of the U-boat. What he saw beneath him as his ship scraped
by was not a U-boat, but a great white mine. He watched it slide safely
past the bridge, past his quarter, past his stern. Then, turning around,
he said gravely to his deck officer:

"You're right--it _was_ a mine."

* * * * *

There was another young officer--Chisholm call him--who played poker
occasionally. He commanded a _fliv