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Show Gunner Depew By Ex-Gunner and Chief Petty Officer. U.S. Navy A II -j. -jrv Member of the Foreign Legion of France InPTT Tl 1 lP"nOl Captain Gun Turret. French Battleship CS5rd Copyright, 1918, bj RUly nd Brltton Co., Through Special Arrangement With the GeorRe Matthew Ad&ma Serrlee CHAPTER XVI. 14 Captured by the Moewe. When the tugs had cast off and after a while we had dropped our pilot, I 6aid to myself : "Now we are off, and It's the States for me end of the line far as we go IF " But the "If" did not look very big to me, though I could see It with the naked ye all right. I got up about four o'clock the next morning, which was Sunday, Decem-oer.10, Decem-oer.10, 1010 a date I do not think I will ever forget. As soon as I was dressed I went down to the forecastle peak and from there into the paint locker, where I found some rope. Then back again on deck, and made myself a hammock, which I rigged up on the boat deck, figuring that I would have a nice sun hath, as the weather had at last turned clear. As soon as I had the hammock strung I went down to the' baker and had a nice chat with him and stole a few hot buns, which was what I was really after and away to the galley for breakfast. I was almost exactly amidships, sitting on an old orange box. I had not been there long when Old Chips, the ship's carpenter, stuck his head In the door and sang out, "Ship on the starboard bow." I did not pay any attention to him, because ships on the starboard bow were no novelty to me, or on the port either. Chips was not crazy about looking at her, either, for he came in and sat on another box and began scoffing. He said he thought she was a tramp and that she flew the British flag astern. I ate all I could get hold of and went ou'' on deck. I stepped out of the gal-lej gal-lej just in time to see the fun. The ship was just opposite us when away went our wireless and some of the Boats on the starboard side, and then, br,om ! boom ! and we heard the report of the guns. I heard the shrapnel whizzing around us just as I had many a time before. I jumped back in the galley and Chips and the cook were shaking so hard they made the pans rattle. When the firing stopped I went up to the boat deck. I had on all of my clothing, but instead of shoes I was wearing a pair of wooden clogs. The men and boys were crazy rushing around the deck and knocking each other down, and everybody getting in everybody else's way. We lowered our Jacob's ladders, but some of the men and boys were already in the water. Why they jumped I do not know. Then the German raider Moewe headed right in toward us and I thought she was going to ram us, but she backed water about thirty yards away. She lowered a lifeboat and it made for the Georgic, passing our men in the water as they came and crashing them on the head with boat- they Crashed Them on the Head With Boat Hooks. nooks when they could reach them. I noticed that there were red kegs in the German boat. When the lifeboat reached the Jacob's Ja-cob's ladders I went over to the port side of the Georgic and then the Germans Ger-mans came over the side and hoisted up the kegs. The Germans were armed with bayonets and revolvers. Some of them went down into the engine en-gine room and opened the sea cocks. About this time some of the Limeys came up from the poop deck and I told them to stay where I was and that the Germans would take us over In lifeboats. Another squad of Germans Ger-mans hoisted eight of the dynamite kegs on their shoulders and down into No. 5 hold with them. Mean time the Germans saw us up on the boat fleck and came up after us. And over went the Limeys. But I waited and one or two more waited with me. When the Germans came up to us they had their revolvers out nd were waving them around and felling, "Gott strafe England!" and alking about "schwelnhmuW Tb4, the first thing I knew, I was kicked off into the sea. I slipped off my trousers and coat and clogs, and, believe me, it was not a case of all dressed up and no place to go ! Then I swam hard and caught up to the Limeys who had .jumped first. They were asking each other if they were downhearted and answering, "Not a bit of it, me lads," and trying to sing, "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag," only they could not do much singing on account of the waves that slipped into their mouths every time they opened them. That was just like Limeys, though. Some of the boys were just climbing up the Jacob's ladder on the Moewe when the old Georgic let out an awful roar and up went the deck and the hatches high in the air in splinters. One fellow let go his hold on the ladder lad-der and went down and he never came up. The Germans were making for the Moewe in the lifeboat and we reached It just before they did. Up the ladder we went and over the side and the first thing we caught sight of was the German revolvers in our faces drilling us all Into line. The lifeboat brought back the ship's papers from the Georgic and we had roll call. They kept us up on deck in our wet underwear and it was very cold indeed. Then the first mate and the old man and one of the German officers called off the names and we found we had fifty missing. The Boche commander had gall enough to say that he was not there to kill men but to sink all ships that were supplying the allies ! He said England was trying to starve Germany, but that they would never succeed and that Germany would starve the allies very soon. After roll call some of us asked the Germans for clothes, or at least a place to dry ourselves in, but Fritz could not see us for the dust on the ocean and we just had to stand there and shiver till we shook the deck, almost. al-most. Then I went and sat down on the pipes that feed the deck winches. They had quite a head of steam in them and I was beginning to feel more comfortable when I got a good clout alongside of the head for sitting there and trying to keep warm. It was a German garby and he started calling me all the various kinds of schwein-hunde schwein-hunde he could think of and he could think of a lot. Finally they mustered ns all on another part of the deck, then drilled us down into the forecastle and read the martial law of Germany to us. At least I guess that is what' it was. It might have been the "Help Wanted Dog Catchers" column from the Berlin Ber-lin Lokal Taggabble for all most of us knew or cared. It shows what cards the Germans are reading all those four-to-the-pound words to us shivering shiver-ing garbies, who did not give a dime a dozen whether we heard them or not. Fritz is like some other hot sketches he is funniest when he does not mean to be. Every German is a vaudeville skit when he acts natural. There were hammocks there and we jumped into them to get warm, but the Germans came down with their revolvers re-volvers and bayonets and took the hammocks away and poured water on the decks and told us to sleep there. They could not have done a worse trick than that. Then they put locks on the portholes and told us that anyone caught fiddling with the locks would be shot at once. This was because we might sight a British or French man-of-war at any time and as the Moewe was sailing under un-der the British flag and trying to keep out of trouble they did not want us at the ports signaling our own warships war-ships for help. If they had bucked any of the allied ships and had a fight we would have died down there like rats. The Moewe had already captured the Voltaire, Mount Temple, Cambrian Range and the King George and had the crews of these vessels between decks with us. These men told us how the Germans were treating them and it looked to me as though the evening eve-ning would be spent in playing games and a pleasant time would be had by all not. The crew of the Mount Temple were on deck working when the raider suddenly sud-denly opened fire on them. Two or three men jumped into the water and the Germans turned a gun on them while they were swimming and killed them. That was just a sample of what had happened to them. The men now began running up and down in a line to keep warm, but I took a little run on my own hook and treated myself to as much of a onceover once-over of the ship as I could. I do not believe the Moewe had more than a three-fourths-inch armor plate, but behind be-hind that she had three rows of pig iron, which made about a foot in thickness. thick-ness. There was nothing but cable strung along the deck and when I saw-that saw-that I would have given anything to have had a crack at her with a 14-inch naval. And I sure wished hard enough that one of our ships would slip up on us, whether we were caught between decks or not. I went aft as far as the sentry would let me and I saw that she had three spare six-inch grins under un-der the poop deck and two six-Inch pieces mounted astern. The guns were mounted on an elevator and when the time came they ran the elevator up until the guns were on a level with the poop deck, but otherwise they were out of sight from other ships. For our first meal they slung a big feed bag half full of ship biscuit hardtack to us and some dixies of tea. After this festival we began roaming up and down the deck again, because It was the only way to keep warm. I guess we looked like some of the advertisements in magazines, where they show a whole family sitting sit-ting around a Christmas tree in their pecK plan or tub 'moews' ran 0 AfT A Armor plate drops, placing 6-In. guns. U Forecastle peak. C Ammunition hold. D Torpedo tube rails. E Torpedo tubes. F Poop deck. G Aft wheelhouse. H Deck house. J Plolds. K Disappearing guns aft, mounted on elevator. L Sea gates. underwear and telling each other that Whosis Unions the Roomy Kind were just what they wanted from Santy. Only we did not have any Christmas tree to sit around. We must have looked funny, though, and I would have had a good laugh if I had not been so cold. We could not go to sleep because the decks were wet, nor could we sit down with any comfort for the same reason. Besides, we thought we might buck up against a British or a French cruiser at any minute and most of us thought we would stay up and get an eye full before we started for Davy's well-known locker. About two bells the following morning morn-ing the Moewe's engines began to groan and shake her up a hit and we could hear the blades jump out of the water every once in a while and tear away. She went ahead in this way for some time and we were hoping she was trying to get away from a cruiser and some of us were pulling for the cruiser to win and others hoping the Moewe would get her heels clear and keep us from getting ours. The Huns were running up and down the deck yelling like wild men and one of our men began to yell too. He was delirious and after he yelled a bit he jumped up and made a pass at the sentry, who shot at him but missed. The shot missed me too. but not very much. Then they dragged the delirious man up on deck and Lord knows what they did with him, because we never saw him again. But we did not hear any sound that they might have made in shooting him. Then the Huns began shelling and they kept it up for some time. Then they ordered us up on deck to see the ship they had been firing at and when we came up the companion way they were just bringing the other ship's skipper aboard. It was the French collier St. Theodore, hove to off the starboard side with a prize crew from the Moewe aboard and wigwagging wig-wagging to the raider. Then the Huns began shouting and they rousted us below deck again. The place where we had been was filled with smoke, from what or why I do not kuow, but it was almost impossible impos-sible to breathe in it. When the smoke cleared up a bit the Marathon started again, for we were still in our underwear only. One of the boys had asked Fritz for clothing and Fritz said the English had tough enough skins and they did not need clothing. Then he said : "Wait until you see what our German winters are like." The following morning the engines began to tear away again and the guns started firing. After a while the firing stopped and the engines too, and after an hour they had the old man of the Tarrowdale aboard. She was a British ship chartered by the French and bound for Brest and Liverpool with a very valuable cargo aboard airplanes, ammunition, food and automobiles. auto-mobiles. When they rousted us on deck again the St. Theodore was still in sight, but she had the Tarrowdale for company. Both were trailing behind us and keeping keep-ing pretty close on. Wh'le we were on deck we saw the German sailors at work on the main deck making about ten rafts and when they began to place tins of hardtack on the rafts, a tin to each, we Imagined they were going to heava us over the side and let us g on the rafts. But instead they began telling us we would land in the States and then they rousted us betweeD deets again. V e had only been there a short tlro-when tlro-when some of the Qerman officers cams down and asked if any of the men would volunteer to go firing on the Yarrowdale and we almost mobbed them to take us They began putting down the names of the men who wer to go and I talked them into putting mine down too. Then I felt about five hundred pounds lighter. Five o'clock came and by tht time I had forgotten to do any worrying. We received our usual rations and most of us who had volunteered figured fig-ured that we would receive clothes and shoes. In the morning an olTionr came down below and read out this names of those who were to go and I felt even lighter when he called mine. We were each giver i life belt anr mustered on deck. The sea was pretty nasty and some of the men had narrow escapes from falling between the Moewe and the lifeboats when the swells rorked us. One man fell from the ladder and broke his neck on the guaivale of the lifeboat. They took over boat after boat to the Yarrowdale until finally we were all there. Then they mustered mus-tered us on deck and warned us not to start anything, because they had a time bomb in the engine room and two on the bridge. Meantime they had brought over several boatloads of hardtack hard-tack and we threw it into No. 3 hold. This was to be our food for ,iome time. CHAPTER XVII. Landed in Germany. They had a coolie crew on the Tarrowdale Tar-rowdale and when they routed them on deck the coolies began to pray, and though It is nothing to laugh at I could not help but chuckle at the way some of them went about talking to their various gods. They were beginning to smell danger and were pretty nervous. Every one of the coolies had a cane and a pair of Palm Beach trousers. The Huns were loading them in the lifeboats to be taken back to the Moewe with their sea bags and one of them got too nervous and' was slow about getting into the lifeboat, so the Germans shot him without saying a word. Then the Germans called out the names of those who had volunteered to go stoking and this included me. We were drilled down the fiddley into the fire room. The fiddley is a shaft that runs from the main deck of a ship to the engine room. I looked around a bit and saw a German standing not very far from the fiddley, so I asked him If we would be given shoes. He said no. Then I asked him If we had to fire in our fare feet and he said yes that we did not need shoes. Then he went into the engine room. I looked at the narrow passage he went through and at the narrow passage pas-sage of the fiddley to the main deck and I talked to my feet like I used to at Dixmude. said : "Feet, do your duty." They did it and I flew up the fiddley. I never wanted to see that stoke hole again. I sneaked up to where the 'rest cf the fellows were and the gvatJ drilled us into No. 4 hold. There was nothing but ammunition in it. They battened the hatches down oo us, which made the hold waterproof. And "Feet, Do Your Duty." as that made it practically airtight the only air the 5S0 of us got was through the ventilators. That hold was certainly cer-tainly foul. They next day some of the men had got cigarettes somewhere; In a few minutes they as well as the rest had lit up and were puffing away in great style. I divided a cigarette with another an-other fellow. Remember, we were sitting sit-ting and standing on ammunition all this time. It shows how much we cared whether school kept or not. The Germans saw the smoke coming com-ing out of the ventilators and they were crazy with fright. A gang of them laid below and rousted us out with whips. They lined us up on deck and read us the riot act. They drilled us down Into the coal bunkers. It was simply terrible there. Coal dust to breathe and eat and sleep on. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |
