The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me | Page 9

to the war. We were gathered in the
dusk looking at a sailing ship far over to the south--a mere speck on the
horizon's edge. Signals began to twinkle from her and we felt our ship
give a lurch and turn north zigzagging at full speed. The signals of the
sailing ship were distress signals, but we sped away from her as fast as
our engines would take us, for, though her signals may have been
genuine, also they may have been a U-boat lure. Often the Germans
have used the lure of distress signals on a sailing ship and when a
rescuer has appeared, the U-boat has sent to death the Good Samaritan

of the sea! It is awful. But the German has put mercy off the sea!
Some way the average man goes back to his home environment for his
moral standards, and that night as we walked the deck, Henry broke out
with this: "I've been thinking about this U-boat business; how it would
be if we had the German's job. I have been trying to think if there is any
one in Wichita who could go out and run a U-boat the way these
Germans run U-boats, and I've been trying to imagine him sitting on
the front porch of the Country Club or down at the Elks Club talking
about it, telling how he lured the captain of a ship by his distress signal
to come to the rescue of a sinking ship and then destroyed the rescuer,
and I've been trying to figure out how the fellows sitting around him
would take it. They'd get up and leave. He would be outcast as
unspeakable and no brag or bluff or blare of victory would gloss over
his act. We simply don't think the German way. We have a loyalty to
humanity deeper than our patriotism. There are certain things
self-respecting men can't do and live in Wichita. But there seem to be
no restrictions in Germany. The U-boat captain using the distress signal
as a lure probably holds about such a place in his home town as
Charley Carey, our banker, or Walter Innes, our dry goods man. He is
doubtless a leading citizen of some German town; doubtless a kind
father, a good husband and maybe a pillar of the church. And I suppose
town and home and church will applaud him when he goes back to
Germany to brag about his treachery. In Wichita, town and home and
church would be ashamed of Charley Carey and Walter Innes if they
came back to brag about killing men who were lured to death by
responding to the call of distress."
And so, having disposed of the psychology of the enemy, we turned in
for the night. We were entering the danger zone and the night was hot.
A few passengers slept on deck; but most of the ship's company went to
their cabins. We didn't seem to be afraid. We presumed that our convoy
would appear in the morning. But when it failed to appear we assumed
that there was no danger. No large French passenger boat had been
sunk by the Germans; this fact we heard a dozen times that day. It
soothed us. The day passed without bringing our convoy. Again we
went to bed, realizing rather clearly that the French do take things

casually; and believing firmly that the convoys would come with the
dawn. But dawn came and brought no convoy. We seemed to be
nearing land. The horizon was rarely without a boat. The day grew
bright. We were almost through the danger zone. We went to lunch a
gay lot, all of us; but we hurried back to the deck; not uneasily, not in
fear, understand, but just to be on deck, looking landward. And then at
two o'clock it appeared. Far off in the northeast was a small black dot
in the sky. It looked like a seabird; but it grew. In ten minutes the
whole deck was excited. Every glass was focused on the growing black
spot. And then it loomed up the size of a baseball; it showed colour, a
dull yellow in the distance and then it swelled and took form and
glowed brighter and came rushing toward us, as large as a moon, as
large as a barrel, and then we saw its outlines, and it came swooping
over us, a great beautiful golden thing and the whole deck burst into
cheers. It was our convoy, a dirigible balloon--vivid golden yellow,
trimmed with blue! How fair it seemed. How graceful and how surely
and how powerfully it circled about the ship like a great hovering bird,
and how safe we felt; and as we cheered and cheered the swirling,
glowing, beautiful thing, we knew