Discouraging as was this business of hunting an invisible foe, events occasionally happened with all the unexpectedness of real drama. For the greater part of the time the destroyers were engaged in battle with oil slicks, wakes, tide rips, streaks of suds, and suspicious disturbances on the water; yet now and then there were engagements with actual boats and flesh and blood human beings. To spend weeks at sea with no foe more substantial than an occasional foamy excrescence on the surface was the fate of most sailormen in this war; yet a few exciting moments, when they finally came, more than compensated for long periods of monotony.
One afternoon in November, 1917, an American destroyer division, commanded by Commander Frank Berrien, with the _Nicholson_ as its flagship, put out of Queenstown on the usual mission of taking a westbound convoy to its rendezvous and bringing in one that was bound for British ports. This outward convoy was the "O Q 20" and consisted of eight fine ships. After the usual preliminary scoutings the vessels passed through the net in single file, sailed about ten miles to sea, and began to take up the stipulated formation, four columns of two ships each. The destroyers were moving around; they were even mingling in the convoy, carrying messages and giving instructions; by a quarter past four all the ships had attained their assigned positions, except one, the _René_, which was closing up to its place as the rear ship of the first column. Meanwhile, the destroyer _Fanning_ was steaming rapidly to its post on the rear flank. Suddenly there came a cry from the bridge of the _Fanning_, where Coxswain David D. Loomis was on lookout:
Off the starboard side of the _Fanning_, glistening in the smooth water, a periscope of the "finger" variety, one so small that it could usually elude all but the sharpest eyes, had darted for a few seconds above the surface and had then just as suddenly disappeared. Almost directly ahead lay the _Welshman_, a splendid British merchant ship; the periscope was so close that a torpedo would almost inevitably have hit this vessel in the engine-room. The haste with which the German had withdrawn his periscope, after taking a hurried glance around, was easily explained; for his lens had revealed not only this tempting bait, but the destroyer _Fanning_ close aboard and bearing down on him. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that no torpedo was fired; it was clearly military wisdom to beat a quick retreat rather than attempt to attack the merchantman. Lieut. Walter S. Henry, who was the officer of the deck, acted with the most commendable despatch. It is not the simplest thing, even when the submarine is so obviously located as this one apparently was, to reach the spot accurately.