Since the war began and the Germans undertook the drowning of women and children by the submarine method I have crossed the Atlantic four times. Two of these voyages were on troop transports. Traveling on a transport is really a pleasure voyage, except for the military discipline, always a bit obnoxious to the Anglo-Saxon of the North American continent--but absolutely necessary if an army is the thing desired, not a mob. On a transport the food and sleeping quarters are all that anyone could desire in a time of war, and they satisfied all, from the veriest batman to the highest military officer whose duty it is to maintain discipline.
On my first transport experience we took the ship at an Atlantic port some days before sailing, and no one knew the date or hour of our intended start except the first officer of the ship, who received his orders from the admiralty. Our crowd was an immense one, made up of men from all the different departments of the army, and women who were either trained nurses, or members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, going overseas to do their bit in the hospitals or the convalescent and rest homes in England and France.
Until the boat started on its voyage, dances were held nightly on the main deck, but once we put out to sea, the ship traveled in darkness. No one was permitted on the decks at night except the guards, and they were forbidden to smoke for fear of attracting attention that was not desirable.
We were not long away from land till a fairly heavy swell made some of the uninitiated sea voyagers feel all the pangs of that nauseating illness, _mal de mer_,--seasickness. One of the nurses sitting in a deck chair, looking away off over the swelling billows, said languidly: "If the Germans torpedoed us now, I wouldn't even put on a life preserver." And another traveler, a Tommy with a markedly Jewish cast of countenance, as the ship took a more pronounced dip than heretofore, exclaimed loudly:
"My God! She's a submarine!" The usual sympathetic roar of laughter was the only solace that he received; but one of his pals who saw him leaning over the ship's side, giving an excellent dinner to the fishes, stepped up to him and, giving him a resounding slap on the shoulder, said: