The First Shot for Liberty
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: "This is the life," I heard a comrade say through gritted teeth. I stood tense, expecting every second to hear a shell go screeching out into the brine. About a quarter of a mile away I could see something sticking up out of the sea. "That rubberin' periscope," I thought; "I hope we make a direct hit." Then came the sickening reaction. "False alarm; nothing but one of those d n porpoises," cried the lookout, lowering his glasses. A groan of disgust ran through the ship. "Wouldn't it make you sick?" observed a Californian. "Here we were all primed for the best movie of our lives, and the lights go out and the screen goes on the blink. I'd Kke to skin that hell of a porpoise." As for me, I was as mad as a devil, for I felt that our trip across would not be complete without a good warm argument with one of Ge
...rmany's U-boats. Anyway, that was our introduction to the much-talked-of submarine zone. A porpoise at a distance does look very much like a spying periscope, and the pesky mammals fooled our lookouts several times before we reached France. But then, these instances only showed that our men were ever on the alert for the Kaiser's under-the- sea dogs. Our officers took no chances while we were passing through the territory of the U-boat. For three nights the transport traveled without lights, and our guardians, the cruiser and the destroyers, redoubled their vigilance. We were routed out of our bunks at three A. M. on each of those three days, and were compelled to remain on deck until seven A. M. with our life preservers buckled on and our shoes and trousers unlaced. The favorite time for the average submarine to attack is around dawn. We didn't sight a single U-boat all the way over, but we had a lot of fun at the expense of these sneaki...
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