November 14, 1918 
LAND Sr" WATER 
U-Boat Stories: By Herman Whitaker 
WITH a slow, lazy roll our boat laid her slim 
cheek against a warm wave that lifted it, all 
wet and glistening, into the last rich rays of 
the sun. Far off, full eighty miles to port, a 
Spanish mountain raised its golden head from 
behind the curve of the sea. To starboard the African Coast 
loorned in dusky heat haze. . On our beam the convoy of 
twenty ships steamed in double hne across a violet sea, their 
oil smoke streaming in long black velvet pennons across the 
smouldering sky. While the great crimson ball of the sun 
hung poised on the horizon, a patrol boat sailed across its 
face at the exact distance required to bring out the hull, 
spars, masts, ropes, in black silhouette as though stamped 
by a die on a medal of fire. It was wonderfully beautiful. 
Its quiet lovehness laid a spell of silence even on the sailor 
lads skylarking astern. A hush fell over the ship that was 
broken only by the heart beat of the screws. 
"Yachting in the Mediterranean." The officer on the 
bridge broke a long silence. "This is what your millionaire 
pays his good money for." 
In our case it was hteially true, for our boat, a converted 
yacht in Uncle Sam's Mediterranean Fleet, was said to be 
the finest yacht in the world before the war. Then she was 
a sailor's dream of polished wood, brass, copper ; her decks 
snow-white from a daily bleach of squeezed lemons. It had 
spoiled almost a milhon dollars a, year to keep her in com- 
mission and entertain the princes, presidents and kings who 
used her for a playground. 
Generally she laid at Kiel before the war, and one of her 
officers possesses an engraved card of invitation to the great 
ball after the Kiel Regatta for the yacht's owner, and signed 
by His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser. When the yacht was 
cotnmissioned into the American service, the steward who 
used to wait on the Kaiser was still on board, and told many 
an interesting tale of the days when he sat at one end of the 
wardroom table while King Edward VII occupied the 
other. He said the Kaiser showed great affection for his 
uncle ; a revealing glimpse of his character, for wcknow that 
even then he was plotting to enslave the world and bind 
England in German forged chains. But now — the irony of 
events ! — an American officer occupies the Kaiser's beautiful 
state room. Others who are engaged in hunting down His 
Imperial Majesty's U-boats, dine in the wardroom. 
"There is nothing like a night watch on the bridge to produce 
ptories. The quiet and darkness, broken only by the heart 
beat of the screws, provides the ideal atmosphere. One has 
only to listen to liave the whole underseas war unroll Uke 
a cinema on the night's warm dark curtain. 
Every base has some Hun commander who has achieved 
notoriety — usually by differing from the bloody run of 
his fellows. Now I heard of "Spartel Jack," who held the 
limelight in the Mediterranean for many a year. He 
was a fair fighter ; always warned his ships before sinking 
them, and if it were not practicable to tow the boats to land 
himself, he would wireless their position in to the base. His 
boat was finally crippled so badly by a depth mine that he 
had to intern at a Spanish port ; whereupon a number of 
English naval officers donned their "civies" and went up to 
see her. 
Lo and behold! who sh6uld they recognise in "Jack" 
but an old acquaintance ; a German tug-boat captain who 
had served twelve years at the base before the war. He 
greeted them pleasantly, but "groused" about his intern- 
ment. He never had liked Spanish cooking, and it was doing 
in his liver ! When the news spread and more of his old 
acquaintances went up to see him; however, "Jack" was 
gone. He had provided the world with another Hun scandal 
by breaking his internment. 
Thereafter the old pirate carried on with his sinkings until, 
not long ago, a depth mine sent his boat to the bottom. 
But he did not go with her. Just as she sank, the hatch 
flew up and two men leaped out. One was "Jack," so badly 
injured, however, by the explosion, that he died a few days 
later in the base hospital — to the regret of the British, who 
love a game enemy. 
Genuine human feeling, the despised "human interest" 
of the high-brow critic, crops up in most of these sea stories. 
Man that is born of woman must have something to love, 
and in lieu of their wives, sisters and sweethearts, sailors' 
affections asually centre on some dumb animal. 
To me came one of our ensigns with three English officers 
in tow, commanders in the Naval reserve of the patrol 
Copyright lo U.S.A. 
boats serving with our squadron ; than whom the war has 
produced no braver set of men. They talked shop that 
was at once history and romance. 
One had served in the North Sea at the beginning of the 
war, and he told, with a httle grin, of his early experiences 
in the war. "At first we had nothing but a three-pound 
pop-gun to chase Fritz off the waters, and he had three-inch 
guns. On his part, Fritz wasn't wasting time on small game 
like us, so without any pourparlers or conversaziones, we 
arrived at an understanding. He didn't bother us unless we 
interfered with his sinkings. Then he'd chase us. 
"After they gave us real guns, of course, we went after him, 
war to the knife. If he saw us first — that ended it for us. 
If it was the other way, down he went in spray and smoke — 
unless your gunner got rattled hke ours did one day. Fritz 
had popped up less than five hundred yards away, close 
enough for a woman to hit him with a potato ; and we were 
already beginning to count the prize-money when off went 
our first gun. 
" That shell is going yet. The next plumped into the water 
half-way. The third didn't miss by more than a hundred 
feet, and if Fritz had obliged by standing still, we might have 
landed on him during the daj'. But just about that time 
he got busy and threw a torpedo into our stern. 
" Up went our depth mines. The stern gun was blown 
fully two hundred feet into the air. It was really "what you 
writer chaps would call a tragic situation, for we were all 
due to die in about five minutes. I never would have believed 
anything funny could come out of it, but when the skipper 
came running and shook his fist in the face of that fool gun- 
ner, I had to laugh. 
" ' You son of a gun ! ' he yelled. ' Is this why the British 
Government paid two hundred poimds for your education — 
to shoot up the firmament and plug holes in the sea ? If 
you weren't due to drown I'd brain you myself. But drown 
you will, damn you ! along with the rest of us ! ' " 
" He said it ! For just then a second torpedo took us amid- 
ships, and he and the gunner went up together. The ship , 
just melted away, and when things quit raining down, I 
found myself with the ship's boy clinging to a piece of the 
deckhouse. About *& dozen of the crew were floating among 
the wreckage, and we had scarcely got the water out 
of our eyes before the U-boat came shooting down through 
us, so close that we could see the commander's eyes as he 
leaned down out of the conning tower. 
" ' How's the water ? ' he called out in good English. 
"'Cold,' the man nearest to him answered. 'Aren't you 
going to pick us up ? ' 
"He shook his head. 'No, the devil's been waiting for 
you chaps a damned long time. You won't be cold long. 
You'll all be in hell with him for breakfast.' 
" He sailed past, then circled and ciime tearing back ram- 
ming and drowning some of the men with his wash. Time 
and again he did it, always churning somebody up with his 
screws. It was about as hellish a bit of business as ,was ever 
done by any Hun. The boy and I had drifted out a piece, 
and were hanging as low as we could in the water, for already 
I had sighted smoke on the horizon, and felt sure the Hun 
would machine-gun us there in the water. But he didn't 
think it worth while. The last time he charged through, 
he swung his thumb over his- shoulder. 
"'Friend of mine out yonder. I'll have to go. Sorry I 
can't stop to see your finish, but you'll all be drowned long 
before he comes up.' 
"Most of us were. During the two hours that passed 
before the patrol boat reached us, the men chilled and let 
go, one by one, till only myself and the boy were left. He 
had stuck it out so far, hke a little brick. Now he 
tried to give in. 'We're going to drown anyway, so 
what's the use of suffering ? I'm going to let go and get 
it over with.' 
"I couldn't have stopped him for I was all in myself. 
But I put up a good bluff. 'Just try it, you Httle devil. 
I'll swim round there and tie you to the wreck, and after I 
get you on board that packet I'll skin you from head to heel 
with a rope's end.' And the bluff worked. He hung on 
till we were picked up." 
This was but one of a dozen similar stories that passed 
around the table ; all equally dramatic, all on the raw edge 
of life, where shams and illusions are stripped away, leaving 
nothing but fundamentals. While they talked I learned 
more of the underseas war than one could pick up in a couple 
of years of actual service. 
