On September 2d, the Captain of the _Great Northern_ signaled to us that his aft gun crew had sighted the feather of a periscope about two miles astern of us, which had disappeared almost immediately and so no shots were fired at her. A few days later, through signals exchanged between ourselves and the _Great Northern_, we learned that we were to lose Captain Bryan upon reaching New York, and that Captain Phelps of the _Great Northern_ was to be his successor. Captain Bryan, we learned, was to take up a station somewhere in Brazil. Stormy weather hindered our progress on the fourth day out. The seas were so heavy that both the _Great Northern_ and _Northern Pacific_ found great difficulty in keeping up with us. Finally, the _Northern Pacific_ signaled to us that because of the seas she could make little progress and asked that the standard speed for the convoy be reduced to thirteen knots. This was granted and for fourteen hours the three ships labored in the heavy seas, spray breaking over the fo’castle and reaching to our forward smoke-stack. Toward evening the sea moderated sufficiently to allow the _Great Northern_ and _Northern Pacific_ to increase speed to sixteen and a half knots and then to twenty knots, until we picked up our escort of four destroyers at the ocean rendezvous. All seven ships proceeded to Brest by the shortest route and in a fairly smooth sea. The _Leviathan_ was shaken by an extremely heavy explosion and its suddenness surprised the men. The Chief Engineer reported everything O.K. down below and as far as we could see on deck there was nothing wrong with the ship; then the blinker light on the destroyer _McDougal_ directly abeam of us, was observed flashing a message to us, which explained everything. The _McDougal_ had accidentally dropped a depth charge from her stern. It wasn’t the first false alarm we had had and it was not to be the last. Land was sighted on the afternoon of September 7th, and swiftly and smoothly the three transports ran into column formation, with the destroyers abeam and ahead of us, steaming majestically into the harbor of Brest. Looking around after mooring we saw the huge transport _Mt. Vernon_, formerly the German liner _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_, lying in dry dock after running a 250-mile race against threatened disaster. She had been torpedoed at eight o’clock the morning before and only the gallantry of her captain and crew, and the efficient system of water-tight doors, enabled her to make port at a speed of fifteen knots. It was indeed remarkable that we had escaped seeing “subs” the day before, for our course was almost identical with that of the _Mt. Vernon’s_. The _Mt. Vernon_ was repaired and thereafter made two round trips to America and did its “bit” in bringing our soldier boys home. To give the reader a fair idea of the ship’s routine on entering Brest and while coaling in the harbor, we again quote from the log of the ship: 6 P. M. TO 8 P. M.