Social problems -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
At last, however, he came on deck, an utterly humbled Socialist
agitator, asking only a corner to lie in the sunshine--preferably
where he could not see the Atlantic surges, the very thought of
which turned him inside out. But gradually he found his feet again,
and ate with permanence, and looked out over the water and saw the
other vessels of the convoy, weirdly painted with many-coloured
splotches, steaming in the shape of a gigantic V, with two cruisers
in front, and another on each side, and another bringing up the
rear. Day and night the look-outs kept watch, and the wigwag men and
the heliograph men were busy, and the wireless buzzed its warnings
of the movements of the underwater foe. The U-boats had not yet got
a transport, but they had made several tries, and everyone knew that
they would continue trying. Twice a day the clanging of bells
sounded from one end of the vessel to the other, and the crews
rushed to the boat-drill; each passenger had his number, and unless
he was ill in his berth he had to take his specified place, with his
life-preserver strapped about his waist.
The passengers played cards, and read and sang and skylarked about
the decks. Up on the top deck, to which Jimmie was not invited, were
officers, also a number of women and girls belonging to the hospital
and ambulance units. “Janes” was the term by which the soldier-boys
described these latter; you could see they were a good sort of
“Janes”, serious and keen for their job, looking business-like and
impressive in their uniforms with many pockets. Among them were
suffragists, answering the taunt of the other sex, showing that in
war as well as in peace the world needed them; it had to find a
place for them on board the most badly crowded transport.
Never having been on an ocean-liner before, Jimmie did not know that
it was crowded; it did not trouble him that there was hardly room
for a walk on the decks. He watched the sea and the great white
gulls and the piebald ships; he watched the crew at work, and got
acquainted with his fellow-passengers. Before long he found a driver
of an ambulance who was a Socialist; also an I.W.W. from the Oregon
lumber-camps. Even the “wobblies”, it appeared, had come to hate the
Kaiser; a bunch of them were in France, and more would have come, if
the government had not kept them cross by putting their leaders into
jail. An army officer with some sense had gone into the
spruce-country of the far North-west, and had appealed to the
patriotism of the men, giving them decent hours and wages, and
recognizing their unions; as a result, even the dreaded I.W.W.
organization had turned tame, and all the lumberjacks had pitched in
to help in “canning the Kaiser!”
II
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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