We carried the first American troops to land in France. The very first. That was making history, wasn't it? It seemed right and fit that the proud little yacht should have the glory of taking the first batch of Yankees to foreign shores. It was a rough trip, though, and we felt sorry for the boys whose sea travels had been limited to the ferryboat between Hoboken and New York. Rough weather on shipboard is no joke. You can talk about the hardships of the trenches, but how about being aboard a pitching vessel, when you can't even get a light in your galley ranges, which means no food can be cooked and a steady diet of hard tack and bully beef? Oh, we hadn't any kick coming. It was all part of the game, but we did wish the sea would calm down a bit and the fog lift. I never saw such a fog in all my days. From the minute we left, it wrapped itself around us like a damp blanket. You could hardly see your hand before your face. We didn't need a smoke curtain that trip--nature provided one for us, all made to order. Our first taste of excitement was on the thirteenth day out. We were just wishing for something, when we saw, through the mist that had let up a little, a strange ship ahead of us. We signalled her to make her colors, but instead she started off as though she were trying to run away. That promised hot excitement, so we went after her. We chased her for five hours--now losing her in the fog, now sighting her again, gaining on her inch by inch. We were sure she was a blamed German merchant vessel trying to sneak back to her base, and we had the guns primed to send her straight to the place all Germans come from. When we got within a few hundred yards of her we hauled up the battle ensign on the foremast. We meant business. The gunners stood by. Just as they expected to hear the command, "Fire when ready," up came the British Jack to her mast! Say, but we felt foolish, chasing one of our own allies all over the broad Atlantic. We asked her why the deuce she hadn't made her colors before, and she signalled back that she was under the impression we were an enemy raider. We calmed down after that and made port without pursuing the rest of the British navy to cover. The base we established was the first naval base in France. We kind of like to think that some day, when our grandchildren cross the Atlantic on a pleasure trip--it having been made safe by us from those German vipers--they'll hunt out the little harbor, tucked away in a corner, where their grandfathers landed that June day, and went ashore with the first handful of American soldiers to set foot in France. They were there for just one purpose--to show what red, white and blue blood could do toward making the world a safe place to live in.