Yankies Starting

Levin Daily Chronicle, 27 July 1918, Page 1

Yankies Starting

GOOD-BYE TO GOD'S COUNTRY. SPEEDING TO THE TRANSPORTS. "Somewhero in America" a young naval officer put mo on board a U-boat ! '' chaser,'' writes Mr W. Beach Thom- j as in a reccnt article from U.S.A. We swung round the inland lake. | dipped under an arched bridge, and ; flashed across the water at a startling speed. A dreary two hours' travel was contracted within a quarter of an hour. Seaplanes buzzed about us, some on the water, some overhead—big seaplanes 90ft across the wing, capablc of sarrying a dozen men, little fighting icaplaucs, Italian seaplanes, training seaplanes. The noise of the Liberty motors—the most discussed engine in the world—carcercd over the waters The surroundings were inspiring, and the naval officer said: "If we havo to Ight Germany by sea for any number >f years we will do it." That, without bluff or bombast, is the general feeling of the Navy. It is Bupcr-British. It was r.t the outset of the war little and good. It will soon bo big and good, if not in capital ships, in all the small aggressive craft, already swarming, and in men. But all this is by the way. The chaser was carrying nie to the scene of a military, not a naval spectaclc. This entrancing harbour is the tryst of the Army and Navy. For the first tim c in America \h history her Navy has to learn the work of transporting her Army. Its officer# talk with envy of the long experience of Great Britain and of British skill in this difficult blanch of warfare. The moment had just come when transport ation must" be aceclevatcdr—not doubled or trebled or --.even quadrupled—more •than ' • <pn ' landing; jye passed through a prairie -towri'A^lhiits separated by concrete platforms" .-all .loaded inside and, out #ith quarteriMsters stores. M>n|( acres wore entirewgi^en. up to lorries, more thousands of* them than ever I saw. oven iti France. They were succeeded by acres "covered only with horse and mule stabling; and at last we . bumped over impossible are roads in America so far behind till other conveniences of life?—io • tho.last scene of all, where the sliips. take on/board both men arid material. ~ I WOMEN'S FAREWELL. _. ' No one is supposed to know-, just I wlicre or when troops, are being -em-

barked, ahvays happens, as it must .happeji, that no troops go aboard whether th<jy leave a dcserl oi- a populous shore, the arrival, at t»ie appropriate'.' moment, of a ho. t of friends instant to say and wave farewell.

. Mothers and sisters and ollior people' sisters defy officials and insist on doing what- is discouraged but not forbidden. Their housing is in itself a problem. This seaside place had doubled its houses. How to make room for tho workmen, busy with building the new storehouses and making roads, was itself a problem that strained the organisation to tii £- utmost. The scene innv be imagined" ?vheif several thousand soldiers coming to- the rest-camp to await •unbarkation were followed by mothers, sisters, and sweotlicaTts in'scores.

The medley was emotional as-well as material, especially at the final leavetaking, which suggested, a picture from Dante. The women werp ordered to stand just so many scores of feet away from the sea edge, where they wov'j be quite out of hearing if the water were not deep enough for the ship to come almost flush with the shore. The line of loav-tnkers, daintily dressed, as are all American women, standing •there in the. nud and water, and among a medley of rough sights and sounds, look like creatures of another world— I'eris outside Paradise—vainly p-avirig to be ferried with the rest to the Happy Islands. Tears there aro but not many or tumultuous The idea i.< to wish God-speed and a happy voyngc; and the women, struggle well to keep a chcerful face. NEVER SEEN 'IHE SEA BEFORE. The men (at least as I have neon them in camp, in trains, or in the ships) arc frankly, obviously, exclusively excited. They aro in the stream of giant events. They arc making history; And everything they see, hear, or do stirs them to individual ecstasy. A good number have never before seen the aea or boarded a boat. A lifebelt is a new toy, n port-hole a new eye on the world, the whole ship a "movy," a new kinrma. They aro off on a tour to Europe, like tho women-folk of the mil-lionan-es. The innncdinto prosprct ha s a thrill in every yard of it. Where will they join the convoy? How Viisr will it be? What traops will sail with thomf Is that cruiser in the offing or that destroyer part of their dofenees? Where doos the danger-zono begin? And what will France bo like?

Thoughts are almost too busy to get as far as the final sccne of the battle, of death or glory. Military>drills are rather more frequent on board than on land, and music fills lip the chinlts. Indeed, there is room for little cl«e but .sheer, male, personal • excitement. So, as the hawEers grate and the ship stirs and heaves and threshes forward: ahouts and song drown all display of deeper emot'on. Excitement keeps, the ship-, load alive, as the. land fades, and will till more land appears.

On shore it-is <1 iff"rent. The,;womoji gi'own limp and listless, wander baelc to !'te. station —the ''dcpot'' : —with only one thought to divert them: Will'they lie abic to arrange "transportation," or get a "reservation" in the train! Some will be journeying! 2000 miles. Tbey will receive no. tidings for six weeks. Life is whittled down to just waiting, waiting, waiting. Woman's life was never emptier nor man's fuller sir.ee Columbus went west.