“I got to learn to hush up when it's orders,
Over and over again, like a man reciting some frantic litany.
The necessity of such precautions, and this severity, were clear to the dullest of us. Because of their speed the Northern Pacific and the Von Steuben had no convoy. They crossed side by side-two little specks in an endless Waste of water. But there were places in that waste where it was necessary for us to go, and there submarines lurked. We would be picked up by destroyers only a day or so out of Brest.
Sometimes the boats were so close together that with glasses we could recognize friends of the other battalion. One was tempted to shout across. And through this narrow lane one night, with the whole sea to accommodate him, a tramp blundered. There was something of the miraculous about that escape. We conducted abandon ship drill more earnestly.
The crossing wasn't all abandon ship drill. The weather occupied us quite a little. After the first two days the sea rose, and the boats showed us how they could roll. Familiar faces disappeared. By Tuesday there was a really high sea running, and preparation for morning inspection of quarters became an ordeal. Instructions were to get every man on deck unless he was literally too ill to be moved.
“What's the matter with this man?" an officer asks the first sergeant, pecring into a clearly occupied bunk.
"Says he isn't sea sick," the sergeant answers with a cruel sneer.
"Not seasick, Blank!" the officer interrogates.
Very weak but firm from the bunk:
"No, sir, not a bit."
“Then what's the matter with you?"
"I think I got the-the-the grippe."
