RETOLD often in the messes of the navies of the world is the story of the commander in chief of a foreign fleet who, desiring to test the reliability of his signalmen and the smartness of his watch officers, once made a general signal directing that each vessel send aboard his flagship, immediately, one hot fried egg. A variety of reactions and some confusion and delay were observed before the last egg was received on board. Many of the younger listeners, when the yarn is told, wish secretly for another such occasion to relieve the tedium of a dull watch and present a chance for demonstrating their smartness under unusual circumstances. Such a one was Lieutenant (j.g.) Fellow of the destroyer "Trembler."
The "Trembler," with her three mates of the 150th Destroyer Division was moored alongside a pier on the Embarcadero of San Francisco, almost in the shadow of the recently-completed Bay Bridge. She was homeward bound from Alaska and Puget Sound ports to San Diego, her base and home port, but her ship's company was finding San Francisco very, very pleasant as a liberty port, although fatiguing.
Her skipper, Lieutenant Commander Ruane, was proceeding with brisk steps along the pier bent on enjoying another of the shore leaves which the citizens and the atmosphere make so delightful to all sailors.
A hail from the U.S.S. "Lame" halted him: "Mick, don't go ashore yet. That cute little blonde from Virginia is coming down for tea this afternoon to look over young Jay Brace. Jay's only interest in girls is in having them barred from all good golf courses, but we hope he'll see the light today. We told her last night that if Jay was a disappointment she could join us fishing for striped bass from the foc'sle. Stick around!"
The speaker, whose head protruded from a wardroom air port was Lieutenant Commander Molly, the "Lame's" skipper, confined, with all his officers and men, to his ship by the "ready duty," which required that it be ready to get under way immediately in the event a distress call was received.
"No can do. Relatives! Last afternoon. I'll come aboard for dinner if you keep her that long. By the way, we have some Monterey sardines left over. They're just the thing for bass. Send over and get some. Can she bait a hook?"
"So she says. Thanks. I'll send a boy over for the bait."
And so Mick passed on to that city where disappointment awaits no one who can dodge the four lanes of charging street cars on Market Street and the cataracts of taxicabs at the intersections on the hills.
Shortly, there left the "Lame" and pattered along the pier planking one Trinidad Dominguez, M. Att2c, "mess boy" to the vulgar, charged with presenting the compliments of Captain Molly of the "Lame" to the duty officer of the "Trembler" along with a request for a sardine for bait. Dominguez, a native of Nabua, Camarines. Sur, P.I., had grown to 5 feet nothing of manhood in abysmal ignorance of bass fishing and the English language. His eight years of naval service had changed him little. To such an expert in garbling simple phrases, the time consumed by the 200-yard journey was more than enough to complete the revision of the Captain's message, which had never been anything but a collection of sounds. The "compliments" were dropped at SO yards, "for bait" Went over the side at the 100 yard mark, the Captain was promoted to Commodore at 150 yards, and at the "Trembler's" gangway a quick swoop into the past brought back "for bait" changed into a sensible "baked."
A minute later, the duty officer received a report from the petty officer on gangway Watch: "Sir, the division commander wants a baked sardine, now. He sent a mess attendant for it." A gleam of caution restrained our hero. "Send the boy down here. It sounds phoney." But no cross examination, however protracted, could undo the work of Dominguez, expert garbler.
"Commodore, he want baked sardine, right away." After three repetitions, it was clear that fortune had laid the great chance at the feet of Lieutenant (j.g.) Fellow, U.S. Navy.
None could deny him credit for speed and resourcefulness. A quick trip to the pay office for the storekeeper, followed by an entry into the ship's service store, resulted in the acquisition of a can of kippered herrings, no sardines being present. "Charge them to 'Morale' and send the Wardroom cook up to the galley." Speed was now all important. The other ships in the division the "Woeful" and "Palsey" must not be permitted to deliver their sardines first, for of course it must be a general call, although that was a point he had not investigated.
A touch of the spur to the cook, a compatriot of Dominguez, produced in five minutes a plate garnished with parsley, pickle, and celery upon which reposed the herring, piping hot, cut into small neat portions.
"Shake a leg now, Dominguez, and get that back to the 'Lame' before it gets cold." Thus dispatching the messenger, Fellow returned to the galley, ate the remaining herrings, and went below, with the glow that comes from meeting a strange situation in accordance with the best naval traditions.
The blonde from the Old Dominion never arrived, no doubt having decided wisely that during Fleet Week more entertainment could be provided by young men who were reasonably well-known quantities, and not prevented by duty from going places, than by one unknown woman hater practically nailed down on a 300-foot "tin can." Having served her purpose, she passes from our ken.
The "Lame's" Captain omitted the fishing to take some much-needed rest but remained in a mild state of amazement at the elaborate manner in which the "Trembler" gave away fish bait. His state of mind was identical with that of "Mick" Ruane when he learned of it the following forenoon, as a slight touch of forgetfulness had prevented the proud Fellow from reporting the incident. "Mick" lost no time in telling the yarn to his own mess at lunch as another case of oriental obtuseness. Fellow was ashore, having just remembered, it being sailing day, that he had a gift to purchase against his return to San Diego; but the Paymaster, an eyewitness to the previous day's episode, soon acquainted the mess with the complete story. No time was lost. A dispatch, apparently from the Commodore, was prepared directing Fellow to report to the division commander at once, initialed by the Captain and Exec and placed on the board for Fellow on his return. A quick trip to the flagship acquainted the Commodore with the necessary details and background and secured the promise to deal with Fellow with a straight face.
In due time a Lieutenant, junior grade, could be seen leaving the "Trembler" for the "Lame." Trudging along with knit brows, in the shadow of the gallows-like south pier of the great bridge, past the wide doors leading into the dark and gloomy warehouse, facing the biting afternoon wind, went Fellow, rapidly reviewing his sins of omission and commission. What could be wrong? Only one gleam of comfort came to him, the uncertainty wouldn't last long, for here was the "Lame's" gangway!
The Commodore had set the stage well. All the Commanding Officers of the division, with grave faces, sat with him in the tiny wardroom of the "Lame." With the modified diplomatic wordiness available to one who recently had served a tour of duty as an attache at an important embassy, he touched on the kinship of naval men of all nations, on their regard for resourcefulness and smartness, their love of yarns showing their own service at its best. He spoke with feeling of his pride in his own division, his desire to test it in ways that would prove to all what he himself knew of the smartness of its personnel and confessed that on the previous day he had permitted his pride and sense of humor to lead him into trying an experiment which, while slightly undignified, did have a precedent in the famous signal of the foreign admiral. He concluded with a warm and glowing commendation of Fellow and the "Trembler," since only from there had been received the desired commodity, with no questions asked.
A moment later, Fellow was striding briskly along the springy planks of the pier toward its harbor end, where the bluegreen waters of San Francisco Bay danced in the sun under the glorious sweep of the great Bay Bridge, laced with white caps by the champagne-like current of air which whistled past his cheek. There, in the far distance, were the tawny sunlit hills of Contra Costa. There in the near foreground, almost at his feet, lay the gangway of the "Trembler," leading to her deck and thence to her wardroom, where his shipmates gleefully waited.
"TELL THAT TO THE MARINES"
This phrase, familiar to every American as the jocular rejoinder to a tall story, has a history of well over a century. Curiously enough its first recorded use was by an Englishman, though it is thoroughly American now. The Mariner's Mirror gives an interesting account of its origin: "William Surtrees, writing 1826-1830, uses it. Dealing with the New Orleans expedition of 1814, he speaks of Colonel Nichols of the Marines coming on board ship with the chiefs of the Creek Indians: 'The gallant Colonel endeavoured to amuse us a little on this occasion with the wonderful feats of his proteges. He told us that they, being very generally short of bullets, were always very careful how they expended them in hunting; and that their rule was never to fire at a deer until it was in the act of passing between them and a tree, that, should the ball go through its body, · as it sometimes did, it might lodge in the tree on the other side, and they would then go and pick it out, and recast it. We thought he ought to have told that story to his own corps, the Marines, for I believe he did not get many of us to give implicit credit to so wonderful a tale."'