The United States ship Katahdin— the “Old Half-Seas Under”—was the first vessel I cruised in as an officer of the Navy. Even after the overlying experiences of more than forty years, even after service in nine other ships, the Katahdin shines bright in my memory because of four things: the ability and kindliness of her captain, the patience and friendliness of her other officers, the freakishness of her design, and the fact that it was while I was a member of her complement I heard the news of the victory won by Dewey in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
The war with Spain had begun on April 21, 1898. For a week, the Katahdin, as a unit of the Northern Patrol Squadron, had been cruising off the Atlantic coast between Vineyard Sound at the south and Cape Ann at the north, solicitously protecting New England from the possible attacks of Spanish warships. Fantastic as the notion seems in these better-informed days, in 1898 many Americans feared that cities of the Atlantic coast might be shelled by the fleet known to be assembling in Spain.
On May 1, part of the Northern Patrol Squadron ran into Provincetown Harbor at the tip of Cape Cod. There supplies were received, and there officers and men were allowed to refresh themselves by a ramble on the beach. On May 3,1 obtained leave for the afternoon, and went for a vigorous tramp among the sand dunes. I was standing on the top of the tallest of the dunes when the sound of distant cheering broke on my ears. I stared down at the naval vessels lying in the harbor.
A day or two before, the captain of the Katahdin had been notified that Commodore George Dewey and his squadron had sailed from Mirs Bay on the Chinese coast with the intention of fighting Admiral Montojo’s vessels in the Philippine Islands. Ever since the receipt of that information, we of the Katahdin, along with the personnel of every other ship, had been tense with expectancy and with hope. So when I heard the first cheer well up from Provincetown Harbor, my heart leaped within me, for I knew what that cheer must mean.
The men of vessel after vessel took up the cheering. Not by command, not even in the customary form of three hearty bursts of sound, but spontaneously, wildly, cheer after cheer floated across the water of the little bay, swept the slopes of the sand dune whereon I stood, and soared upward into the blue sky above my head—until the very heavens seemed to ring with the glory of that rejoicing. In those cheers I heard—although I had no such notion then—the exultant clamor of an America adventuring upon the hazardous course of a world power.
It was on March 15, 1898, that I had reported at the League Island Navy Yard near Philadelphia, for duty on board the U.S.S. Katahdin.
It would be impossible for any man, even the least impressionable, to forget the thrill that went through him when he presented himself for his first tour of duty in the U. S. Navy. And for me that moment was made peculiarly emphatic because it marked my first contact with an officer of flag rank. To be specific, Commodore Silas Casey, the commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard received me—and received me with a jolt!
As I walked from the navy yard gate toward the small stone building that contained the commandant’s office, the March wind blew invigoratingly cold against my cheeks, and the sunlight sparkled amber- bright on the buttons of my brand-new uniform. At the office building I penetrated a screen of Marine Corps orderlies and Navy aides-de-camp, and stood before the commandant himself.
Commodore Casey’s body was panoplied in gold lace and blue cloth. His head was crowned with white hair, and his face was adorned by gray-black eyebrows and iron- gray burnside whiskers; For a newly-appointed officer, the commandant was an awe-inspiring presence.
I stood stiffly at attention in front of his desk. When he looked up from signing the endorsement on my orders, and swept his glance over me, that glance seemed to me cold to the point of hostility. Then he spoke crisply.
“You seem very young.”
“I am past twenty-three, sir.”
“Hum-m! Do you know anything about the duties of an assistant paymaster in the Navy?—anything about the practical details?”
“No, sir.”
“A-ah! You don’t! Well, then, haven’t you had any sort of useful experience in civil life?”
“I studied economics and mathematics and jurisprudence at Princeton. And I studied law afterward—I was admitted to the New Jersey Bar last summer. I’ve been with a law firm that handled the legal matters of a good-sized bank—I was in charge of a part of the firm’s routine bank business.”
“Hum-m! That’s not enough experience to keep you out of trouble in the Navy. No! not enough. Your first cruise probably will cost you a half year’s pay to make good the losses you’ll cause the Government. God help you! Good morning to you.”
I withdrew from that chilling presence in a somewhat uneasy state of mind. But that uneasiness was materially lightened, and that impression concerning the commodore’s chilliness was banished forever, when, later that day, I received a gracious invitation from the commodore’s wife to dine at their house on the following Saturday.
This, my very first experience as an officer of the Navy, I came to esteem as an excellent illustration of an eminently sensible naval procedure, that is, first to make a man realize his responsibilities to the full and, then, by friendly attentions, to assist him to bear those responsibilities.
From the commandant’s office I found my way to the quay wall, and to the U.S.S. Katahdin.
The Katahdin was a vessel such as never before had been seen on land or sea. And even its approximate like was not seen again until the submarine projected its sinister shape into the maritime world. She bore an astonishing resemblance to Captain Nemo’s undersea ship Nautilus, as depicted in Jules Verne’s prophetic fantasy Twenty Thousand Leagues under The Sea. And the Katahdin’s mission was the same as that of the imaginary Nautilus, namely, to destroy an enemy vessel by ramming it. For the Katahdin was a ram, the so-called Ammen ram.
Rear Admiral Daniel Ammen was an officer of the United States Navy distinguished not only on account of his professional attainments, but also on account of his friendship with President Ulysses Grant. The battle off the island of Lissa in the Adriatic Sea, where the Austrian flagship Ferdinand Max had rammed and sunk the Italian flagship Re d’Italia, had convinced Ammen that the tactic of the ram was the tactic of victory, and that the Navy of the United States ought to contain a just proportion of ships equipped for ramming. He had perfected a design for harbor-defense rams, and, eventually, had persuaded Congress to authorize the construction of one of them.
In due and leisurely time, the Katahdin, named in honor of Maine’s 5,000-foot mass of granite and hemlocks, had been launched and commissioned. When I saw her, made fast to the quay of the navy yard, although I knew little enough about ships of war yet I perceived that she was a very queer-looking craft. Her form was so nearly that of a gigantic cigar, or of a vastly elongated turtle, that the resemblance to Jules Verne’s Nautilus, already mentioned, fairly smote the eye.
Later that day I was to learn that the Katahdin displaced 2,155 tons of salt water, that she had twin screws, and a cruising speed of 14 knots. Her hull was of steel. She was 250 feet long and 43 feet wide. Throughout her entire length her upper deck curved sharply, and, even at its highest point, rose only 4 feet and 10 inches above the water line. This “turtle” deck was protected by four inches of armor plate. Nine such inches made a strong hold of her conning tower.
Her battery consisted of four 6-pounder guns, an armament fully adequate, as was believed, to repulse the possible attack of torpedo boats. No larger projectile-throwing weapons were needed because the Katahdin herself was a mammoth projectile, designed to hurl herself through the water and to strike her cone-shaped bow deep into the vitals of an enemy ship. Eight officers and one hundred enlisted men had been assigned to handle this peculiar instrument of war.
I was to learn that when the Katahdin cruised the Atlantic Ocean in anything more lively than a millpond breeze, she was certain to steam—in the quaint phrase of her commanding officer—at least “halfseas under.”
On that invigorating morning of March 15, 1898, Ensign Benjamin McCormick shook hands with me on the deck of the Katahdin.
“The captain is in his room below. He’ll want to have you report to him there. As a matter of fact, his cabin is his office, too. And it’s just a part of the wardroom country.”
Eight rooms opened off the wardroom. In one of these, no larger than the others, the captain received me with a courtesy and cordiality that still linger warm in my memory.
Commander George Francis Faxon Wilde would have pleased the eye and interested the mind of anyone who believed a competent Navy to be indispensable to the maintenance of civilization on an always troubled earth. He often made me think of those formidable men-of-iron who clank in the pages of Froissart’s Chronicles. Not that he was metallic in manners or voice. But there was about him an air of authority, of resolution, of justified self- reliance, such as must have marked the Black Douglas or Bertrand du Guesclin.
In 1898, Commander Wilde might have been about 55 years of age. Five feet and eleven inches of bone and muscle admirably carried his broad shoulders and deep chest. An abundant but well-kept mane of chestnut-brown hair crowned his head; and heavy eyebrows and a heavy moustache emphasized the deep tan of his cheeks and the firm lines of his mouth.
He had seen much hard fighting in the Civil War of 1861-65, and much active service since in many parts of the world. I never tired of listening to him talk of things he had seen or done or heard of. But these tales were for the future. On the day I reported on board the Katahdin, Commander Wilde spoke to me of current affairs. Among other infinitely helpful things, he said:
You are a newcomer to the Navy, and you’ll find your duties as supply officer can’t be learned in a day. One of your jobs will be the handling of money. And that’s a difficult business—yes, a dangerous business. Well, then, you needn’t pay out a cent until you’re sure it’s safe for you to do so. The crew’s regular pay day will be coming along pretty soon, but I’ll postpone it if you don’t feel ready for it when the time comes.
I anticipate a little in recording here that when the regular pay day arrived I had learned enough of my new profession to enable me to carry out my duties of disbursement without mishap. However, there was a preliminary to pay day that involved a near-adventure.
The salaries allowed by the statutes of the United States were payable to the officers and men of the Katahdin twice a month. The money—the cash—necessary for this purpose had to be procured by me from the United States’ Subtreasury. From the water front of the League Island Navy Yard to the Subtreasury on lower Chestnut Street in the city of Philadelphia was a distance of about seven miles. Nowadays, an officer proceeding to the Federal Reserve Bank—which now provides money for the Navy’s uses—does so within the protection of an armored automobile, and covers the intervening miles in something under 30 minutes. But in 1898 there were no automobiles in all the world!—except, perhaps, as inventors’ samples.
The auditors of the United States Treasury Department frowned upon, although they did not actually prohibit, the expenditure of government funds for the hire of carriages. Only a particularly hardy officer would venture to submit a bill for such a matter. As an alternative he might engage a vehicle at his own expense. But only an officer of Croesus-like wealth could afford to hire a horse and carriage and driver for the necessary three-hour period and to pay the bill from his private purse. As a result of these obstacles, when I set forth in search of public funds, I traveled on a trolley car, a conveyance efficient and cheap.
Ordinarily, to aid in preserving money from the possible attacks of hoodlums or, as we should now call them, gangsters, the supply officer of a ship was escorted by a squad of marines or by other suitable guard. But the Katahdin was too small a vessel to be assigned a detachment of marines. And, on a certain bright morning in March, seamen could not be spared to accompany me on my projected trip to the Subtreasury.
Lieutenant William Lowe, the executive officer, was pondering the problem I had presented to him, when it was solved by an officer who had overheard my conversation with Lowe.
The Navy Department had appointed this officer—whom I shall call Bowser—an ensign for temporary service. He had reported for duty the day before. That his background must have been of the roughest was surmisable by anyone at a glance; and the surmise became a certainty as soon as he began to speak. However, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it” is likely to be the creed of a military service whenever war looms imminent—and in March of 1898 the war with Spain was very imminent. Therefore, Acting Ensign Bowser had been made heartily welcome by the captain and officers of the Katahdin.
Now, overhearing the conversation between the executive officer and myself, Bowser spoke up:
“I’ll be glad to go along as a bodyguard for Potter. I haven’t really learned the ropes on board here yet, so I couldn’t make myself useful here this morning. And I’ve never seen a Subtreasury,” he finished frankly.
“Very well,” Lowe decided. “Arm yourselves—and go for the money.”
A few minutes later, Bowser and I were on our way. In order to avoid undue attention, we wore civilian clothes. Under my sack coat a belt sustained my service revolver and holster, and I took it for granted that my companion was equipped in the same fashion. In addition, I carried a short-barreled 38 in my right-hand pocket.
We boarded a trolley car at the navy yard gate, transferred at Chestnut Street, and, in good time, arrived at the Subtreasury. There I cashed my official check. While I was counting the money turned over to me within the cashier’s cage, Bowser, at his own request, was shown over the establishment by an obliging clerk. I completed my tally, placed the currency in the official moneybag—a valise of stout leather heavily padlocked, and made almost knife- proof by iron studs—and slung it over my shoulder by the strap fitted for that purpose. Just then Bowser returned from his tour of the building.
“I’ve seen the machines where they were stamping out twenty dollar gold pieces,” he exclaimed excitedly. “And, say! I saw chunks of gold worth a million dollars. That’s a hell of a lot of money!”
“It certainly is,” I agreed. “Well, I’m all ready. Let’s get under way for the navy yard.”
We left the Subtreasury. But when we reached the sidewalk on Chestnut Street, we learned that there had been a breakdown in the electrical transmission system. A streetcar inspector told us that no east and west cars would be running for an hour or more.
“We’ll have to walk up Chestnut Street to Twelfth,” I declared. “It’s only six or seven blocks. We can catch our southbound car there.”
As we stepped out, Bowser continued to talk garrulously of the wonders of the Sub treasury—of coin and of heaped bullion he had seen. The money I was carrying lay heavy on my mind, and I only half listened to him. Suddenly my attention was caught by a direct question.
“Say! what would you do if anybody tried to hold you up?”
“We’d have to fight,” I returned. “We’re both armed.”
“I’m not—not technically.”
“But Mr. Lowe ordered us ... ”
“I didn’t take him seriously. So I just slipped my brass knuckles into my pocket” I very much doubted if a knuckle-duster would have been regarded by the Katahdin’s executive officer as a proper substitute for an official revolver; but I made no comment. Indeed, Bowser gave me no opportunity to do so, for he flung another pointed question at me:
“How much mazuma have you got in that bag?”
“Oh! enough.”
“Enough for what? Enough to hold pay day, I reckon?”
“Yes.”
“Well—how much is that?”
“I’m not allowed to tell anyone except the officer-of-the-deck and the captain.”
“I see. We-ell, I bet I can guess pretty close to it. We’ve got a hundred men and eight officers in the ship’s complement. I looked that up yesterday. And we go to sea in a few days, so you’re bound to take enough money for at least one more pay day. Yes. I’ll bet you’ve got close to twenty thousand dollars in that bag of yours. Ain’t that about right?”
I made no answer. And he, too, was silent while we tramped westward along Philadelphia’s narrow Chestnut Street. After a moment, he began again.
“If anybody jumped out of an alley and made a grab at that moneybag, it might be tough for you. The guy would probably get away with it.”
“I doubt it. I’ve a pistol, and you’ve got your brass knuckles!”
“But if there was two or three guys, they might be too tough for even the both of us.”
“I hope not.”
“Well what about this? Suppose you and me was walking along here all nice and quiet, just the way we are now? And suppose I was the one to jump you? What I mean is: what would you do if I was to take that bag away from you? You wouldn’t fight me, would you? You wouldn’t make a real fight of it against me, surely. You know you wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance against me if I grabbed hold of you real sudden. What about that, fella?”
I had begun to feel resentful of the increasing sharpness, not to say, impertinence, of Bowser’s remarks. His last question forced me to glance at him with downright uneasiness.
Physically he had the somewhat horrendous appearance of a professional wrestler. In height at least equal to my own six feet, he was much broader across the shoulders and much deeper in the chest, and his arms and legs were twice as sturdy as mine. The skin of his face was blotched, and tough of texture, and his eyes were sunk far between bony eyebrows and bony cheeks. Altogether, he might fairly be called a hard-boiled citizen! I had no doubt that, in a battle of fists—even without the aid of a knuckle-duster— he would make short work of me.
Therefore, since he had asked me so directly, “What would you do if I took that bag away from you?” I thought it expedient to answer him with resolution:
“If you should lay a finger on the bag or me, I’d shoot you right through the head.” He eyed me. Then he grinned. “You couldn’t do it. Your pistol is under your coat. You’d never get it clear in time to do yourself any good.”
“I shouldn’t try to. I’ve got a Smith and Wesson in my outside pocket—in the pocket on the other side from you. My right hand is on the trigger right now. I’d shoot you through the head the first move you made—yes, as quick as I would anyone else!”
In order that he might have no doubt about the matter, I gave him a flashing glimpse of my weapon—then restored it to my pocket. His lips parted in what might have been either a smile or a sneer.
“Hell, fella! Can’t you take a joke? I was only talking for fun.”
“Oh, of course.”
But whether or not the redoubtable Bowser had been talking for fun, it is certain that he did not open his mouth again on any subject during the rest of our trip to the navy yard.
After our arrival on the Katahdin, after I had stowed the money in my safe, I considered the matter of reporting Bowser’s questions to the executive officer. It seemed to me that one or more of four things was inherent in Bowser’s recent attitude. First, his queries might actually have been intended as a mere jest, one meaningless in itself even if somewhat indiscreet. Second, without ulterior motive on his part beyond the satisfaction of an idle curiosity, he might have been making a test of my character, a test of my fortitude rather than of my honesty. Third, he might have dreamed that I would connive at a fake robbery of myself. Fourth, he might really have meant to grapple with me, to tear the moneybag from my shoulders in spite of any effort I might make in my defense, and to escape down an alley— to an underworld already known to him.
And yet I was not sure of any of these interpretations of what had occurred between Bowser and myself. Perhaps my own excitement, engendered by my responsibility for the safekeeping of a considerable amount of the people’s money, had led me to misread the words of a harmless man. If I should disclose my suspicions, I might be doing him an irreparable injustice.
On the whole, it seemed to me proper to keep silent—until my mind should become clearer as to where my duty in the matter really lay.
Even while I remained in this state of uncertainty, the difficulty was solved for me. For the Navy Department decided that it had employed more temporary officers than it could find use for. Two or three days after the visit to the Subtreasury, an order came canceling Ensign Bowser’s appointment. He left the naval service, and I never saw nor heard of him again. But I have never regretted that his last query snapped at me evoked that emphatic, even if somewhat grandiose, reply: “If you should lay a finger on the bag or me, I’d shoot you right through the head.”
Late one afternoon, several of us were sitting about the wardroom table, engaged upon our lawful occasions. Lieutenant David Daniels, the ship’s navigator, was poring over a chart of the Delaware River. Lieutenant Frederick Bieg, the engineer officer, was making abstruse calculations in regard to the amount of torsion a propeller blade could endure. I, the supply officer, was anxiously studying the “Blue Book,” that is to say, the Navy Regulations.
Outside, the weather was chill and blustery. Indeed, the wind had long been sliding long arms of river water up the camber of the Katahdin’s decks. As a consequence, the deck ports that gave some light to the wardroom and, in more gracious weather, even allowed a modicum of air to penetrate into the ship’s subsurface areas, had been tightly closed. The atmosphere of our living space had become decidedly frowsty. Suddenly Daniels pushed aside his chart, and got to his feet.
“This place is a regular Black Hole of Calcutta!” he exclaimed. “I’ll let a little of God’s fresh air into it.”
With that, he jumped on a chair and, reaching up, he unscrewed the deckport- light. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the peculiarities of our half-seas-under craft. Hence, as the port flapped part way open, a gallon or so of water, just then swept from the surface of the river by the wind, drenched his head and shoulders. He uttered a cry of wrath, banged the portlight into position, and dogged it tight again. He smiled wryly at Bieg and me.
“It’s no go,” he said. “We’ll have to suffocate, my lads. Well, I suppose I’d better get into some dry things.”
He was about to go to his stateroom, when a quartermaster came seeking information in regard to the repair of a damaged binnacle-compass. After a moment’s conversation, the navigator and the quartermaster went on deck together.
Thus it happened that Daniels did not make the shift of clothing he had intended to make. On the contrary, wet as he was, he exposed himself to the bitter March weather. When he returned from examining the binnacle, he changed at once. But he was too late! By the time dinner was served, he had developed a severe cold. At eight o’clock, Ward, the Katahdin’s surgeon, ordered him to bed.
That night, asleep in my too-short bunk in my too-small room, I had an unpleasant dream. I fancied that I had fallen into the clutches of African savages, and that they had directed me to be torn apart by broadhorned buffaloes. I woke in terror—to find that a colored mess attendant was pushing my knee.
I goggled at him. “What is it, Peters?” I demanded.
Peters was an eighteen-year-old lad, who, until he had joined the Navy a few weeks before, had been a laborer on a goober plantation in Virginia. I knew him to be a willing and cheerful worker although not, perhaps, an intelligent one. But his cheerfulness had departed now. He stared at me, without answering my question. I spoke again:
“What time is it? What do you want?” Peters found his voice. “It’s a little after five o’clock, sir. And I’m kind of worried about Mr. Daniels.”
“About Mr. Daniels? What’s up?” “Well, sir, it’s this away. Jest now I went to his room to git his shoes, so as to shine ’em. I went in soft-like, me not wantin’ to wake him up. When I was goin’ out, I kind of happened to look at him. He didn’t look so good to me. To tell the truth, he’s lookin’ mighty queer in the face, sir.”
“Was he asleep?”
“I can’t rightly say about that, sir. He didn’t speak to me. But his face cert’ny looked right sick to me—yes, sir!—bad sick! I thought one of you gent’men better have a look at him.”
“I’ll come, Peters. You go and call Dr. Ward, too.”
“The doctor he’s ashore, sir. He won’t be back on board ’til time for nine o’clock quarters.”
“Very well.”
I slipped a robe over my pajamas. With Peters lagging a step in the rear, I crossed the wardroom to Daniels’ stateroom. There I halted, and knocked on the door casing. Receiving only the answer that silence gives, I drew aside the heavy curtain, and gazed within. Daniels lay stretched on his bunk within reach of my hand.
In my mind I had allowed for the uneasiness of an inexperienced mess attendant—I had counted upon finding my fellow-officer no worse than unconscious, if that. But one glance at that quiet face was enough. I realized that the spirit of David Daniels—Daniels of the kind heart and the high intelligence and the firm will—had returned to God who had given it.
Owing to the eccentricity of her design, living on the Katahdin was not the most comfortable thing in the world. In fact— dropping all understatement—it is highly probable that she was the most uncomfortable warship ever to fly the American flag! And from the rigor of this assertion I hardly except even the crudest form of submarine. However, I have always been thoroughly glad that my first ship was the Old Half-Seas Under, because my abiding memory of the sheer discomfort of her in the year 1898 made of no account any and all hardships I encountered in later years.
Even in the mildest weather, the Katahdin had so little freeboard that the hatches had to be kept closed while she was under way. And she had no artificial ventilation. Hence, whether in the spaces allotted to the crew forward or in the officers’ wardroom country aft, the temperature attained tropical fervor. Often we sat down to luncheon or dinner while mopping our brows in a heat of 110 degrees. The galley, while meals were being cooked, ran to 125. And the unfortunates who shoveled coal into the fireboxes beneath the boilers smoldered at a height of Fahrenheit I do not venture to name.
The Katahdin’s builders had foreseen that between the chill of the sea outside the ship’s steel hull and the heat of the steam- driven machinery within it, there would be a troublesome condensation of moisture. Precaution was exercised by applying so- called cork paint throughout the interior of our craft. This was supposed to prevent the accumulation of the aforesaid moisture. The cork paint stood out in innumerable stalactites on the overhead of the various compartments of the vessel.
The result was that every stalactite of paint furnished a potential dripping point for accumulated water. Beyond an occasional drop or two, this was not particularly annoying in the wardroom because the size of that room, small as it was, allowed some air to circulate. But our little staterooms—not quite six feet long, not quite six feet wide, not quite six feet high! —when the ram was at sea, were kept refreshed by a steamy spray shaken from the protecting cork paint!
The real nature of this drizzle was very noticeable at night. After a few unpleasant experiences, I never slept in my room except when rough weather forced me to do so. Instead, I slept on deck in a hammock slung between two stanchions. Its ample breadths of canvas were vastly more slumber-provoking than the web of cords I had known in summer camps as a boy. I grew fond of my navy hammock. I learned how to swing myself up and into it in one smooth and easy motion. With a second motion I would draw the blanket over me. My third motion would be to fall asleep.
Now and then there would be blowing weather during the night. Then I might be awakened by a finger of flying spray touching my cheek. But I would merely tuck my head between the folds of the hammock—and sleep again. In those days, it required a real drenching to drive me from the life-giving air of the deck to the jungly atmosphere of my cramped stateroom.
Upon one such occasion, fairly swept below, I tiptoed my way through the dimly lighted wardroom. In doing so, I passed the open door of the room belonging to Brownlee Ward, the Katahdin’s surgeon. Either because of sheer physical endurance or because of professional indifference to mephitic vapors, Ward always slept in his room, never on deck. He even valiantly declared that he slept refreshingly there. At any rate, upon this occasion, the faint light showed me the surgeon slumbering profoundly.
He was lying flat on his back. I have no doubt that he wore pajamas, but they were completely hidden by a blue mackintosh that covered him from head to toes. At one end the said toes and at the other end the said head braced his body against the steel bulkheads. His knees were bent; and in the pit of his stomach a washbasin nestled very cosily. This formed a catchpool for at least some of the water that dripped slowly drop by drop from the overhead. Other drops fell along the length of the mackintosh. And still others splashed cheerily on the pince-nez that shielded his eyes.
I gazed at my shipmate in awe and wonder.
“God bless our home!” I murmured as I sought my own dubious abode.
The sick list of the Katahdin was a constant reminder that the living conditions on her were a jeopardy to health, and even to life, of officers and crew. And some of these conditions were remediable, at least in part. It was not to be supposed that our worldly-wise and determined captain would take such conditions lying down. Again and again he requested the Navy Department to install a proper system of ventilation. But in 1898 naval appropriations were woefully small, and had to be used for other purposes than alterations for a vessel whose fighting value was considered problematical. Furthermore, without the hearty support of the rear admiral commanding the Northern Patrol Squadron, an allotment from meager appropriations could not possibly be obtained; and, unfortunately for us, the admiral was not convinced that changes for the Katahdin were imperatively needed.
What with one thing and another, therefore, money had not been found to improve conditions. But Commander Wilde possessed not only indomitable persistence but, also, rare subtlety. The desired changes for the better ultimately were authorized —as a result of circumstances I shall now relate.
On an afternoon well into May of 1898, in Provincetown Harbor, the captain summoned all the officers to a conference in the wardroom.
“Tomorrow, admiral’s inspection is to be held,” he announced. “I know each of you has his department ready. I’m certain the ship will make an excellent showing. And I do hope Admiral Howell and his staff have a chance to realize what a hot- box the old Katahdin is. Yes, during the admiral’s inspection tomorrow, I hope he really learns that my reports to him haven’t exaggerated conditions here.”
The next day was of that perfection May sometimes brings to New England. When I came on deck after breakfast that morning, and cocked an eye to windward, I thought I should rather spend the day bobbing at ease in a Provincetown fisherman’s dory than enduring the chills of admiral’s inspection. But such thoughts were vain!
Promptly at nine o’clock, the admiral’s barge brought the admiral and his staff alongside the Katahdin. It would be more accurate to say that it brought them onto the Katahdin. For, from the barge, they stepped not onto an accommodation ladder, but directly onto a grating fixed at the spot where the curve of the deck emerged from the water. Thus, in boarding our good ram, the admiral and his entourage did not ascend her side but strode from their boat onto the ship’s deck.
In consideration of the Katahdin’s peculiar shape and of her limited complement, the admiral had instructed Commander Wilde that the honors ordinarily rendered should be dispensed with. Therefore, no boatswain’s piping greeted the admiral—-no double row of sideboys, no marines at present arms, no ruffles on drums. Instead, he received the respectful salutes of the Katahdin’s captain and officers.
In addition to the admiral himself, our visitors from the Northern Patrol Squadron consisted of the chief of staff, the flag lieutenant, the squadron engineer officer, the squadron paymaster, and the squadron medical officer. But it was the admiral himself who made the group notably impressive.
Rear Admiral John Howell was an officer of the highest professional attainments. Among other things, he was the inventor of the Howell torpedo, an explosive long renowned in the United States Navy. Intelligence lit his handsome face and ruled the alert motions of his well-shaped head. In body, he stood four inches above six feet, and had a breadth of shoulder and depth of chest in just proportion to his height. Not King Arthur of Britain nor Archduke Nicholas of Russia, not General George Washington nor General Winfield Scott, could have had a more noble presence.
As soon as the members of the admiral’s party were on board, the Katahdin was got under way. She stood out into Massachusetts Bay until she had won sufficient sea room. And then she gave the admiral an exhibition of what she could do in the matter of ramming an enemy vessel.
Steaming 16 knots under forced draft, the wickedly surging Katahdin charged at a floating cask. In simulation of what would have been done if the cask had been a Spanish craft, a whistle sounded 10 seconds before collision. At that signal, the Katahdin’s officers and crew—except those esconced in the conning tower or on the bridge—flung themselves flat on their faces. Then the blunt horn of our ship rammed the cask as true as a die—drove home with something of the force of a shell from a modem 16-inch gun.
The supposititious enemy well shattered, our vessel backed strenuously off lest her prow should become entangled in the sinking enemy ship and the Katahdin should be dragged down with the foe. Next, by going full speed ahead and then putting the helm hard a-port, we dodged a torpedo directed at us by an approaching cruiser. Then we rammed the cruiser—she bore a remarkable resemblance to an empty cabbage crate!—and crushed her into unrecognizable fragments.
The rear admiral commanding the Northern Patrol Squadron avowed himself satisfied with the Katahdin’s ramming exercises. We proceeded with the other agenda of the inspection. Of these, only one concerns the present narrative.
Whether on or in the old Katahdin there were but two ways to pass from the after part of the ship to the forward part or vice versa. On deck, one might walk the gratings laid longitudinally along the curve of the turtleback to form a sort of boardwalk. Below, one must move through a series of compartments that formed a passageway much resembling the interior of a water- main, for the passageway was nowhere more than 5§ feet high and nowhere more than 4| feet wide. Steel bulkheads walled it in. And when the ship was under way, the atmosphere in those compartments was of a ripeness to drive an Eskimo out of his igloo!
In due time, the admiral announced that he would inspect the fore-and-aft passageway on the port side. Accordingly, the inspection party went down the ladder leading from the upper deck to the wardroom, turned forward through a thwartship office space, hurried across the red-hot ship’s galley—and thence entered the chosen passageway. There were five of us: the stately admiral in front, then the ironframed captain of the Katahdin, then the flag lieutenant, then Lieutenant John Shearman—who had succeeded Daniels as the ship’s navigator—and last myself, the very junior supply officer.
As soon as the admiral stepped over the coaming of the passageway and found himself entering the first tunnel-like compartment, he had to bow his high-held head. Indeed, he was constrained to doff his cocked hat and to curve his back so as to conform to the ceiling of steel that topped him. He advanced crouchingly along a channel wherein his broad shoulders seemed to brush the very bulkheads on each side of him.
“Not much room here,” commented the admiral.
“No, sir,” returned Commander Wilde cheerfully. “It’s low bridge for all of us, sir.”
The flag lieutenant glanced over his shoulder at our navigating officer. “Shades of Andersonville, Shearman! What sort of double bottom are we getting into? I feel as if I were in a dungeon deep!”
Shearman gave him a smile. “The ship’s company hopes to get used to it, old man.”
At that very instant, the sound of the ship’s siren shrieked through every compartment of the ship. Immediately in front of us and immediately behind us the watertight doors were slammed shut. Our group of five found themselves sealed in a steel box 10 feet long by 4 ½ feet wide by 5 ½ feet high, a box ventilated—to speak ironically—only by a small pipe that seemed to pour hot air into the confined space.
“What’s going on?” demanded the admiral.
“It must be fire drill,” said Wilde. “I suppose the chief of staff must have decided it was a good time to have it while you were busy below here.”
“He ought to have waited until he knew we were out of this—out of this Inferno.” “I fancy he has no idea how hot it is here, sir.”
“I’ll wager he hasn’t. By George! I wish he were here for 30 seconds! Let’s get out of here, Wilde!”
“The compartment doors are all dogged down, admiral. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until ‘secure’ sounds.”
“But I can’t wait. I’m stifling, I tell you!”
“Yes, sir. The drill ought to be over in a few minutes more.”
By this time, the small and inordinately crowded compartment had become at least a first cousin of that Black Hole of Calcutta poor Daniels had once talked about. It was damnably hot and it was damnably close. To the Commander of the Northern Patrol Squadron—60 years old and accustomed to the comforts appropriate for admirals—it became more than he could bear. He began to kick the steel door in front of him—left, right! left, right!
“Open this door!” he shouted. “Let me out of here! Let me out of here!”
In the Navy, somehow even tightly clamped doors sometimes yield to the insistence of admirals. Or was it that the period allotted for the fire drill had expired?
At any rate, the doors both in front and rear swung open. The inspection group was free. Abandoning further examination of the fore-and-aft passageway, the admiral crowded past us to the doorway we had entered, and led the way to the open air of the upper deck. There, after drawing two or three long breaths, he faced his chief of staff.
“Why in the world did you have fire drill sounded while I was in that—that furnace below there?”
“It was the next drill on the ship’s list, sir. It seemed the natural thing to do.” “Hum-m! Very well! Very well!”
Did I—or did I not?—catch a bland look passing between the Katahdin’s captain and the Katahdin's executive officer? Had the quiet and imperturbable Lowe mentioned to the chief of staff—Oh! most casually!—that the inspection might be a little shortened if fire drill were to be held while the admiral was engaged in other duties?
I asked myself that question. But I never ventured to put it to the captain or the executive. Whatever the correct answer, this much is certain: a fortnight after that torrid “admiral’s inspection below,” the Commander of the Northern Patrol Squadron notified Commander Wilde that the Navy Department had authorized the installation in the Katahdin of blowers, air ducts, and other indispensables of a veritable ventilating system.
The Katahdin faithfully performed her duty on her assigned cruising ground between Chesapeake Bay and Massachusetts Bay. But no enemy vessels ventured into that part of the Atlantic Ocean during the short war with Spain. Hence, we of the Katahdin fought no Spaniards. It may be imagined how much we envied our comrades who were lucky enough to be on the Cuban Station, the officers and men who shelled the Spanish forts at Matanzas, who cut the cables at Cienfuegos, who took part in the affray with the gunboats and shore batteries at Cardenas.
We juniors of the Katahdin used to put our heads together with the hope of devising a way to join the American fleet lying off Cuba. But we were never able to think of a workable plan. However, our energetic captain had ideas of his own!
The Katahdin's raison d'etre was to ram the enemy’s craft, and to sink them if possible. And the officer assigned to command her for the war with Spain had been expressly selected because of his combat experience in the Civil War, his recognized ability since, and his proved hardihood under all conditions.
Inevitably, therefore, from the moment he learned that Rear Admiral William Sampson and the American fleet were holding Admiral Pascual Cervera’s squadron blockaded in the Cuban port of Santiago, Commander Wilde began to demand of the Navy Department that the Katahdin be allowed to perform the mission she had been designed and built for. Specifically, he urged that the ship should be sent into Santiago Harbor, and should there endeavor to ram the Spanish cruisers: the Viscaya, Infanta Maria Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, and Cristobal Colon.
For several weeks the Navy Department regarded this proposal as a desperate one, one that had no probability of success and would result in the loss of the Katahdin and of the lives of her officers and crew. Therefore, our commander’s request, although firmly pressed by him during several visits to Washington, was steadfastly denied.
Then, on June 3, 1898, Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson’s Merrimac was shelled by the Spaniards’ guns and was sunk while engaged in an attempt to obstruct the channel of Santiago Harbor. This defeat hardened the Navy Department’s opinion that the approaches to the inner harbor of Santiago would be too intricate and the fire of the Spanish warships would be too deadly to leave a margin of hope for the success of a ramming raid by the Katahdin.
Commander Wilde pointed out that Hobson’s Merrimac, a merchant vessel entirely devoid of armor and armament, had not sought to enter the inner harbor, but merely had striven to obstruct the exit therefrom. He declared that the Katahdin could readily force her way to the very midst of Cervera’s squadron; that the Spanish gunners seldom would be able to line their sights on a cigar-shaped vessel moving at eight or ten knots speed; and that such few shells as might strike the hurrying ram would glance without producing serious damage from several inches of steel that armored a deck radically curved and less than five feet above the water line.
But Wilde’s representations were made in vain—at any rate, for a while. The Navy Department still declined to authorize the Katahdin to join Sampson’s fleet.
Off Santiago, the blockade dragged its weary length along, week after week. Then our captain made his third or fourth trip to Washington. Somehow, at long last, he managed—as he said himself—“to beat to windward of the powers that were.” In other words, he found minds that were sympathetic to his plans. He rejoined the Katahdin at Boston, bearing with him orders for her to steam at once for Santiago, there to place herself at the disposition of Rear Admiral Sampson. This could mean but one thing: we were to have our chance at ramming the Spanish vessels!
On July 1, 1898, the Katahdin left Boston Harbor. Two days and two nights of fair weather cruising—I remember that I slept on deck undrenched—brought us into Chesapeake Bay. By six o’clock on the morning of July 3, our anchor rattled down a quarter mile off the wharf of Old Point Comfort. Promptly at eight o’clock, a coal barge came alongside.
We had completed coaling, and the ship was within 15 minutes of steaming out of Hampton Roads toward Santiago, when Fate intervened with an iron hand. There came the news—glorious in itself, but devastating to the high hopes of the Katahdin's officers and men—that Sampson’s fleet had destroyed Cervera’s squadron!
On the morning of that very day—July 3, 1898—the American vessels had fought the Spanish. Now, the cruisers Viscaya, Teresa, Oquendo, and Colon, as well as the torpedo-boats Furor and Pluton, were mere wrecks flaming on the rocky shores of southern Cuba. There would be no need for the Katahdin!
In that summer of 1898, there was no longer a Spanish squadron in the Caribbean. The particular mission for which, perhaps, the Katahdin had been destined, had become the shadow of a dream. Nevertheless, we of the Half-Seas Under did not wholly despair of doing great things. A force of Spanish vessels was known to be fitting out in Cadiz. Its objective could be either Manila or Habana. If the latter, then our craft might yet be called upon to do some ramming of an enemy.
Although, after that third of July, the Navy Department canceled our orders for Cuba, yet it allowed us to continue to cruise between Cape Charles and Cape Cod, between Virginia and Massachusetts, and to continue sedulously to practice the tactics of ramming.
But, on August 12, 1898, an armistice between the United States and Spain went into effect. In the latter part of September, the Katahdin arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and there was greeted by orders to go out of commission.
“Might have beens,” particularly in matters of war, are always futile and sometimes are ridiculous. But perhaps a man may be allowed his dreams!
Therefore I still wonder what would have happened if the old Katahdin had been permitted to join Sampson’s fleet at any time prior to that fateful third of July, 1898. It is barely possible that our ship might have become one of the most famous in the world, and that the crew who manned her might have had their names listed among the Navy’s most illustrious.
And it is possible that renewed belief in the tactic of ramming might have vitally delayed the development of the long- range, hard-hitting guns that are now the reliance of the United States Navy!