SILHOUETTES OF SONG

The great transport was cutting its sturdy way through three dangers:
the submarine zone, a terrific storm beating from the west against its
prow, and a night as dark as Erebus because of the storm, with no
lights showing.

I had the midnight-to-four-o'clock-in-the-morning "watch" and on this
night I was on the "aft fire-control." Below me on the aft gun-deck,
as the rain pounded, the wind howled, and the ship lurched to and fro,
I could see the bulky forms of the boy gunners. There were two to each
gun, two standing by, with telephone pieces to their ears, and six
sleeping on the deck, ready for any emergency. The greatcoats made
them look like gaunt men of the sea as they huddled against their guns,
watching, waiting. I wondered what they could see in that impenetrable
darkness, if a U-boat could even survive in that storm; but Uncle Sam
never sleeps in these days, and this transport was especially worth
watching, for it carried a precious cargo of wounded officers and men
back to the homeland, west bound.

For an hour I had heard no sound from the boys on the gun-deck below
me. When I was on watch in the daylight I knew them to be just a great
crowd of fine, buoyant, happy American lads, full of pranks and play
and laughter, but they were strangely silent to-night as the ship
ploughed through the storm. The storm seemed to have made men of them.
They were just boys, but American boys in these days become men
overnight, and acquit themselves like men.

I watched their silent forms below me with a great feeling of