Читать книгу Over the Seas for Uncle Sam - Various - Страница 3

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We have learned some things in war times that we did not know in days of peace. We have made the amazing discovery that our own fathers and brothers and husbands and lovers are potential heroes. We knew they were brave and strong and eager to defend us if need be. We knew that they went to work in the morning and returned at night just so that we might live in comfort; but we never dreamed that the day would come when we would see them marching off to war—a war that would take them far from their own shores. We never dreamed that, like the knights of old, they would ride away on a quest as holy as that of the Crusaders.

As for army and navy life—it had always been a sealed book to us, a realm into which one was born, a heritage that passed from father to son. We heard of life at the army post. We saw a uniform now and then, but not until our own men donned khaki and blue did we of the outside world learn of the traditions of the army and of the navy, which dated back to the days of our nation's birth.

We did not know that each regiment had its own glorious story of achievement—a story which all raw recruits were eager to live up to—a story of undaunted fighting in the very face of death that won for it its sobriquet.

Because the army lay at our very door, we came to know it better, to learn its proud lesson more swiftly, but little by little the navy, through the lips of our men, unlocked its traditions, tenderly fostered, which had fired its new sons to go forth and fight to the finish rather than yield an inch.

As a first lieutenant in the Girls' National Honor Guard, I was appointed in May, 1917, for active duty in hospital relief work. It was then that I came to know Miss Mary duBose, Chief Nurse of the United States Naval Hospital, whose co-operation at every turn has helped this little volume to come into being.

The boys of the navy are her children. She watches over them with the brooding tenderness of a mother. Praise of their achievements she receives with flashing pride. With her entire heart and soul she is wrapped up in her work. Through her shines the spirit of the service—the tireless devotion to duty.

I had never before been inside a naval hospital. I had a vague idea that it would be a great machine, rather overcrowded, to be sure, in war times, but running on oiled hinges—completely soulless.

I found instead a huge building, which, in spite of its size, breathed a warm hominess. Its halls and wards are spotless. Through the great windows the sun pours in on the patients, as cheery a lot of boys as you would care to see.

There are always great clusters of flowers in the wards—bright spots of color—there are always games spread out on the beds. There is always the rise of young voices—laughter—calls. And moving among the patients are the nurses—little white-clad figures with the red cross above their heart. Some of them appear frail and flower-like, some of them very young, but all impress one with their quiet strength and efficiency.

I have spoken to a great many of them. They are enthusiastic and eager. They praise highly the splendid work done abroad by their sisters, but they are serious about the work to be done here as well. Their tasks are carried on with no flaunting of banners, but they are in active service just the same, nursing our boys to health every hour of the day—giving sons back to their mothers—husbands to their wives.

It is a corps to be proud of and a great volume of credit should be laid at the feet of Mrs. Leneh Higbee, the national head of the Naval Nurse Corps. It was Mrs. Higbee who built up the Corps—who has given her life's work to keeping up the standard of that organization—of making it a corps whose personnel and professional standing in efficiency cannot be surpassed in the world to-day.

As my visits to the hospital became more frequent, I began, bit by bit, to gather a story here and there, from the men who lay ill—stories of unconscious heroism—deeds they had performed as part of a day's work on the high seas.

They did not want praise for what they had done. They are an independent lot—our sailors—proud of their branch of service. "No drafted men in the navy," they tell you with a straightening of their shoulders.

And from the officers I learned of that deeper love—that worship of the sea—of the vessel placed in their hands to command. From them I heard for the first time of the value of a discipline iron-bound—rigid—a discipline that brooks no argument. There were stories of men who had hoped and dreamed all their lives of a certain cruise, only to find themselves transferred to the other end of the world. Did they utter a word of complaint? Not they! "Orders are orders"—that was enough for them!

And because those of us who send our men to sea are burning to know the tales they have to tell, I have made this little collection—the men's own stories, told in the ward to other round-eyed youths who gathered about the bed to hear, full of eager questions, prompting when the story moved too slowly.

What you read here are their stories—stories of whole-souled youths, with the sparkle of life in their eyes, with the love of adventure in their hearts. Jack Tar is an American clear through to his backbone!

Elaine Sterne.

New York,

May 15, 1918.

Jack is his own "chambermaid."