Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/137

1917] sailed out in "Indian file," passing through the net which was always kept in place at the entrance to the harbour. Their first duty was to patrol the waters outside for a radius of twelve miles; it was not improbable that the Germans, having learned that this convoy was to sail, had stationed a submarine not far from the harbour entrance. Having finally satisfied himself that there were no lurking enemies in the neighbourhood, the commander of the destroyer flagship signalled to the merchant ships, which promptly left the harbour and entered the open sea. The weather was stormy; the wind was blowing something of a gale and head seas were breaking over the destroyers' decks. But the convoy quickly manœuvred into three columns, the destroyers rapidly closed around them, and the whole group started for "Rendezvous A" this being the designation of that spot on the ocean's surface where the fourteenth meridian of longitude crosses the forty-ninth parallel of latitude a point in the Atlantic about three hundred miles south-west of Queenstown, regarded at that time as safely beyond the operating zone of the submarine. Meanwhile, the "mystery ship," sailing far ahead, disappeared beneath the horizon.

Convoying ships in the stormy autumn and winter waters, amid the fog and rain of the eastern Atlantic, was a monotonous and dreary occupation. Only one or two incidents enlivened this particular voyage. As the Parker, Commander Halsey Powell, was scouting ahead at about two o'clock in the afternoon, her lookout suddenly sighted a submarine, bearing down upon the convoy. Immediately the news was wirelessed to every vessel. As soon as the message was received, the whole convoy, at a signal from the flagship, turned four points to port. For nearly two hours the destroyers searched this area for the submerged submarine, but that crafty boat kept itself safely under the water, and the convoy now again took up its original course. About two days' sailing brought the ships to the point at which the protecting destroyers could safely leave them, as far as submarines were concerned, to continue unescorted to America; darkness had now set in, and, under its cover, the merchantmen slipped away from the warships and started westward. Meantime, the destroyer escort had received a message from the Cumberland, the British cruiser which was acting as