Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/168

150 its crew, constantly exposed to public gaze. Since most merchantmen carried such a gun, its absence on a mystery ship would in itself have caused suspicion; this armament not only helped the disguise, but served a useful purpose in luring the submarine. At the first glimpse of a U-boat on the surface, usually several miles away, the gun crew would begin shooting ; but they always took care that the shots fell short, thus convincing the submarine that it had the advantage of range and so inducing it to close.

Captain Campbell and his associates paid as much attention to details in their ships as in their personal appearance. The ship's wash did not expose the flannels that are affected by naval men but the dungarees that are popular with merchant sailors. Sometimes a side of beef would be hung out in plain view; this not only kept up the fiction that the ship was an innocent tramp, but it served as a tempting bait to the not too well-fed crew of the submarine. Particularly tempting cargoes were occasionally put on deck. One of the ships carried several papier-mache freight cars of the- small European type covered with legends which indicated that they were loaded with ammunition and bound for Mesopotamia. It is easy to imagine how eagerly the Hun would wish to sink that cargo!

These ships were so effectively disguised that even the most experienced eyes could not discover their real character. For weeks they could lie in dock, the dockmen never suspecting that they were armed to the teeth. Even the pilots who went aboard to take them into harbour never discovered that they were not the merchant ships which they pretended to be. Captain Hanrahan, who commanded the U.S. mystery ship Santee, based on Queenstown, once entertained on board an Irishman from Cork. The conversation which took place between this American naval officer who, in his disguise, was indistinguishable from a tramp skipper of many years' experience disclosed the complete ignorance of the guest concerning the true character of the boat.

"How do you like these Americans?" Captain Hanrahan innocently asked.

"They are eating us out of house and home!" the indignant Irishman remarked. The information was a little inaccurate, since all our food supplies were brought