Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/212

194 this hideous war. Nearly all of them had committed suicide.

Meanwhile, our subchaser detachment at Corfu was performing excellent service. In these southern waters Captain C. P. Nelson commanded two squadrons, comprising thirty-six vessels. Indeed, the American navy possessed few officers more energetic, more efficient, more lovable, or more personally engaging than Captain Nelson. The mere fact that he was known among his brother officers as "Juggy Nelson" gives some notion of the affection which his personality inspired. This nickname did not indicate, as might at first be suspected, that Captain Nelson possessed qualities which flew in the face of the prohibitory regulations of our navy: it was intended, I think, as a description of the physical man. For Captain Nelson's rotund figure, jocund countenance, and always buoyant spirits were priceless assets to our naval forces at Corfu. Living conditions there were not of the best; disease was rampant among the Serbians, Greeks, and Albanians who made up the civil population; there were few opportunities for entertainment or relaxation; it was, therefore, a happy chance that the commander was a man whose very presence radiated an atmosphere of geniality and enthusiasm. His conversational powers for many years had made him a man of mark ; his story-telling abilities had long delighted naval officers and statesmen at Washington; no other selection for commander could have been made that would have met with more whole-hearted approval from the college boys and other high-type civilians who so largely made up our forces in these flotillas. At Corfu, indeed, Captain Nelson quickly became a popular favourite ; his mind was always actively forming plans for the discomfiture of the German and Austrian submarines ; and all our Allies were as much impressed with his energy as were our own men. For Captain Nelson was more than a humorist and entertainer: he was pre-eminently a sailor of the saltest type, and he had a real barbaric joy in a fight. Even in his official communications to his officers and men he