Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/58

 morning of May 4, 1917, witnessed an important event in the history of Queenstown. The news had been printed in no British or American paper, yet in some mysterious way it had reached nearly everybody in the city. A squadron of American destroyers, which had left Boston on the evening of April 24th, had already been reported to the westward of Ireland and was due to reach Queenstown that morning. At almost the appointed hour a little smudge of smoke appeared in the distance, visible to the crowds assembled on the hills; then presently another black spot appeared, and then another ; and finally these flecks upon the horizon assumed the form of six rapidly approaching warships. The Stars and Stripes were broken out on public buildings, on private houses, and on nearly all the water craft in the harbour ; the populace, armed with American flags, began to gather on the shore ; and the local dignitaries donned their official robes to welcome the new friends from over-seas. One of the greatest days in Anglo-American history had dawned, for the first contingent of the American navy was about to arrive in British waters and join hands with the Allies in the battle against the forces of darkness and savagery.

The morning was an unusually brilliant one. The storms which had tossed our little vessels on the seas for ten days, and which had followed them nearly to the Irish coast, had suddenly given way to smooth water and a burst of sunshine. The long and graceful American ships steamed into the channel amid the cheers of the people and the tooting of all harbour craft ; the sparkling waves, the greenery of the bordering hills, the fruit trees already in bloom, to say nothing of the smiling and cheery faces