Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/59

1917] of the welcoming Irish people, seemed to promise a fair beginning for our great adventure. "Welcome to the American colours," had been the signal of the Mary Rose, a British destroyer which had been sent to lead the Americans to their anchorage. "Thank you, I am glad of your company," answered the Yankee commander; and these messages represented the spirit of the whole proceeding. Indeed there was something in these strange- looking American ships, quite unlike the British destroyers, that necessarily inspired enthusiasm and respect. They were long and slender; the sunlight, falling upon their graceful sides and steel decks, made them brilliant objects upon the water; and their business-like guns and torpedo tubes suggested efficiency and readiness. The fact that they had reached their appointed rendezvous exactly on time, and that they had sailed up the Queenstown harbour at almost precisely the moment that preparations had been made to receive them, emphasized this impression. The appearance of our officers on the decks in their unfamiliar, closely fitting blouses, and of our men, in their neat white linen caps, also at once won the hearts of the populace.

"Sure an' it's our own byes comin' back to us," an Irish woman remarked, as she delightedly observed the unmistakably Gaelic countenances of a considerable proportion of the crew. Indeed the natives of Queenstown seemed to regard these American bluejackets almost as their own. The welcome provided by these people was not of a formal kind; they gathered spontaneously to cheer and to admire. In that part of Ireland there was probably not a family that did not have relatives or associations in the United States, and there was scarcely a home that did not possess some memento of America. The beautiful Queenstown Roman Catholic Cathedral, which stood out so conspicuously, had been built very largely with American dollars, and the prosperity of many a local family had the same trans-Atlantic origin. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that when our sailors landed for a few hours' liberty many hands were stretched out to welcome them. Their friends took them arm in arm, marched them to their homes, and entertained them with food and drink, all the time plying them with questions about friends and relatives in America. Most of these young Americans with Irish ancestry had