West Side High School - Legenda Yearbook (Saginaw, MI)

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had been wounded, suffer from the salt water in their wounds and have no way to help them. We had hard work in keep ing one of them in the boat when he discovered our predicament, but the worst of it was that we knew that we were probably saving him for a more horrible death a few days later if we were not picked up soon. Then to the amazement of everyone, a little round tube stuck its end up out of the water not more than four hundred yards from us. A conning tower appeared, and in a moment, a British submarine was rolling gently in the swells with its deck not quite awash. We all cheered madly when an officer stepped out of the conning tower and told us to hurry aboard. The wounded were taken into the submarine first; and then we abandoned the whaleboat and started back to our base by the under-sea route.

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SEA TALES JOHN H. LOVETTE One dark and misty afternoon in September, 1914, 1 was standing my watch in the crows- nest of H. M. S. Cressy, a battle cruiser. Together with three other men similarly employed, with my binoculars glued to my eyes, I was watching for the enemy submarines which might at any moment appear, for we were well inside of their cruising radius from Heligoland. Far ahead and just in sight from our position, were three vessels of the German North Sea fleet, smoke pouring from their funnels, and racing madly for the protection of Heligoland, 250 miles distant. A little to port of us and gradually drawing alongside, was the super-dreadnaught. Lion, one of the most recent additions to our navy, and the pride of the fleet. She had been the last to take up the chase, but now was about to become the leader. We had been slowly closing upon the fleeing vessels, but when the Lion appeared, we knew that her superior speed and armament would take her within range of the enemy long before we could hope to get within range, and we were glad of it, for we were getting perilously close to Heligoland. Then the Lion drew alongside and as she passed us we gave her a rousing cheer. Twice we had tried to reach the enemy with our nine inch rifles, but both times the shells had fallen short, for the distance was too great. Each time they had returned the fire, but their shells had also fallen short, and we concluded that their armament was the same as our own. Presently, however, the four great guns in the forward turrets of the Lion belched forth a cloud of smoke, and four agents of destruction winged their screaming way toward the enemy. Through my glasses I could see the last ship quite plainly. Two of the shells were direct hits. One carried away both funnels, and the other exploded on deck. I could almost imagine the terrible havoc it had wrought there, the screaming of the men it had wounded, and the great hole it had torn in the deck. In a few minutes, a sheet of flame and smoke once more poured forth from the muzzles of the Lion ' s four bow turret guns, and four more twelve inch shells were sped to their target. This time, not a shell went wide, a sheet of flame and smoke enveloped the stern of the rear- most ship, and she immediately began to slow down. It took us about twenty minutes to reach her, but before we got there, she had sunk by the stern, and we lowered boats to pick up the survivors. The Lion had gone on in chase of the other two vessels, but they were faster and made good their escape. The Lion then returned, and we started back to our base. All the time, a cordon of destroyers had kept on the flanks of our little fleet, there being two other vessels whose slower speed had caused them to fall astern, to protect the battleships in case of submarine attack. Suddenly, about five hundred yards to port of the Lion, a great column of water rose from the sea, and almost simultaneously, several of the small guns of the starboard battery of the Lion began to blaze away at some target which we could not make out. At once, two of the destroyers turned and raced toward the spot where the shells from the Lion were plunging into the sea, and opened fire on the submarine which we now knew to be there, with their own four inch bow guns. There is a great deal of difference between shooting from the dipping and plunging deck of a destroyer and from the deck of a c omparatively immobile dreadnaught, and a four inch tube is not the easiest of targets to hit, but al -hough the Lion stopped, the destroyers continued firing. Soon, however, they stopped and cruised more slowly about a spot which I could see looked oily. They then returned and reported by wireless that they had shot away the peri- scope of the submarine and that immediately afterward, oil and wreckage had appeared on the surface. We were almost certain that the U-boat would never be seen again. Two days after returning to our base, in company with the Aboukir, a ship of our own class, we were again assigned to patrol duty near the region where we had the interesting encounter with the enemy a few days before. About four o ' clock in the afternoon of the second day on the patrol, I was standing on the starboard deck with several other men off watch, when suddenly the deck seemed to rise from beneath our feet and we were hurled several feet by the force of the explosion of a torpedo amidships, not more than twenty feet from where I had been standing. Well, I didn ' t know any more until I came to in a whaleboat after the ship had sunk. My head still rang from the blow I had received in colliding with an iron deck house, but otherwise I was all right. I soon learned that the Cressy had sunk in twelve minutes after the torpedo hit us, and that the crew had barely had time to take to the boats before she turned over and sank. The Aboukir, following instructions that had been given after two vessels had been sunk in succoring a torpedo-crippled mate, turned tail and fled upon the first intimation that a sub- marine was in the vicinity. We were left in an open boat, without food and water, with four badly wounded men, 400 miles from our base and 300 miles from the nearest land, and that land the German base of Heligoland. The situation wasn ' t very inviting, but there were stout hearts in that crew and they all took our predicament as a matter of course, but it was hard to see the four poor fellows who

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THE YELLOW ROBE BRUCE FAYERWEATHER, ' 25 It was a dark, murky night, and through the length and breadth of Pell Street pedestrians were few. In fact, all but a few of the Orientals were resting in their homes after the toil of the day. However, several stooped figures scurried along over the clammy pavements, shield- ing their bodies as best they could from the shifting banks of fog which drifted through the heavy air. Although this quarter of Chinatown seemed deserted, down in Sen Fu ' s gambling house and general assembly hall the scum of the yellow population was gathered preparatory to the ceremony of the monthly tribunals over which Hsu Lee was to preside in judgment of the latest offender of the Buddhist laws. Among the many prisoners were several murderers, members of a once powerful but now nearly extinct organization which had been a source of profit to its members. These men were often unscrupulous and savage, and would stop at nothing to further their own ends. Thus the trying of these malefactors was a source of interest for all the celestial population. Young Sing Lee stood near the door of the inner chamber, glancing with narrowed eyelids over the seething whirlpool of Orientals. His was not the errand of the ordinary street loafer, the craze of excitement, but the love of his father who, as chief of the San Tsingtong, was to sit as tribune of this court. To the casual observer, there appeared to be no danger in holding this office ; but to one who knew the changeable character of the mass of spectators here gath- ered, it assumed great importance. He started as a man brushed by him dressed in the ancient garb of his father ' s tong. Who was this man? Why was he leaving the council chamber at this time? Surely not San Tsing, he thought to himself. But where had he found his robe of which there were only three in the possession of the tong? He pondered upon this matter for a few minutes and then dismissed it from his mind, for the crier was announcing the opening of the court. In two minutes from this time let every man be silent in honor and respect of our great judge, Hsu Lee, who will preside over this, the most high seat of the will of the Dragon in America, he shouted and disappeared. A long wavering cry rang, over, above, and through the din of the assembled crowd. A hush, and again it shrilled quavering, echoing from every corner of the room. Then another man appeared upon the dais and waving his arms, shrieked to the assembly: Away and avenge! While we have delayed, an escaping prisoner has taken the life of one of our greatest friends, Hsu Lee. Away, ye Sons of Buddha, and avenge! First murmuring, rumbling, and at last thundering, as the full meaning of their loss broke upon their minds, with a bound as one man the assemblage crowded from the room, leaving Sing standing bewildered and dumb, stunned by the news he had just heard. With a strangled sob the truth of what had happened fell upon him and he staggered a few feet and fell claw- ing at the floor like a man in mortal agony. And indeed he was, for to him his father had been as his own body and soul. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He had remembered the man ' s yellow spotted robe identi- cal with his father ' s. With a dash he turned and hastened to the inner room where his father ' s retainers stood sorrowing by the side of their loved master. He gently turned down the cov- ering from his father ' s body. It was as he had guessed, the robe had been removed. He turned to where the tongsmen stood regarding him with beady eyes dimmed with sorrow. Men, he said, leave one of your number with my poor father and the rest of you come with me. The men sorrowfully obeyed, and soon followed by his small band, he was threading the dark and crooked alleys of Chinatown, searching for the murderer of his father. Handicapped by the fact that there were so few people on the streets, he had some trouble in tracing the stranger, but always was able to find some person who had noticed his yellow garments. On- ward they struggled through the slimy, offal-filled byways, often losing courage but always strengthened to their purpose by the thought of the still form lying behind them, its magnificent spirit broken, and its spark of life forever fled. At last after hours of wandering, they lost the trail near a small secluded temple, where exhausted after the night ' s exertion, the little band decided to rest. Coming upon the temple by an old and unused route. Sing stumbled over a form in the semi-darkness. He at first thought it one of the many beggars who filled the streets; but as the figure made no move or cry, he stooped and peered at the features of the midnight sleeper. He drew backward with a little cry, for it was the body of the temple priest. After a moment ' s hesitation he again bent over the body of the old man. Was life enclosed within that wasted form? His eyelids moved, he opened his eyes and stared, and then in a tone that was more of a whisper than speech said, i ellow robe, and died. Sing stood for a moment gazing upon him and pondering his words, then with a sigh laid the old priest gently down upon the ground. As he did so, he noticed a spot of red upon the old man ' s shrunken chest. He touched it and drawmg up his fingers saw, in the fast increasing light, that it was blood. The trail of the murderer! he gasped. His men