Once there was a war

The men begin to be restless now. It is hard to sit still and do nothing. Some have brought the little pocket books and others go to the ship’s library and get books. Detective stories and short stories. They take what they can get. But there are many men who do not consider reading a matter of pleasure and these must find some other outlet for their interests.

Several months ago Services of Supply, in reporting the items supplied to the soldiers’ exchanges, included several hundreds of thousands of sets of dice, explaining that parcheesi was becoming increasingly popular in the Army. Those who remember parcheesi as a rather dumpy game may not believe this if they have not seen it, but it is so. The game has been streamlined to a certain extent but there is no doubt of its popularity. The board with its string pockets has disappeared in the interest of space. Parcheesi is now played on an Army blanket.

It is a spirited, healthy game, and seems to hold the attention of the players. Some tournaments of parcheesi continue for days. One, indeed, never stopped during the whole crossing. Another game which is very popular in the Army is cassino. Its most common forms are stud cassino and five-card-draw cassino. It is gratifying to see that our new Army has gone back to the old-fashioned virtues our forefathers lied about.

The ship is very heavily armed. From every point of observation the guns protrude. This troopship could fight her way through considerable opposition. On the decks, in addition to the lifeboats, are hundreds of life rafts ready to be thrown into the sea. These boats and rafts are equipped with food and water and medicine and even fishing tackle.

Now the men who slept on the decks last night move inside, as the inside men move out. The wind is fresh. The soldiers take the shelter halves and begin to build ingenious shelters. Some erect single little covers between stanchions and rails, while others, pooling their canvas, are able to make windproof caves among the life rafts. In these they settle down to read or to play parcheesi or cassino. The sea is calm and that is good, for great numbers of the men have never been on any kind of boat. A little rough weather will make them seasick and then there will be an added problem for the worried and tired permanent force on the boat.

The decks cannot be flushed, for there is no place for the men to go while it is being done. There are many delicate problems on such a ship. If another ship should be sighted, the men must not crowd to one side, for that would throw too great a weight on one side of the ship and might even endanger her. Our cargo is men and it must be shifted with care.

Every day there is boat drill. The alarm sounds, and after the first day of pandemonium the men go quietly to their stations. There are so many problems to be faced on a troopship.

SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, June 23, 1943—A troopship is a strange community and it reacts as a community. It is unique, however, in that it is cut off from all the world and that it is in constant danger of being attacked and destroyed. No matter how casual the men seem, that last fact is never very far from their minds. In the water any place may be the submarine and any moment may come the blast that sends the great ship to the bottom.

Thus the gunners never relax, the listening devices are tense and occupied. Half the mind listens and waits all the time and in the night small sounds take on a large importance. At intervals the guns are fired to see that they are in perfect condition. The gunnery officer never relaxes. On the bridge the captain sleeps very rarely and takes his coffee in his hand.

Under such a strain the human brain reacts curiously. It builds its apprehensions into realities and then repeats those realities. Thus a troopship is a nest of rumors, rumors that go whisking from stem to stern, but the most curious thing is that on all troopships the rumors are the same. Some generalized picture takes shape in all of them. The story starts and is repeated, and everyone, except perhaps the permanent crew, believes each for a few hours before a new one takes its place. It might be well to set down some of the rumors so that when heard they will be recognized for what they are, the folklore of a troopship.

The following are heard on every troopship, without exception; further, they are believed on every troopship:

1. This morning we were sighted by a submarine. It could not catch us, but it radioed its fellows and now a pack is assembling ahead of us to intercept us and sink us. This rumor is supposed to come from the radio officer, who heard the submarine calling its brothers. The pack will close in on us tonight. All of these rumors are said to come from a responsible officer.