uts of good-bye from witnesses of
our departure. At the docks of the Hamburg-American Line, where the
"Vaterland" and other ocean liners had lain since the autumn of 1914,
the boys filed onto the wharf and immediately over the side of the
"President Lincoln."

As he was assigned his place in the hold, each man was given two things:
a printed sheet of instructions, which was to guide his actions on
board, and a life-preserver, which, hanging like two sofa pillows, one
on his breast, the other on his back, was to impede all his movements on
board. For these must be worn night and day, whether one was eating or
drinking, working or playing; and must be within reach when one slept.
That last was easy, for they usually served as pillows.

That was one of the precautions against danger from a submarine's
torpedo. Another was the fire-drill, which occurred at unexpected times,
either at night, in the midst of sleep, or during the day. Since there
were between 5,500 and 6,000 troops on board, exclusive of the crew of
400, it was important that they should know the quickest and easiest way
to escape from the ship in case of accident. The "President Lincoln,"
before the war the largest freight vessel afloat, was built for the
carrying trade and not at all for passengers. In each hatch were four,
and in some five, decks below, and it was a feat to empty all these by
the narrow iron stairways in the short space of two minutes. At the
entrance to each hatch were stacked rafts, ready to be unlashed and
heaved over the side, and every man had a place.

Below, each man had a bunk, a canvas stretcher hung on a frame, three
tiers high, that ran the length of the hatch, narrow aisles separating
each double row. Electric lights made these good places to lounge and
read. But when night fell, every light in the ship was extinguished,
save only the dim blue lights at the stairways. Not even a lighted
cigarette was allowed on deck or at a porthole, lest it betray the fleet
to some hostile submarine, lurking near under cover of darkness. And
all day long and the night through, lookouts--an officer and one
enlisted man--watched the waves from the mast heads and from sentry
boxes along the side, fore and aft, for the ripple of a periscope.

Excessive precaution was not without good cause. This fleet was such as
to spur enemy submarines to extraordinary activity for several reasons:
The vessels were former Hamburg-American Line ships, making th