There was no submarine attack, said the
report, and no submarine was seen. One destroyer did drop a depth-bomb,
but this was merely by way of precaution. Quite a stir followed, and it
was not until Secretary Daniels some time later published facts as set
forth in a cipher message from Admiral Gleaves that the country realized
that, while the original account was somewhat overdrawn, there was
substantial ground for the belief that several transports had had narrow
escapes. To a correspondent who was on one of the transports we are
indebted for the following narrative of the attack:
[Illustration: POSITION OF SHIPS IN A CONVOY.]
"It was past midnight. The flotilla was sweeping through a calm sea
miles from the point of debarkation, and tense nerves were beginning to
relax. The sky was cloudy and the moon obscured, but the phosphorescence
of water common in these latitudes at this season marked the prow and
wake of the advancing ships with lines of smoky flame. It was this,
perhaps, that saved us from disaster--this and the keenness of American
eyes, and the straightness of American shooting. From the high-flung
superstructure of a big ship one of the eager lookouts noted an unwonted
line of shining foam on the port bow. In a second he realized that here
at last was the reality of peril. It could be nothing else than the
periscope of a submarine. The Germans were not less swift in action.
Almost at the moment that the alarm was given a gleaming line of
bubbles, scarcely twenty feet from the bow of one of the transports
wherein thousands were sleeping, announced the torpedo with its fatal
burden of explosive.
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