Part 10

Speak of dropping sovereigns down a well! Every tick of my watch I knew was as a lost sovereign, so far as air was concerned. But those of us who were blessed with big batteries of optimism did our best to distribute the current, and so the time dragged on. Then a great thing happened. Two heroes came forward and offered to risk all in an attempt to win to the surface. All honor to them! How they did it and at what a cost may be told later on, but the thing was done, and the outer world was thus made aware of our terrible plight. That much we realized when we knew of the presence of divers about our craft. What a relief! We had been located, practical measures were being taken for our salvage, and that splendid prospect made us take in a draught of new life. Artificial light was fast failing, but hope was burning brightly, so what did it matter?

Our ordeal, as it turned out, was but a young thing as yet, however. We had still a long way to go. The day dragged through, and when we entered on the silence and uncertainty of the night we were a forlorn enough lot, I can assure you. The nerve of the toughest of us was wearing thin. My fear that it might snap suddenly all round was not realized, however, for we were given further indications, which our practical ears were not slow to catch, that the great work of rescue was well in hand. The constant tapping of the divers outside was a cheering sound, and brought hope to those of us who, in the steadily increasing stifle of the atmosphere, were now breathing hard to live.

But rescue was long delayed, and in the early hours of the following day most of us wrote our last farewell to our loved ones--short, tender messages scrawled in pencil--and some of us made our wills. Then, as if by a miracle, three strong strands in the ladder of escape came to us from above. Exactly in what manner this was made possible I cannot tell you. We got air, water, and food, in only the smallest quantities, but just enough to stir us into new life. That was a godsend as welcome as it was unexpected. And we had not to wait long for the opening of our prison door. When the details of that liberation are given it will cause surprise and congratulation everywhere. It verges on the miraculous. When we scrambled into freedom we were a dazed and shaken lot of men, but I warrant you our hearts were full of gratitude to God for saving mercies.

It was left to others to give fuller details of the impression caused by the unexpected arrival of the three "strands" in the life ladder. The first was air--life-giving air--which was forced into the stifling compartment from above. The boon came just in time; the prisoners had had about fifty hours of captivity, their last light was burning dimly, and the atmosphere of their prison house was vile. More than one of the company had lost consciousness, but the effect of the tiny air current was instantaneous. The senseless men stirred as if in troubled sleep, and opened their eyes, breathing hard, while those of the company who had stood up to the ordeal with all their senses about them felt instantly the glorious effect of the air draught.

The second strand was water--fresh, cold water--also forced down by the splendid salvage party. The quantity was very small--only a sip to each--but, oh! the refreshment of it! "We were parched in lip and mouth and throat," said one of the prisoners, "and never was a drop of water more welcome." The third strand was food, pellets of compressed food. The salvage party had accomplished almost the impossible. And this was not their greatest achievement. It was the forcing of a way of escape for the entombed men that was the marvel. Ingenuity backed up by tireless tenacity, resourcefulness that absolutely refused to own either defeat or despair, triumphed over difficulties that seemed insuperable.

What a picture for brush or pen is offered in the scene of rescue in the dead of night, when these dazed prisoners won once again their liberty. They came forth in single file from the prison house. Near the head of the procession was a bronzed sailor, one whose coolness in the dragging hours of extremity had done much to maintain the flickering life of his comrades. He thrust out at arm's length his oilskin, and followed with a wonderfully nimble step, thus providing the only touch of lightness in the grim tragedy.

Shelter was awaiting them, and from there they dispatched hurried messages to loved ones at home, to relieve hearts nearly broken by suspense. And a while later a grateful little company heard read to them by one of the survivors the metrical version of the 124th Psalm. They needed no preacher to interpret to them its beauty and its significance--for they had been there, and they knew:

And as fierce floods Before them all things drown, So had they brought Our soul to death quite down.

* * * * * * *

Even as a bird Out of the fowler's snare Escapes away, So is our soul set free. Broke are their nets, And thus escaped we.

New Records in Shipbuilding

Forty-four Ships in One Month

New records in the production of ships by the United States and the United Kingdom were established during the month of May, 1918. American shipyards completed and delivered to the Shipping Board forty-three steel ships and one wooden ship, representing, in the aggregate, 263,571 deadweight tons. These figures do not refer to launchings, but to ships fully equipped and ready for service. The month's work in the United States in comparison with previous months is shown in the following table of tonnage produced:

1918. Tons. January 88,507 February 123,625 March 172,611 April 160,286 May 263,571

The May deliveries comprised thirty-nine requisitioned steel vessels, four contract steel and one contract wooden ship. In the last six days of the month there were delivered one wooden and fourteen steel ships, totaling 82,760 tons. The best previous week was that ended May 4, when the deliveries totaled 80,180 tons.

Launchings kept pace with the number of ships completed. Among the vessels launched in May was the Agawam, the first "fabricated" ship in the world, "fabricated" being the technical term applied to ships built from numbered pieces made from patterns. Approximately 27 steel mills, 56 fabricating plants, and 200 foundries, machine, pipe, and equipment shops were engaged in the production of the parts.

On June 1 it was unofficially stated that there were in operation by the United States Government 2,200,000 deadweight tons of shipping engaged in the transportation of troops and supplies and in kindred work for the army. Reviewing the shipping situation as a whole, Edward N. Hurley, Chairman of the Shipping Board, in an address on June 10, said:

On June 1 we had increased the American-built tonnage to over 3,500,000 deadweight tons of shipping. This gives us a total of more than 1,400 ships, with an approximate total deadweight tonnage of 7,000,000 now under the control of the United States Shipping Board.

In round numbers, and from all sources, we have added to the American flag since our war against Germany began nearly 4,500,000 tons of shipping.

Our program calls for the building of 1,856 passenger, cargo, and refrigerator ships and tankers, ranging from 5,000 to 12,000 tons each, with an aggregate deadweight of 13,000,000. Exclusive of these, we have 245 commandeered vessels, taken over from foreign and domestic owners, which are being completed by the Emergency Fleet Corporation. These will aggregate a total deadweight tonnage of 1,715,000.

This makes a total of 2,101 vessels, exclusive of tugs and barges, which are being built and will be put on the seas by the Emergency Fleet Corporation in the course of carrying out the present program, with an aggregate deadweight tonnage of 14,715,000.

Five billion dollars will be required to finish our program for 1918, 1919, and 1920, but the expenditure of this enormous sum will give to the American people the greatest merchant fleet ever assembled in the history of the world, aggregating 25,000,000 tons.

American workmen have made the expansion of recent months possible, and they will make possible the successful conclusion of the whole program. From all present expectations it is likely that by 1920 we shall have close to 1,000,000 men working on American merchant ships and their equipment.

We have a total of 819 shipways in the United States. Of these, a total of 751, all of which except ninety are completed, are being utilized by the Emergency Fleet Corporation for the building of American merchant ships.

In 1919 the average tonnage of steel, wood, and concrete ships continuously building on each way should be about 6,000. If we are using 751 ways on cargo ships and can average three ships a year per way, we should turn out in one year 13,518,000 tons.

The total gross revenue of our fleet is very impressive. From the ships under the control of the Shipping Board a total gross revenue is derived of about $360,000,000.

An appropriation of $1,761,701,000 for the American merchant marine was provided in the Sundry Civil bill reported to the House on June 10 by the Appropriations Committee. The amount recommended for ships and shipping was $1,282,694,000 less than the Shipping Board requested, but Chairman Sherley explained that receipts from the operation of ships could be devoted to building charges, and that no curtailment of the building program was contemplated. Of the Shipping Board total $1,438,451,000 was for construction in this country, $55,000,000 for building American ships abroad, $87,000,000 for establishing shipyards, $60,000,000 for operating ships heretofore acquired, and $6,250,000 for recruiting and instructing ships' officers.

As the result of an agreement between the United States and Japanese Governments, twenty-three Japanese ships, aggregating 151,166 tons deadweight, have been chartered to the United States for the allied transport services. On June 4 it was announced that twelve Japanese ships, obtained either by purchase or charter, had arrived in Pacific ports and were being transferred to the Atlantic Coast.

More than 400,000 tons of ships were released to the United States and the Allies by Sweden under the terms of the commercial agreement signed at Stockholm by representatives of the two Governments. Under a modus vivendi, in effect for some months, the War Trade Board had permitted exports to Sweden in sufficient quantities to meet immediate and urgent needs.

The shipbuilding situation in the United Kingdom has shown considerable improvement, as seen in the following table of merchant vessels, in gross tons, completed in British yards and entered for service:

BRITISH SHIPBUILDING

April, 1917 69,711 May 69,773 June 109,847 July 83,073 August 102,060 September 63,150 October 148,309 November 158,826 December 112,486 January, 1918 58,568 February 100,038 March 161,674 April 111,533 May 197,274

It should be noted that the British practice is to express merchant shipbuilding statistics in "gross tons," whereas in the United States and some other countries the figures are recorded in "deadweight" tons, which is a much higher figure.

The total ships completed in the shipyards of the United Kingdom during the twelve months ended May 31, 1918, were 1,406,838 gross tons. The corresponding figures for the year ended April 30, 1917, were 1,270,337.

Raising torpedoed ships has become a considerable source of increased tonnage for the Allies. According to a report of the British Admiralty Salvage Department, made public June 17, no less than 407 ships sunk by Germans in British waters were salvaged in the years between January, 1915, and May, 1918. Up to December, 1917, 260 ships were recovered. In the first five months of 1918 the number salvaged was 147, the increased rate being due to improved methods.

Among the difficulties encountered was the danger of poisonous gases from the rotting cargoes of sunken ships, which sometimes caused the loss of lives. One salvage ship was torpedoed while working on a wreck, and sometimes the work of weeks is destroyed by one rough sea. Feats performed by the Salvage Department include the raising of a large collier sunk in twelve fathoms of water and involving a dead lift of 3,500 tons. Another vessel was raised fifteen fathoms by the use of compressed air.

American Exports Versus the U-Boats

By CHARLES FREDERICK CARTER

Notwithstanding a net loss of the world's shipping, due to the usual perils of the sea as well as to enemy mines and submarines, of 2,632,279 tons from the beginning of the war to April 1, 1918, the vital trade route across the Atlantic has shown a steady increase in efficiency. Even more gratifying is the fact that in recent weeks the gain in efficiency has been accelerated.

All the essential requirements of our allies as well as of our own expeditionary forces abroad appear to be met, according to these official statistics from the Department of Commerce. For instance, exports of nitric, picric, sulphuric, and other acids, so essential in the manufacture of munitions, are going to Europe in a steadily increasing volume. Exports of acids increased from a total value of $10,003,647 in the calendar year 1915 to $52,695,640 in 1917. Exports of copper, no less necessary for cartridges and other uses, to France, Italy, and Great Britain increased from 229,129,587 pounds in 1915 to 890,819,053 pounds in 1917.

The same three allies, which needed only 499,719 tons of steel billets, blooms, and ingots in the calendar year 1915, took 1,395,019 tons in 1916 and 1,847,201 tons in 1917. Exports of steel plates to the same three allies for ships, tanks, and other military uses increased similarly from 63,584,467 pounds in 1915 to 72,242,656 pounds in 1916 and 165,630,514 pounds in 1917. All Europe took but a negligible tonnage of steel rails in 1913, the last full year before the war. France alone took 5,362 tons in 1915 and 122,858 tons in 1917. Exports of locomotives to France kept pace with the rails, increasing from 38 in 1915 to 570 in 1917, and 129 in the month of January, 1918. Exports of metal-working machinery to these three allies increased from a total value of $29,229,683 in 1915 to $47,666,606 in 1916 and $54,906,405 in 1917.

Statistics on the exports of barbed wire epitomize the history of defensive works by our allies. Italy, for example, took only 2,000 pounds of that commodity in 1915. Next year her requirements jumped to 58,367,004 pounds, while last year the necessity of constructing an entirely new system of defenses in haste called for 204,972,438 pounds of American barbed wire. On the other hand, France, which needed 264,310,493 pounds of barbed wire in 1916, called for only 29,952,532 pounds in 1917.

EXPORTS OF LEAD

France, Italy, and England laid in a stock of lead from which to make bullets in 1915, the former country taking 21,234,108 pounds, Italy 5,176,794 pounds, and Great Britain 81,483,866 pounds. Next year total shipments to all three countries fell off to 23,015,071 pounds, but rose again to 59,470,181 pounds in 1917, "unrestricted" U-boat warfare to the contrary notwithstanding.

Not all exports of lead went to our allies. Although at peace, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden, each and severally, bought more American lead in 1916 than Italy needed in any one of three years of desperate fighting, total exports to these three neutrals in that year aggregating 18,113,859 pounds. Even last year, after the United States had declared war against Germany, 3,470,415 pounds of lead went to these three neutrals, all of which just happen to drive a thriving trade with Germany. The patriots who supplied this brisk neutral demand for material from which bullets are made probably would not care to trace the shipments to their ultimate effect in swelling American casualty list.

Exports of explosives, including shells and projectiles, increased from a total value of $188,969,893 in 1915 to $715,575,306 in 1916. In 1917, after England and France had attained such marvelous efficiency in the production of these essentials of war, exports declined, but still reached the enormous total of $633,734,405. Just to show that we are keeping our stride in supplying explosives to the firing line the fact may be mentioned that in spite of delays due to a lack of bunker coal in the unprecedentedly severe month of January, 1918, we shipped 2,606,297 pounds of dynamite during the month, as compared with 1,787,600 pounds in January, 1917, and 37,587,662 pounds of powder, against 36,767,984 pounds in the corresponding month of 1917.

Gasoline, the foundation on which present allied supremacy in the air is based, and which also plays so great a part in land transportation, is going to Great Britain, France, and Italy in swiftly increasing volume. Shipments to these three countries in 1915 totaled 36,936,303 gallons; in 1916, 98,178,139 gallons; in 1917, 141,327,159 gallons. As a basis of comparison it may be said that America's total exports of gasoline to all the world in 1913 amounted to only 117,728,286 gallons.

Gasoline engines are going abroad at a similar rate of increase, 50,317 being shipped in the seven months ended Jan. 31, 1918, as compared with 36,209 in the corresponding period of 1916-17.

So much has been said about submarine losses that the average man may be pardoned for accepting the German figures, which have been exaggerated from 46 to 113 per cent., and the German delusion that England is about to be "brought to her knees" by the modern form of piracy. To whatever extent this impression of Prussian frightfulness has been disseminated the submarine campaign has been a success; but right there success ends. In spite of the utmost the U-boats could do, munitions have flowed in steadily increasing volume from America to Europe, while the destructiveness of the undersea boats has as steadily declined. Furthermore, the fact must not be forgotten that not all ships sunk by submarines have been eastbound with cargoes of munitions for the Allies. Some have been lost on the westward voyage; others have been laden with grain for the starving Belgians, or for neutrals which have developed such an astonishing appetite for lard, lead, and other things of which Germany stands in need; still others have been hospital ships.

If any further evidence of America's great part in the war, irrespective of participation by American troops in the fighting, is needed it can be found in statistics of exports of foodstuffs to the Allies, who have been obliged to depend more and more upon this country for the necessaries of life.

Exports of wheat flour to France in the calendar year 1915 were 2,392,952 barrels; in 1916, 2,263,990 barrels; in 1917, 2,659,328 barrels. Italy called for 148,999 barrels of American wheat flour in 1915 and 1,494,816 barrels in 1917, while Great Britain's requirements were 3,269,262 barrels in the former year and 4,808,141 barrels in the latter.

Our total exports of fresh beef to all the world in 1913 were only 6,580,123 pounds. In 1915 we sent Great Britain, France, and Italy 256,198,283 pounds. In 1916 exports to these three countries fell off to 160,879,642 pounds, but rose again to 172,940,833 pounds, in spite of von Tirpitz's unrestricted destructiveness.

In 1913 France took only 716,266 pounds of American bacon; but in 1915 the demand jumped to 52,044,475 pounds, increasing still further to 60,606,802 pounds in 1916 and to 73,195,974 pounds in 1917. Great Britain, which got along with 145,269,456 pounds of American bacon in 1913, needed 284,783,009 pounds in 1916 and 341,674,452 pounds in 1917. In the same period exports of hams and shoulders to France increased more than twelvefold and to Great Britain more than a third.

Exports of lard to France, Italy, and Great Britain increased from a total of 200,490,003 pounds in 1913 to 210,139,760 pounds in 1915 and 224,683,383 pounds in 1916. In 1917 exports to these three countries fell to 189,024,889 pounds. It is an interesting coincidence that Holland, whose appetite for American lard was fully satiated by 38,313,677 pounds in 1913, and which was able to skimp along with a trifle more than 20,000,000 pounds a year during the first two years of the world war, required 64,888,545 pounds in 1917, when Germany's need for fats grew desperate.

Exports of sugar have gone forward to the Allies on the same vast scale. In 1913 our entire export trade absorbed only 14,995,232 pounds of sugar. In 1915 we sent to Great Britain, France, and Italy alone 860,456,311 pounds; in 1916, 1,126,022,067 pounds; in 1917, 519,881,377 pounds. No wonder the sugar bowl disappeared from the American restaurant table last Fall and still remains in strict seclusion!

SOLDIERS AND CHEWING GUM

Not only have we been rendering the Allies a useful service by supplying so important a portion of their necessary food and munitions of war, but we have been for some months forwarding troops to the battleline. No figures are given out regarding movements of troops, but there is a significant bit of evidence in the monthly summaries of foreign commerce which proves that the number of American fighters abroad must be very large. As the Government has published this evidence, there can be no harm in referring to it here.

Gum is not chewed by Europeans, but seems to be regarded as a necessary of life in the United States, if the wagging jaws to be seen in street cars and other public places are any indication. Well, according to Government figures, no chewing gum whatever was exported in 1915; but in the calendar year 1917 the value of chewing gum exported was $1,403,888! The figures given, being at wholesale prices, represent upward of 176,000,000 cuds! Even on the most liberal allowance; so vast a quantity would supply a great many fighting men.

Viewed from another standpoint, these chewing-gum statistics are even more encouraging. If the shortage of cargo space to allied ports were as desperate as Germany's press agents would have us believe, it does not seem reasonable to suppose that any part of it would be frittered away on chewing gum in such formidable quantities. This conviction is strengthened by the discovery that exports of candy have increased one-third in the three calendar years of war, to a total of $2,108,081 in 1917.