The Great Rescue by Peter Hernon

Author:Peter Hernon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

40 Hommes/8 Chevaux

CARRYING HIS SIXTY-POUND pack and Springfield rifle, Sergeant Royal Johnson and other members of D Company of the 313th Infantry slowly approached the inspection station in a long line that snaked up the gangway and disappeared into the side of the largest, most queerly painted ship he’d ever seen. The congressman turned soldier had just gotten off the ferry he’d boarded at Jersey City earlier that morning for the short trip down the North River to the Leviathan’s pier at Hoboken. There didn’t seem any way to cram on board all the towering mounds of baggage, equipment, and ammunition stacked haphazardly on the wharf, but navy and army crews were methodically carting it up gangways as cranes hoisted trucks and field pieces high over their heads and onto the deck.

Johnson had left Camp Meade before dawn that July 8 and marched to the railhead for the train ride to Jersey City. After a short stop at the inspection table, where the soldiers’ names were checked off a master list, a smiling middle-aged woman wearing a Red Cross armband handed him a sandwich and two sweet rolls and he started up the gangway.

It was a sweltering July afternoon, and after stowing their bags and gear, Johnson and the rest of his unit were allowed on the main deck, where they watched the ship cast off. An army band was playing out on the fantail, their instruments glinting in the sun. From his vantage it looked to Johnson as if many of the city’s residents were going out of their way to see them off. The sidewalks and piers were lined with waving spectators all the way down the Manhattan shoreline past Riverside Drive and Battery Park. Ferries packed with commuters blasted their whistles as passengers on their way home from work waved to them and shouted good luck.

The men were allowed to stay on the upper decks until later that evening, when the ship was joined by a camouflaged destroyer, the USS Walke. With twilight starting to fall, Johnson and an entire boatload of soldiers—another record for sheer numbers at 10,534—were ushered through the fast but efficient meal lines, where a typical dinner included roast beef or turkey, creamed potatoes, asparagus, fresh bread, and apple pie.

Up on the bridge, Captain Bryan was happy to be under way on what would be his sixth trip to Brest. He was concerned about the increased risk of submarines operating off the coast, so it was reassuring to see the destroyer hugging the Leviathan’s starboard bow as they headed into the open sea. Just before they’d shoved off, he’d received more information about the latest sinking, and it wasn’t good. The USS Covington, another of the confiscated German liners, had been torpedoed one day out of Brest on July 1. That seemed to be the preferred German tactic—try to pick off the transports as they left the French port, when the convoy of destroyer escorts was usually smaller. Six sailors had been lost on the Covington and, almost miraculously, over seven hundred on board had been saved.

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