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.
2. This morning a submarine surfaced, not
knowing we were near. We had every gun trained on her, ready to blow her out of
the water, because we heard her in our listening devices. She saw us as she
broke water and signaled just in time that she was one of ours. It is not explained
how it happens that she did not hear us in her listening devices, and if the
question arises it is explained that probably her listening devices were out of
order.
3. Some terrible and nameless thing has happened
among the officers (this rumor is only among the enlisted men). The crime they
have committed is not mentioned, but it is known that a number of officers are
under detention and will be court-martialed. This rumor may be pure wishful
thinking.
4. Both the officers’ post exchanges and the
enlisted men’s post exchanges sell a water pop in brown bottles. The soldiers
know very well that what is in their bottles is pop, but the rumor runs through
the ship that the brown bottles in the officers’ lounge contain beer. Some
little discontent arises from this until it is forgotten in a new rumor.
5. The front end of the ship is weak and only
patched up. On the last voyage she cut a destroyer (sometimes a cruiser) in two
and they patched her up and sent her out anyway. She is perfectly all right,
unless we run into heavy weather, in which case she is very likely to fall to
pieces. Since men are not allowed on the forepeak, because the gun crews are
there, they cannot look over and see whether or not this is true.
6. Last night the German radio announced that
this ship had been sunk. The Germans often do this, fishing for information. While
parents, wives, and friends do not know exactly what ship we are on, they know
about when we were alerted and they will be frantic and there is no way of
telling them that we are all right, for no messages are permitted to go out.
The soldiers go about worrying to think of the worry of their people.
7. Some kind of epidemic has broken out on the
ship. The officers are keeping it quiet to prevent a panic. They are burying
the dead secretly at night.
As the days go by and the men grow more
restless and the parcheesi games have fallen off because the sinews of the game
have got into a few lean and hungry hands, the rumors grow more intense.
Somewhere in mid-ocean a big patrol plane flies near to us and circles
protectively, and the rumor springs up that she has signaled the captain to
change course. Something terrific is going on somewhere and we are changing
our destination.
Since we change our course every thirty seconds
anyway, there is no telling by watching the wake where we are going. So the
rumors go. It would be interesting if the ship’s officers would post a list of
rumors the men are likely to hear. It would certainly eliminate some apprehensions
on the part of the men, and it would be interesting to see whether then a whole
new list of fresh, unused rumors would grow up.
