BIG OCEAN FERRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11894, 1 January 1917, Page 4

BIG OCEAN FERRY.

TWIG OUT OF HALIFAX. ENORMOUS TRANSPORT WORK. (Boston "Globe.") Less than 500 miles from Boston, Great Britain is maintaining one end of the longest, most dangerous and most important ferry service- in the world.

"Ferry service" may sound like an odd pbv.isf, for the moment, to be used in describing an overseas transportation system, hut so frequent are the sailings, so yrcat the numbers of men and tons of munitions and supplies carried that the expression is really the uptest, to bo found. Halifax, XA, is the western terminal of the groat ferry. Its eastern ends arc Liverpool, London, Havre and Bordeaux. Few American*, unless the thm2 , falls directly (under their '•yes (and unless tliev are helped, oven then. witn :i little information thnt is mighty han<o c;et\ '.-an realise what an important, seaport Halifax is and how much is beina; done there. A "feu davs a.io a "Globe corresponded steamed into the. harbour ol Halifax-through a narrow space, a t-hev "call it, between two lines of floating mines that extend from shore to shore—on the lifcuo steamer Florizel of the Red Cross Line. As wo htraitditened out for our doc«c there came into view an immense fourstack si earner a mile or so away trom u.s. She. looked rather familiar at ursr glance, and even more so when vieweu through tho glasses. , Undoubtedly the was one of the nu<re passenger liners that all New \orsi>rs are used to seoiup in our own bay. Jinf. there was something wrong about tier. She looked different. She was of ihe dull gray of the British Navy, and en i-aeh side of her. forward ana aft, protruded lons. wHe-mouthed guilt?, j THE TWENTY-EIGHT TEN.

"What Bliip is thai?" everyone

asked. . . . , But the patriotic British ofheers of the Florizof wero not telling. " Probably something in transport service* or an auxiliary cruiser, or the like.'' thev replied. "There are plenty of them about, y'know, these davs."'

But if this was a transport or an auxiliary cruiser it was an unusual one. for there are mighty few boats afloat the size of this great gray monster.

By drib-lets information about the vessel in the harbour came to the ears

of the curious vacation voyagers after they got ashore. The town is filled with khaki-clad Tommies of course. Appealed io for the name mid business of tho big craft they would usually reply: " Cawn't sye, sir, really. 5 ' Finally we irnt this far: "They caJl her 28 if)—transport 28 10."' Then, at last, 1 chanced to meet and fraternise with a. Canadian soldier, a chap who had just, returned from the other side, vouuded. and one who was glad to get a bit of now* about the United States (because —this was confidential—ho belonged hero himself, and showed mc. proudly his United States citizenship papers, which ho had carried with him throughout two years of scrapping in Belgium and France.) THAT'S THE OLYMPIC. "That big hooker out there? Why that's tho Olympic!" he said. " I just, came over in her. and to-morrow morning she's going out with a pretty full cargo of Tommies. She's no thin' but a bloomin' ferry these days!" And that's what she wax —the Olyumic, the former pride of the White Star Lino, ustcr (-hip of the ill-fated iiLmie. and formerly one of tho most luxurious passenger liners afloat. But now she is Transport Twentyeight Ten. What, Kipling wrote —" the liner, r,he's a, lady "-—might have been true of the Olympic one time; but not now. She's anything but a lady, with her 0.4-in guns, her quick firers stuck in all sorts of corners, her anti-aircraft and antisubmarine weapons pointing their noses upward and downward respectively, and "all her fancy work tore out or boaxdod over," as my Tommio friend explained, "so the fightin' lads wouldn't bo diggin' out the inother-o'-pear! der-ov a ti o ns" from the tables for sottvenirs."

And next morning, so early that the dawn-pink hadn't yet shown over the eastern horizon, the Olympic went outort her regular ferry runs. She just slipped out, without a whistle blast, without the single note of a, bugle, without a sound, indeed. And, as my friend in khaki had said, she took with her a " pretty full cargo of Tommies." NEARLY 7000 PASSENGERS. Now if you had rambled about Halifax the night before and asked privates or officers here and there, " What's the nig boat taking away when she goes?" you'd ha.ve ben told, "0, a few hundred men, maybe; a bit of supplies, too." .And watching tho Olympic tli'do off through the semidarkness you wouldn't have been greatly impressed. J-Ait if you had better sources of informal ion—as I had, thanks to my original Tommie-pal and some others --you might have learned- that inside the dark grey hull were 7000 men con-

signed to the French front; 7000 stalwart young chaps from the forests and wheat fields and towns of the vast Dominion of Canada, for the most part. That was impressive enough, that great number of fighting lads housed within one great hull. But fax more impressive was tho information that came to me casually from tho wounded man, and then was corroborated by others.

" There's 1250 Yankee lad.s in that outfit, too. They're part of the American Legion that's been recruiting all over Canada. Every one of them before ho could join had to show his citizenship papers or birth certificate to prove that ho was a citizen of th© Suites."

RETIRED U.S. ARMY OFFICER. More than that, there was an American army officer ('retired from the service, of the U.S.A. with high rank) ncftinp; as second in command of this

battalion of Yankee lads. I was told by several persons who had ample means of knowing. They named his name and said that so enthusiastic was ho about the cause of tho Allios that ho was content, even eager, to acoept a lieutenant-colonelcy in this battalion, although he had been of far greater position than that in the army of his own country, and was really one of tho best known of thtf older " fighting men " in Undo Sam'a service. And they predicted that when he and his men got into action Berlin would know it speedily enough. T am not giving tho name here, because it was whispered in confidence, and it was said that he didn't want it known just yet that he was fighting in the service of a foreign monarch. Fat all this—the departure of 7000 boys in khaki—was but the incident of a single day in the Port of Halifax. A good many persons knew about it, of course; but a great many more didn'"t. There was not a mention of it in the morning or evening newspapers of the town, although it was what every newspaperman would cali a " big story." Indeed, that particular cargo, for size alone, broke the trans-Atlantic record of the Olympic. She used to be considered crowded when in the passenger servico she carried 3000, Early in the war 5000 or 6000 was considered a tremendous number. This 7000 exceeded any company she bad r.«. oomru * ... \Janada to the front (al-

though there is a story—tmconfxnned-v that she once took Ii.OGO down fropf England to the Dardanelles). WENT ABOARD SECRETLY. The men were assembled pomring in at night-, over the lines of the Intercolonial Railway, at on© of whose piers "he tug Twenty-eight Tea was tied up- And when the town wa3 J dark and quiet they were marched aboard her and, though you could get within a block or so, you couldn't approach near enough to see the throngs clustered on her decks, for you were* halted by a bayonet politely pointed at your breast. Great Britain keeps b*acb movements pretty secret. A few words more about the Olympfe. There are several reasons why she is in the British transport service and fa making trips across the Atlantic almost on regular schedule which runs approximately like tltit?: Five days crossing, three days loading, off again. Ono reason i< that she is commodious and speedy. She can turn off her 23 knots with'ease and she can outrun (and several limes lias done so) the fleetest U-boats Germany can send after her. PRACTICALLY UXSINKABLE. But the most important reason id that she is the nearest approach to an unsinkable boat that is floating. After the Titanic went down, it will bo remembered, the Olympic was fitted with an "''inner .skin,*' a complete second hull, sis feet inside of the outer shell Vi Iht.

Now, tlio Lusitania ateo had an innei skin, aud sho was sunk by a torpedo. But her inner skin was merely a shell supported by braces. When the torpedo struck the Lnsitania it made a \ hole which allowed water to pour into one whole side of her and turn her over.

The Olympic has solid bulkheads separating tho two bulls at short intervals all along her length, po that if sho should receive a torpedo blow only one of these corupaxnth ely small compar--

On one of 3ier recent trips—in t"h*> thiru wceu or it was—three different submarines gave chase to her off the coast of Ireland. She was carrying then about 250 wounded men invalided !*;ne to various parts of the Dominion. She put on all speed, darted and twisted snakewise for twenty-four hours, and not. until sho was,far beyond any points known to have been reached by the undersea terrors did she straighten out and point for Canada. ANOTHER BIG " FERRYBOAT." Another big vessel slipped quietly out of Halifax Harbour that day. She was not so large as Transport Twenty-eight Ten, nor did she carry such heavy armament. The guns that frowned from her sides were of no more than six-inch diameter, apparently. She, too, had 2 number. But before the letters wero chiseled off her bows and stern she was the Laurentic.

"Just in a few days ago from NewZealand and Australia with a load of gold bullion—millions,"' t learned. ' She's olf again, now, riding light. Secreti orders.'"

Still another big one appeared ono I morning at a spot, where she hadn't j been the night before. This was a, } day or so after the Olympic had slipped j out. She was. my knowing friends had ' it, the Csnieronian, in with wounded, j and soon going out. again with fresh I troops. J A low-lying, slim-bowed, war-grey j yacht with wo rakish pipes and a moss j of small guns slid speedily through the | harbour. She was once the Winchester, j well known on tho Hudson and about New York Harbour and the Florida resorts as the speed craft of tho son of j '•Broadway" Rouss. Sho was sold early in the war. and has since been a scout, steaming swiftly to sea. to watch i for possible enemies while the troop- ! ships and supply vessels prepare to make their regular runs over the Great Ferrv.

Of these latter craft there are plenty. Ono hour you'll *cq an old-timer from tho stenm-and-sail deys still sporting her ancifnt bow-sprit, nine; heavily seaward with a deckload'of lumber piled 10ft higher than her mils. Again the omcrocr will be a Russian er French steamer, deep down in the water from a cargo of mysterious and heavy enses of munitions, or a British tramp laden to her Plimsoll line with tinned foods or barrelled fish or vsteel ingots or whatnot.

The Leviathan, a bicrh, heavy battleship of t!io class rapidly becoming extinct, goes in and out on unknown errands. She was going to bo scrapped just as the war broke, but she's doDe splendid service since. Four-funnelled cruisers, three and four-funnelled destroyers ply seaward, then harhourward. SEARCHLIGHTS BUSY. From the heights of the city, where stands the Citadel, now armed with modern and powerful rifles, heliograph mirrors wink to oilier heiiogranh mirrors across the month of the harbour a mile- or so away. At night nine huge searchlights scrutinise, every ship which approaches anywhere near the entrance to the port, and then blink messages to each other about what they think of her.

_ From Halifax the little Red Crcs3 liner Florizel carried the'vacation roy"'"l": " { ----n J - one, to «* Newfoundland, which oocupfeH twe <lay->. i nee. ve had four days ashore and ibr-n 1— - 1 ---s at sea on the return trip from Halifax. During this -i-ini-* wo were awav no fewer than more Canadian'fighters, in addition to on the Olympic, had departed. Since the beginning of the war, T was told, more *h.in SoO.OOO men have steamed from the port, and not one has been lost at spa through any notion of the enemv.