THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
That was a fine sight to Nelson. Leaning from the Gyandotte's Number Four gun port, he waved back, and cheered a little, too, but was rather too chokey to make much noise. Lewis, first shellman, who leaned at Nelson's elbow, didn't try to shout. He just grinned all the time, and blinked his eyes, and kept muttering, over and over: "They're the boys to do it! Good old kids from the U. S. A.!" Nelson wondered at the tier on tier of faces, blurred by distance, that looked down from the many decks of the big liners. He couldn't see the expression of any individual countenance, for the Gyandotte didn't get close enough for that, but it seemed to him that a sort of composite and kindly grin beamed over the water from every one of the troopships. Now and then, when the wind allowed, he could hear the cheering, steady, continuous, and always broad-brimmed campaign hats fluttered like brown leaves in a breeze.
"They're the boys! Good old kids from the U. S. A.!" He found himself repeating Lewis' slogan in time to the song of the ship's engines. He felt very warm about his heart and a trifle damp of eye, and was proud and haughty and wouldn't have given a plugged nickel for the whole German Empire just then.
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