Excerpt from Ships Across the Sea: Stories of the American Navy in the Great War Among the twelve hundred men aboard the flag ship you could have found no more ardent champion of the holiday spirit than Henry Turnbull, boat swain's mate, who was commonly called Bugs. This surging enthusiasm was illogical and unexpected. It perplexed all hands. He was a slow, stubborn per son of few words and fewer friends, mild-mannered enough unless goaded too far, when the raw-boned frame and hairy fists were a persuasive argument. When off duty he was usually reading some book from the ship's library or picked up in a second-hand shop, scowling at the pages with earnest interest and muttering the words aloud. His faithful chum, his right bower, was unlike him, of course. The peppery, quick-witted Jim Cooney was all that a petty officer ought to be a brisk little man with a blue eye that bored like a gimlet. When he rasped out a command there was no dilly dallying. He bullied Bugs Turnbull outrageously, and their quarrels diverted the gun deck, but they had been inseparable through two enlistments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.