Chapter II: Part ONE (2)

“Your friend’s letter is not at all bad,” he said when I had finished. “He is interested in what he is doing and there’s nothing else worth while in the world, except home and family. But he seems to me to believe that the world was created on the _Auvergne_. That’s a way they have. And he believes in nothing but guns and dreams of nothing but the damage they’ll do. Very good, but we’ve still got to see if there’s going to be nothing but guns in this war at sea! By the way things are going, I have a sort of idea the Germans don’t figure it that way. As for the Austrians! Well, we shall see. Come on, Sonnie, let’s play English billiards and have a drink of whiskey. That’ll stretch our fingers and legs a bit. You can tell me what you think of the letter and see if we agree.”

You know I’m a mug at billiards, especially on those enormous English billiard-tables. Fourgues gave me a hundred points in five hundred and won in seven breaks. I stood around and watched him do it and never saw him look so pleased. I tried to get in a few words about your letter, but he held the floor the entire time. I can’t tell you all he said, for it lasted an hour, but he asked a lot of questions and as I could not answer them--“Ask your gunner,” he would say, “this and that and the other,” chalking his cue.

And so, old man, I obey, and you may answer direct to Fourgues if you wish. I shan’t be jealous and it will please him.

“One of two things,” he said--“either the Navy wants to fight the Austrians or it don’t. If it wants to, why blockade the Strait of Otranto? If you want to shoot a rabbit, you let him come out of his hole first, then you get between the hole and the rabbit and then you fire! But you don’t get in front of the hole in the first place or he won’t come out. I don’t know where the Austrians are--at Pola or Cattaro or somewhere else--but I know they’re not going to come out with our Navy parading up and down in front of them, in strength four to one. It would be better if we were to stay in some port near by, with only one or two ships in the Strait--which is not so broad--and let them make a sortie if they want to and then fall on them.

“The thing would be decided in an hour and the blockade would be over. Instead of that, we wear out our ships and our men while the Austrians remain at home, keeping their engines in A1 condition and sweating at target-practice so as to be right on the spot when they choose to move.

“And what good does it do to go up and down the Adriatic in full war-paint? Everybody knows that nowadays warships can’t get near an enemy coast because of the mines. The commander of the _Lamartine_ told me the other day that they’re not allowed to go in beyond the 55 fathom line and that means from ten or twenty or thirty miles out to sea. They certainly won’t bombard the Austrian arsenals and invade Austria from that distance. All they’ll get will be a floating mine or a torpedo from a submarine. I can’t see any other result. Fact is, with the apparent intention of fighting, they all seem to me to be doing their utmost not to get any. What’s more, if you have read the English papers, you can see that it’s the same over there. Well, who lives learns. Write all that to your friend with a greeting from me and ask him what they think about it on the _Auvergne_ and the other ships. Perhaps all this is only the imagining of an old duffer who hasn’t worried around books on tactics, but it ought not to be very far from the truth.”

Fourgues said a lot more, but this is enough for to-day. To-morrow three thousand tons of coal and off by night! If we have no new instructions we go back to coal the Fleet. But perhaps a telegram will come during the day. Good-bye, old man. I’m going up to play the mandolin on the deck and you may bet I shan’t be thinking of you!

ALEXANDRIA,
_February 12_.

DEAR OLD CHAP,

I’m sorry I haven’t written for so long, even at New Year. You know that I’ve thought of you, but honestly, I’ve not had time to call my soul my own! If I’m not mistaken my last letter was from Cardiff and we were expecting to leave for the Strait of Otranto. But we got a counter-order. The English fleet need a lot of coalers in the North Sea and is jolly short of them. At the beginning of the war they took for their motto “Business as usual,” and the Bulls let the coaling ships go about their regular jobs so as not to disturb “business.” But as the war kept dragging on, they could no longer guarantee supplies everywhere, so, in short, the _Pamir_ was sent to Senegal, Togoland, and the Cameroons, where there is a Franco-British squadron which needed coal.

At first everything went well, but off Cape Finistère we ran into a squall. The _Pamir_ was loaded to the very brim and you should have seen her! The decks were awash for thirty-six hours. The trouble was that the shaft was up to its old tricks, and we saw that the collar repaired at K---- was going to leave us in the lurch in the middle of the gale. Fourgues reduced speed as much as he could without risk of broaching and made for Cadiz to have the collars manufactured by Muriac put in place again. The repairs didn’t go at all smoothly because my men don’t understand a thing about it and I hardly more. We profited by the occasion to lay in water and provisions. Really, it’s not amusing to be a Frenchman in Spain at present. They looked at us out of the corners of their eyes and laughed behind our backs. The Boches have a good footing there, their Government supports them, while Fourgues was pretty badly received. And then all the French had been recalled at the mobilization--there is no one left to represent us. All our affairs there are going to the dogs. The Boches are profiting by this. They are getting ready for the war after the war, seriously. And don’t think for a minute that they all stay there! There are big vessels full of Germans sailing from Barcelona and Cadiz, which go to neutral countries and from there to Germany. We could make a big sweep if we went after them. I hope you’ll tell me if any have been taken. You ought to know. I don’t know much. I have my hands full on board and the papers talk such rot, and then, once you have left land you think of other things. But you only have to walk along the docks there to see the boats sailing with the Boches. With a Secret Service Agent on the spot, France could know the hour and the day of sailing and a warship would bag them as they left Spanish waters.

After that the _Pamir_ went south as far as Dakar. We did the whole coast, Gorée, Sierra Leone, Porto Novo--leaving coal more or less everywhere, sometimes on a gunboat, sometimes on a cruiser or at a dock. It reminded me of the old trading voyages when they made little trips from port to port to unload three tons and take on a hundred hogsheads. Only, this time, nothing doing for ordinary merchandise! There were bales and bales, clusters of bananas and ivory for the asking everywhere, more than I can tell, waiting to be shipped. Fourgues is devoured with despair to see all that mouldering when the _Pamir_ has room enough to clean up the entire coast. But he asked in vain. He was refused everywhere because he is on Government service, so we returned empty. With the bananas alone we could have paid for our return voyage. All that stuff will go to a neutral port and thence I jolly well know where!

We saw a good many people down there who asked for news and details. Fourgues’ preserves and brandy were all used up because he invited so many of the poor devils who were homesick. There are some who have had three or four years in Africa and it was their turn to come home. Now they’ve got to stay on. It seems that things are going well and that Togoland and the Cameroons will not take long. But the Boches had been getting ready long ago, for away off down in the bush, guns and machine-guns of the latest type were found and heaps of ammunition. In spite of this, everybody said that the country would soon be cleared, which will make two fine colonies the less for them. The English got a number of their boats, and the Naval officers with whom we talked said that that would make a good sum in prize-money. When we told them that with us since the war, prize-money has been suppressed, and allowances and so forth, they wouldn’t believe us. As they said, the labourer is worthy of his hire, and one is more apt to hustle if there is some sort of recompense ahead. There was even one who said that we were mugs and that we should be obliged to go back to it. Fourgues wanted to jump on him, but was only half-hearted about it, for he had already told me that he thought the same.

On going back to Dakar we were ordered to touch at Casablanca to await instructions. We thought it was going to be last August all over again, but not at all! There were two thousand tons of cereals waiting to be taken to Montenegro, which is starving. We brought it alongside in native boats called _barcasses_, like the furniture of the Boches, only we stowed it better! In the middle of December there is something like a swell. I spent my time saying, “That’s done it! That _barcasse_ will capsize in the surf!”--and then it didn’t after all. They know the trick, those Arabs. Fourgues was glad to have a cargo and not to be returning in ballast. He was afraid, though, that they wouldn’t send us to Montenegro after all.

“You’ll see, my boy. They’ll make us unload all that and go back for coal.”

He doesn’t like coal because, he says, although it keeps the teeth white and is good for the stomach, you can’t have clean shirts and handkerchiefs with it. But we were sent to Oran to make up our cargo with shoes, blankets, and all sorts of clothing. They must be absolutely on their beam-ends in Montenegro.

Finally the _Pamir_ spent several hours at Bizerta, taking in petrol for the Montenegrin army. Though we did not loaf around anywhere, all this took time, and at the worst time of the year, too. I could never have believed that the Mediterranean was so bad. It is worse than the Atlantic and the China Sea: rain or wind, wind or rain, and a choppy sea all the time. Fourgues takes it all in the day’s work and laughs at me:

“Eh, my boy! You see it’s a mistake to run down the South. The Mediterranean is not much bigger than a cup, but it takes a devilish clever fellow to go up and down it without striking a snag. Now look at that one--and that!”

I can understand why there should be waves as high as the funnel where they have space in which to pile up, but to find such waves in the Mediterranean, that beats me. You, old man, have some peace in your turret, but the bridge of the _Pamir_ is seldom dry.

Our rendezvous was for ten miles west of Fano and the _Pamir_ arrived about noon. From far off we asked ourselves what on earth was going to happen. We expected to see a destroyer or perhaps a cruiser, but not fifty or sixty of you! We could see the smoke thirty miles away, and all the time other boats kept coming along. It was the first time I had seen the Fleet out in full force, battleships, cruisers, and T.B.D.’s. I won’t deny it, the sight’s a staggerer! I looked for the _Auvergne_, but she wasn’t there. What were you doing? I was so interested watching the wigwagging, the flags, and all the pinnaces going from one ship to another, that I forgot to drop you a line during the half-hour we lay-to in the middle of the lot. I was asking myself what you were all doing there, dead-still and apparently idle, and it was only at the end that I saw the mail-boat which had been hidden by a big cruiser, and understood why there were so many small craft running around. Well, your Admiral isn’t afraid to stay there in broad daylight, all of you together, under the very noses of the Greeks.

As soon as we had stopped, a steam launch came for Fourgues and took him aboard the Admiral’s ship, where he didn’t stay fifteen minutes. When he came back, he ran up the ladder in a hurry.

“Full steam ahead at once, my boy--due North. Put her behind that destroyer while I read my orders.”

He went off to open his sealed envelope and I proceeded behind the destroyer all by myself, proud as could be in the midst of all that steel. Nevertheless, it was annoying not to have known that we should run up against the mail-boat. You can get along, old chap, but at home they will think I’ve been drowned, for they’ve been a month without a letter.

When Fourgues returned to the bridge I expected him to tell me about it, and I began:

“Well, Captain?”

“Carry on, my boy.”

He stood near the speed indicator, frowning and tapping on the rail. I could see that he was disturbed, but there was no use putting in my oar. I should only have caught it, whereas, as he has no one but me to talk to, it was all sure to come out before long.

He went down again and gave orders for doubling the watch--two men for’ard, one aft. Then he said that as we were going up and down the Adriatic again he and I should be watch-keepers with the others to support us except during meals, which we should continue to eat together, but in the chart-house. Afterwards he ruminated without uttering another syllable until dinner.

I kept my mouth shut, but I was beginning to be astonished to see Fourgues shutting up just at the moment when he was going to do something interesting. He is more apt to let rip. Finally he exploded:

“Well, anyway, we’d better talk things over. Say, kid, do you know what they asked me on that battleship?”

“Mum’s the word!” says I to myself, says I.

“Well, they asked me why I didn’t have wireless, and why I didn’t have a lookout on the masthead, and where were signal lights, and how was I going to communicate with them at night and with the destroyer, and why this and why that! Holy blazes! they have only to give the order! I want nothing better than to have the _Pamir_ rigged with all the gadgets in creation and with new boilers and a whole shaft into the bargain! But think of it! To act as though they had caught me napping! I’m not a battleship! Well, then I turned in and asked one of them who was going to ask me another dam silly question--a little tin-pot Commander:

“‘And you? What are you lying-to here for? Asking for a torpedo?’

“He burst out cackling and called some others and they looked me over as though I were a queer beast. There was one who condescended to explain that submarines were for coast-defence and would never, never come down as far as Fano; that I really mustn’t get the wind up me--one could sail _quite_ safely. Farther up, perhaps, it would be as well to keep one’s eyes open, but out to sea--what a joke! A bit thick that, to suggest I was afraid! I don’t know what I might have said to them, but the Admiral came:

“‘Oh, you’re the skipper of the _Pamir_ going to Montenegro! You are luckier than I! But surely you aren’t afraid!’

“Damn it, I’d have answered him, but he went away without waiting for an answer, and as soon as they had given me my sealed orders I came right back. Here I know what I am doing and no one dares to give me lessons! Let them grant me wireless! I have asked the owner for it ten times if I’ve asked once, and every time he looks at me as though I were asking for the moon! Oh, yes--I forgot. On the gangway there was a little lieutenant. I asked him what I was to do if I saw a submarine--should I go after it with my fists? He too looked at me as though I were a freak and shrugged his shoulders and went back to laugh with the rest of them. Gorblime!”

It did Fourgues good to relieve his mind. He lit his pipe and swallowed a glass of rum--best Jamaica.

“Go to bed, Sonnie, and try to get some sleep till eight bells, for to-morrow you won’t get any to worry about! We are going to Antivari, to arrive at night and leave again the next morning and all the stuff has to be put ashore. Fortunately the nights are long. They’ll see what old man Fourgues is made of.”

It’s not really amusing running up the coast of Albania. There is about as much vegetation as on the back of my hand, and when the wind butts in from the mountains, it’s no laughing matter. There’s a wind there called the bora. Well, we got a smack from it that was enough to pull the masts out! I don’t know how the destroyer managed not to capsize. Every time we could see her between the waves she was heeling right over, on one beam or the other. As for the _Pamir_, she has had so much of that sort of thing that it doesn’t even take off any paint--she hasn’t any left!

By hugging the coast we arrived at Antivari the next day, the destroyer ahead showing the way. The wind fell, but still it wasn’t exactly fun, and there was not a light showing. Fourgues went in as though it were broad day, but really we could see neither the coast nor the wharf. You would have believed he was going into the Eure docks at Havre with one tug in front and another behind.

However, there was somebody on the wharf, Montenegrins who caught our ropes and belayed ’em pretty well. The _Pamir_ was able to warp in and didn’t smash anything alongside. The natives leaped on board like devils. I suppose the weird jabbering meant that they wanted food, for as we got out the first bags of corn they fell on them and filled their pockets.

Nice night-job, that! Not allowed to show a light, not allowed to use the winch, not allowed to shout! Just pitch the stuff over on to the wharf without knowing where it will fall--so much the worse for any one who is underneath! Those ashore grabbed the stuff as well as they could and dragged it into the sheds--petrol, shoes, blankets, sacks of corn--over it went! We didn’t kill anyone, though Lord knows why not, nor did the Austrian aviators who came at two o’clock in the morning and dropped four or five bombs which burst all around--excepting one which fell into our corn without going off and which Fourgues threw overboard as though it were a cigarette end. As soon as they heard the airplanes, all the natives ran like hares, and there was no getting them to come back. A nice lot, want food, but won’t work for it! The destroyer sent us some men, and although they must have longed for sleep after the dog’s life of these last few days, they dragged the things out as though they were doing it for themselves. They were certainly doing someone else’s dirty work! By five in the morning the hold was empty and scraped clean and the _Pamir_ left without waiting for anything more. The destroyer, having received a wireless during the night, stayed behind, so she put out to patrol around the neighbourhood, and we went down the Adriatic without being convoyed. If a hydroplane with a rifle had fired on us we should have been prisoners, and wouldn’t that have looked pretty! Fourgues was cursing below his breath, saying that a ship of three thousand tons is worth taking and that France is not rich enough to cast them loose in enemy waters like that. And we had no orders, and Fourgues was wondering whether to return to Cardiff or go to Toulon, or what. In short, life on the bridge was far from amusing. As a climax, a crank started heating. We had to slow down to three knots and turn the hose on it. There was time for us to be sunk ten times over, for it took fifty hours to get back, with dirty weather and head winds.

Fourgues wanted to go in between Corfu and the coast to find still water and to anchor if the crank wouldn’t cool off; but just as we were turning into the north channel, a whole flotilla of torpedo-boats came along and signalled for us to keep outside. They shouted through the megaphone that French boats should not go into Greek waters. But the _Pamir_ is not a war-vessel....

They talked on. It seems that the whole Navy believed the _Pamir_ had been sunk or torpedoed and that they had been searching for us everywhere for twenty-four hours. The destroyer which was with us at Antivari had received orders to come back and try to find us, while the others went up. Our convoying T.B.D. started out at full speed and passed us without seeing us, of course, because we were hugging the coast for shelter, and was cursed like the deuce, by wireless, by the Commander-in-Chief, but Fourgues was annoyed, a little, to learn of it.

“Too bad! If they would give us wireless that sort of thing wouldn’t happen,” he concluded.

They were also looking for us because they wanted us to go to Alexandria, where we arrived the day before yesterday. We don’t yet know why, but I believe it is because of an expedition in the direction of Constantinople. Fourgues is rather pleased, for, he says, it will be amusing to anchor as a conqueror where he has anchored so many times with a lot of junk. I only hope it may be so! He spends his time now telling me about the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles where I have never been.

He says that with nerve the thing is possible--that we should take them by surprise and go right in, and then in three days the Turks would be done for. “Only,” he adds, “it isn’t enough to talk about going; you must go!”

Meanwhile we’re having a rest. The English are charming and they don’t worry at Alexandria. The crew are improving the opportunity! We’ve had a few broken heads, but Fourgues shuts his eyes because they have worked like dogs for three months and this is the first time there has been any chance of a beano.

I took the chance of writing some letters as you see. I wish I had some books. Since August I have been doing a lot of thinking, especially as Fourgues has made me see what a lot of things there are that I don’t know. Before, I never read anything but the papers, but now I need something more serious, if only to make conversation with him. Send me a list of books, old man, on nautical subjects and European history, and some classics too. I will buy them in France. If you aren’t sick at my having abandoned you for so long, ship me a parcel of books you’ve done with and don’t need any more. Here’s wishing you a happy New Year.