"By my direction you have no doubt. He _was_!"
How brutal war is, and what a perfect exponent of the art the Captain
proves himself to be! To me a life is a life, a particle of the thing
divine; to him a life is a unit, and a half-maimed and probably dying
seaman is as nothing in the scales when the safety of a U-boat is at
stake. The seamen are numbered in their tens of thousands, the U-boats
in their tens. The steamer had hit us once, luckily only in the casing,
a second hit might well have punctured the pressure hull, and our fate
in these waters would have been certain. Therefore, having summed these
things up and balanced them in his mind, he dived and the sailor died.
Once below water Von Weissman seemed more his imperturbable self, and
unless I am mistaken he is never really happy on the surface, at least
when in action. He is a true water mole.
* * * * *
A day full of interest, though once again I have had to force myself to
absorb the horrors of War. I imagine that I am now going through the
experiences of a new arrival on the Western Front, who feels a desire
to shudder at the sight of every corpse.
At 10 a.m. this morning we sighted the topsails of a sailing boat to
the southwest. Closing her on the surface, we approached to within
about 6,000 metres, when suddenly Von Weissman ordered "Gun Action
Stations."
The gun crew came tumbling up, but not quick enough to suit him, for as
they were mustering at the gun he gave the order to dive, only,
however, taking her down to periscope depth before instantly ordering
surface and then "Gun Action Stations" again. This time we opened fire
on the ship, which was a Norwegian barque and, being in the barred
zone, liable to destruction.
Von Weissman had announced overnight that at the first opportunity he
would give "that ---- gun's crew a bellyful of practice," and he
certainly did. As soon as the first shot was fired, she backed her
topsails, and when our fourth shot struck her, somewhere near the foot
of the foremast, her crew could be seen hastily abandoning their ship.
This action on their part had no influence with Von Weissman, who had
taken personal charge of the helm, and, with the engines running at
three-quarter speed, he was zigzagging about, to make it harder for the
gun's crew. Every now and then he flung a gibe at the crew, such as
suggesting that they should go back to the High Seas Fleet and learn
how to shoot.
The sailing ship was soon on fire, for, considering the circumstances,
the shooting was very fair, though had I been controlling it I could
have confidently guaranteed better results. When she was blazing nicely
fore and aft, Von Weissman ordered the practice to cease, and sent the
crew below. He then ordered course south, speed ten knots, and I took
over the watch.
An hour and a half later, when the navigator gave me a spell, a black
cloud on the northern horizon marked the funeral pyre of another of our
victims. When I went below, the Captain had just finished playing with
his precious old chart.
* * * * *
We received a message at 2 a.m. last night from Heligoland to return
forthwith; it is now 2 a.m. and we are approaching the redoubtable
Dover Barrage. We had no trouble coming up channel to-day, which seems
singularly empty, at any rate in mid-channel, where we were.
* * * * *
We got back about three hours ago, and as I was appointed temporary to
the boat, Von Weissman kindly allowed me to leave her and come up to
Bruges as soon as we got into the shelters at Zeebrugge.
I got up here just, in time for a late dinner. Hunger satisfied, I
retired to my room and, needless to say, at once rang up my darling
Zoe.
By the mercy of providence she was in, but imagine my sensations when I
heard that that accursed swine of a Colonel was also back from the
front, and expected in at the flat at any moment, being then, she
thought, engaged in his after dinner drinking bouts at the cavalry
officers' club. I could only groan.
A laugh at the other end stung me to furious rage, appeased in an
instant by her soothing tones as she told me that I should be glad to
hear that he was only up from the Somme on a four-days leave, and was
returning next morning by the 8 a.m. troop train. Glad! I could have
danced for joy. I breathed again.
As the Colonel was expected back at any moment she thought it advisable
to terminate the conversation, which was done with obvious reluctance
on her part, or so I flatter myself.
He goes to-morrow, so far so good, but what of the intervening period?
Could any more refined torture be imagined than that I, who love her as
I love my own soul, should have to sit here, whilst scarcely a mile
away, probably at this very moment as I write, that gross brute is
privileged to kiss her, to look at her, to--oh! it's unbearable. When I
think of that hog, for though I've never seen him, I've seen his
photograph, and I know instinctively that he _is_ gross, fresh, as she
says, from a drinking bout, should at this moment be permitted to raise
his pigs' eyes and look into those glorious wells of violet light; when
I think that his is the privilege to see those masses of black hair
fall in uncontrolled splendour, then I understand to the full the deep
pleasures of murder.
I would give anything to destroy this man, and could shake the
Englishman by the hand who fires the delivering bullet!
Steady! Steady! What do I write? No! I mean it, every word of it. Yet
of all the mysteries, and to me Zoe is a mass of them, surely the
strangest of all is contained in the question: Why does she live with
him?
She doesn't love him, she's practically told me so. In fact, I know she
doesn't. Let me reason it out by logic. She lives with him, whether
voluntarily or involuntarily. Suppose it be voluntarily, then her
reasons must be (a) Love; (b) Fascination; (c) Some secret reason. If
she is living with him involuntarily it must be: (d) He has a hold on
her; (e) For financial reasons.
I strike out at once (a) and (e), for in the case of (e) she knows well
that I would provide for her, and (a) I refuse to admit, (b) is hardly
credible--I eliminate that. I am left with (c) and (d) which might be
the same thing. But what hold can he have on her; she can't have a
past, she is too young and sweet for that.