NEWCASTLE,
ENGLAND,
_April 8, 1915_.
Well, old man, we have just been through something special in the way
of foul weather, up north of Scotland. You must wonder what we are
doing up there, as I wrote from Egypt that the _Pamir_ was going to
transport men to the Dardanelles. As you shall see, it’s quite simple.
We remained at Alexandria just long enough to like it and to contract
a few little habits--movies, bars, etc. Fourgues and I went to Cairo
together and to the Pyramids. You have no idea how he can talk about
all that. I don’t know where he was ever able to learn so much, and no
hot air, you know, for I bought a guidebook afterwards to see if it was
all true--the Pharaohs, the Turks, Bonaparte, and all that--and he had
told it all just like the book. That reminds me, I want to thank you
for the books you sent me. You are my father and my mother. I received
them here the day before yesterday and I have begun with the maritime
history of France. It is jolly interesting. I am not ashamed to confess
to you that I don’t know much about it. But after what I have now read,
it seems to me to be always the same story--frigates or battleships,
sails or steam, you could say it was beginning all over again. Anyway,
by degrees I will tell you what I think about it.
At Alexandria our crew spent all their savings in four days and painted
the streets and pubs red. The police brought several back, but Fourgues
wouldn’t jump on them.
“Leave them alone, my boy. Sailors aren’t archangels. Let the cops ship
aboard the _Pamir_ for three months and see if they drink soda water
after even that little while. When our beggars haven’t a cent left,
they’ll be quiet enough and we’ll haul ’em up taut.”
That’s the way with Fourgues. At sea he makes them leap with a rope’s
end if things don’t move fast enough. But when there is nothing doing
he let’s them go hell in their glory. I believe it’s the best way, for
all the reservists have fallen into his ways, and there isn’t one who
wants to leave the _Pamir_, although work there is devilish hard.
After eight days in Alexandria we were ordered to Port Said. It was
because of a cargo-boat from Bombay, filled with Indian soldiers for
the front. Its condensers had gone to blazes and as the men must go
and as the boat was in for a fortnight of repairs, they took the old
_Pamir_, being free, to push along the six hundred men. As far as
comfort goes, it was pretty poor. When it comes to freight, the _Pamir_
isn’t afraid of three thousand tons and even a little more crammed into
the corners. But passengers! There is the deck and the hold, and you
must make the best of that! Fourgues put two senior officers in each of
the cabins of Blangy and Muriac and I don’t see how the four managed
to exist. You know the cabins of the _Pamir_--they make splendid
pigeon-holes! The other officers, the “subs” as the Bulls call them, we
housed along with the non-commissioned officers, in the superstructure
which served for the Boches last year. As for the rest, they were free
to stuff themselves in anywhere, hold or deck, according to preference.
Fourgues and I hadn’t time to arrange anything for the poor devils.
We were given only twenty-four hours’ notice and had to coal and
revictual. Think of it! To take six hundred men when you’ve enough to
feed thirty-five and not to know whether it is to be for ten or for
twenty days, because no one could tell us whether they were going to
Marseilles, to Havre, or to England! The shore authorities at Port
Said told Fourgues that he would receive orders at sea by wireless.
When he answered that he had no wireless, there was the usual palaver
and they were polite to each other. Finally, they told him to call at
Marseilles for instructions and that there they would tell him what to
do. Fourgues profited by the incident to telegraph the owner and demand
urgently that we be fitted with wireless because he had had enough of
being called over the coals as though it were his fault. But all that
is by the way.
We took from on board the Indian cargo-boat the entire provision
of rice for six hundred men, as well as the officers’ provision of
whiskey. The officers had with them cases of port wine and of sundry
other drinks. It was lucky for them, for you know except for old
brandy and rum, Fourgues doesn’t like to have us drink aboard. They had
to have Fafa to make their cocktails and wait on them specially during
the entire voyage.
The night we stayed in Port Said, Fourgues and I went to buy some
eatables, preserves, jams, etc., with which to feed all those officers.
The things were not easy to find, and whew--the prices! What enraged
Fourgues the most was that we had to pay for everything in gold, but no
one ever gave us anything but silver. As the same thing had happened in
Alexandria, at Cairo, and everywhere we have been since the beginning
of the war, he swears that it is another stroke of the Boches.
“You see, my boy, we pay in gold, and never set eyes on it again. Don’t
worry! It isn’t lost for everybody! They have their agents everywhere.
Our good money goes to Hun-land by way of Greece or Italy and with it
they pay the neutrals for their victuals!”
Fourgues added some other things, but it is better not to tell you
because you will imagine that I am grousing too much and you know I’m
not made that way. The _Pamir_ steered for Marseilles first. We had
fairly good weather, we rolled and pitched a little, as we were a bit
light, but it was enough to lay five hundred out of the six hundred
Hindus on their backs. Almost all the rice is left, for they couldn’t
eat a thing. It was better thus, for I don’t know what our cook would
have done with six hundred of them to feed. He had no time to waste
as it was, though it is easy to take care of Hindus--all you need is
some rice and water. A dozen of them had brought flutes or drums, and
they did not once stop playing from Port Said to Havre. They played
in relays, two at a time, installing themselves just at the foot of
the bridge so that those in the hold who were seasick could hear, and
all the time, night and day, they beat the drum and played the flute.
You have no idea what that Oriental music can be. At first it seemed
as though they played the same notes all the time, but it’s not so at
all. It comes and goes like a thought! When I had the watch at night
sometimes I longed to sleep, listening to them, and then sometimes I
wanted to cry. There were times when I wanted to tell them to shut
up because it was too stupid to feel so confoundedly blue. And then
it would seem as though I must have it and I listened after all. I’m
talking rot, old chap.
At Marseilles we simply went in and out again. An officer of the
English Mission came to tell us to go to Havre with our Hindus, but the
senior officers, who had had enough of it in the pigeon-holes of Muriac
and Blangy and who had finished their port and their whiskey the day
before, asked to leave at once. As they were lords, or little tin gods
of sorts they went without waiting and the “subs” took their places.
The _Pamir_ went all around Spain and the Atlantic coast with the six
hundred Hindus, who got seriously ill and arrived at Havre like rags.
Fourgues said that it was just a little barbarous, the more so as
nothing is really saved by the trip, for it will take a month at least
before all those poor devils will be able to go to the front.
They were exhausted. Some of them almost died, they were bringing up
blood. And as they were cold, bronchitis and chest complaints had set
in. The only physician they had was Fourgues, and that’s all about it!
He treated them with doses of rum in hot water, for our medicine chest
had soon been emptied. Three of them died, which is not many, say the
officers.
We buried them at sea with a weight at their feet to make them sink.
All of us who were French felt pretty bad about it. But the others----.
It’s plain that in India human life doesn’t count for much.
We were all glad to leave them at Havre. I wonder what use they’ll be
at the front. If it came to being killed, I don’t believe they would
hesitate, but when you have seen them shivering and crowding together
under the melting snow of late February, it seems probable that they
will die like flies in the trenches. And we were a little afraid they
might have left some cholera in the _Pamir_, and Fourgues is not keen
on it a bit, having seen a real epidemic in China. So he was glad when
they sent us to Sunderland for coal, because he makes out that coal,
although dirty, is the best antiseptic known for most diseases.
At Sunderland we loaded a good three thousand tons, and pretty smart,
too. What is it going to cost France, all these hundreds of thousands
of tons of coal which must be bought abroad? It won’t be a small
price! I know that the Boches have bagged our northern mines, but there
are other mines in France. Evidently they would not be sufficient for
all needs; but if we exploited them and decreased our purchases by a
quarter, at least, that much would not be going out and the value of
our franc would not fall as it is doing. It is vexatious for a country
as rich as ours to spend all that good French money and to see how
they give you the change with five or ten per cent. discount. It will
be nice if that goes on! I asked Fourgues why the coal was left in the
earth when it would be so much better in the bunkers or the fireplace.
He replied that this was because of a law of public welfare under
the Revolution, made to prohibit illicit gain, and that the same law
of public welfare did not permit us even now to take our underground
riches. “It’s just as it was at H----,” he added; “the sub-soil of
France constitutes a national reserve! It would seem that it’s better
to be ruined than to touch it!”
But the coal we got at Sunderland was not for the French after all,
for they sent us to the English Grand Fleet. The Bulls were getting
expeditions ready for Africa, Mesopotamia, and the Dardanelles; they
had no boats free, and as Jellicoe’s fleet was yelling for coal, we
were sent in a hurry. I don’t tell you where the _Pamir_ went to find
the Grand Fleet because it is most strictly forbidden. Even the English
journals haven’t the right to mention it, and, anyway, you may be sure
my letter would be censored. They don’t want the Germans to know where
the English ships are.
The _Pamir_ made the trip up there from Sunderland twice, and, I can
tell you, there are just a few of them--battleships and cruisers and
all the rest! What are all I saw at Fano besides this? Nothing, my poor
old chap! If the Bulls haven’t yet got going for war on land, I beg you
to believe that they have one or two ships, and some beauties!
Only, they don’t wear them out. The squadrons rest quietly at anchor
and from time to time they go out and look for the Boches, or if the
Boches come out, they pounce on them. In this way the engines and
crews are not worn to bits like the French fleet. You bet the English
officers, who were awfully bored, by the way, invited Fourgues and me
over during the coaling and questioned us because we had come from the
other end of the war! Honestly, they thought we were kidding them when
we told them that the whole lot of you, but especially the cruisers and
destroyers, were kept cruising up and down with your tails well up, for
forty and fifty days at a time, trying to block up the Adriatic. They
asked us if it was also the custom in the French army, when a regiment
was not fighting, to have it march back and forth behind the lines for
five and six weeks at a time. And then a lot of other questions by
which we could see that they couldn’t make head or tail of it.
That’s not to say that the Grand Fleet does nothing. The cruisers and
destroyers guard the coast of England and patrol as far as Norway. It’s
ghastly to see the storms they have to face and the state in which
they return. So they are given a rest--sent to port with leave for
everybody! And you know it makes no end of difference slogging near
your native land, feeling that you are protecting it and that when duty
is over, you may go and pass a day or two with your family.
They are all as jolly as sandboys, except that they are a bit sick at
not having been able to fight the big fight with the Germans. Apart
from that, they feel that the English fleet is doing its duty, and
they cannot understand why you are kept on the go as we described to
them. I’m not saying this to rile you, old man, now that you are in
the Navy and, as Fourgues says, infected with its spirit, but the
English sailors are rather fresher than yours. And you should see the
difference in age! When you go with your coal from one English ship
to another and chat with this one and that, you might think you are
talking to a pal even when it’s an Admiral. On the French cruisers the
commander always has white hair and a white beard; it tires him to
climb a ladder, and he is afraid of saying too much. Fourgues claims
that the Brass Hats are even worse, but I have never seen them. At any
rate, for the destroyers here they give them to quite young men, from
twenty-five to thirty years old, while down there all I saw were well
over forty with pepper-and-salt hair. It’s like that from the top down,
ten or fifteen years’ difference. The keenness is in proportion. I
don’t know what I shall be like at forty, but certainly with rheumatism
and nice little liver complaint I should find it pretty tough to be
set on a destroyer where one is drenched from the first of January
until the thirty-first of December, and to command no more than seventy
men. Whereas, if I could have that now, my word, shouldn’t I be pleased
and go right ahead and laugh at being wet to the bones, because I
should know that when I got to be forty or fifty, if I had served
well, I should command a squadron with thousands of men and a lot of
ships!... Maybe I’m wrong and the English too, but I wish you would
explain to me why we don’t do the same as they.
I told you that the _Pamir_ made two trips between Sunderland and the
Grand Fleet. On the second they sent us to hell and gone, up north into
the midst of the islands where there was filthy weather, and where the
_Pamir_ coaled flotillas of destroyers and scouts. These are on the go
all the time--with intervals of leave in England, you may be sure--near
German waters, and they say that the Boches will never come out for
a real big battle, but that it isn’t worth while trying to get them
out of their holes because their coast waters are full of mines and
submarines and the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. The English would
be blown up before getting anywhere near. Although this is not what the
English and French papers say, I think we can believe those who have
been there. “If there is a serious battle,” they say, “it will be a
surprise; not because we shall have willed it.” The Boches, it seems,
are informed from England itself, where a lot of their countrymen are
at large, and as soon as an English ship puts to sea, Berlin is warned.
Whereas when the Germans come to bombard the English coasts, no one
knows about it until the shells begin to fall.
They also say that the Allies are a little too good about respecting
neutral territorial waters and that the Germans don’t hesitate to
borrow Danish or Dutch waters to sneak from Kiel over to Ostend or
Bruges. This reminds me of what I saw off the coast of Italy the first
time we coaled the French Fleet. While our cruisers and destroyers were
stopping ships at sea, the _Pamir_ ran across lots of boats close to
the Italian coast, going up to Trieste or in that direction, and they
were well-loaded, believe me.
If that’s the way we are blockading the Boches, they won’t need to
cry “Kamerad!” yet awhile! I wish you would tell me how many cargoes
of contraband the Navy has seized. I ask you a lot of questions, but
that’s because you wrote in your last letter that it interested you,
too, to know what goes on outside of your _Auvergne_.
As you added that my mind was improving with the war, I address myself
to my sometime lieutenant, if you please, in order to form my little
judgment! You know I tell you everything that comes into my head, just
as I used to do when you said that I talked hot air. Anyway, it’s
something if I’ve learnt to listen! Good Lord, how stupid I must have
been, only two years ago! Fourgues, too, claims that I improve.
That old rascal did play me a dirty trick. When we got back to
Newcastle he nailed me to the ship and ran up to London for a change of
air. I must tell you that on returning from Scotland we ran into one
of those little spring gales which put two boilers out of business and
loosened the collars of our broken shaft, which we have trundled about
ever since August. Then, as the _Pamir_ ha’n’t been out of commission
since Alexandria, Fourgues said he wouldn’t go another step till they
put the ship in the dock, examined her hull, retubed the boilers, and
changed the shaft. The Bulls wanted to send him up there again with
three thousand tons of coal for the Fleet, but Fourgues answered that
an old fox like him knew when a boat has had its bellyful, and that he
didn’t intend that the _Pamir_ should break down like a silly, when he
was the one to catch it and not the rest of them.
In order to get things his own way in peace, he took the train that
very evening. While he was packing his bag he called me into his cabin:
“Look, my boy, here is a paper. I hand over to you command of the
_Pamir_ and of the whole show. Have her put into the dock and
thoroughly repaired. I shall see if you can cope with an emergency.
They played the same trick on me in Melbourne on my boat when I knew
less than you. When the hull is repainted, the boilers retubed, and the
shaft replaced, telegraph me at the Charing Cross Hotel, London. I give
you ten days. Put it through!”
“But, captain, to whom shall I address myself?”
“You’re in charge and you have a tongue. As for me, I’m going up to
London to raise hell to get the wireless, and if the owner won’t put it
in, I’ll go to Paris. But I don’t want to hear a word from the _Pamir_
until you wire me ‘Ready!’ Do you understand?”
“Certainly, captain, but----”
“Rubbish! Here are the keys, the papers, the cheques, and everything.
If you are ready in ten days I shall see that you get your skipper’s
ticket for foreign trade, because then they can give you a ship all to
yourself. Otherwise, you’ll whistle for it.”
He shook hands and was gone. So for the last four days, old man, I have
been muddling through. It is just as though you had been put in command
of the _Auvergne_ and being master is very different from receiving
orders. There are a lot of things in which you have to make a decision,
instead of merely listening and carrying on. Before, I used to think
that Fourgues had rather a heavy hand, but now I think that to make
things go you have to have an eye on everything and not spare your
men. Most of the time I am in overalls rummaging around the boilers
and in the tunnel of the screw. Things are coming on. The _Pamir_ has
been scraped and will get her second coat of paint to-day. One boiler
and half of another have been retubed. Fourgues calculated the business
very well. It can be done in ten days by not losing an hour. We are
hard at it. The crew is all right. You know what it is to fall in love
with a boat; and then when you see that you are of some use--say, old
man, if we are ready in ten days there’ll be no holding me.
MALTA,
_June 17, 1915_.