I believe the _Pamir_ really is engaged this time in the Eastern
affair. We have been here for a month and a half and it doesn’t look
as though it were going to be over right away. I ask nothing better,
because at present this is the only place where interesting things are
happening. Fourgues also is pleased. We get about, we transport stuff.
We are not doing the big work, sure, but at any rate the Merchant
Service is doing all it can and the old _Pamir_ wastes no time.
She runs all by herself now, since the shaft and tubes were
changed--which is to say that she is entirely refitted. At Newcastle
I wasn’t ready in ten days after all, but in eleven. But as we were
well advanced the tenth day, I wired Fourgues “Ready!” and then shook
in my shoes for fear he would get there before it was all done. I made
them work night and day the last twenty-four hours, but the crew never
flinched. In short, when Fourgues arrived they were letting the water
into the dock and an hour afterwards the _Pamir_ was alongside the
wharf. Of course he saw I’d cheated a little, but said never a word,
for his little trip had put him in a good temper.
“Very good, my boy. I will send a report to the owner and say that he
can give you a boat when one is free--which won’t be yet awhile, you
may be sure.”
This made me rather sick, though, as you can imagine I’d have liked
to have a tub of my own during the war! Then Fourgues explained. He
had had time to go to Paris and had brought back a lot of information.
It seems that in France all construction is suspended because the
war will be over before the end of the year and we should think of
nothing but war-work and munitions. As all the merchant-ships are being
used at the present moment, I shan’t get a command for the deuce of
a time. Fourgues also saw the owner and had rather a hot encounter
because he would not pay for the wireless, saying that the _Pamir_
had got along like this for nearly ten months and that it was not
worth while undertaking the expense, for whereas wireless was good
for the illustrated papers that tell tall stories about it, at bottom
it wasn’t much use. There was nothing to be done with the owner, so
Fourgues went to the Admiralty where they said much the same thing.
It seems that we are quite safe on the sea, that we’ve got the upper
hand, that the German submarines are all bluff, and that, anyway, the
Germans haven’t any. Fourgues is not of this opinion, not exactly.
He says that the Germans aren’t so stupid as to leave us in peace on
the sea and that they are preparing one of their extra-specials for
us. But all the official Johnnies wouldn’t hear of this, so there was
nothing to be done--the _Pamir_ went out as before. The owner told him
to add nothing, not even a lookout at the masthead. But Fourgues had
one installed under the pretext that fifty francs more or less would
ruin neither the owner nor the shareholders. They don’t lose their
time, those gentlemen! The _Pamir_, which is nearly twenty years old,
is chartered at about fifty pounds a day, without counting the coal,
repairs, insurance, freight, and everything. The shareholders have
only to open their pockets--the money tumbles in! At that rate, in a
year they will have enough to pay for two or three other _Pamirs_, but
not enough, of course, for them to spare a few thousand francs for the
wireless!
But I nearly forgot to tell you about another fuss. You will remember
that we struck the cruiser _Lamartine_ on the occasion of our first
coaling at sea and that we smashed her davits and one of our lifeboats.
It wasn’t Fourgues’ fault, you remember, and he said that it must
all be repaired at Newcastle. But the owner refused outright to pay
anything, saying that that sort of damages were not included in the
agreement. The Navy also refused, under the pretext that it is not
responsible henceforth for a ship on which the captain is not in the
Government service. They demanded a report from Fourgues and will also
ask the _Lamartine_ for one. All that will mean filling up forms and
complications without end. Nevertheless, we sail with two lifeboats, as
Fourgues preferred to pay out of his own pocket for the new one rather
than do without.
At Newcastle the _Pamir_ took on field-guns for the English
Expeditionary Force in the Dardanelles and shells for the big guns of
their battleships. They are of a different calibre. We put the guns
in the hold forward and the shells aft. As we had a good deal of room
left aft, because the twelve-inch shells, though heavy, take little
space, they told us to go by way of Gibraltar to fetch the supplies and
baggage of a company of soldiers bound for Gallipoli who were to leave
at the same time as we, but on another boat. All this was a little
complicated, but we have seen plenty of complications since the war
began. Moreover, the English aren’t fussy. The officers who supervised
the loading would come around for five minutes every day, take a look
and go away.
This is the first time that the _Pamir_ has carried shells--real ones,
charged with high explosive--and you can imagine how scared we were
that one of them would fall into the bottom of the hold and blow the
old hooker to blazes! Fourgues seized the opportunity to have all the
cables of the winches and the steel-work of the derricks changed,
saying that they were a little old and that he could not guarantee
their strength. The English made no bother at all about it, but gave
us a fine cable, brand-new, of high quality steel. We even had two
or three hundred yards left! Didn’t I tell you, the _Pamir_ sailed
refitted fore and aft?
It took ten days to get to Gib., which is rather long, but as we ran
into a lot of fog, with that kind of cargo Fourgues was not anxious to
have a collision so he slowed down. Think of it! We had the munitions
of two big English battleships, and if the _Pamir_ went down, they
would have had to wait at least two months before they could send the
Turks a single shell! Really, Fourgues knows his business. When we have
a cargo of rubbish he doesn’t care at what speed he goes or into what
weather, but with this stuff aboard he keeps inspecting the holds to
see if all is safely stowed and that no cases of cartridges are broken
or shells lying around loose.
The English stowed it all very well, however, with good oak and new
pine. There was no danger of it shifting. The _Pamir_ is rich! We
shall have all that timber, and Fourgues hopes they will give him more
munitions to transport, now that he is fitted up for it, because that
seems more like real war-work.
At Gib. the company of soldiers for which the _Pamir_ was to carry
supplies waited for us until the night before. But as we were held back
by the fog and as the company was wanted in the East in a hurry, they
went, piling their stuff on the deck of their boat. But the English
didn’t wish to waste the hundred tons we had at their disposal, so they
dumped in a great lot of preserves and jam and chocolate which was
waiting on the dock. English soldiers feed jolly well, and the war must
be costing England a pretty penny. We bought tobacco at Gibraltar and
cards and Spanish wine. It is cheap and of good quality. But the place
is as dull as ditch-water. It is apparently because of the war. There’s
nothing worth seeing there except the landscape with the rocks. For the
rest it might be a penal settlement.
The _Pamir_ steered straight for Mudros, where they told us to report
and get our orders on the spot. In the Mediterranean the weather was
not so very bad, but all the same, Fourgues is right--one never knows
what’s going to happen in the way of weather; the wind changes without
one’s knowing why and the sea rises in an hour. The _Pamir_ had a
roughish time, all the more so as Fourgues wouldn’t go fast because of
the explosives in the hold. But it wasn’t worth the trouble carrying
those shells, because when we reached Mudros they told us that of the
two ships which were to take them, one had been sunk by a submarine the
week before at the Dardanelles, and the other, after just escaping the
same fate, had returned to Malta to be repaired. But how damned stupid
it is to have known nothing at all about it simply because we had no
wireless! We looked as though we had come down from the moon with our
shells for the ---- and the ----, and everybody was laughing at us.
If we had been informed, Fourgues would have put in at Malta to learn
what to do with the ammunition, as it was of a special kind and
couldn’t be used by the other English ships that were there. Well,
so we kept the ammunition and left the jam and preserves! There was
no difficulty about them--everybody wanted them; they were unloaded
before you could say “Jack Robinson.” As for the field-guns, no one
was willing to take them off because it seems that they were done at
the front and the written instructions were not sufficiently clear. We
lost two days waiting for orders from Egypt, from English Headquarters.
Finally they told us to go to Alexandria where the guns would be
assigned to a brigade that was forming. During this time the troops in
Gallipoli were crying with all their might and main for guns and we
had only to carry them over--we were so very near! But our order was
imperative and we went to Alexandria. When we got there they said that
the English brigade had already started and that we must catch up with
it immediately at Gallipoli, without which it would have ammunition and
no guns. We set out again at once and arrived on that part of the coast
where the troops they call the Anzacs are stationed. They unloaded the
guns as quickly as they could. Since its arrival the brigade has been
shelled a good deal without being able to reply, having no artillery,
and they went for us a little about it, but it was no fault of ours. We
stayed there five days, as the lighters were few and the coast pretty
difficult. The Turks fired some big shells at the _Pamir_--they fell
all around but never touched her. Fourgues was as happy as a god. He
stood, leaning against the taffrail with his field-glass, watching the
shots:
“There, my boy, that one’s too short! That’s too far! They’ll never get
the old _Pamir_!”
Alongside there was the steamer _Terre-de-Feu_, which was carrying
fodder and near which we stayed for two days. Old Man Plantat, a
friend of Fourgues, commands her and came on board the _Pamir_ for
a meal. Plantat has been up and down the Ægean Sea ever since the
beginning of the Dardanelles show and he told us all there is to know.
I believe you’ve met him; he said he remembered you. He is just the
same devil-may-care sort as ever. He said that the whole business in
the East is foredoomed, and that we shall never get to Constantinople
because we didn’t do what we should have done at the very beginning,
and now it’s too late; the Turks won’t let themselves be taken
unawares and are sending out mines and submarines all the time.
He also said that at the beginning, when the _Bouvet_ and other boats
were lost, there was nothing to do but push right on without looking
back; that we should have squeezed through and that Constantinople
would have been reduced by our guns, except for a lot of diplomatic
delays beforehand and a lot of wobbling at the time; but that now there
is no use worrying ourselves about it any more. We shall only lose men
and ships and money and be obliged to go away in the end without having
done anything.
I repeat this as Plantat said it. But I omit his arguments, which you
must understand better than I, on the _Auvergne_, where you get all
the wireless news. This is the first time that Fourgues and I have
heard anything serious about Eastern matters, for we have only the
newspapers and the statements of official persons who all keep saying
that Constantinople will be taken to-morrow. Ever since I began the
Naval History you sent me, I have been saying to myself, as I read
the accounts of the Admirals and Ambassadors of the old time, “What
humbugs!” But I forgot that no one perceives this until one or two
hundred years afterwards on searching the records, and that at the
time they seemed to be “It.” Now, as I ponder and listen to men like
Fourgues and Plantat, who are not easily fooled, I see clearly that in
this war it is the same old business. The more newspapers there are,
the less one knows of the truth. Of course, it’s not the _Pamir_ that
will win the war, but I’ll be hanged if ever we know why or for what
reason they send us here, there and then away again!
When we are in one place, the authorities say that there is evidently
a bit of a wash-out round there, but that it’s all going to straighten
out soon, and that, anyway, everything is going well everywhere else.
We are reassured. And then the _Pamir_ arrives somewhere else--and she
gets about a good deal, as you can testify--and we hear the same old
story. What does it mean? They are a lot of liars and Tommy and Jack
are the ones who suffer!
And who can think that everything is going for the best in face of a
job like ours after Gallipoli? I wrote you on another page how that
brigade without guns was shelled for two days. The coast is as hard as
marble, the Turkish guns are on the heights, and there is no way of
sheltering yourself from them. When they had got the range and things
began to fall too close, there was nothing to do but move away if you
could, since you can’t stop those shells with your hand. So there were
not a few wounded, without counting those who had caught fever or colic
before they had been there forty-eight hours and were half dead. And
not a hospital-ship in the roads!
As the _Pamir_ was proceeding to Malta to carry those shells to
the battleship that was being repaired there, they sent aboard a
hundred broken arms and legs and as many sick. Fortunately, we had
the planks left from the Morocco Boches and from the stowage of the
field-artillery. We were able to manufacture a whole set of cots on the
deck and in the forward hold. It was splendid the way the crew worked.
Engine-room men, firemen, deckhands--everybody--nailed, screwed, and
hammered for four days. You can do anything with fellows like that!
Fourgues could grumble and say it was not going fast enough, but all
the same there were tears in his eyes, especially when, almost before
a cot was finished, it was filled with a poor devil who looked as if
he were dying but smiled as soon as he was at rest. Sometimes three
or four would come at once, and we put them where we could while we
nailed on the last boards of their cots. The hammer-strokes gave them
headache, but they waited smiling.
Finally the _Pamir_ set out, with her explosives in the aft hold and
her sick in the forward hold and everywhere else. They were able to
give us a young doctor and two hospital orderlies. I don’t know why the
three aren’t dead of fatigue, with their two hundred sick and wounded.
For medicines and antiseptics we had a single chest which was emptied
before Matapan. The fever patients and those who had colic began to
improve, and as it was necessary to set them on their feet again, the
crew of the _Pamir_ asked me to give them their ration of wine and
meat if there wasn’t enough to go round. How can you punish jossers
like that when they break loose on land? For four days the men of
the _Pamir_ drank water and ate beans or the rice that was left from
the Hindus, and nothing besides, for the storeroom was cleaned out.
Fourgues gave all his rum, his brandy, his cigarettes, and his cigars.
I, who hadn’t anything, turned over my handkerchiefs and shirts for
dressings. We were lucky to have not one die in the crossing, because
it was fine weather all the way and because Fourgues went very slowly
in order not to shake the wounded.
They were nearly all fellows from Australia or New Zealand--bony and
long and lean. Those who got better told us something about themselves.
They had thought they were leaving the Antipodes to defend old England
on the French front and they didn’t at all expect to fight the Turks in
a country where it can’t be done. Even though mere privates are paid
five or six francs a day, the fellows still find that it was a rotten
trick to give them a job “without any chance of success,” as they say.
But they’ll deal with all that later; for the moment they are happy
because after Malta they hope to visit London, which they have never
seen.
At Malta they were all landed in a jiffy. It can’t be denied, the
English squander money and consider war a sport instead of a vital
matter as we do, but they have absolutely princely medical and other
services. Where they’re at home, in Gib., Malta, and Egypt, one is
obliged to recognize this. The _Pamir_ had scarcely made fast when we
were invaded by doctors and nurses by the dozen, and if we were not
able to nurse them much on board, I have no fears about how they will
fare at Malta. But I find that country most uninteresting and can’t
understand why all the fellows are so enthusiastic about it. It may be
because after fifty or sixty days at sea they would enjoy Patagonia or
Timbuctoo. The whole island is rock, no vegetation, hardly two good
walks, and at night a dirty concert-hall where you are packed like
herring. You must be better acquainted with it than I, for you are
known--to your advantage--by the waiters of the squealing-shop where
you broke several saucers, who laughed when I asked them if you had
passed that way. It looks as though I shall never meet you, for there
were not a few big French ships in the port, but not a sign of the
_Auvergne_.
They told me that you were flying the Admiral’s flag now, the
Admiral’s ship having gone into dry-dock, and that you were mooching
along the coast of Crete. Better luck next time, old man.
As for us, we left our shells, although the English warship had
sailed for Portsmouth to be dismantled, as it would have taken a good
six months before she could fire a gun again. She got a nasty jar.
The Bulls wanted us to go back to England with the ammunition, but
Fourgues wouldn’t go! He said that with the heat and without any means
of ventilating the holds, he would not keep the shells on the _Pamir_
for fear one of these days she would blow up without warning. The
authorities kicked, saying that the ammunition would be on their hands
in Malta, no other ship having guns of the necessary type. But when
Fourgues gets anything into his head and feels sure he is right neither
God nor the Devil will make him change his mind, so they were obliged
to unload all the ammunition. Now we are empty, but it is probable
that they will send us to the Levant again where everybody says that
decisive operations are to take place which will put the thing through
this time. Fourgues isn’t sure of that and, speaking for myself,
neither am I. It would be better if they knew more clearly what they
were going to do. Here is the _Pamir_, which for eight days has earned
a thousand francs a day doing nothing! Don’t you call that good money
wasted?
And now there is a sirocco blowing which is laying us all on our backs.
Fourgues and I spend our time on the bridge, fanning ourselves and
watching the movements of the great hookers which come and go. One has
to acknowledge that it’s pretty work. Fourgues is very enthusiastic,
and you know he can handle a ship a bit himself. It’s like Paris in
front of the Gare Saint-Lazare, there are so many little and big boats
and never a collision.
To speak again of myself, I have had a letter from La Rochelle and my
fiancée writes that, as the war seems to be dragging on, there is no
reason why we should wait for the end--that we could be married at
the first opportunity. I should like to very much, but I want your
advice. Do you think it is better to wait for peace and not marry on
the spur of the moment? I have saved a thousand francs, although the
owner doesn’t give us a sou more now than in time of peace. With this
we could start. We should try to get you in France for the wedding!
Write me what you think. Sometimes I get the hump a bit, being always
on the go and never knowing when it is going to end. I wish I were
like Fourgues. When he is down in the mouth he blackguards everyone
all round and gets rid of it like that. But I’m not that way. He has
just gone ashore because the French _liaison_ officer wishes to give
him orders. Perhaps to-night we shall know where we are going. But the
mail-boat for the Navy is sailing at once and I don’t want to miss it.
Take care of yourself, old man, and write.
ARCHANGEL,
_September 15, 1915_.