If you received safely three or four post-cards that I have sent you
during the last three months, you may well have asked yourself where
the _Pamir_ was going to stop. Cabes, Brest, Trondhjem--they are not
precisely in the same latitude! And now we are even higher up, but
there is nothing beyond this and you needn’t fear that we shall try
to rediscover the North Pole. As a matter of fact all those places fit
in quite well, as you will learn. We have seen interesting things;
it’s not too warm in summer here, and the old _Pamir_ and all of us
are pleased with our little saunter. At Malta, Fourgues came back with
the order to leave immediately for Sfax in Tunis. He wanted to know
why, but was told to obey orders without asking questions. So we got
up steam and ran out of the barrage by night. The English know how
to protect their harbours and ports. Wherever there are warships or
loaded merchant vessels at anchor, they don’t make them waste time
watching for submarines. Nets, buoys, an effective screen of trawlers
on guard--and the people inside can sleep soundly. I wouldn’t say
that all this is sufficient to drive off submarines, but it does
save unnecessary watches. In any case, it’s better to guard against
under-sea boats, acknowledging their existence, than to say publicly
that they do not exist and actually to keep all sailors on the lookout
all the time.
But that’s only my view. The _Pamir_ set out for Sfax. In the morning
we passed two French warships which must have been coming from
Bizerta. Fourgues noticed that they were steaming straight ahead on
their course and said that was a good way to be torpedoed. I reminded
him that the Navy doesn’t believe in submarines, so it isn’t worth
their while to zigzag and retard the run. Then he asked me why, if they
don’t believe in them, they keep everybody on the lookout with all guns
loaded and all the rest of it; that they ought to choose, and if there
are any, not to say that there aren’t and annoy all sea-going folk. I
pass the problem on to you.
At Sfax we found a battalion of Algerian riflemen, Turcos, and other
little niggers, which we were to transport to the south of Tunis with
their horses and all their outfit. It seems that since the Italians
entered the war, things haven’t gone very well in Tripoli. The Touaregs
fell on them and pushed them back towards Tunis, and so France is
forming an Expeditionary Corps down there in the south to teach the
Arabs what’s what. That makes one more place where transports are
needed. They take whatever boats pass within reach, so the _Pamir_
was called from Malta. At first they made us carry whatever we found
wherever we were, though we never found anything where they sent us.
But this time we left and arrived with a purpose.
The Arabs were as good as gold in their coarse yellow and blue uniforms
and they didn’t care a damn about anything. For officers they have
toughs who drink hard and give a man cells if he so much as looks like
grumbling. They wanted to go to Champagne to see what is happening
there and are pretty sick to be heading for the desert to fight camels.
But they, too, don’t care a damn about anything, and as long as they
fight somebody the place doesn’t matter. The Touaregs will find their
match!
As a harbour, Cabes is not ideal and it was hot enough to make the
very pebbles sweat. I wonder how the Arabs endure it with their
clothing of wool and camel’s hair. But they claim that the thicker
it is, the cooler. I preferred to take their word for it, and, as I
was half-melted, found it simply overpowering to stay there four days
waiting for orders. Not one of us set foot on land, not even Fourgues,
who loves to stretch his legs wherever we go. The mere idea of moving
about in that furnace made everyone prefer to remain half-naked on
board. Finally we got an order to make for Brest. Fourgues thought it
was a joke and that the telegram had been wrongly transmitted; but it
was Brest all right. He thinks the owner is behind it all, trying to
have the _Pamir_ sent from one weird place to another because that
increases the money he draws. I believe he is right.
So we were off for Brest and very glad to leave the Mediterranean in
the hot season. Moreover, it was a long time since we had been home or
read the papers: everybody thought perhaps we might stay awhile, with
the chance of getting into touch with things again and of getting news.
You can’t imagine how after a time it weighs on one not to know what’s
going on. On the _Auvergne_ you get wireless messages from France and
elsewhere and there are telegrams passing around all the time which
explain things. But on the _Pamir_ we are as stupid as can be because
the papers never say anything about Naval affairs anyway. Of course,
there is the heading “Marine,” and then--a blank! So the people at home
think we are doing nothing. As they are absolutely ignorant about the
sea, it’s impossibly to make them understand how we work on boats like
yours and the _Pamir_. The Navy is spoken of a little now, but the
only time that we of the Mercantile Marine get into the news-sheets is
when a cargo-boat runs aground or collides with another or founders.
So the public imagines that merchant vessels pass their time in port
or in adding to catastrophes; whereas they are at least as useful as
the postmen, railwaymen, munition makers, and the like, of whom the
papers and the Ministers are talking all the time. It’s just that those
fellows are on the spot and can make themselves heard. As for us, they
are dead sure they won’t see us arriving with our boats in the Place de
la Concorde, so they suppress the things that concern us. Really, it’s
not fair. But here I am, talking politics! I get that from Fourgues,
but it’s also because I haven’t been to La Rochelle.
We had barely arrived in Brest, when they crammed us full of rifles for
the Russians, who it seems are fighting in Poland with wooden sticks. I
never saw so many rifles in my life, and there are whole cargoes like
that, going from England and other places. The _Pamir_ also carried
revolvers, machine-guns--all the small arms, in short. The cartridges
went in another boat.
The authorities were hustling us and came on board every few minutes
to see if we were ready to start, as we had to go with all speed to
Trondhjem, in Norway, and await cargo boats from America and England
in order to make the voyage to Russia with them under the protection
of British cruisers. In short, it was deuced urgent--the Russians were
waiting for their rifles and it was a question of minutes! Not one of
us had time in the midst of all this to go ashore, except Fourgues,
on matters of business. The more we loaded, the more came. We put
the cases everywhere, on the deck, in the fo’c’sle, in all the empty
cabins, till there was hardly room to move. If fire had broken out ...
my word, with all those wooden cases and well-oiled implements! But
Fourgues says he was born under a lucky star and that I must admit it.
The _Pamir_ left without my having needed to buy a railroad time-table
and it made my heart ache to pass the Goulet. My fiancée will think
that it was because I didn’t want to, for she is like all civilians,
who imagines that one does as one pleases.... But you know how it
is--after two or three days you get into harness again and you tell
yourself that it will come out all right some day. As the Channel isn’t
safe, they ordered us to go to Trondhjem by way of the Irish Channel,
and we saw some English destroyers cruising on the very spot where a
year ago they broke the war news to us.
“Perhaps they are the same!” said Fourgues. “Eh, my boy, we have blown
around some miles since that time and the _Pamir_ is still going
strong!” And that’s the truth.
It is never very smooth around Norway, but the _Pamir_ was so heavily
laden that the seas went over her without her ever flinching. She
was, of course, as slow as a tortoise, but in spite of that we got to
Trondhjem ahead of time. As we are still without wireless, Fourgues
couldn’t know whether we were ahead of the convoy or behind it, so,
after rolling for a day in sight of the coast, he put into the fjord,
for it seemed hardly worth while burning coal and wearing out the boat
for nothing. The semaphore signalled us that the convoy had not been
sighted at sea and that we should be notified. So Fourgues was relieved
and proceeded to anchor at the farther end, amongst the other ships
waiting there.
We waited two days and should have been rather bored, in spite of
the bright nights, the midnight sun, the calm waters, and all those
things which land-lubbers tell about who have only made one voyage
in their lives and have never experienced dirty weather, except that
this fellow Fourgues can’t drop anchor anywhere without running up
against an old acquaintance. At Trondhjem it was an American with
whom he had knocked around once upon a time on the coast of Chili and
who, since the war, was plying between the United States, Norway, and
Russia. They recognized one another through their field-glasses and
the American--Flamigan or Flannigan--came over in his cutter. The two
old cronies fell on each other’s necks--it was ten or twelve years
since they had met--and all the time we stayed in the fjord, Fourgues,
Flannigan and I were as thick as thieves. There was also Flannigan’s
mate, who smoked his pipe, drank his whiskey, and said nothing. If you
ever meet Flannigan, go right at him without mincing things. He would
talk a dog’s hind leg off and is not afraid of saying what he thinks.
Fourgues asked him at once if he had been to Germany, but he swore by
all the gods that he hadn’t, though he carries merchandise wherever his
Company orders him without feeling obliged to ask to whom it goes. He
claimed that he had not been beyond Holland or Denmark, but that’s not
quite certain. He might have said it so as not to hurt us, for he loves
France, England a little less--having an Irish father--but above all is
an American, and told us a lot of things which people in France might
take to heart. It was amusing, all the same, to hear someone on affairs
in the North, after having listened to Plantat--I believe I told you
of him--on those of the East, with an interval of only four months. In
this way one gets ideas about the side-shows of the war and what is
being thought here, there and elsewhere.
You won’t mind if I tell you what I hear in one place and another, will
you? You aren’t obliged to believe any of it, although I write nothing
but what I see or hear. And then, you know, fellows such as Plantat and
Flannigan are like uncensored newspapers, so there is more chance of
their speaking the truth.
Flannigan assures us that the Germans don’t go to sea now much because
they won’t risk their merchant vessels in waters where the Allies
are sure to nab them sooner or later; but that, in the main, it’s a
clever trick to keep for after the war ships that are not worn out,
that are in a way almost new, in order to take over the carrying trade
everywhere when peace comes and all our merchant vessels are done for.
And at bottom, Flannigan can’t be wrong, for if all the ships are made
to slog around like the _Pamir_, they will last as long as they do
last, but those of the Boches will be in quite a different condition.
Fourgues adds that it’s not worth while trying to deny it, as the
Allied nations aren’t building a single ship, and anyway a ship can’t
be put together in five minutes like a regiment.
So from that side, if we don’t do something in advance, we’re sure
to be skinned by the Boches when peace first comes, for they’ll
immediately take up all their former trade as well as all that we
have lost. The Germans are saying this among the neutrals, and what
is more, according to Flannigan, their big commercial and industrial
firms in Saxony or Westphalia are at present sending all over the world
catalogues of goods to be delivered during the war, from four to six
months after the order. Isn’t that the limit? Fourgues told Flannigan
it was German bluff! But, no indeed! Flannigan went over to his ship
to look for bills of lading of merchandise taken aboard at Rotterdam,
Bergen, or elsewhere in the neutral countries, and proved to us,
evidence in hand, that he had transported cargoes of products made in
Germany since the war and that he was not the only one. It was going to
Brazil, the United States, or wherever there were purchasers. He even
stated that there had come into France by way of the neutral countries
certain hundreds of thousands of tons for which we had paid with our
good money. What are we to believe, old man, when the newspapers
and the Ministers and the rest keep yelling to us that Germany is
economically ruined and dying of starvation? Flannigan can’t be lying,
for the neutrals have to get merchandise from somewhere while France is
producing nothing and England is beginning to have all she can do to
look after herself. As to food, Flannigan says that famine in Germany
makes a good story, but that we had better tighten the blockade if we
want them to tighten their belts. All this is not very pleasant to
hear, but when the person who says it is sincere and has seen things,
one can only regret that it’s not known at home and, in any case, that
nothing is done to remedy it. This is not to say that they are going to
beat us, but just that we ought to prevent them making fools of us.
And they know they’re doing so, as we saw clearly in the German papers
Flannigan brought from his boat and which he translated to us by the
hour, as neither Fourgues nor I know the language. I’ll not tell all
that, because you must know what they are saying from the wireless
communications received on the _Auvergne_. But there are a lot of
little details by which one can see how they pull the strings and how
we move accordingly. For instance, we are forbidden to say where the
English fleet is. Well, the illustrated halfpenny papers present the
Germans with photographs of the English fleet, the names of all the
ships, their anchorage, the number of their guns, and everything. No
one in France knows the names of the French generals in command of the
armies nor the official description of sectors, but the German papers
serve this up to their readers every morning. As to Naval espionage,
Flannigan repeated a hundred times that the Germans know more than no
matter what high Admiral of the Entente, and that before the news of
the movement of an Allied cargo-boat or warship reaches Paris or London
it is known in Berlin and corresponding orders have been given.
It would be nothing if they stopped there, but Flannigan says they
have understood that the maritime problem will be solved for them by
the submarine. He gave us details of such precision that we saw very
well he had been in there and had heard the Germans talk at home. Then
he recollected himself. But one thing is certain, the Germans are
constructing a formidable type of submarine with guns, mines, etc., and
though time is needed to manufacture a series of such craft, within a
definite period they will have something thoroughly ugly ready in the
way of under-sea warfare.
Fourgues repeated to Flannigan how he had been made fun of at the
Admiralty in Paris when he talked of submarines, and Flannigan answered
that it was our business if we waited till the Huns started; that the
Germans didn’t hesitate to say what they meant to do and that when we
were once in the soup it wouldn’t do any good to call them pirates
while they simply went on sinking our ships. In regard to piracy,
Flannigan, who, being a neutral, is above all a partisan of the freedom
of the seas, says that everybody is laughing at the Allies with our
scrupulous observance of the Hague Convention and that the Germans
won’t be more scrupulous at sea than they are on land, if they have the
means, because the new international laws will be made by the victor
and because, with their submarines, they will soon show us that the old
ones no longer count. Flannigan reasoned well:
“You established your German frontier by the Treaty of Frankfort
and you announced this diplomatically to the world. Did that hinder
Germany from invading you where she wanted to, or you from entering
Alsace which you had recognized as a German possession? Therefore, in
the stress of war treaties no longer mean anything, for your first
effort is to destroy them. And so what’s the good of yelping about
international laws? Germany doesn’t care a damn and is counting on
victory to change them to her advantage. Why don’t you do the same?
Everything that links you with Germany is destroyed. Her signature
is no longer worth the paper it’s written on, yet you continue to
embarrass yourselves with it till the whole world believes that it is
Germany who makes war while you follow after, six months or a year
behind. It’s like their cards for meat, sugar, the national register,
and all that, at which your papers poke fun, saying that Germany is
at the end of her strength and that next winter she will be dead--you
will come to that, too, if the war goes on. But Germany, who prepared
for war during peace, is preparing for peace during war. She does at
once, without seeming to be forced to it, that which you will be forced
and constrained to do by circumstances. The same with asphyxiating
gas, liquid fire, and all the horrors she employs; when your _poilus_
have had enough of dying like flies, you will understand that it is as
natural to kill with fire and poison as with shells and bullets. In
short, my boys, if you don’t want to have it go on for years and if
you want victory, get a move on, for Germany is not going to omit a
single means of annoying you.”
I should never finish telling you all that Flannigan said, and all
was confirmed during a walk we took with him on shore. We talked with
Norwegians who had been in Germany. They told us about the Zeppelins
that are going up and down the North Sea and the Baltic every day,
whereas there is not a single balloon around England or France.
So, of course, it is not worth while saying that we shall smash the
Germans at sea.
As soon as an English destroyer arrives in the North Sea, the Zeppelins
announce it in the ports and nothing is left outside but submarines and
mines. Seriously, Naval warfare is not what it was, old man, but the
Boches are the only ones who seem to have found it out. The Norwegians
and the Swedes who were there did not say much--out of politeness,
because we were French, but we understood that they think Germany has
the advantage, and that, after having chosen to make war, she fights
better than we.
Fourgues and I remembered all this when we left and we discussed it
till we got to Archangel. The _Pamir_ picked up the convoy at sea ten
miles from Trondhjem and we went around Norway together. There were
two English cruisers and four destroyers to escort fourteen merchant
vessels. It was a fine convoy and all those ships together looked
like a naval squadron, but the people who decide the formation of
convoys would do well not to group boats going fifteen knots with
those which can make seven or eight only by going full speed ahead.
After two days’ sailing, the _Pamir_, which was about in the middle,
began to lose sight of those farthest in advance, as well as of those
farthest behind. The convoying ships kept tearing up and down to keep
us together. We did get together somehow or other, but after the North
Cape there was a little spell of choppy seas and rolling and pitching
and as much visibility as in a tunnel. It lasted twenty hours, and when
the weather cleared there were only six of us out of the fourteen. The
fast ones had run ahead; the cripples had simply disappeared. Naturally
none of the absent had wireless and the warships spent three days
hunting for them. There was one with a damaged rudder that had jammed
itself on the jagged reefs they have up there and split in two. The
people were fished out, but there’s no fear of the cargo getting to the
Russian front.
Finally our convoy dribbled in to Archangel in bunches of three or
four. It is the best time up here. After a month and a half or two
months, everything will be frozen out, literally and figuratively. But
it’s not with fourteen cargoes nor fifty nor a hundred that one could
give the Russians what they need! The fleet of the whole world would
not be enough, but it is well to give them all we can. It will serve
them right--and us too--for letting the Germans get in everywhere! It
seems that at the declaration of war three-fourths of their factories
were stopped because it was the Germans who ran them. Mechanics
can’t be taught in forty-eight hours, as I know after my experience
with the shaft of the _Pamir_; and if you add that the Boches simply
appropriated all their factories in Poland, you can see why the _Pamir_
and her consorts must fly to Archangel with war-material. They loaded
us at Brest without even giving me forty-eight hours to go to La
Rochelle, under pretext that the Russians were waiting for us as for
the Messiah. But, Lor’ love you, here there’s no hurry. They have
already taken twenty days to unload a part of the fourteen ships and
are not nearly through. At the time of writing, the _Pamir_ has had
only her forward hold emptied--the aft hold can wait! They sent us
away from the docks because of another convoy which had arrived in the
meantime and which they began to unload. When all these boats are half
emptied they are sure they can’t get away and they let them rot in a
corner of the docks.
And whether they hurry or not, it’s all the same. The things lie
on the docks in heaps in the rain and the wind. From time to time
a train comes along in a leisurely manner, loads up a little pile
without hurrying itself, and starts away again in two or three days.
If it ever reaches the Carpathians it will be because the track goes
downhill. Everywhere it’s the same thing. They say that Russia is
great, that she is invincible, that it will take ten years, that the
Boches will get to Moscow.... _Nitchevo!_ Napoleon went away again and
the Russian-Japanese business wasn’t a defeat. Such, old man, is the
country where I find myself at present!
Fourgues could hardly hold himself in at first to see the _Pamir_
lying by idle. Now he has found some friends, Russian Naval and
Military officers who come on board and with whom he lunches ashore.
When I ask him how much longer we are going to stay here, he answers,
“_Nitchevo!_” in his Provence accent and the Russians roar with
laughter. They drink hard and try to get him to do the same, but
Fourgues is determined not to drink more than is good and uses the
occasion to beat them at poker. Since they will poison themselves up
here, he seizes the opportunity to increase his income, the old fox.
Mornings, during the cleaning, he tells me what they said when they
were half full. Not a few of them are pro-German, especially among the
nobility. It seems that there have been formidable scandals at court
and in the Ministries. When I try to pump him, Fourgues answers that
he ought not to say anything, but that he is glad he is French, for,
although at home we do all sorts of stupid things, at least no one
is working for the King of Prussia. As Fourgues never jokes about
such matters, I believe he must have been hearing some pretty raw
stories--about the railways in particular. Cars are lost in Russia, and
even whole trains, without anyone knowing what has become of them. And
what will they say in Brest when they know that we lay here more than
twenty days with their rifles!
Finally, yesterday, Fourgues said that he had had his bellyful of
Archangel, vodka, and poker--perhaps he had been losing!--and he got
hold of an officer of the port who came along talking hot air, and was
promised that the _Pamir_ will be unloaded to-morrow. I dare say that
means eight days, but, at any rate, as one of the English cruisers will
sail this evening for _Youmanie_,[1] I shall give her this letter,
having finished my twenty pages. You can’t call yourself neglected--eh,
old chap? But you are good, too, sending me as much news as you can and
your books. I have finished the first volume of the Naval History. I
will write about it if I remember. Except for reading, I am bored to
death, for at the rate at which the _Pamir_ has been going, I wonder
where on earth they will send us next, and in the meantime, what is
to become of La Rochelle? Let us hope that by the end of the year, we
shall have peace or the wedding! Don’t laugh at me, old boy. I have had
about all I can stand.
[1] England.
MUDROS,
_December 18, 1915_.
Here we are again in the Levant after all, but not without adventures,
and it’s really no joke to have wandered all round Europe from
Archangel to the Dardanelles only to fall into our present scrape. At
Toulon I received your letter of the end of September in answer to
mine from Archangel. Thanks very much. I shall speak of it if I have
time, but for the moment I am going to tell you the adventures of the
old _Pamir_ for the last three months. You might indeed call us the
Wandering Jews! The longer it lasts, the more they grab merchant ships
wherever they find them, putting no matter what on the deck provided it
goes away--and to Hell with it!
Fourgues finally did get his stuff unloaded at Archangel and succeeded
in sailing without a convoy. He said it wasn’t worth while losing
time with boats that can’t get up any speed, and that when there are
too many hookers and not enough convoying ships it’s just a little
bit too good a target for submarines. Wherever we called I noticed
that Fourgues had not been far wrong when he said, at the beginning,
that the submarines were going to count later on. The officials are
beginning to find them a nuisance. What would happen if all those
bureaucrats had to go to sea! They might then find something to say
besides: “Pshaw! Don’t believe everything you hear, and, anyway, we
sink so many that soon there won’t be any more!” Of course, after that
one can only shut up. Mum’s the word in the newspapers and everywhere
else!... I will tell you all my little notions as occasion arises.
The _Pamir_ was told to go to Newcastle for orders and, in case there
were none, to take aboard coal. We were pretty well shaken up as we
were empty. On the return trip we met a good many boats going to
Archangel. They needed to hurry, for the ice will soon begin, and if
the Russians do not set themselves seriously to work, they can’t smash
the Germans with the stuff they received this summer. What good does
it do not to tell the public the truth, when sooner or later it is
sure to come out? They tell us that in two weeks or in three months
everything will go like greased lightning, and then, three months
later, things are just the same or a little bit worse. And on whom
shall the public lay the blame? On those who have deceived it! For they
knew that things would go badly and it was not worth while to say they
would go well, and the public is obliged to believe the leaders are to
blame, because they didn’t know how to get out of the scrape. You can’t
deny it, it’s those who govern who are on the wrong track.
At Newcastle they told us to go to Southampton to ship equipment for
the English Expeditionary Forces in France. We had just enough coal to
get us across and the _Pamir_ went down the North Sea and the Channel,
the papers everywhere saying that the Channel is completely closed to
German submarines by means of nets and a host of ingenious devices;
saying too, that to reach the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, they will
have to go around by way of Scotland, and as they haven’t sufficient
radius of action there is nothing further to be feared from them. I
don’t know much about it, but having seen what the Germans have done
elsewhere, I expect them to find some way of getting through those
ingenious devices and also of constructing submarines that will go to
the ends of the earth. It’s as plain as the nose on your face and to
say the contrary is to act the ostrich. Fourgues says there will be
a painful awakening, but that everybody will blame it on the Boches
instead of recognizing that we did not make proper provision for the
danger. He gets into awful rages, but as far as I’m concerned, if I can
only go to La Rochelle I ask for nothing more.
At Southampton we took on motor-cars and tractors for the English
Army and carried them to Havre. I had time in England to make a trip
on land where there are posters everywhere, begging folks to enlist.
It really does look as if the English were bestirring themselves more
than last year when they regarded this as a mere Colonial war. That’s
not to say they have as yet been affected as seriously as we. They
still leave swarms of Boches at liberty, their business firms continue
to ship cargoes to the neutral neighbours of Germany, and of course,
they can’t with one stroke of the pen re-form an army ready for active
service. The majority of their regular officers have already been
killed and they are obliged to make captains and first lieutenants
out of good cricket and golf players. It will take time for them to
train. As to equipment, it’s the same thing--they have hardly begun
to mobilize their factories for war production because they did not
want to stop British foreign trade. But we can’t say much, for we did
the same and it’s hardly a matter of weeks since France began to go to
England, America, and Spain for materials--where there are plenty. The
Germans went to work early and we’re a year behind them.
There is an awful confusion at Havre and they say Rouen is the same.
Really it’s astonishing how the responsible people let cars and
war-material pile up in the ports. That comes doubtless from the
general ignorance in France as regards all maritime matters and also
from the fact that the high Naval officers who are in command at the
commercial ports know nothing about traffic. Anyway, Fourgues has to
fight to get his stuff unloaded at Havre. They piled it in a heap on
the dock, and when we left it was still there in the rain.
While we were there we got orders to go to Marseilles, to get a cargo
for the army of the East. The _Pamir_ could have taken from the wharf
at Havre some hundreds of tons destined for Toulon or Marseilles; in
this way the freightage would have cost less. But it was officially
arranged for to go by rail and we left in ballast. Once more we went
around Spain without paying for our trip, and even so arrived ahead of
time, as our cargo had not all reached Marseilles--because the trains
were held up as usual. The papers may talk what rot they like about
the preparations made and all the success that will attend us on all
the fronts next spring, but we who do the work of transporting the
necessary material see plainly that we shan’t outstrip the Boches at
our present rate of going.
You know I’ve no excess of admiration for the Boches, and if there were
no other reason I should have a grudge against them for the dog’s life
they have made us lead for a year and a half, and because of them I
don’t see when I can go home. But you know, there are things they do
better than we and which we should learn from them if we don’t want to
lose months and years. How does it help us to refuse to imitate them
in such matters? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
We shan’t become savages because we forestall them in their tricks.
Much good it will do us to wait till we’re compelled to imitate them.
In the Naval History you lent me I read recently that the Coalition
only beat Napoleon when by dint of being beaten, they learnt to copy
him. And it took them fifteen or twenty years, and if they had caught
on sooner it wouldn’t have taken so long. Why is it that in France we
still run the limited and express trains which I saw arriving in Havre
and Marseilles? The Norwegians and Swedes told us that for a long time
the Germans have been running all their trains at the same speed, the
passengers in between the goods. In that way traffic is not delayed,
whereas in France, with the idea of making people behind the lines
believe that the war is being won as easily as a game of cards, they
put on a lot of fast trains which are only of use to the shirkers and
which hold up the shells and war-material at all the stations. So how
can you expect things to happen?
I pondered all this when the _Pamir_ was ordered to anchor at Estaque,
near Marseilles, for five or six days, as there wasn’t a single foot
of unencumbered dock in the port of Marseilles and all because of the
congestion on the railways. One day twenty-four of us were rolling and
pitching in the mistral; another day there were thirty-two, empty and
loaded, each earning a thousand or two thousand francs a day doing
nothing.
I tell you, if a Boche submarine came into this road, which is open and
without protection, about one or two in the morning, she could send a
good half-dozen of craft like the _Pamir_ to the bottom and get away
before anyone had time to say “Jack Robinson!” But the land-lubbers,
civilians or service men, said the idea was really too funny and that
submarines wouldn’t dare come near the coast of France, either here
or on the Atlantic! After that, all we can do is to pull ourselves
together and await the torpedo with arms folded.
Finally they towed us from Estaque to Marseilles, and then, as the
authorities had made us lie around for nearly a week without doing a
thing, we must take on board three thousand tons of cargo right off,
at one go. The country would be in danger if the _Pamir_ hadn’t slung
her hook in forty-eight hours! They made us roll down into our hold
the contents of thirty trains, which came in solemn procession, night
and day, without stopping. The _Pamir_ was away off to “Hell and gone”
in the basin of Arenc and all the stuff was for Mudros--carriages,
provisions, shells, guns, shoes--everything, I tell you.
They were tumbled in as they came and I had to stow them. You can
imagine how easy it was. Fourgues never ceased cursing, saying that
if we had bad weather the cargo would shift to blazes. But they told
him to shut his mouth, and they didn’t pick their words. There was one
train which came with cases from Milo. There had been a mistake, and
they turned out not to be for the _Pamir_, but for another boat. They
arrived about midnight of the second night, and I said to the military
officer in charge that it must be a mistake. I didn’t half catch it. He
fairly wiped his feet on me, saying that Mudros, Milo, and the whole
caboodle, they were all in the East, and that he was ordered to pack
into the _Pamir_ all the trains that came and that I was not going to
send that one back when they were already late. That Johnny wouldn’t
get through a geography exam.
So I shipped the things because the Army bloke ordered me to, but when
I informed Fourgues in the morning, he told the Navy bloke, who had
come to give us our sailing orders. And the Navy bloke was furious, and
said that we were idiotic to load on stuff for Milo when the rest of
the material was for Mudros. The military bloke had gone to breakfast.
The Navy bloke went after him and they said a few pleasant things to
each other. At last it was agreed that the _Pamir_ should stop at Milo
and unload the cases and then go on to Mudros. We closed the holds
and battened down the hatches and were ready to leave our moorings
when another train with a dozen cases of aeroplanes pulled in and came
alongside. The non-commissioned officer in charge jumped on board and
asked for the skipper:
“Are you the _Pamir_?”
“Looks like it,” said Fourgues.
“All right; here are twelve aeroplanes for you to take.”
“Well, old fellow, we can tow them if you wish, but as for taking
twelve aeroplanes on board, it’s now too late, our hold is full.”
“Not at all! I’ve been waiting at Miramar for two days and I just got
the order to-night to send them by the _Pamir_. The matter is one of
the utmost urgency.”
“Oh, yes. And how long ago did your utmostly urgent train leave Paris?”
“Twenty-three days ago!”
What can one do, old man? Such things simply disarm one! When Fourgues
heard that the poor devil had been knocking about the main lines of
France for twenty-three days with twelve aeroplanes to look after he
said we would take all we could. We found places for six, three forward
and three aft. The cases are regular monuments, and when they dangle
at the end of the cable you have to look out so as not to get your jaw
stove in. And to make all that fast! The deck was just broad enough to
take them, however, and we served lines over them and lashed them to
starboard and port. They rose as high as the bridge.
At this point our old friend the Army bloke paid us another visit and
said that, as the _Pamir_ was ordered to take all twelve cases, we
must load the remaining six in a second tier on top of the first. Then
Fourgues fairly let rip. He produced cusses that I had never heard
before and I assure you they were great! He said that his boat was as
full as an egg; that it was not the custom to pile cargo higher than
the masts; that he had to see to navigate; that he was not sure the
six cases we had already wouldn’t pitch overboard with the first good
blow, and that the other six might go by the air-route, perhaps, but
certainly not on the _Pamir_. Thereupon he gave the order to sail and
we skipped out, leaving the three blokes, the railway man, the Army
officer, and the sailor, discussing each other’s characters on the quay.
Fortunately we had no really bad weather from Marseilles to
Milo--nothing but moderate rolling and pitching, just enough to get the
wind up us about the stowage of our cargo. We could hear hollow sounds
of boxes knocking around the hold and some of the stuff must be in a
nice state. We didn’t open it up, but it will be lovely and we are the
ones that will catch it! However, Fourgues will give as good as he
gets, for he can’t stand being blamed when it’s somebody else’s fault.
I don’t know what the aeroplanes in their cases will look like. As they
were on the deck they swung about a good deal, and no matter how much
we tightened the lines with which they were lashed, every time the boat
rolled they shifted a little with a “Bang!”
At Milo no one wanted to unload the cases we had taken from the
wrong train because the Head of the military unit to whom they were
consigned, who should have been there, had gone away several days
before. We haven’t yet been able to ascertain his whereabouts. It’s the
same old story over and over--enough to make one wild!
In the harbour at Milo there were a lot of war-vessels--French,
English, Russian, and Italian--for it seems we are ready to fall upon
the Greeks if they keep on keeping on. The English, who got here first,
didn’t lose any time before installing nets and a barrier against
submarines. It’s very nice to say in the papers and on the platforms
that submarines don’t exist, but it’s better to take measures, for
they are beginning to sink ships a little bit everywhere. Fourgues
says he would have preferred to be wrong, but that everything he had
thought is beginning to come true and that it doesn’t amuse him to act
the part of Cassandra quite so successfully.
All this time the _Pamir_ continues to be without wireless or guns or
anything to protect her, and she is not the only one. At Milo and at
Mudros, where we are now, out of every ten ships seven or eight have
no wireless, and by gum, you should hear the skippers and officers of
those cargo boats! But all they say and all they think, what difference
does it make? Everybody knows they will keep on just the same! If they
are done in by a submarine the paper will say, “Hun piracy!! Such and
such a boat sunk! There were no military on board!” Damn! It’s simply
too idiotic the way things at sea are run.
The _Pamir_ went straight on to Mudros without unloading anything. You
can have no idea of the moving that’s going on all over the country.
They are evacuating everywhere. Good-bye, Constantinople! Good-bye, end
of Turkey! Good-bye, Gallipoli, the Dardanelles, the coast of Asia!
Good-bye, everything! All the munitions and men that are not too badly
damaged are going to Salonica. We are going to save Serbia if it isn’t
too late. Suvla is evacuated. The English left millions of francs worth
of material which they set on fire. Seddul-Bahr, Kum-Kalé, and Gaba are
being rolled into one to make an army of the East, and it’s not a bit
too soon to think of putting troops at Salonica, for where, I wonder,
are the Boches going to be stopped? It seems that this was an idea of
our _Président du Conseil_. It’s a jolly good thing he put his finger
on the spot, for the Dardanelles business was done for several months
ago. With an army in Salonica and a Franco-British army at that, we can
keep the Boches from getting down any farther. What couldn’t they do in
the Mediterranean, I wonder, if they had Greece and the Peloponnesus?
But all that is politics again.
The _Pamir_ is waiting at Mudros. All the empty vessels are taken
to hasten the evacuation. We are as full as an oyster, and we are
left here because there’s no room at Salonica. Where the deuce shall
we unload our different sorts of merchandise, our aeroplanes, and
our victuals? I don’t know any more than you! But one thing I do
know--nothing of all we have brought from Marseilles will ever reach
its destination! Oh, it will be used somewhere or other, but everything
in this country is upside down and all the _Pamir_ can do is to empty
her hold on to the wharf she’s ordered to without troubling about what
becomes of it. All this is not funny, old man!
And how long are we going to stay here? Fourgues raises Hell, but that
doesn’t help matters. The other ships come and go, but the _Pamir_
receives no orders. I hope she will go to Salonica because I want a
squint at what is going on there, but ever since the beginning of the
war nothing we have expected has happened, so I don’t care much what it
is as long as it can’t be La Rochelle.
So long, old man. I got your last from Bizerta when the _Auvergne_ was
in dry-dock. You gave me a good bit of Navy gossip and I should like to
comment on it, but a boat is about to leave for Malta and I want to get
this letter off. All I can say is that it seems to me not much better
on the warships than on hookers like the _Pamir_. May God grant that on
land, in politics, and the diplomatic service they are cleverer than
our Naval chiefs! My sole consolation is that the Germans seem to be
more fat-headed than we; else, with their preparation and our mistakes
at the beginning, they would have mopped us up long since. Not having
done so, they won’t be able to. With this consoling thought I wish you
a happy New Year and hope that we shall meet in 1916. _Je t’embrasse._