You’ll never guess what the _Pamir_ trundled up here? Firewood, just
plain firewood! To be sure, there are lots of other things on top,
but it’s mostly firewood. It appears that this commodity is scarce in
France and every other country, and as in the Army of the East they had
about as much as I have on the back of my hand, we brought two thousand
tons. But I am anticipating. Let us return to Algiers where I left you
after we had picked up the castaways of the _Mer-Morte_.
The authorities of the port received us coolly. Villiers, Fourgues,
and I told our tale and handed in our written statements for the
Admiralty. It was all as clear as daylight, but they looked rather
black. They asked Villiers a lot of questions about the route, the
ship’s movements, the hour when the submarine turned up, where the
officer came on board, where the _Mer-Morte_ went down--and Lord knows
what else. Do you see it? Villiers was in the engine-room attending
to his boilers and pistons. He answered that he didn’t know what took
place during that time and that he had put in his written report all
that he knew of the business. He said that he was the engineer and
not a watch-keeping officer. But they didn’t like it. As I understood
the thing, the _Mer-Morte_ ought not to have been torpedoed just at
that spot. No matter where else and nothing would have been said, but
there--no!
I had an explanation of this the day after, knocking around on shore
with a little midshipman in the cipher department, who had some inside
information. He told me that the place where the _Mer-Morte_ was sunk
is just where the commands of two Admirals meet. So, you see, as
there is some sort of a squabble between them, the patrol-boats of one
don’t go into the sphere of action of the other, and vice versa. If a
patrol-boat thinks there is something to chase and chases it into the
other zone, both Admirals get after it and, so, of course, nobody goes
outside his own zone any more. The Admirals have their boats where they
can get at them and so good tramps are torpedoed.
Well, Fourgues, who isn’t an engineer, but who knows what navigation
means, made an awful row. He said that with a system of secret routes
which the Germans learn in twenty-four hours, we might just as well
give up, and that if they were determined at any price to have a
particular route for cargo boats, they should at least indicate a
different one for each. As the submarines can’t be everywhere at once,
all that’s necessary is to have the cargo boats widely scattered, for
having only one route for all of them is the way to get the greatest
number sunk. They told him to hold his tongue, saying that as this
particular secret route had been discovered, the Naval authorities
would find a new one, and as it was the best method ascertained by
competent persons, there was nothing for him to do but conform.
Then Fourgues said that wireless could hurt no one, cost almost nothing
to put in, and would at least permit those ships whose dynamos were not
stopped by the first shot of shell or torpedo to call for help. They
answered that all these questions were being considered, but it was
not as simple as he seemed to think. After that, he asked to be given
guns, one forward and one aft, so that if the _Pamir_ were attacked by
submarine we could do more than say our prayers and add Amen. That was
when they fairly jumped on him. My word! For they retorted that if he
didn’t wish to go to sea any more, he had only to say so; for they had
other things to do besides putting guns on old tubs like the _Pamir_
and that the authorities were giving these problems an attention which
did not need to be solicited by captains of the Merchant Service.
I wish you could have seen Fourgues’ face while they were rubbing it
in. He went from white to brick-red.
“It’s the same old story!” was what he said as we came out. “All the
land-lubbers think we are afraid. As if I cared a blast about losing
my life! But when the _Pamir_ goes down, it will make three thousand
tons the less. And not by putting blank spaces in the Maritime columns
of newspapers can they rebuild those three thousand tons!”
As for me, I am beginning to believe that as far as the wireless and
guns are concerned, Fourgues is more than right. But there has been
no time to reflect on all this because the local press and the civil
authorities have made the very devil’s own fuss over the affair of the
_Mer-Morte_ and the _Pamir_. Old man, I’ve had my biography in the
papers of the town and you’d never believe what a wonderful chap I am.
They interviewed me after Fourgues and Villiers, and hurrah for the
heroism of our sailors, the mastery of the sea, German submarine bluff,
and the efficacious protection exercised by the Allied Admiralties
over our fleets! No doubt of it, when they want to knock the public,
the Censor fairly lets the papers rip. Well, they invited all three
of us to a municipal banquet. The chief Naval Officer came with an
aide-de-camp, and all the swells were there. We were given the feed of
our lives. When they came to the toasts, the Mayor, the Port-Captain,
and the President of the Chamber of Commerce got off a lot of rubbish
they had collected from morning papers. They know almost as much about
the sea as I know about painting in oils.
But the one who took the bun was the Naval Brass Hat, who spoke one
before last. During the afternoon he had blackguarded Fourgues as
though he were a cabin-boy and refused to transmit any of the requests
Fourgues made. The same evening when the champagne appeared, he fairly
buttered him up.
“I drink,” he said, “to gallant Captain Fourgues, whose presence of
mind and whose seamanship have once more proved to the Germans how
vain are their alleged defeats inflicted on the Naval supremacy of the
Allies! An accident is in no sense a defeat. I can state officially
that precautions have been taken. Captain Fourgues will not again find
a case like that of the _Mer-Morte_!”
I was struck dumb. Fourgues replied. You know that when he wants to
he can speak better than I can spit. But I saw his beard was moving
in a way peculiar to him, and he was creasing the tablecloth with his
finger-nails. I wondered what on earth he was going to say to the
crowd of them, but I needn’t have been anxious.
“Thank you,” he said. “I am a sailor, and do not speak well except on
board my ship. Thank you!”
And then he sat down. Simply that and nothing more. Well, old man,
there’s nothing in being able to make speeches, for they nearly brought
the house down, the big bug made most noise of all. After this flourish
the meeting broke up.
The inhabitants had prepared a vocal and instrumental concert with
the assistance of local artists, and I lit a cigar while they made
me repeat for the fiftieth time the adventure of the _Pamir_ and
the _Mer-Morte_. It seems the newspapers are not sufficient for the
colonists in this country; however, one must be polite and I was
doing my level best, all the time keeping my eye on Fourgues, who was
talking in a corner with the aide-de-camp of the Naval Brass Hat who
was tapping him on the shoulder as though he were telling him a good
joke. But I could see that Fourgues was finding it anything but funny.
He chewed the end of his cigar without having lit it and kept his
hands in his pockets, which is a trick he has to keep himself from
gesticulating too much when he is mad. When the aide-de-camp left him,
he came straight over to me and said:
“Let’s get out of this, or I shall explode!”
I should have preferred to stay, because it’s really rather flattering
to be treated like a hero; but Fourgues pulled me by the sleeve and we
hooked it from the crowd of swells.
On the way back to the _Pamir_, he pondered a long time. He would stop
and then go on again. I followed and said not a word. Finally he let it
all out:
“Do you know what he told me, that gold-braided humbug? He said that
as I had no confidence in the way the sea was patrolled and was afraid
of submarines, they were going to load the _Pamir_ with firewood for
the Army of the East. In that way, he said, if a submarine rakes
you or torpedoes you--which is improbable--you will float, my dear
Fourgues--you will float--because wood is lighter than water. Because
wood is lighter than water, because wood is----”
I believe Fourgues repeated it fifty-one times, his arms folded, and
fairly snorting, he was so wild.
When we were on board, he offered me a glass of old brandy from his
home to make up for the liqueurs he had made me miss, and a cigar, a
Havana from salvage stock, which was not bad at all. And then he didn’t
open his mouth again, but started trying to read his fortune cards to
see if the _Pamir_ would be sunk or not before the end of the year. All
his attempts failed and he wasn’t satisfied at all. Finally he counted
the cards and saw that one was missing, the nine of clubs, which he
found in the card-box. So he chucked them all into the air and sent me
to bed.
“Only, my boy,” he said, “as they are giving us two thousand cubic
metres of wood to carry to keep us from sinking, do me the favour of
pinching a few feet of it. We’ll make some rafts. If they won’t give me
wireless or guns, that’s that. I can’t buy them in a bazaar, but if a
submarine sends a torpedo amidships, I don’t intend that we shall all
go to feed the crabs. Do you twig?”
I answered that I did, and went into our quarters where Villiers
had just arrived from the spree ashore. He was a trifle mellow as
everybody had insisted on drinking with him, but at bottom he’s a good
fellow, for he is staying on board the _Pamir_ and I shan’t have to
bother with the engine any more. If he had wanted, the office would
have given him some leave after the sinking of the _Mer-Morte_, but
he said that when one had had an escape like that, there was nothing
more to be afraid of and that he would be a mascot for the _Pamir_. The
office paid all his losses promptly--which fairly astonished me--but
didn’t increase his pay a cent.
Villiers has had more technical training than Muriac, who began at
sixteen as a fireman on a coasting vessel and knew his engine as
he knows his own pocket, without having a word of theory. Villiers
went through the school of the Arts et Métiers and bores us stiff at
meals with rot about Carnot’s law, the conservation of energy, and
thermodynamics. Some days Fourgues looks askance at him, not liking
to have people on the boat who know more than he, on no matter what
subject. But he can’t say anything. Villiers, in spite of his somewhat
affected manner, runs his show to perfection. He told me that he
arrived just in time; otherwise the steam steering-gear, the condenser,
and the boilers would have gone bust. I can well believe it. As long
as the machinery keeps going, I am able to boss the job. But if it had
begun to jib, I shouldn’t have known what the deuce to do.
At Algiers we loaded two thousand cubic metres of firewood. It is easy
to stow--throw it in the hold and it settles itself. It isn’t dirty;
you can be sure it won’t break. Fourgues himself found that on the
whole it was as good as coal as a cargo. It was to warm the _poilus_ of
the Army of the East and we were ready to start, but at the last moment
they told us to go and complete our cargo in France and ordered us to
Cette. Fourgues tried to say that at Cette they’d probably have little
for him to take and that the _Pamir_ would lose eight days, during
which the soldiers would be shivering with cold at Salonica. But as he
was already on poorish terms with the Naval authorities, because of his
talk of guns, wireless, and so on, they told him they had had enough of
him and ordered him to go to Cette without giving any more trouble.
At Cette the fellows looked sick when they saw that we were more
than three-quarters full. They shoved barrels of wine on top of our
firewood. It took a day to level the logs of pine and elm. We were
able to load two tiers in each hold, enough to keep the Army of the
East drunk for three days only, and we got through without too much
breakage--only three or four old casks which stove in while they were
in the sling, and the crew fairly howled when they saw that good wine
going overboard for the benefit of the fish! Just as we were on the
point of sailing, there arrived from Cette a consignment of mules which
had come from the Pyrenees for the soldiers in the East. They were to
have embarked on a boat specially fitted for that sort of thing--only,
the boat had been sunk two days before and there was a fearful fuss
because General Sarrail was raising Cain to get mules. At the very
moment we were weighing anchor, a fellow from the port ran back,
signalling with his arms to us to stop. Fourgues had the ladder let
down and the chap came on board and asked how many mules we could take.
Old man, it was worth paying for to see Fourgues’ face.
“Mules, sir, mules! So the _Pamir_ is a ---- stable now, is she? I am
full to bursting, sir! I have big logs and little logs and elm logs
and other logs. And I have two hundred barrels of wine, which, at the
rate at which things are moving, will be vinegar before I arrive. And
I have strict orders to get under way for Salonica at four o’clock,
sir, and now you want to know how many mules I can take! Oh, as
many as you wish, sir! Put them on the deck--in the funnels--in the
chain-locker--up the masts, and in my cabin, sir. Cut them in pieces
and stow them in the hold and we will stick them together again at
Salonica. It’s all the same to me! The sea is deep and we shan’t touch
the bottom even if you load us with mules enough to founder us. We can
pack your mules, sir, in tiers, two or three tiers; and if they can eat
coal or firewood, perhaps they will still be recognizable as mules when
they get to Salonica!”
I wish you could have seen the mug of the citizen with the mules!
He would have crawled into the compass if that had been possible.
He stammered excuses--urgent necessity, extremely urgent necessity,
expected ship sunk, necessity of national defence, imperative order
not to go ashore again until he had disposed of his mules on the
_Pamir_.... When Fourgues saw that he had humbled him enough he
suspended the order to get under way. Secretly he was enjoying it.
“Look here! I’ll take a hundred of your mules, sir; if you will bring
enough hay for a week, for I’m not going to feed them on the bread of
my crew. I will give them water from the boilers. That will cure those
that are costive. But for G----’s sake get a move on! I don’t want to
rot at Cette and I intend to sail to-morrow at five o’clock. But do
your mules know how to swim, sir? Because, if the _Pamir_ is torpedoed
there’s no place for them in my two lifeboats. And if they are sick,
I’ve no orderlies to hold basins for them!...”
The poor brute hooked it as soon as he could, and I am sure he is still
wondering what strange monstrosity it was he stumbled upon. Villiers,
who came up from the engine-room after Fourgues gave the order not to
get under way, heard the last volley. But as soon as the muleteer had
turned his back, Fourgues burst out laughing and gave each of us an
Algerian cigar.
“That’s how we are on the _Pamir_, Villiers! Of course, I’ll take
their mules, as many as there is room for on the deck. They are needed
at Salonica. But all the same, they’re a bit thick--sending us that
bird at the last moment! As for you, my boy, to-night you are going
to have a wooden floor laid over the deck for all these quadrupeds. I
don’t intend they shall break their legs on the steel deck. Have it
ready by to-morrow morning at six.”
That’s the sort of man Fourgues is. He stayed up all night while the
crew nailed those old planks that were left from our Moroccan Boches.
At six o’clock everything was ready. We had made a fine floor with
crossbeams underneath and with mangers along the railing. No one got
any sleep. Villiers was all right. He calculated the length of the
boards and crossbeams at once, the number of nails, the dimensions of
the surface--everything. Without him we should have wasted stuff. If
only we could have slept the next day! But the mules arrived with their
hay at dawn and we went right on without stopping. Fourgues gave orders
to serve wine _ad lib._, for, he said, with a little wine you can make
a Frenchman climb to Heaven on a knotted rope.
Well, old man, in former times I have shipped horses, cattle, pigs,
and asses on the _Pamir_, but I recommend mules if you want a little
distraction. They have only four feet, but it seems as though they had
twenty-five. When you put the girths around their bellies they begin to
sniff and rear. When you start the winches and they are hoisted into
the air, they are so astounded that they don’t say a word; they content
themselves with relieving themselves because of the pressure on their
bellies, but you can see by their sly expression and their panting
breath that they are reserving themselves for later. And when they
reach the deck and are out of the sling, they begin to dance, to run,
and to let out a kick wherever they see a human face, and then it’s far
from funny. We just missed having our eyes put out a hundred times,
because there were a hundred mules. One jumped around so much that he
went overboard. He knew how to swim and hooked it for the shore, and
whatever may have been his adventures, the _Pamir_ did not carry _him_
along to Salonica.
The hay came too. Fourgues had it put on top of the deck-house near
the funnel. It was as hard as wood and as dry as asbestos. We had
to wet it before the mules could eat it. Two men from the crew were
appointed to look after them, because there was no one provided at
Cette to escort them. I am glad it was they and not me. For twenty-four
hours they were unable to approach those mules who kept showing their
heels and skipping like kids, so that the two reservists fled with the
hay! But when the beasts began to get hungry, they all held out their
noses for the hay when it came, and after a few days the movie-man and
the _croupier_ were chums with them. As none of the rest of the crew,
Villiers and I included, could approach without seeing them wriggle
their rumps, the movie-man and the _croupier_ got swelled head and said
that they were the only ones aboard who understood animals.
Fourgues, coming down from the bridge one night, wanted to approach
them from starboard aft, whispering soft nothings to them in the
language of Provence:
“There, there, my little dear, _mon petit bichon_----”
I should smile! Three of them sent their heels about two inches from
his pipe and Fourgues hooked it faster than he would have thought
possible. You can’t imagine the noise that a hundred mules can make on
a steel deck, even with a wooden floor. There you have four hundred
hoofs making the devil’s own rattle all night long, and there’s no
way of going by-byes. Things went pretty well as far as Sardinia,
because we had calm weather with a slight breeze; but from Malta to
Matapan we ran into a wind from the North-West with a choppy swell in
consequence. The hundred mules danced a hornpipe all together as we
rolled and pitched, and their stamping drowned the noise of the wind.
They brayed for all they were worth. The spray stung their eyes and got
in their noses and they sneezed wretchedly. Add to this the two hundred
barrels, loose in the hold, which went bim-boom! bim-boom! on top of
the firewood and you see what a time we had from Cette to Salonica.
But it was all the same to me, for since Villiers has come I have
nothing more to do with the engines. So I have six good hours a day
in which to lounge in my cabin, playing the mandolin and reading your
books. I have reached Suffren, Nelson, Villeneuve, and Trafalgar in
the Naval History. Here is my conclusion: _Plus ça change, plus c’est
la même chose_.
The secret route was altered by the time the _Pamir_ went from Cette
to Salonica. Perhaps the sinking of the _Mer-Morte_ was the cause of
this. Fourgues and Villiers think so. All I know is that we didn’t have
one patrol-boat between Cette and Point Cassandra. You who are on a
warship--can you explain this to me? I suppose you protect the boats
that are worth the trouble, although the _Provence_, which had more
than a thousand men on board, caught it not long ago. Evidently boats
loaded with mules, wine, and firewood are not worth the trouble, and
I am the first to realize that this is true. I have had rafts made of
the extra wood I pinched, and if the _Pamir_ goes down we can hope to
float. But I can quite understand that they shouldn’t bother about a
tramp with a crew of only thirty-five men, and if you tell me that the
others are guarded I’m satisfied.
At Salonica, Fourgues caught it, naturally. He was late with the wine,
late with the firewood, late with the mules. It was some sort of Naval
Captain, I’m not sure what, who came on board to tell us this. If you
ever see him, he is a chap with a square jaw, big and strong as an oak,
who doesn’t mince his words any more than Fourgues. So you can imagine
what they said to each other. Fortunately Fourgues was able to show his
papers quite in order and the other had to take it all back. They must
be in crying need of wine, mules, and wood here, for they made us come
alongside the principal quay of the Port Authority on the very evening
of our arrival and we had unloaded all our cargo in three days. We were
then sent to the outer harbour to wait for orders, and are now kicking
our heels. It’s good for us, for we’ve all had about as much as we
could stand, ever since Algiers.
I must have slept twenty-four hours at one stretch after the unloading
of the _Pamir_, and now Fourgues, Villiers, and I go on land about
three or four o’clock and come back when all the lights are out. What a
dirty hole Salonica is! There are two or three cafés, all crowded. In
the streets the policing is done by Greeks, French, and English, and
one is about as agreeable as the other. And there is an exchange of
eighteen or twenty per cent., and Fourgues says it is shameful that
the French Government permits French paper to lose a fifth when it’s
exchanged into Greek. And then everybody says there is no use having
an Army of the East if the French G.H.Q. refuses it supplies, troops,
guns, aeroplanes, and everything. I could write volumes if I told what
I have heard here about the fix they are in. I had rather be on the
_Pamir_ than in General Sarrail’s shoes, and from what they say, he is
pretty smart to have held on here against the Boches, the Austrians,
the Bulgarians, and the Turks, without counting the Greeks at his back,
and with such weak forces that if any general on the French front had
been treated similarly he would have sworn by all the gods that his
line was going to be pierced.
And in the meantime, old man, I am still a long way from La Rochelle,
and I’m worried. It does no good for you to tell me that all is going
well, that everything is moving, that it will soon be over--all that
doesn’t help with my affairs. There you are on the _Auvergne_, well
tied up snug in a harbour, and I think you are quite right to be
there, for there is no use needlessly exposing battleships which cost
eighty millions of francs and carry twelve hundred men. Not that
your battleships are much good either--and I’ll tell you later what
Fourgues thinks about that. At present there are only two things that
count, according to my way of thinking--the Boche submarines and the
merchant vessels which provision the Allies. All the rest is all my
eye. Only, the Allied Admirals are neither on the German submarines nor
on the merchant vessels. So they play to their heart’s content with
code-telegrams while the ships that go sailing by are being torpedoed.
But Fourgues’ cards say that the _Pamir_ won’t be torpedoed this year.
As the war ought to be over before 1917, the rest doesn’t matter.
Good-bye, old man. Send me your photograph in sub-lieutenant’s uniform
and don’t look haughty when it’s taken. We are putting at least as
much into this on the _Pamir_ as on the _Auvergne_, where I send you a
hearty handshake.
BILBAO,
_April 27, 1916_.