Since my last the _Pamir_ has called at Baltimore, New York, Brest,
Cardiff, Genoa, and Naples. We haven’t lost any time, you see. We
almost went back to America to carry steel and shells again, but at
the last moment we were ordered to carry food to Italy. So here we are
under Vesuvius, and there’s nothing left for us now but to die, as
the saying is. But I am not anxious to do that, for Fourgues has just
written a strong letter to the Company saying that the _Pamir_ must
go into dry-dock considering how long she has been knocking about,
especially as we hit something hard off the coast of England and he
wants to know what happened, as we are getting water into the hold
to the tune of about a foot a day and have to keep pumping all the
time. So I hope we are going back to France to be careened. As that
will take eight or ten days, Fourgues has promised that I shall be
free for the civil registry and the church. So there’s something good.
We didn’t take our steel from Baltimore after all. It hadn’t arrived.
Depend on the Boches to organize strikes in factories, accidents on
railroads, and cars gone astray! Anyway, Fourgues learned, knocking
around here and there--but _not_ from the Consular authorities--that,
although there was no steel for us at Baltimore, there was heaps of it
in New York rusting on the wharves waiting for someone to take it. So
he upped and went and the _Pamir_ anchored near Brooklyn Bridge and we
took in three thousand tons of steel and a bit more piled on the deck.
Fourgues, you may bet your neck, didn’t go at it by halves and only
regretted that he couldn’t carry ten thousand tons. The _Pamir_ was as
full as she could safely stick it, and crawled like a tortoise in a
nasty summer sea, which was anything but pleasant. However, we didn’t
care a damn because this time we really were being of some use.
In New York, during a beano round Broadway and the swell district with
Villiers, Fourgues ran into old Flannigan. I told you about meeting
him in Norway last year. They all came on board in the middle of the
night, a bit the worse for wear, making noise enough to waken the dead,
carrying a gramophone they had pinched in a bar. They set to playing
cake-walks and nigger-songs on the records which they had also pinched,
and I got up at two o’clock because sleep was no longer possible. As
Flannigan was to leave the next morning for the Scandinavian countries,
or, as he said, going to make a trip in _Bochie_, he stayed on board
until six or seven, drinking Dubonnet and seltzer by way of swabbing
down his throat and relating his campaigns to Fourgues and Villiers,
who poured down quarts and quarts of Vichy to wash out all the drugs
they had put away in the saloons.
Flannigan denies it, but we are sure that he knocks around the Boches
and that it’s not from hearsay that he learns all he tells. But, of
course, you can’t blame him since he’s a neutral and as long as the
official policy of the Entente is to let the Boches carry on their
little games while the papers say the blockade is perfect, and that
the Germans are tightening their belts, and that they’ll rush out
presently crying “Kamerad” with their mouths open for us to shove food
in. That’s not Flannigan’s opinion, nor ours either, nor that of anyone
on our job. But I’ll go on with what Flannigan said:
“The Boches are not eating as much as before, that’s certain, but
everybody knows that people always eat too much, and a lot of good
things to eat are allowed to get in by way of Switzerland, Holland, and
the Scandinavian countries.
“The land is also still there. It produces less because the fit men are
at the front, but even if it produced only half as much as formerly,
there would still be no famine. The Germans make a great fuss about
it for the benefit of foreigners, but they are easy in their minds,
and they know that England has only two-tenths of her territory under
cultivation for food, and that if her provisions are cut off, it is
she who will tighten her belt. They also know that they have torn
the best coal-mines from France and Russia; that Italy, Russia, and
France depend on what is sent to them by sea. To meet that situation
the Boches are preparing something decisive in the way of submarine
warfare. In 1915 they drew up a programme of construction, and when
that programme is carried out they will declare submarine war to the
death. They were not at all ready for U-boat warfare at the outbreak of
war, as they had only twenty or thirty submarines. You may safely bet
they would not have neglected the idea beforehand if they had believed
it worth while.
“As they soon saw that it was their best chance, they went to work with
determination, and submarines will be turned out like anything. They
will be armed with big guns, will run faster than merchant-ships, and
be able to stay out twenty or thirty days without difficulty. There
will be others for mine-laying, to sow all the good routes with mines.
All will be able to cut nets and to rest on the bottom.”
Flannigan says this is common talk in Germany, and that even if the
official people in France and England don’t believe what they say
publicly--that is, that it’s all bluff--they had better get ready for
something nasty, for when the Germans once let loose they will go it
as hard as they did when they let loose on land. Flannigan embroidered
this theme for three or four hours and I can’t remember all the figures
he gave. Villiers wrote down some at the time to pass on to chums in
France, which will be of no use in the world, he says, as the accepted
thing is to say that there aren’t any submarines.
The _Pamir_ left New York the same day that Flannigan sailed. We took
on there a fellow from the Munitions Department, a civil engineer
who had gone over to America to take charge of orders for munitions,
steel, etc., and who seized the chance to accompany the steel bars
whose manufacture he had been supervising in the factory. His name is
Mousseaux. He had had nothing to do with the sea before the war, but
has now made several trips, to Serbia, Russia, Spain, and America, so
is not altogether a mug. He told us a lot of scandals about munitions,
the markets, orders, and the Boches, and I reckon that Mousseaux also
thinks that if we are victorious it will be in spite of ourselves. He’s
a sharp one, a big, blond, blue-eyed Norman. In short, what he says,
goes.
He looked a bit scared when he saw that the _Pamir_ had neither
wireless, guns, nor anything else against submarines. But as he had
telegraphed from inland that he would take passage with us and as he
arrived the morning we sailed, he wouldn’t back out, but took things
as he found them, especially as he was going to gain four or five days
thereby. Ships don’t sail every day to France now. Moreover, it was
his twelfth voyage since the beginning of the war and he had been on
boats without wireless or guns eight times. Like all those who roll
around at sea, he thinks as we do, and we soon agreed that the Merchant
Service of the Allies is practically offered at present to the Boche
submarines and that it can’t go on for ever. He, who is an engineer,
assures us that the cost of fitting wireless on all the boats would be
slight and that the price of one big well-loaded ship, sunk because it
had no warning, would cover the cost of wireless for at least a hundred
and fifty or two hundred cargo-steamers. Mousseaux adds that what’s
wanted is a man of push and go to compel the owners, the chiefs of the
Admiralty, and everybody else to agree and that then it would take only
about a month. But now, no one dares to act on his own responsibility
and it’s going to cost the country tens of millions.
Fourgues and Mousseaux almost fell out when Mousseaux asked what was
the use of putting guns aft and none forward on the cargo boats that
had them. Fourgues asked him what he meant by that.
“Yes,” answered Mousseaux, “I have been on several boats which had one
gun--behind.”
“Well,” said Fourgues; “they couldn’t have asked the advice of the
captain. But if they ever give me a gun, it will be surrounded by a lot
of jossers from the Navy who will put it aft because the policy of the
Entente is to be on the defensive as regards submarines.”
“But, skipper, the only way to bash them is to attack--fight them the
moment you meet them.”
“That’s your idea and we all think so too. Please tell that in Paris to
whomever it may concern. You’ll make one more to be told to shut his
mouth and mind his own business, for the order is to run away--yes,
sir--to run away from the U-boats--and to fire the stern gun if one
has time. As for attacking--strictly forbidden, by gum! not on the
programme!”
“But how can we say that we rule the waves if our ships must run and
never show fight?”
“Quite so, that’s just what I want to know. They cram millions of tons
of merchandise into us. They say, ‘Carry them to Europe, my son, you
have nothing to fear!’ Every day we learn of a friend who has gone down
before a U-boat, but it seems that didn’t count, and if we are lucky
enough to meet a submarine, we mustn’t hurt it. We must leave it alone
or turn our backs, like ----!
“And if we get a dose of it? Look at my masts--we haven’t even four
wires to send a wireless to comrades in the neighbourhood! It doesn’t
need a genius to discover what merchant-ships need! The Skippers’
Association keeps asking for it again and again and it’s as plain as
the nose on your face! But everybody knows that we shan’t go on strike,
and the big bugs say either that we’re afraid or else that we are
rebels. So it’s go ahead or bust! And we go ahead--and every one of us
knows that his turn is bound to come.”
“Besides which, skipper--though I don’t wish to criticize the
Merchant Service--the passengers are sure to be drowned if the ships
are torpedoed. On the _Pamir_ you have two lifeboats, which might be
enough for your forty men. But I have crossed on ships with a thousand
or twelve hundred in the crew and no means of saving more than four
or five hundred. As a rule, half the lifeboats--all those on the side
which goes up in the air after the torpedoing--are of no use; so you
can see that it takes courage to go to sea and that it’s folly to send
whole regiments without protection. After so many months of war the
civilians still find it amusing. If things were like that on land, the
parliaments or the newspapers would have had them changed long ago. But
knowing nothing of seafaring, the country swallows any story it’s told.
And you’re in luck that it doesn’t understand anything about it.”
“Thunder and blazes!” answered Fourgues. “You call that luck? You
mean, it’s enough to make one bash one’s head against the binnacle!
It’s worse than you think. After all, I don’t care a damn, we’re among
friends and can speak plainly. Will you believe that the Navy has
not yet given orders for notices to be posted up on mail and other
steamers, telling passengers what to do in case of submarines? So
they go on board like sheep, carrying the latest newspaper in which
is printed that U-boats are all rot. And when they are torpedoed,
it’s butchery, sir, it’s massacre; and there’s nothing to say because
if it’s that way, well--that’s the way they want it! And what do you
expect them to do, these hundreds of land-lubbers, when the ship begins
to rock? No one has told them anything. They don’t know anything.
They run around, squealing like pigs, jumping into lifeboats, cutting
ropes--and that’s so many drowned to shove down on the account. If a
single general treated our soldiers like that, he would be suspended
first and then court-martialled.”
Do you get Fourgues’ tone? We don’t bother on the _Pamir_ with land
affairs and politics. The sea is enough for us. We feel that we are
being hunted from day to day and that it comes closer with each voyage,
but we can say nothing, do nothing. That’s forbidden!... Oh, I forgot
something that Flannigan told us in New York about the crews of the
German submarines. The newspapers and the French authorities say that
the good German crews have long since been destroyed and that submarine
crews can’t be turned out in a day like hot cakes, so we can be easy
on that score. Flannigan says that’s all humbug. In the first place,
with money one can get what one wants in any country and the Germans
pay their submarine crews royally. And then everybody knows that on a
submarine there are only two fellows who have to understand the whole
business--the captain and the second in command who have charge of the
diving and steering. As to the crew, they have mechanics’ jobs, they
look after levers, and valves, and so on, just as in any factory, and
merely carry out the orders of the two chiefs; they have to turn this,
turn that, and so forth. It wouldn’t take forever to learn that! Any
mechanic can learn all there is to know in a month and so they have
first-rate crews like those on the Zeppelins. There’s only the risk.
But I’d like to know in what country danger stops the fellows with
nerve? Neither in France nor in _Bochie_! Moreover, Flannigan said,
after the submarine crews have drudged for fifteen or twenty days at
sea, they are given leave ashore and spend a week or two with their
families while other mechanics put the machinery in order. And they are
treated like heroes and fêted everywhere, as well as given their part
in the prize-money, so that there are more volunteers for the job than
they require, just as in the French aviation service--where, of course,
you get smashed up, but only after having had a smack at the enemy.
And Flannigan also said that the German Admiralty doesn’t tie up the
submarine commanders on the pretext that they are young. It gives them
a free rein, sends them out with full power to act and doesn’t bother
any more about what they do nor about the Forms they fill up. When
things are run like that we can expect a rotten time from the U-boats.
If a quarter of that were done for the French, I believe we could pinch
the moon.
At Brest our steel was not unloaded very fast, but that’s what you
expect. And what a splendid harbour! It would hold all the ships of
Europe and America and as it’s the nearest to the United States, from
twelve to twenty-four hours could be saved on all trans-Atlantic
voyages. Fourgues says you need to be French not to use such a port.
It’s because we are too rich, he says. If the Germans or the English
or the Yankees had Brest, they would make the first trans-Atlantic port
of the world out of it, beating Hamburg, Rotterdam, London, Liverpool,
and New York all together to a frazzle. But the Navy won’t make a move
so the Atlantic trade and our good money go elsewhere.
At Brest there were a lot of boats starting for Archangel with material
which will probably be wasted in Manchuria or Thibet as Flannigan has
told us that the Czar is surrounded by a whole clique who are working
for the Boches. Fourgues would have liked the _Pamir_ to make the
little Russian trip last year all over again, but they sent us to
Cardiff with orders to take on coal and we sailed in ballast according
to custom. It annoys Fourgues now to carry coal as it’s some time since
the _Pamir_ has carried any but clean cargoes, but we knew why when we
reached Cardiff--the owner is behind this. I understand nowadays why
there jolly well is a profit in coal and the _Pamir_ will have paid for
herself with this voyage. She can sink now! Fourgues and I have pulled
our weight--the owner will be able to smoke dollar cigars.
We almost did get sunk off Sallys on leaving Cardiff for Genoa. It
was between two and three in the afternoon, during Fourgues’ watch.
The _Pamir_ struck something which shook her from keel to truck, but
whatever it was, it didn’t explode. Perhaps it was a submarine which
will know we passed (let’s hope for the best!). Or perhaps a mine that
didn’t go off. Nothing happened to us except that we have forty tons
of water a day in the hold and must keep the pump going all the time.
As we still have coal on board I can’t tell you what’s the matter, but
it’s something pretty stiff. Fourgues and Villiers think that we can
manage to get to France in order to get into dock there, but the day
after to-morrow when we get rid of our coal, we shall know what has
been smashed. From Cardiff to Genoa we fairly slopped. Never have we
had such a wet passage. Fine weather, too. Not a single patrol-boat
except at Gibraltar. We aren’t astonished to find no patrol-boats, but
why say the routes are guarded?
At Genoa we loafed around for four days. There was a mistake regarding
the destination of the coal, which was for factories at Naples and
Rome. Visited the city and neighbourhood. They’re not overdoing things
in Italy. Fact is, old man, France is the only country that is really
pulling her full weight in this war--in men, territory, money and
effort.
We cleared from Genoa for Naples, where they are worrying even less.
There’s no doubt about it, but there are several classes not yet
mobilized. Of course it’s none of my business. I know where I am in the
Merchant Service, but when it comes to other things, people can always
say I’m talking rot. We anchored in the port, between two warships
which are _not_ in the Strait of Otranto. Our coal was unloaded at a
gentle pace.
To speak of other matters, they say that Rumania is going to come into
the game and there is talk of Italy declaring war on Germany. Fourgues
says that means at least six months more of war, which is to say the
more Allies there are, the longer it will last, what?...
And now, old man, I must say good-bye. Fourgues and Villiers are going
to take me to a music-hall in Toledo Street this evening to see if I
am a real _incorruptible_ fiancé, as they call it. I shall be awfully
bored. If we go into dry-dock at home, I will send you a wire c/o
the Navy Department and if the _Auvergne_ is in France, come to La
Rochelle right away, so that I can embrace you the first after my wife.
MARSEILLES,
_October, 1916_.