My wife left yesterday for La Rochelle, as the _Pamir_ was to have left
Marseilles yesterday evening. But we were delayed, as Fourgues thinks
we are going to ship a cargo. So I am writing again, as I only sent
you a short letter and have received a long one from you. I don’t want
to seem to preach, but--get married! Find a woman you like and then go
right ahead. Take my word for it, for fellows like us, who live lives
very different from those sheltered land-lubbers, it’s a revelation
and it’s true happiness. I am no longer the same, and this is not an
exaggeration. If it were otherwise I should tell you. Well, here am
I utterly wretched because Marguerite left yesterday and because the
_Pamir_ must get under way so soon. To have a girl all to yourself, to
listen to the things she says, that no one has ever heard before, and
then to go away to sea--it’s something that can’t be described.
Add to this the war and the mines and the submarines! Fourgues is quite
right--no man knows what he has in him till he gets a wife, a real one,
and leaves her. What a profession ours is! Life seems so beautiful--one
launches into it like a ship on the sea. But when, to support a wife
you adore, you have to earn a living at the price of never being with
her, it’s the worst of all. Yesterday, at the station, she went and
I was left on the platform. She had implored me to be prudent, to
save myself if the _Pamir_ should go down, to forget my self-respect
and that I am an officer, and to think of her. I swore! But you know
what professional honour is. I knew I was lying. I knew that if the
catastrophe came, the mariner would conquer the married man. What a
terrible last day! We love each other so much that we did not dare
speak: the sea was between us. I suffered the tortures of the damned.
Was I right to marry her during the war. Later, there would have been
no torpedoes or submarines--we could have accepted our separation
with more patience. But now! Now I am afraid for my skin! If it were
only my skin! But she! My body will go, but all the rest stays with
her. And if I go down, what will be my last thoughts? I shall see her
at La Rochelle, waiting for me and wringing her hands, and she will
never know whether I am dead or not. It is atrocious. Don’t marry
before peace. I swore to her that the submarines were all rot. But you
and I know well that they are there--and everywhere--and that we’ve
nothing against them on the _Pamir_. The people on land are sending
us to the slaughter. Have they no mothers, no wives or daughters or
sisters--those who refuse us guns and wireless? They sing the glory
of France and they choke Frenchmen like that fellow in the Bible who
offered up his son. The sea and the torpedoes make me afraid, my poor
chap. I am afraid--afraid.
MARSEILLES,
_November 2, 1916_.
Forgive me, my dear old man, for my letter of the day before yesterday.
I was going through a crisis. I hope you will never have to experience
anything similar. But one sees what life means when one has adopted a
second self for life and desires her happiness. It’s all over now. The
_Pamir_ is taking on stuff for the Army of the East and for the Fleet
which is at Salonica. So shop claims me and calms me. My wife writes
delightful letters. She is not as anxious now as when she was here. I’m
getting along, old man. I went through a rotten gale, but it’s over
now. You must have laughed at me. Didn’t you?
I read Fourgues and Villiers your answer about the Battle of Jutland
and the matter of the big warships. It pleased them. They understood
very well when you said that all the young men in the Navy know that
big Dreadnoughts are of no use except to train men for promotion to
the higher commands. That’s plain. Villiers says that it’s a matter of
psychology, but that it’s necessary to be on the inside to understand
it. You, who are on the inside, explain it very well. In this Naval war
there are the young who do the daily work, just like merchant vessels,
but they don’t count. And then there are the big bugs who hold together
so that each may get promotions, pay or orders. It’s very simple;
thanks for your account of it. The _Pamir_ now knows how the land lies,
and that’s all we want as long as we don’t go down!
We carry flour, shells, guns--perishable and non-perishable
material--the whole caboodle. At this moment, my dear old chap, my pen
is writing to you, my body is here, but my heart is at La Rochelle and
I know that it’s all up with me now, that I would give the whole war
for one trip down there. Of course, I wish for our victory. But if the
_Pamir_ is ever torpedoed and sinks, you can believe that I shall go to
the bottom cursing eternally all those whom I did not know, who left
us without defence.
Good luck, old man.
ARGOSTOLI,
_December 16, 1916_.