Going from Marseilles to Salonica before reaching Matapan, the _Pamir_
was torpedoed--fired upon and missed--by a Boche submarine. The truth
is, we shouldn’t mind being sent down if we could hit back and if all
precautions had been taken. When a _poilu_ stops a bullet in an attack,
if he has time to know about it before he dies he sees that his pals
are delivering the goods and that gives him heart when he’s about to
cast off. But as for us, old man, it’s not our fault nor that of the
submarine if I am writing you to-day. Some are unlucky and some are
lucky, and that’s the way things are! It was early morning, during my
watch, when the shells began to fall. The weather was like the Last
Judgment, and I was looking at the rollers which fell _smack_ on our
stem and rushed away foaming. All of a sudden there were columns of
foam, which shot up like tufts of feathers on the port side at about
three hundred yards. They rose as high as our funnels. I said “Hell!
We’re near a reef and the sea is breaking over it!” I put the helm over
and went to look at the chart. There were no more rocks charted than
in the white of my eye. So I righted the helm after having sent word
to Fourgues that there was something funny on the sea, and just as he
reached the bridge a bunch of shells fell twenty yards to starboard.
There was no doubt about it--there was a submarine squirting at us and
we with our arms folded, unable to answer back! But anyway, we should
have been at a loss, for it was almost ten minutes before we knew from
where or from what they came. The _Pamir_ was rolling like a log and
the sea was as choppy as could be. It must have been that which worried
the submarine, for the shots fell in front, behind, to port, and to
starboard.
Finally, during a calm moment, we saw puffs of smoke three or four
miles ahead and spray breaking about the Boche. Then we turned our
backs and hooked it as fast as we could. I couldn’t possibly tell you
how many “thunders and blazes” Fourgues let out! I didn’t count them.
He stamped and pulled at his beard:
“Look at that devil sending us his shells while we sit here like
impotents! But then, if they _had_ given us guns they would have been
pea shooters or cocktail-straws and we couldn’t have fired more than
four or five thousand yards. Look at her! She’s at least seven thousand
yards away and is missing us only because of the swell. If it were calm
we should be done for already!”
At the end of a quarter of an hour we had counted about forty shells
and the submarine stopped wasting her pills and bore down on us at full
speed, and you can guess, old man, that she gained on us hand over hand.
The _Pamir_, loaded with about three thousand five hundred tons, was
down into the trough of the sea like a lump of lead and couldn’t make
more than seven knots doing her damnedest. The Boche shot through the
water like a fish. They must have closed her hatches and, of course,
she didn’t mind the waves breaking over her, being built to navigate
with water on all sides. She must have gained three or four knots on
us, for after giving chase for three-quarters of an hour, she was only
a thousand yards away. We saw her slow up a bit and open the hatches
and the gunners came to fire from the deck! The first two shots fell
twenty yards short and fifty too far. Fourgues said to himself that the
third was going to hit and he put the helm hard aport so that we should
rot up their aim. Just at that moment a hollow sea came along and shook
us from stem to stern. Everything stowed on the deck began to slide and
fouled the port tiller-rope, which jammed. Steering became impossible.
The _Pamir_ kept turning around to port, only she couldn’t turn fast
on account of the heavy seas, but the submarine doubtless believed
that it was in order to run her down that we headed that way, so the
Boche gunners scrambled through the hatches and shut them and they
submerged on the spot. After that, not a thing to be seen! While our
crew was hauling the packing cases around on the deck, trying to clear
the tiller-rope, the _Pamir_ went round and round like a horse working
a merry-go-round, and rolled and pitched without stopping. Then the
submarine must have come nearer, for we saw the wakes of two torpedoes,
one forward at about thirty yards and another which missed us aft. The
second was well aimed and came straight at us. We could move neither
hand nor foot, nor do anything but make the sign of the Cross and think
of our families. But this torpedo couldn’t have been set to go very
deep. As the _Pamir_ is not armoured, a hole at the water-line would be
enough to finish her. Well, the torpedo got caught in the trough of a
wave which made it leap into the air like a carp about a hundred yards
from us and fall back into the water at right angles to its course. It
passed behind us and we all breathed again.
The Boche must have been disgusted at losing two torpedoes and nearly
fifty shells in one hour on a boat that steered like a cork. She came
to the surface again at two or three thousand yards without sending
us anything more and hooked it towards another ship coming from the
west, the _Worthminster_, a big English tramp loaded with munitions,
which had put in at Marseilles and had left the same hour as we, but
which had fallen behind so that we lost sight of her the night before.
I believe the _Worthminster_ went down. Salonica was her destination
and she didn’t arrive there. We asked for news, but mum’s the word
everywhere, and when the moon is made of green cheese we shall know,
perhaps, if our mates of the _Worthminster_ are feeding the crabs.
You can be sure Fourgues made a hell of a row because the _Pamir_
had not been able to send a wireless message to the _Worthminster_,
which had wireless, as we had seen at Marseilles. To see a submarine
running after a friendly ship and not to be able to say, “Turn back
to the west! Shells and torpedoes are coming!”--you’ll admit that’s
enough to make one groan with despair! If only our tiller-rope hadn’t
jammed, Fourgues would have chased after the Boche at the risk of being
shelled, because the _Worthminster_ would have seen that something
was up and would have disappeared. But it took two hours to clear the
tiller-rope and repair it and stop turning round and round. So Fourgues
went on his way signalling that he had seen a Boche submarine near
Matapan and all the boats we met bore south. Those who came behind us
were sunk, I suppose, without anyone being able to warn them.
At Salonica the Naval authorities asked Fourgues a pack of questions
about the show. As the _Pamir_ had received no damage in the hull or
upper works they tried to make Fourgues say he had dreamed it all and
that he had seen no more submarine than in my eye. He was so indignant
that he didn’t even get into a rage.
“Very well,” he said. “If it’s necessary to let yourself be sent to the
bottom in order to prove that you have seen a submarine, next time I
will stop and wait for it and then perhaps you’ll believe me. In any
case you will get confirmation from the _Worthminster_ which----”
When he mentioned the _Worthminster_ the others looked odd and that
makes us sure that she is lost. But they wouldn’t give any information.
They merely questioned Fourgues:
“Why didn’t you warn the _Worthminster_?”
“No wireless.”
“Why didn’t you try to ram the submarine?”
“Tiller-rope jammed and damaged.”
“Why didn’t you attack the submarine?”
“No guns and a high sea.”
“Why didn’t you signal the _Worthminster_?”
“She was on the horizon and it was raining. You couldn’t have seen a
signal at five hundred yards.”
And so on and so forth. Fourgues left abruptly, filing a written
statement, and saying that as the folks who are drowned are blamed and
the landsmen find fault with them, he would wash his hands of the whole
business, and the next time he would let the submarine go about its job
in order to settle the account and shut them up. But that, old man, was
just the bad temper of the moment, for he doesn’t want the _Pamir_ to
rot at the bottom of the sea any more than I do.
While we were unloading our stuff for the Army of the East, there were
not a few cargo boats in the harbour, and one day Fourgues invited the
skippers of all of them to a luncheon. As he is very popular, there
were fifteen or twenty of us at table, all men of brawn and nerve who
have knocked about from north to south ever since the beginning of the
war, with millions of tons of merchandise in the hold, and any number
of soldiers. It was a treat to hear such conversation from these men
who really work and who aren’t afraid of anything. And then, between
sailors, there’s no side. And Fourgues, who presided, isn’t easily
gulled. So each spun his little yarn when his turn came, without trying
to stuff anybody. All had been more or less attacked, torpedoed, or
shelled, but they had obviously escaped since they were there! They
said, though, that the Germans were settling seriously to the game, and
that sooner or later no one would get through without damage. There
were some who had wireless and guns; only, their guns were outranged by
those of the submarines which had attacked them, and when they called
for hours by wireless to warn others of danger, no one answered. There
were some with wireless and no guns, and as they had only one operator
and one man is only one man and can’t stay with the receiver at his ear
twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four without going crazy, their
ships were not kept constantly informed of danger and had some narrow
squeaks. There were others who had guns and no wireless, but their guns
were duds which jammed at the third shot, so they might as well have
had none. And then there were those who had neither guns nor wireless,
like the _Pamir_. These were in the majority and the only reply they
can make to a submarine is to make their wills. To talk about such a
state of things is not exactly merry, and without Fourgues, who was
in fine form that day, it might have turned into a regular funeral
service, especially as they also spoke of their lifeboats, which are
insufficient everywhere; of their engines, which are at their last gasp
as the result of overwork; of their ships, which hold together only
because they’re good-natured, but which are sprung all over the shop;
in short, old man, all the little worries which you have known in the
past, but which were a joke compared with the present mess.
During coffee, Fourgues summed up by saying that since no one cared a
damn about cargo boats and tramps as long as the sailors kept quiet,
perhaps it was time for the officers and captains of the Merchant
Service to say what should be done and get together so as to discuss
and decide on some line of action. They all agreed and drew up a
programme, which they bound themselves to ask their colleagues to sign
wherever they went, and also arranged to send a deputation to Paris
as soon as possible. But you can understand, old man, how it is they
haven’t much hope of its coming to anything. They will be told to
go and get themselves sunk, and that no one asked for their advice,
and what the deuce do the people who do the work mean by daring to
give their opinion about it? As the country knows nothing about the
Merchant Service and as it is being assured that all goes well at sea,
the only satisfaction the captains will have will be to know they were
right, and when they arrive in port they’ll be able to count how many
of their chums have gone to Davy Jones’s locker. Amen and glory be to
those who are torpedoed!
If I had the time and knew how, I could tell you a lot of interesting
things about Salonica that happened while we were there: Venizelos, the
movement forward towards Monastir, the National Government, etc. You
bet there’s plenty happening and lots of rumours. But I should need
whole logs to tell about it, and then, outside my profession, I am
afraid of putting my foot in it. Anyway, the Army of the East was glad
to get our cargo from Marseilles--material for the railroad, tractors,
tyres, gun-carriages, and petrol. When ships are late, operations are
retarded by so much. If a ship is sunk, they have to wait for its
substitute before they can go ahead. The stock must be collected again
in France, sent to Marseilles, another boat found and loaded, which
makes a month’s delay besides which something is always missing from
the second shipment, some trifle that is enough to keep a vehicle or
a gun or a railroad at a standstill. This kind of thing never happens
at the front in France. There, they have only to telephone to the base
in order to get what they want. Here, when you haven’t a thing, you
haven’t got it and that’s all there is about it. But the French papers
are howling that the Commander at Salonica is letting the grass grow
under his feet! I’m only the mate on the _Pamir_, but I’d rather have
my job than Sarrail’s.
From Salonica we went to the Piræus, Salamis, and all around there to
deliver spare stores and supplies to the ships of the Fleet: screws,
boiler-tubes, electric cables, torpedoes, sheet-iron, and tools--a
regular hardware shop! We went from one anchorage to another, spitting
out a few tons here and a few there, and picking up scraps of stories
about the 1st of December at Athens, first-hand, all of them. Don’t
expect, though, that I will blab any of it to you. The mails aren’t
safe. But it isn’t the things that really happen that count--it’s what
is said officially. Fourgues maintains that it’s very philosophical:
only the official folks have any interest in telling lies for their
own protection and they’re the only people who are believed. He adds
that this war, no matter where you turn, is the Triumph of the Lie!
He’s got a way of hitting things off just so! While the _Pamir_ was
making her little Odyssey (Villiers’ expression) in the Greek ports,
we three asked ourselves again of what use those great warships were,
with their thousands of crew and their enormous guns. If it’s for our
prestige in the East, one day like the 1st of December can wipe out
the effect of a thousand battleships. If it’s for a Naval battle, then
against whom? The Austrians? In that case there’s no need to keep
more than twice as many ships as the Austrians have, and it would be
better to dismantle the other French ships which are devouring coal
and stupefying tens of thousands of sailors with idleness who would be
much better on trawlers and little patrol-boats. With one great useless
ship they could arm ten or fifteen that would be of some use. If all
they want is to give the Boches targets worth shooting at when the big
ships go for refit to France or Bizerta--why not Kamchatka?--when Italy
is close by, we can understand. But it doesn’t concern me, of course,
and, indeed, I have enough with the _Pamir_ and navigation.
At Argostoli, where they sent us to empty our holds for the battleships
which were there, we kept on thinking the same things. Crews and young
officers are bored to death and eating their hearts out in their
longing for active service, the only service possible nowadays for men
in the Navy--submarine-chasing in little boats! Ah, well, you bet that
wouldn’t suit everybody. So, to make it look as though they were doing
something, they keep up a lot of drill, as in time of peace. There it
is! But what do you expect? There isn’t any war for them except that
perhaps they may be torpedoed, and, of course, they must look as though
they were of some use! So here is another French force lying bottled up
and one of prime quality--nothing but beefy great chaps who ask only
to leave their ships and go into danger! They aren’t like the fellows
who want to get out of the trenches in order to make money far from the
madding shells. Sailors would like to go on the real sea and just be
paid as much as before. But whether they want to or not, it’s all the
same. Communications are cut off between them and France, where no one
knows a thing about the Navy and cares as little about it as the moon.
You should have seen how they fairly rushed us at Argostoli to get the
latest news of Athens and the Fleet, from which we had come, straight!
They know nothing here, or almost nothing. So at first, Fourgues,
Villiers, and I began to roll off our first-hand information, believing
that they asked questions in order to know. Not at all, old chap. All
the Brass Hats opened their eyes as big as saucers and then told us
to hold our tongues about it. France can let a hundred men and six
officers be killed like rats in a trap, but no one must say how it was
done. So Fourgues and the two of us shut up tight, and we replied to
the young’uns, who knew bits of the story, that we had not the right
to tell what we knew. So there you have us playing the censor, old
man! It fits us about as well as gloves on a turtle! But as adventures
are the forming influence of youth, after this business I understand
the censorship, though I never understood it before, and used to ask
myself why a country like France should not be told the truth. The
censorship, old man, is to keep people from developing heart disease.
Not the people at the front or on the sea, who couldn’t be any sicker
after hearing the truth than they are after a shell or a torpedo, but
the jacks-in-office who get advancement or a reputation through the war
and who don’t want to have their noses rubbed in their little mishaps.
But to think that a country like ours, where everyone goes laughing
to the slaughter, should be treated like that to cover the tracks of
a pack of incompetents! It’s enough to make you laugh till the Day of
Judgment!
All the same, it’s more or less funny to see how the natives of this
country have made game of us behind our backs ever since the 1st of
December. What are we waiting for--to make them sweat ten times the
blood of those French sailors? To hell with “outside influences”! What
the devil do we care that this Power or that doesn’t want to hurt their
darling Tino! But French blood is French business, and we could say
to all the rest, “Hands off! Let _me_ settle this score!” Besides,
with lubbers who admire nothing but the big stick, as you see from
the way they go down on their knees with their mouths open before
the Boches, it’s absurd to be considerate. But we keep on talking rot
about memories of ancient days and all these Helleno-Boches, who are
well aware of our stupidity, harp on that string and take advantage of
us. Are we really such born fools as to be taken in by such humbug?
Fourgues explained it all to me in very few words, as he can:
“Listen to this, my boy. There are adventurers, crooks who intend to
marry the lady with the money-bags. So they recite poetry, mouth, and
strike romantic poses. The good woman lets herself be taken in and
goes before the registrar with her money-bags behind. And what does
she get? He, the tender heart, beats her, makes off with the money,
and then laughs at her into the bargain. Well, it’s the same thing
with the Greek government and the Allies. They harp on their great
ancestors, Themistocles and Canaris, and when we come with assurances
of friendship we get a hundred bluejackets murdered. If we gave them
tit for tat, things might be better. But we say ‘Let’s talk it over!’
So everybody sits down in a circle on the corpses and it’s French blood
that makes the council table! If instead of this we said to them,
‘Constantine or bread!’ and sealed their ports with ships which are
doing nothing, in a week we should be rid of those lads who fire in our
backs, cut our bridges, and get their instructions from Potsdam every
morning. But what do you expect, my boy? The Frenchman lets himself be
killed and then says, ‘Pardon me!’ At least, that’s what it looks like.”
Well, old man, I don’t know just who Themistocles and Canaris
were--humbugs, no doubt, but the rest is as plain as day. What lies can
they be telling about it in France? Even here, only two days from the
Piræus, we, of the _Pamir_, who were there, can’t get people to listen
to us. What must it be at home?
And boredom! The _Pamir_ is waiting for orders. It’s a habit now!
Fourgues is afraid they will make us take coal, seeing that that
commodity is now dearer than meat. But I don’t care a whoop nor a damn
nor a double-damn! And if you aren’t like me, your stripes have indeed
changed you. Cheery-oh!
NORWAY,
_February 18, 1917_.