STOWAWAYS, INC.
Titoff was head of a syndicate of ship's officers which might have
named itself "Stowaways, Incorporated." He was the schemer-in-chief;
and the others, while disliking him heartily, were content to rely on
his superior cunning. Besides ourselves the syndicate undertook to
carry across the Black Sea a Greek, a Jewess (both of them wanted by
the Turkish police), and four passportless prostitutes; all of whom, to
the extent of some hundred dollars apiece, wished to leave
Constantinople for Odessa.
Most of the crew, also, were smuggling men, women, or material across
the Black Sea. The crew itself included four Russian soldiers, who had
escaped from prison camps in Turkey, and were passing themselves off as
seamen. The bo'sun's particular line of business was a woman thief who
had with her a heavy purse and a trunk full of property, stolen from a
merchant who had been her dear friend. Katrina, the kitchen girl who
brought us our food, invested in a well-to-do Turkish deserter.
As for the non-human contraband, it was stowed in every corner of the
vessel--cocaine, opium, raw leather, tobacco, cognac, and quinine.
Prices were extravagant enough in Constantinople, but in Russia they
were colossal. The difference in the price of drugs, for example, often
amounted to hundreds per cent. The demand for cocaine as contraband was
so great during the week before we actually sailed that by the end of
it the chemists of Pera and Galata would sell none under 500 dollars a
kilo; but in Odessa, we heard, one might dispose of it without
difficulty for a thousand dollars a kilo. Even White and I became
infected by the contraband craze and, with Kulman as partner, gambled
successfully on a consignment of leather and so covered most of our
escape expenses.
At dusk, when we left the wireless cabin and paced the shadowed portion
of the deck for exercise, we often saw a rowing boat creeping toward
whichever side of the _Batoum_ happened not to face the shore. Somebody
in it would exchange low whistlings with somebody on deck--the somebody
often being Titoff. When the boat had been made fast to the bottom of
the gangway, a figure, or two figures, would climb to the deck and
disappear. Sometimes they brought and left a package; sometimes it was
a visitor himself--or herself--who did not depart with the rowing boat.
Besides the mystery traffic from shore to ship there was also a certain
amount from ship to shore. For this the steward--a Russian Jew--was
responsible. A Turkish merchant had chartered the _Batoum_ for the
coming voyage, and since our many delays in sailing were the result of
his haggling with government officials over the amount of _baksheesh_
to be paid for permission to export, he undertook to feed the officers
and crew for as long as they remained at Constantinople. Incidentally,
he unknowingly fed White and myself, besides the other stowaways and
the escaped Russian soldiers. The steward ordered more provisions than
were needed; and a few hours after the delivery of each consignment a
boatload would be sent back to the quay and carted to the bazaars.
Titoff, who organized the sale, shared the proceeds with the steward.
Titoff's methods of graft took him into many dubious by-paths, notably
those around the offices of a Greek coal dealer. After preliminary
plottings, with Viktor as interpreter, he ordered a hundred tons. The
coal dealer delivered ninety, the bill for a hundred was presented to
the Turkish merchant, and Titoff and the Greek split the value of the
missing ten tons. It was easy enough for the chief engineer to make
good the deficit by burning ten tons more on paper than in the
furnaces.
With all this illicit traffic in men and goods there were some restless
half hours during the last few days of our stay in the Bosphorus.
Trouble was caused by the bo'sun's woman-thief, whose presence among us
the Pera police suspected. Five times they searched for her. The bo'sun
detailed a man to watch the shore, and whenever a police launch
appeared this look-out would blow a whistle. All the stowaways then
scurried to their various hiding-places.
White and I, being the most dangerous cargo, were given the safest--and
certainly the dirtiest--hiding-place of all. This was in the
ballast-tanks, at the very bottom of the ship, underneath the propeller
shaft. The entrance to them was through a narrow manhole, covered by a
cast-iron lid, about twenty yards down a dark passage leading from the
engine-room to the propeller.
The alarm having been given, Feodor, the second engineer, would lead us
along the passage by the light of a taper, remove some boards, raise
the lid, and help us to wriggle into the black cavity below. Our feet
would be covered by six inches of bilge-water while we crouched down,
so as to leave him room enough to replace the iron cover and re-lay the
wooden boards that hid it. Then, one at a time and with our knees
squelching in the water, we crawled from tank to tank.
Half-way along the line of tanks were two that contained small
mattresses, which the second engineer had placed in position for us.
After the first day they were sodden with the bilge-water; but at any
rate it was better to sit on them than in the water itself. The limited
space, however, made it impossible for us to be seated in any but a
very cramped position, with hunched-up shoulders rubbing against the
slime that coated the sides of each tank. Standing was impossible, and
lying down meant leaning one's head on the wet mattress and soaking
one's feet in the drain of bilge that swished backward and forward with
every motion of the ship.
Complete blackness surrounded us. The air was dank and musty, so that
matches sputtered only feebly when struck, and the light from a taper
was hardly strong enough to chase the darkness from the half of each
small tank.
When, after each search, the police returned to their launch we would
hear the heavy boots of the second engineer tramping along the passage
overhead. As we listened to the nerve-edging noise that accompanied the
removal of the boards and the iron lid we crouched into the best-hidden
corners of our respective tanks, not knowing whether a friend or a
policeman was at the entrance. We scarcely breathed until there came,
booming and echoing through the hollow compartments, the word
"_Signor!_"--the second engineer's password denoting that all was
clear, and that we might return to the engine-room.
The twenty-second of August was the final date fixed for the departure.
By late afternoon of the twenty-first all the Turkish merchant's cargo,
legitimate and otherwise, had been brought from the quay by lighters,
and thence transferred by winches to the _Batoum's_ hatches. The export
officials had been squared, the ship's papers were passed and stamped,
the bunkers were fully loaded with inferior coal. All on board, from
the captain to the least-considered stowaway, were content, although
nervous of what might happen during the next twenty-four hours.
At about five o'clock we received a welcome visit from Vladimir
Wilkowsky, the Polish aviator who had acted as our intermediary from
Psamatia. He bribed his guard to remain in Stamboul while he crossed
the bridge to Galata, and hired the _kaik_ that brought him to the
_Batoum_. He himself intended to follow us across the Black Sea by
escaping on the next steamer to leave Constantinople for Odessa.
Meanwhile, we were especially glad to see him, for he brought from Mr.
S. the fifteen hundred dollars for which we had waited so anxiously. In
return we sent improvised cheques written on strips of foolscap paper.
We now had enough money to pay Titoff's exorbitant fee, and still leave
funds to live in Odessa for some weeks. Two German revolvers, bought
for us in the bazaar by Kulman, added to the feeling of security.
Wilkowsky claimed to have sent on board the food and clothing which we
left at Psamatia, and he was able to confirm our suspicions that Titoff
must have stolen it. For the present, however, we refrained from
tackling the chief engineer, wishing to avoid a scandal before
departure. We promised ourselves to deal with him adequately at Odessa.
That evening there were more than the usual number of mysterious visits
from small boats. The full complement of stowaways was taken aboard,
the last cases of contraband shipped. Until a late hour the engine-room
resounded to the hammerings of Feodor and Josef, who were hiding a late
consignment of cocaine. Our own investment in raw leather was in
Kulman's cabin.
The firemen and greasers celebrated their farewell in the usual manner.
By nine o'clock several were roaring drunk. One of them--the Bolshevik
who had told of the drowning of Baltic fleet officers--staggered across
the aft deck with a drawn knife in his hand, shouting that he wanted to
finish off the third engineer, who had insulted him. He found Josef in
the engine-room, but was cowed and disarmed when the engineer
threatened him with a revolver. He let himself be led away, while
verbally murdering all officers in general and Josef in particular.
At 6.30 in the morning Josef, the third engineer, roused us from our
sleep on the floor of his cabin and invited us to the ballast-tanks;
for as the police and customs officers would be on board most of the
time until we weighed anchor, we must remain hidden until the _Batoum_
left Turkish waters.
Since we expected to be hidden for about twelve hours, we took with us
a loaf of bread, some dried sausage, and a bottle of water. After a
last look, through the port-hole, at Seraglio Point and the domes of
Stamboul, I passed below, hoping and expecting that when I next looked
to the open air we should be clear of Turkey.
For a long while nothing happened to take our thoughts from the cramped
space and the foul air of the tanks. We breakfasted sparingly, and
allowed ourselves one cigarette apiece. More we dared not smoke,
because of the effect on the oppressive atmosphere.
Then, at about ten o'clock, we heard from above a succession of three
thuds, the signal to all stowaways in the region of the engine-room
that the police were on board. We made ourselves as comfortable as
possible, and took minute care to make no sound.
We waited in frantic impatience for the noises from the engine-room
that would denote a getting-up of steam. At half-past eleven there
began a continuous, rhythmic spurting, which we took to be the sound of
the engines in action. Soon afterward a grinding and scraping from the
deck convinced us that the anchor was being raised.
"Put it there, old man," said White, thrusting his hand through the
hole that linked our respective tanks. "We're leaving Turkey at last!"
But not yet were we leaving Turkey. The noise from the engine-room was
merely that of a pump preparing the pressure. After three-quarters of
an hour it quieted as suddenly as it had begun, and we realized that
the _Batoum_ was still moored in the Bosphorus, between Seraglio Point
and the Sultan's palace of Dolma Bagtche.
And then, soon after noon, came the real music for which we had waited
so anxiously. The telegraph from the bridge tinkled, a fuller and more
throaty rhythm came from the engine-room, loud grinding and rattling
from the deck testified that the anchor had parted company with the
bottom of the Bosphorus. A few minutes later we felt the ship swinging
round, and a swishing and rushing of water told us that this time we
really were away. In silence we shook hands again.
For long hours we remained in the slimy tanks, crouched on the sodden
mattresses. But it was no longer purgatory. The swish-swish of the
screw chased away all sensation of discomfort, and there remained only
the realization that we had left Constantinople and soon would have
left Turkey. My old habit of subconsciously fitting metre and rhymes to
mechanical rhythm, to which I had succumbed many times when seated
behind aeroplane motors, began to assert itself as we sat in the
darkness and listened to the penetrating throb-throb from the
engine-room above us. Incongruously enough the unbidden lines that
continued to pass maddeningly through my mind, in time with the steady
rise and fall of the piston, were those of a G. K. Chesterton ballad:
If I had been a heathen
I'd have kissed Naera's curls,
And filled my life with love affairs,
My house with dancing girls.
But Higgins is a heathen;
And to meetings he is forced
Where his aunts, who are not married,
Demand to be divorced.
These words held sway for five hours of insistent, monotonous chugging.
They were succeeded by an extract from the Prodigal Son:
Here come I to my own again.
Fed, forgiven and known again.
Claimed by bone of my bone again,
And sib to flesh of my flesh.
The fatted calf is dressed for me;
But the husks have greater zest for me--
I think my pigs will be best for me,
So I'm off to the styes afresh.
By early evening, we had calculated, the _Batoum_ should be leaving
Turkish territorial waters and entering the Black Sea. Just before six
there came the shock of a bitter disappointment. The captain's
telegraph clanged, the engines subdued to dead slow, the vessel swung
round into the tide and seemed to remain almost stationary for a
quarter of an hour. We had expected a last search by the Turkish
customs authorities at the outlet of the Bosphorus and surmised that
this was the reason for the slackened speed. But a repetition of the
whirring and clanking on deck, followed by a loud splash, showed that
the anchor was in action again, and that something more important than
a mere search was on hand. For two hours longer we remained in the
blackness, unenlightened and very anxious. Then, after the usual
removal of the boards and the lid, there floated through the tanks a
low-voiced "_Signor!_"
Feodor, candle in hand, was waiting for us. He whispered a warning to
make as little noise as possible, because two Turkish officials were on
board. Having reconnoitred to make sure that the way to Josef's cabin
was clear, he led us there. The delay, it appeared, was because the
Turkish merchant had left some clearance papers at Constantinople. He
had gone for the capital by automobile, and meanwhile two of the
Customs Police would remain on the _Batoum_. The merchant was expected
to return with the missing document next morning, when permission to
leave would be given.
We slept in the cabin, and at dawn descended once more to the ship's
bowels. We spent five more hours of purgatory in the ballast-tanks. The
_Batoum_ remained motionless during three of them, but the last two
were enlivened by the swish-swish of displaced water as it passed the
flanks of the vessel. Finally we heard for the last time the blessed
signal "_Signor!_"
"_Fineesh Turkey_," said Feodor, as he smiled and helped us through the
manhole. Gone was the Bosphorus, and in its place we saw the leaden
waters of the Black Sea. From the port-hole of Josef's cabin we could
distinguish many miles west of us the coastline of the country in which
White had spent three years of the most dreadful captivity.
Feodor soon left us, for he had to bring other stowaways into the light
of day. From every concealed cranny of the vessel men and women, almost
as light-hearted as ourselves at deliverance from the Turks, were
coming into the open.
One of the stowaways, a passportless woman whom the aged captain was
taking with him to Odessa, did not rejoice for some time. As
hiding-place for her the ancient had chosen a deep locker in his chart
room on the bridge. There she had remained for the past two days.
Now Katrina, the kitchen wench, knew nothing of the captain's lady.
That morning, not wishing to send him back to the bunkers, where he had
spent the previous day, she thought of the locker as a temporary home
for her own particular stowaway--a Turkish deserter with coal-blackened
face, untrimmed beard, and decidedly odorous clothes. She dumped the
Turk inside the locker, fastened the lid, and ran back to the kitchen.
The Turkish deserter landed with some violence on the captain's lady,
and both received a bad fright as they clutched at each other in the
darkness. Yet the lid could not be removed from the inside, and the
shouts were unheard outside the little room. The air in the
unventilated locker grew ever more stuffy and velvety as the two people
continued to breathe it. Finally the woman fainted. The Turk, tired out
after a long spell of cramped wakefulness in the bunkers and the
kitchen, composed himself philosophically and went to sleep.
When the _Batoum_ was beyond the Bosphorus and all danger of a search
the captain opened the locker to release his friend. He inserted an
arm, and jumped with fright when, instead of a female, he produced a
coal-blackened man. The woman revived when taken into the fresh air,
but I should imagine that never again will she become a stowaway.
Titoff, fearing that some informer among the passengers might notice
us, still kept White and myself under cover all day, until we took our
usual exercise on deck each evening. The other stowaways were mingling
with legitimate passengers, whose bedding was spread over the hatches.
I remember in particular a vivid-looking, much-jewelled Jewess, who was
minus money and passport. I found her exchanging violent words with two
firemen, who were levying blackmail, using the Austrian port
authorities at Odessa as bogey-men. When, with tears and protests, she
had fulfilled their demands, two other ruffians from among the crew
took their place and demanded money, or in default jewels.
All the stowaways, in fact, except ourselves, were blackmailed in this
fashion. The woman thief was victimized less universally than the
others because she was known to be the bo'sun's especial graft. As for
us, we were under the protection of the ship's officers, and, more
important still, we carried revolvers. In any case, Bolshevik Bill the
Greaser was our good friend and a power among the crew.
On the second evening at sea the firemen stole a case of _árak_ from
the cargo, drank themselves amok, and told Josef they were far too busy
over private concerns to trouble about stoking the furnaces. The
private concerns were mostly women from among the stowaways and poorer
passengers.
The fires sank lower and lower, the engine-power dwindled, the
propeller revolved more and more slowly. Finally we came to almost a
dead halt in the middle of the Black Sea. Throughout that night we
crawled forward with a minimum number of revolutions; and even this
small progress was only because the ship's officers took turns in the
furnace-room to act as stokers. Next morning the sobered firemen
graciously agreed to let bygones be bygones, and resumed work.
The rest of that nightmare voyage included only one incident worth
recording. On the morning of the fourth day, when we should have been
within sight of land, the horizon in every direction was blank. The
Turkish merchant who had chartered the _Batoum_ was impatient to reach
Odessa, and asked the captain for our position. The ancient tugged at
his white beard, and said he was not quite sure, but would take
soundings. These revealed shallow water, showing, according to the
chart, that the ship must be some distance off her course.
The dodderer was astonished, and called the first mate into
consultation. Belaef's calculations with sextant and compass proved us
to be heading several degrees too far east, so that the then line of
sailing would have taken us nearer Sevastopol than Odessa. Thereupon
the captain handed over the ship's direction to the first mate. We
edged northward, and sighted Odessa at noon of the next day.
The city, with its pleasant terraces round the hills that slope to the
foot of the wide-curved bay, and its half-Western, half-Byzantine
towers and domes gleaming yellow-gold in the sunlight, looked inviting
enough. But for us it represented a gamble in the unknown. Odessa was
in enemy occupation, and might be more inhospitable even than
Constantinople. On the other hand, we should no longer be on the police
list of wanteds, as in Turkey, and it would be easier to pass muster
among Russians than among dark-skinned Levantines.
On the whole, we were optimistic. From Odessa a man with friends and
money might make his way to Siberia, where were some Allied
detachments; and if, as the latest news indicated, Bulgaria was about
to be emptied of Austro-German forces, Odessa would be a good
jumping-off point for Sofia.
Meanwhile, our immediate concern was to get ashore without meeting the
dock officials. Kulman and Josef promised to escort us, and thus lend
the protection of their uniforms. We ourselves discarded seamen's
clothes for the mufti worn when we escaped from the Turkish guards.
White still had no lounge coat, and although it was a hot day of August
had to put on his faded old overcoat. For the rest, the luggage we were
bringing to Russia--each of us possessed a toothbrush, some cartridges,
a revolver, a comb, and a razor, a spare shirt, a spare collar, and two
handkerchiefs--could be wrapped in two sheets of newspaper.
Before we left there was a dramatic ceremony when we paid for our
unauthorized passage, and incidentally got even with Michael Ivanovitch
Titoff. He had reckoned on taking the money himself and dividing it as
he pleased. We, knowing that Titoff could best be punished by hitting
at his avarice, explained to Kulman, Josef, and Feodor that as they had
done more for us than the chief engineer, we wanted them to receive a
share corresponding to their risks and services, and proposed to hand
all the money to them for distribution. From Titoff's share we would
deduct the value of what he had stolen from us, and also whatever we
thought excessive in his charges for food.
Each of the trio had his own grievances against Titoff, and all were
delighted with the opportunity of making money at his expense. We
prepared a balance sheet, and invited Titoff into Josef's cabin.
Josef, as Titoff's subordinate, had been scared of offending him. Four
glasses of neat vodka, however, gave him courage, and when the chief
engineer entered the cabin he was the most aggressive of us all.
"Michael Ivanovitch," he said, glaring at Titoff with bloodshot eyes,
"we are no longer at Constantinople, and our friends here insist on a
just distribution of their money. This"--handing him the balance sheet
and a list of his own--"is how it will be divided."
The chief rogue glared his indignation as White handed a handful of
banknotes to Josef, and voiced it when he received the balance sheet.
He stood up and declaimed against the deductions, but soon subsided in
face of the row of unfriendly faces, the grins, and the revolvers which
White and I kept well in evidence.
"There is nothing more to be settled," said White. "Here we are among
friends. Now leave us."
And Titoff went. At the door he turned and said to Josef with evil
meaning in his voice: "I shall have business with you later." Josef
laughed, and with a shaky hand poured himself out another glass of
vodka.
The last we saw of Michael Ivanovitch Titoff was his yellow face
leaning over the side of the ship when, with Kulman and Josef, we rowed
toward the docks. They were taking us on shore before the customs
officers boarded the _Batoum_. The other stowaways, who were mingling
with the legitimate passengers on the deck, were to come later.
The harbour was chock-full of forlorn-looking craft, which had
evidently lain idle for a long while. We dodged around and about
several of them, so as not to give the appearance of coming from the
_Batoum_, and then made for the nearest quay.
On it was an Austrian officer. When we were some fifty yards distant he
looked at us through field-glasses, and proceeded to detail a group of
soldiers to various points on the quay, evidently with the object of
stopping and questioning us.
Kulman, who was at the tiller, gave an order to the sailor at the oars.
We swung round a bend of the shore, and lost sight of the Austrians.
Close ahead was another landing-stage. We moored beside it. Without
waiting a second, but also without showing haste, we stepped from the
boat and climbed the steps--Kulman and I first, and then Josef and
White.
Two Austrian sentries and some Russian officials stood at the top of
the steps. They looked hard at us, but, satisfied by the uniforms of
Kulman and Josef, merely nodded a greeting as we passed toward the dock
gates and comparative freedom.