_We Send Our Cable and Find Ourselves with Five Francs
and Expenses of $200 a Day, but Make a Financial Coup
d’Etat and Sail for the Crimean Peninsula_
The Danube, some twenty miles before it reaches the sea, spreads out
in an enormous delta and empties into the Euxine through three mouths,
St. George’s to the south, Sulina mouth in the middle and Rilia to the
north. The Sulina being the main artery of navigation was the one that
interested us. Its channel has been cut in a straight line for perhaps
eight miles from the sea, so that it looks more like a great canal than
a river. Two breakwaters jut out for half a mile beyond the mouth to
keep the silt brought down by the great volume of water from spreading
out in a bar at the entrance of the channel. Two enormous steam dredges
live between these breakwaters and spend their entire time in keeping
the channel deep. The country all around the mouth is flat and swampy,
and the little town is built on made ground, and, like Port Said and
Suez, lives off the shipping that passes to and fro in the river. Until
I saw Sulina on the map as the nearest cable station to Odessa, I had
never heard of it, and was amazed to find it one of the big grain
shipping centers of Europe. Many of the large steamers tie up there and
load from elevators and barges. Roumania, it appears, is one of the
most Utopian little states in Europe. The people are the left-overs of
the high tide of the Roman Empire. When the centuries were countable
on the fingers of one hand, the Romans settled the country. When the
Vandals swept down on Rome, the arms of her prestige curled in like
the tentacles of an anemone, leaving this little isolated community to
struggle down through the storms of history. Though a thousand miles
separates this little lake of Romans from the spring that poured them
at its flood, the community grew and waxed strong and held itself
intact in the furnace of turmoil and clash of medieval history.
Roumania to-day is about the size of New York State. The Danube, her
great artery, waters a plain as fertile as any in the world. Each year
from seventy-five to a hundred million bushels of grain come down that
river for shipment to the outer world.
Sulina town is a handful of houses stretching along the river. Dozens
of steamers lie alongside the stone embankment receiving their cargoes.
Floating elevators, shrouded in the mist of their own dust, shoot the
torrents of golden grain into the hatches that gape expectantly in the
decks of the great sea-tramps.
Though it was December and the weather freezing, the embankment for a
mile was lined with great freight-carriers, while tugboats towing long
lines of wheat barges that had come from Hungary snorted down the aisle
of dignified ocean carriers, whose funnels towered fifty feet above the
waters.
The _France_, with the “stars and stripes” snapping in the crisp
morning breeze, steamed up the busy lane, and after passing the
quarantine officer, was assigned to a berth on the outskirts of the
town. A cup of coffee in the galley served for breakfast, and then with
Spero, Stomati and Morris in the boat, I was pulled across the river to
the side where the cable office was reported to be.
It was half past seven, and the town was just beginning to stir itself
as my boat came alongside the stone steps of one of the many landing
places. With Stomati as a pilot, I found the cable office where a
sleepy individual in uniform was lounging over a table on which a dozen
instruments were merrily clicking. We looked in through a little grated
window and Stomati (in what I suspect was very inferior Roumanian)
stated that we were not looking through the grating out of curiosity,
but because we had a message to send. The operator stretched and
shuffled forward, and I handed in my three pages of typewritten cable
blanks. He glanced at it and shoved it back with the observation that
the post-office was across the hall, and started back to his desk. When
he finally heard it was a cable for London, he scuttled out of the
room, and in a few minutes came back with two more operators, and a
fierce argument ensued. At last the one who seemed to be the head, came
over with a pitying smile and handed back the cable with the comment
that I better mail it, as it would cost 75 cents a word to cable it,
and he turned to go back to his breakfast. When I insisted he stared
in amazement, but took the message. I produced my five £5 notes, which
were declined as not being legal tender, and my message was handed
back. Stomati argued and swore, and I offered my watch as security, but
no; “pay in Roumanian bills or there shall be no cable sent.” The banks
did not open till ten, which would delay my wire two hours, and perhaps
lose the afternoon edition. Stomati turned his pockets inside out and
unearthed 20 Roumanian gold pieces, which I confiscated and sent a
short wire to London: “Hold space for thousand words Russia. Filing in
hour.” This to prepare the office so that if my wire arrived at the
eleventh hour, there would be a place in the forms all ready to slip it
in. Having got this off, I started out with my five English notes to
get a quick action change to Roumanian coin of the realm.
Now, as stated above, there is nothing at Sulina save its shipping
interests. In a village, any new event creates a great sensation.
So it was with the advent of the _France_ with the American flag
flying at the fore. When we returned to the embankment, little knots
of Roumanians were discussing what her significance was. Every group
we met was bombarded by Stomati in his alleged Roumanian to change
English bank notes to Roumanian francs. We found an individual in the
second group who had a little over a hundred francs. He got one of my
£5 notes, and I all his spare change, which Morris took on a run to
the cable office to send as much of my message as it would pay for.
In the meantime the inhabitants began to get interested in my cable,
and everyone in the little crowd had suggestions to make, and two or
three raced off to wake up possible takers of English notes. I had
tried a half dozen shops all in vain when I heard a hurried step on the
pavement, and the knot of newly made friends exclaimed with joy as a
half dressed individual, flushing with his own importance, pushed his
way through the crowd, and, with a dramatic attitude and heroic tones,
said in fairly good English,
“It is I, so-and-so (I forget his name), the banker. I have heard of
monsieur’s intended arrival—Sulina knows of him. I will change his
money. Come quick to my office.”
The crowd was enormously impressed. I have often wondered what they
supposed my cable to contain. A message from the Czar to the President
certainly could not have made a greater excitement. With Stomati and
that portion of the town that was awake and had nothing else on its
mind, I repaired to the banker’s shop and got my notes into golden
francs. I hate to think of the exchange I paid, but I needed the coin
and gathered it in and started for the cable office, where I found
Morris trying to talk French to the operators, whose entire attention
was now devoted to my 900 word cable. Such a thing had never happened
there before, and they were chattering like magpies, but would not send
a word until it was all paid for. So I counted out my gold and the head
man started on the message. I watched him until the last word was on
the wire, and then took account of stock.
I was at Sulina Mouth without any further instructions from my office.
The _France_ was lying in the river at an expense of about 200 gold
dollars a day. I counted my reserve and found it to come to 45 francs.
I paid Stomati the 20 I had confiscated from him, and put the remaining
25 francs in my pocket with great care. Morris looked at me and grinned.
“Is that your last?” he asked.
“It is,” I replied with great dignity, “but keep it dark. It is
nobody’s business but my own.”
It did look rather blue. Just five dollars and a boat on my hands that
was burning up a hundred a day in coal alone, and we at the end of the
earth and the central object of interest in town. Morris keenly enjoyed
the delicateness of the situation. He was never so happy as when we
were in a tight place.
“What are we going to do?” he queried, cracking the joints in his
knuckles.
I looked at my watch. It was lacking five minutes of nine.
“Morris,” I said, “we are going back to the _France_ and have some
breakfast.” And I smiled serenely, for my cable had gone and we
couldn’t be robbed of that much, even if everything else went to the
bad.
So we walked down to the embankment and I whistled for the ship’s boat,
and was soon in my saloon eating the best breakfast that Stomati could
cook. There is nothing like a full stomach to give one courage and to
make one’s brain work up to the situation of the moment.
There is a good rule in whist (or some game of cards) that says “When
in doubt, lead trumps.” A good axiom for a war correspondent (or anyone
else for that matter) in trouble would be “when in a desperate plight
and all seems lost—eat, and then do your thinking.” It is poor business
worrying at best, and especially on an empty stomach. So I banished
from my mind the delicacy of my situation and ate the most luxurious
breakfast which the _France_ afforded. When this duty was completed, I
lighted a cigar, which I intended to smoke to the bitter end before I
attempted that painful process of putting one’s mind through a wringer
in an endeavor to make something out of nothing.
While the smoke from the first puff was floating out of the skylight,
there came a tap at the companion-way hatch. I sent Morris to
investigate. He returned clicking his heels and grinning from ear to
ear.
“Here’s your chance,” he said. “It’s a banker guy named Rodwaner. He is
doing a stunt in bum English, from which I gather that here is where we
make the grand touch.”
Morris’s English may have been ambiguous, but I translated it as it was
for the benefit of the solving of problems in slang.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
Morris grinned, cracked his thumb joints.
“Was I eager? Not on your life! I said, ‘My boss is a very busy man;
don’t think he can see you at all to-day.’ Well, the old man was some
impressed. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes, I realize your master must be busy—but
this is an important matter about a loan.’ Well, sir, when he says
loan, Monroe D. Morris makes his great stall. ‘Loan! Do you think my
master is borrowing money at every port and from an unknown party like
yourself?’ And then I gives him a line of talk and finally consents to
getting him an interview for just a moment.”
At my direction he produced the banker, who came in with many bowings
and scrapings and apologies for his intrusion. As an introduction he
produced a telegram in German from the Branch Ottoman Bank at Budapest.
I don’t know to this day how the old man ever got it or whom it came
from—it was garbled and parts left out. It seemed that Rodwaner was the
local agent of the Roumanian National Bank and that someone had advised
the Central Bank in Bucharest that I had credit at Constantinople,
and that small drafts might be honored on presentation of proper
credentials. I had no credentials to show my friend, so I side-stepped
that question. He had received the message two days before and had
told everyone in town. When the _France_ arrived and was the center of
observation, old Rodwaner began to swell up with pride and boast of his
importance as being the man whom the Ottoman Bank had advised of my
coming. It appeared later that he had been talking freely in town, and
as his importance grew with the magnitude he gave me, he had not spared
in his praises of the “great personage” to arrive, and whom he was to
finance. He asked how much I wanted, and as a starter I said £100. He
then asked for my credentials, and I was obliged to admit I had none.
He looked at me aghast. What should he do? He could not return ashore
and tell his friends that his long heralded arrival was a “fraud” to
whom he would not advance money, and, on the other hand, the idea of
giving a stranger money without anything but a sight draft as security
nearly threw him into spasms. It was his prestige with his neighbors
ashore vs. risking his shekels, and it was a hard fight. But he was
in the enemy’s country, and the sight of the _France_ and my crew and
Morris standing at my elbow like an ebony statue, saluting every time
I looked his way, made a great impression. I gave him some whiskey and
a cigar, and told him what a genuine pleasure it was to meet a banker
of such importance and business sagacity in a little town like Sulina.
I outlined to him how much I appreciated his trust in me (which was
an anticipation, to be sure), and I pointed out how really great men
depended on their intuitions in business rather than conventional
forms. He swallowed it all and two more drinks of whiskey besides.
Fortunately he had the money on him, for I don’t believe I would have
gotten it so easily had we been obliged to attack him in his own lair.
After the drink he began to loosen and at the third he drew a bag of
gold out of his trousers pocket and counted out 100 gold pieces, being
English sovereigns and German 20 mark gold pieces. I signed a receipt
and filled my money belt on the spot before he could have a change of
heart. I wanted twice as much, but I must be sure of something anyway,
and I did not propose to risk it all by asking too much at the start.
After Rodwaner had parted with his money he became very sad, but I
cheered him up and about noon sent him ashore in the ship’s boat with
Morris to break ground for an event which was to come off during the
afternoon.
While the leaven was working ashore I pounded out a mail story and read
over a batch of English papers which the banker had been thoughtful
enough to bring aboard with him when he came. A glance through the
papers, coupled with the gossip I had picked up ashore, indicated that
the situation was about the same as when I had left Constantinople.
The same crop of alarms and reports of disaster were circulating here
as they had been at every point I had touched. Odessa, Sevastopol and
the Caucasus generally named as being in the most desperate plights. I
knew that Odessa, though in a bad way, might keep for a few weeks, but
did not feel so sure of the other places. An interview with the skipper
and a careful scrutiny of the chart determined me to go first to
Sevastopol, which was only a night’s run from the mouth of the Danube.
From there I figured I could reach the coast of Asia Minor is another
fourteen hours and get the Turkish cable for my story from the Crimean
city, and then be within striking distance of the Caucasus if on closer
view-point the situation looked good.
I called the engineer, and he admitted coal in bunkers to last five
days. Stomati urged a replenishment of the larder, and I gave him some
of my Rodwaner gold to get it, and then sent the skipper out to clear
the ship for Sevastopol so that we might be ready to sail by four in
the afternoon.
In the meantime Morris was standing by the banker, saluting and
exhibiting deference at every step. Rodwaner, with three drinks under
his belt and an Ethiopian attendant, began to swell, and an hour after
he had set foot on shore everyone in town was pointing him out as
the only man in town whom outsiders knew and turned to for financial
matters. The stories my banker circulated about his distinguished
friend on the “yacht” simply made his rivals green with envy.
At three in the afternoon Morris returned and reported on Rodwaner’s
satisfaction and also on his own activity in boosting my credit ashore.
The moment was now ripe for the second attack. So we got up our anchor
and steamed majestically up the river and made directly in front of
Rodwaner’s minute establishment. With all flags flying and steam
blowing off the _France_ certainly made an excellent appearance. Quite
a crowd gathered while we were tying up. With Morris clearing the way,
I came down the gang-plank and entered the banker’s shop. He met me at
the door wreathed in smiles and ignoring absolutely his old friends
that crowded about the door. I sat down and had some tea while the two
clerks in the place gaped at me over their ledgers, and a score or more
of faces peered through the front windows.
“Yes,” old Rodwaner was saying, so loud that a rival money-lender in
the front rank could take it in, “it has been a great pleasure to do
business with you. I hope you will always call on me. I can always give
you up to £1000.”
I saw him trying to gather out of the corner of his eye the impression
that he was making. Everything was working finely, even better than I
had hoped.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “That £100 I drew was indeed a trifle.”
“Nothing at all,” replied the banker. “A mere detail. A drop in the
bucket. I might have done much better by you had you needed it,” and he
fairly hugged himself at the great coup he was making before the rest
of the town.
A dozen had come in and stood listening to our conversation. It was
now about four, and so I delivered my bomb which I had held until the
psychological moment. So I said:
“I hesitated to ask for more, Mr. Rodwaner, as I did not suppose your
institution was such an important one.”
“Important? Yes,” he replied, “though I say it myself, perhaps the most
so in Roumania.”
“That being the case,” I replied easily, “I believe I’ll have a little
more, say £200,” and I lighted a fresh cigar.
It was cruel to do it right before them all, but I needed the money,
and quickly at that.
Rodwaner actually turned pale. One of the clerks, whom I learned was
his son, burst forth in German that, already this strange man had
borrowed £100, with little or no security, and he objected. I could see
that there was a row on, and I must confess that I was mean enough to
enjoy it thoroughly.
The banker wavered for a second. What should he do? At this moment one
of the by-standers, a Greek money-lender, called from the back of the
crowd:
“I have the moneys for Monsieur if Rodwaner cannot do.”
This turned the scale.
“Ha, Ha!” cried my friend. “You would steal my customers, you dirty
pig. Rodwaner can lend—he will. He does so with pride,” and he booted
the protesting son into the corner and then proceeded to clear the
shop. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. His local prestige was safe.
How much did I need?
“Two hundred pounds would do.”
Couldn’t I do with less, perhaps. I thought I might be satisfied with
£150, and he began to dig. It was evident he hadn’t even that, and so I
said we would make it a hundred flat. All his gold came only to £90.
“Will that do?” he asked appealingly.
“I’m afraid not,” I replied, “but if it is going to inconvenience you,
perhaps the Greek banker will.”
He held up his hand more in sorrow than in anger, and asked if I could
use silver. I agreed, and he began to count it out into piles, first
five franc pieces, then two franc and at last ones, and still he was
short a few pounds. But he was thoroughly aroused now, and put on his
hat and in a few minutes returned with sufficient gold to make up my
£100, and I signed a sight draft on the Chicago _News_, shook him
warmly by the hand and walked across the street to the _France_, that
lay almost at his door.
Without any exaggeration, there were three or four hundred people
crowding about the gangway. Morris had hurried ahead, and had Stomati
and two of the crew on deck to salute as I came aboard through a narrow
lane of humanity. In two minutes we had cast off and our engines were
slowly pulling the _France_, stern first, into the stream. As her head
came slowly around, and her nose pointed seaward, Morris dipped the
flag on account of our poor old Rodwaner left with his empty purse.
“What interests me,” I told Morris that night, as I sat smoking after
my dinner, “is where the old man got the balance of that gold.”
“He sure was up against it,” replied my chief of staff. “Yes, sir,
old man Rodwaner had to scratch. It’s my opinion, sir, that old man
Rodwaner is all in.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“You took all he had and then he puts on his hat and goes and pawns
Rachel’s sealskin sacque and diamonds, and that, sir, is where your
last £5 came from. Yes, sir, I believe it. That’s just what old man
Rodwaner done.”
With $1000 gold in my belt, we shaped our course for the Crimea.