approaches of Cattaro, ready to receive the submarines and destroyers
which will not fail sooner or later to attack the supply-boats at
Antivari or Medua. In the misty, rainy atmosphere the searchlights of
the Austrian harbor flash and sweep the sea, searching for the enemy
they suspect to be within range. These great white restless eyes wander
ceaselessly to right and left, and halt sometimes upon us. But the
cruisers are so far away, shrouded in rain, that the enemy confuses
them with the sheets of rain that are falling. Behind their guns,
lighted up like specters, our gunners hold themselves ready to reply to
the fire of the batteries if they begin. But nothing happens except a
silent waiting; the searchlights abandon our vague outline, and go on
indefinitely sweeping space.
From hour to hour our anxious wireless asks news of the unloading. And
the destroyer anchored near the cargo-boat answers in short phrases:
“Rain and hail. Half done.”
Or else:
“Very bad weather. We do not expect to be through before six in the
morning.”
As night wears away, thanks to the tension of mind and the bad weather,
disquietude increases on the cruisers. They would like to be nearer,
sharing the danger of the others. They fear some catastrophe before
dawn.
* * * * *
The other night we saw some suspicious lights in that direction; short
sparks like will-o’-the-wisps which succeeded in traversing the leagues
of rainy air. The officers on the watch stood by helpless at these
signs of the drama that must be going on. Soon the wireless despatch
arrived, and was feverishly translated by the ensign on duty.
“The airmen are bombarding us. The bombs are exploding on deck. One
fell into the hold. All the Montenegrins have fled and taken shelter
on the shore. We fear we shall not be able to finish at dawn. The
Austrians continue the bombardment.”
Immediately the _Waldeck_ replied:
“If there is too much danger, or you are no longer numerous enough,
stop the unloading, leave the harbor; we are coming to your assistance.”
Without waiting for a response, we made for the bombarded harbor,
moving at top speed, for fear we should arrive too late. But in less
than ten minutes our rush was stopped short by the wireless reply,
which showed their astonishment at our proposition.
“We will continue alone. We will not leave until daybreak. There is
almost nothing left to unload.”
They did as they said! They did even better. How did they find means to
increase their strength, to make up for the flight of the Montenegrins?
They did not even think they had done a big thing, but at dawn the
holds were empty, and on the wharf were heaped to the last one the
bales that had been in their charge. Ah! the brave sailors!
_9 February._
Long hours flow away. The January nights seem eternal when one has
to live them wide awake. But at last the sky pales in the East, the
lights of Cattaro sink into the grayness and a sharper cold revives the
watchers a little. It is dawn.
Empty or not, the cargo-boat casts off its hawsers, and as clumsily as
it entered the night before, it leaves in the morning. On the wharf
are heaped the supplies for Montenegro; more will be brought in a few
days. The stevedores go back to the destroyers, and exchange their
night’s fatigue for that of the engines and the work of navigating the
ship. The procession forms again in the mist, and goes down the coast
of Albania in good shape. Without ballast, the cargo-boat dances in
the midst of the convoys like a cork. At a great distance the cruisers
continue their proud vigil until all this little company is out of
harm’s way. Then they feed their fires, stretch their legs, and limber
up with a little gallop as far as their Ionian sectors.
Or else between sunrise and twilight, they coal in some hidden bay.
And if chance favors them, they receive letters, and bundles of papers
which have wandered in pursuit of them over the vast sea. Although it
has left France so many weeks ago, and is already old, and made stale
by events, the news is read and commented upon with passion.
The sailors are not turned aside from the great drama by any mediocre
or banal concerns. Among all the people of the world, it is they who
vibrate most strongly to all the joys and troubles of France. Their
clear vision, free from passion, judges calmly the conflict of the
two parties. Better than anyone, thanks to the patience of their
pilgrimages, they discern in the future the reasons for victory and the
heavy ordeal of attaining it.
Bent on their secret task, they do not heed the dazzlement of
victories. They know that their collaboration, decisive as it is, will
be effaced by the future prowess of the soldiers. The gunfire, the
charges, the final drama for which the land will be the theater, will
relegate their silent labor to oblivion. But to overthrow Germany both
will be needed, and the glorious army can hold out a grateful hand to
the Navy.
Already our fleets are closing the doors of the world upon our
enemies, and keeping them wide open for the resources that will feed
our victory. As yet it is nothing; but hour by hour we forge a new
lock. When Germany and her allies, foaming with rage in the prison
to which our ships are the bars, suffer the tortures of famine; when
the one hundred and ten millions of Germans, howling at death’s door,
demand pity, and beg a bit of bread, when this menagerie tears itself
to pieces in the struggle for food; when revolt, insurrection, and
the frenzy of civil war shake to its foundations this manufactory
of murder; then, Russia, England and France will let loose their
bulldogs and their tamers. From their bridges the marines will hear
the footsteps of the soldiers’ charge and the barkings of their 75’s.
Their hearts will leap with joy, and, gazing at the sea, the companion
of evil days and luminous sunrises, they will say to her: “It is we two
together who have made it possible for all this to happen.”
Why does my vision wander to those happy days, our recompense? Is
it because of the contrasting melancholy of winter? Or else, have I
not been conducted thither by a natural path, through the letters of
comrades, the illustrious marine fusiliers in Belgium? Since their
wounds have got better through hospital treatment and convalescence,
they have commenced writing again. Nearly all my friends over there are
dead. Those who remain describe in simple language the trip to Antwerp,
the return in the horror of the conflict, the resistance so savage
that our enemies will never acknowledge that it was this handful of
brave men who blocked their rush. History will reward these officers,
these sailor-soldiers whom we knew on the deck of the men-of-war. Where
they have been, we should all like to have fought. The entire “naval
army” is jealous of this naval brigade. Exiled from the sea, they
were acquainted with the cyclones of the struggle. Separated from the
hurricanes at sea, they did not lower their heads before the mysterious
thunderstorms of the Yser and Flanders. They paid the price of their
courage in a terrific hecatomb; the barrier where the German invasion
was stopped is built on blue collars and red pompons.
We shall never see again those naive faces which laughed at the
tempest. Their death was not such as they would have chosen; they
have had to pass to their eternal rest beside the bank of a canal
or a marsh, with their hands tightened on their guns and a last
smile fluttering on their eyelids. When their brains reeled with the
dizzy agony, and their torn limbs were trembling, they could imagine
themselves in the grip of the sea’s great surges, and glimpses of its
vastness floated through their last visions. Under the gray skies of
the Belgian plains, their glazed eyes saw the skies of typhoons; the
mud in which they sank took for the moment the odor of their native
spray; in delirium their ears recognized in the noise of the shells the
blows of the waves on the hull; in the whistling of the balls the sound
of the wind as it makes the cordage vibrate as if under violin-bows.
All this drowns out the usual memories that accompany one’s last
hours--the chiming of village bells, the murmurs of a sweetheart or old
grandmother. For there are two things in the world which a man never
forgets--the fascination of the sea, and the tenderness of women. But
when the soldier approaches the threshold of eternity, the phantoms of
the latter disappear before the last appeal of the former.
All these things I read in the narrative of the survivors. They
remember the lightning storm which preceded this emptiness from which
they have come back. Unaccustomed to the march, they could not think
of the sea during those atrocious days when at each step their feet
and their knees became heavier with a weight that fairly nailed them
to the ground. But they went on just the same. They did not think of
the sea when their breaking lines recoiled before the German flood.
Neither could they think of it under the storms of shells. But at the
minute when they wavered between life and that which has no name, they
all received the final kiss of the sea. Its whispers cradled them,
and they were grieved that they could not be buried in its watery
grave. Thinking of their comrades, they bequeathed to them the hope of
perishing in its enveloping arms, during some heroic combat.
From their hospitals and homes the survivors send us their good wishes.
Towards the East, towards the Dardanelles, the world is beginning to
direct its attention, and the ships at last are going to experience a
great conflict. Our sailors have received the heritage from the marine
fusiliers. They envied, they are envied; thus runs the world. If fate
destines them to write history with their blood, and no longer merely
with their patience, their desire claims the legacy from their brothers
who have fallen over there.
_End of February._
In one of our trips to carry supplies to Montenegro, the _Dague_ has
just been lost. In the open roadstead, at midnight, she was waiting for
the cargo-boat to finish unloading its bales and cases on the wharf.
Her crew was assisting in this dangerous work. The heavy sound of
the cases falling on the planks was all that could be heard.... But a
submarine from Austria was lying in wait for the _Dague_.
Suddenly the destroyer leaped into the air as if lifted by the hand of
a giant. It fell in two pieces like a dead branch of wood. The sailors,
enclosed in her sides, did not know they were at the point of death.
Thirty seconds later, at the spot where there had been a living ship,
and men full of energy, there was no longer anything but the dark water.
_1 March._
Malta at last! Landscapes which do not move, roads of hard stone, a
desired presence.... Some drives in an English dog-cart behind a frisky
pony.... A dress of mauve muslin, the sweet Italian tongue interrupted
by silences, the charming visits to the fountain of the swans.
Malta, remote island and jewel of the Mediterranean, blessed repose
of navigators, peaceful harbor and immense fortifications, feverish
atmosphere and nostalgia of the blue sky. All the roads cross there.
Between the antipodes and the fields of battle the Hindu, the Canadians
and the French pass several hours there; and later, in the night
watches, each one will remember his happy rest in that place.
Malta, the starting point for the warriors of Egypt, of the
Dardanelles, of Mesopotamia, and Flanders; the port of call for the
sailors of the Mediterranean, of the North Sea and the Persian Gulf. In
the Strada Reale clash faces, uniforms, dialects; they linger on the
mystical pavements of the churches, and pass into the rocky countryside
to dream those dreams one never forgets.
Malta: First pilgrimage of the new crusade. The battleships and
cruisers, the drag-nets and dredgers get their second wind here before
sailing for the East, for Constantinople. They go there to take part in
epic conflicts, and retake from the Osmanlis the city of the Bosphorus,
which for five hundred years has awaited its deliverance. Regiments,
batteries and squads accompany them, crowded on the transports and
eager for victory. May the men who are preparing this great enterprise,
this terrible enterprise, measure well its obstacles, and be able to
obviate them!
Malta, paradise of the vagabond weary of wandering, light fragrances,
exquisite light, enchanting sea, creator of tenderness. Oh, these
evenings and mornings when the heart melts in one’s breast! But one
needs a companion. Woe to the lonely man! He will not appreciate the
smiles of this Eden. He cannot enjoy its treasures. How many sailors’
wives, who have come here to see for a moment the husbands torn from
them seven months ago, will not remember this idyllic spot with tears
in their eyes? But other loves are born on this island, which perhaps
will die there. These amours I desire every man to have who fights on
land or sea. Then a shell will but bring him happiness.
Farewell, Malta! Yesterday under a fragrant arbor the evening light
shone on a tragic face, and the coming separation made our speech
falter. This morning, towards dawn, in a silent church, two clasped
hands and a bowed head were praying for the safety of the traveler.
The _Waldeck_ left during the day. It took its way slowly among the
motionless ships, which will soon sail in their turn. Outside of the
harbor, already moving with the swell, it put on full speed and raced
over the blue water. Along the ramparts some handkerchiefs and soft
hands waved sad farewells. Every one of us, with his glass to his eyes,
looked for the beloved face and dress, which were becoming fainter with
every turn of the ship’s screws. And then distance wiped everything
out. Over there lovely eyes have been weeping; here our lids are still
wet. The sailor’s malady--what is it but separation?
_Ionian Sea, 5 March._
The Spring is venturing her first caresses. I know countrysides in
France where the cherry trees are already blooming, where violets are
fragrant, and lilacs are beginning to unfold. The April sun will soon
set flowing the tide of life and bloom; the poppies will get their
color from the blood spilled in Champagne and the Vosges.
But upon our sterile sea no grass grows green, no tree blossoms. The
water is bluer and the sky paler, the air brings softer breaths, but
these beauties are mere phantoms. They glide past like the moments of
our monotonous life, like the white clouds filled with light which move
above us.
A few living things distract our melancholy. Young porpoises, with
silver bellies and slender snouts, play around the hull, lashing the
water as if with thongs of whipcord, falling back with a gleaming
graceful movement. The old porpoises, mere dignified, follow patiently
their continual leapings, sewing the cloth of the sea with an invisible
thread; each one of their stitches on this blue material leaves a
streak of foam.
When these playful fish pass at a short distance from us, they are
amusing. But what frights their more distant tracks through the water
have given the officers of the watch! On an empty and shining sea,
the silver trail of a porpoise looks too much like the volute of a
periscope.... And the periscopes are prowling about.... The fine days
have arrived, and the sea is favorable for submarines to come down the
Adriatic as far as the Ionian Sea. Many people may not think so, but
the cruisers know that the enemy is hunting them to the death. We meet
on the water vast flat mirror-like tracks like the trail of a snail on
the ground. A submarine has just passed. From one end of the horizon to
the other the viscous line is sparkling, but the horizon is empty.
_9 March._
Several times at twilight one of the cruisers has seen rising, far
away, the kiosk and shell of a submarine, coming to the surface for
the night. The cruiser has rushed upon the enemy, but in the splendid
evening this fish of steel has filled its reservoirs again and quietly
submerged. The red of the sky gives place to purple, and the purple to
violet, and the violet to black, to darkness. The cruiser in pursuit
has informed the “naval army” of the encounter. We know she is not
mistaken, but the other ships, patrolling in the south, treat us as
visionaries.
Visionaries indeed! If only we were! We should not then experience,
during our watch, these sudden heart failures, and the nights of the
watch would not be riddled with these useless agonies. Each day the
crews become more apprehensive of some fatal surprise, and no one
is indifferent on board except the animals who dwell with us. Happy
beasts! Nature has freed them from forebodings.
Our cats, lazy and coquettish, choose a couch on the warm deck in the
sun, and roll themselves up in a ball, with their nose resting on their
furry paws, their green eyes half closed; or else they stretch out
on their sides, stiffening and unbending their paws, and letting the
breeze play on their bodies. They forget to sleep. Under the moon or
in the darkness they go sidewise, slowly brushing the cordage and the
rasping metal. Sometimes they mew with a call that is soft, raucous,
and hopeless, for ships of war are chaste, and our poor tomcats spend
their nights without any spring amours.
Towards four o’clock in the morning Venus rises fresh and dazzling.
Soon the feathery tribe begins to stir. Between the chimneys a cock
proclaims his fanfare, the hens cackle, and great disputes, accompanied
by much rustling of wings, take place over a cabbage leaf or some water
or a grain of corn. Our pigeons coo softly, as they puff their necks;
their glossy wings powdered with salt dew. Breaking in on these light
sounds comes the lament of the oxen which are to be slaughtered. They
low discreetly. At this din, which reminds one of one’s native land
and one’s country home, the officer of the watch on the bridge thinks
he smells the odor of the poultry-yard, the healthy odor of dung, and
listens to the creaking of the carts as they leave the farm. It is the
illusion of homesickness. The only voices of labor are the humming
of the ventilators, the pulsation of the engines, and the vibration
of the waves which slap the hull. Our only ties with the world are
the cruisers, with their stacks and their remote smoke, which go
from sector to sector on the same careful vagabondage. And we have no
other reason for living than to await the prowling submarines. The
submarines, the curse of this war!
_11 March._
There is one formidable problem which I have not yet solved.
From the bridge the officer sees a companion vessel explode, sink and
disappear. The catastrophe may be slow or swift, it matters not. Many
men have just been killed by the explosion; but there remain living
survivors in the water, who are condemned to death if their neighbors
do not come up to rescue them. The officer’s pitiful heart directs him
to rush towards the disaster and pick up these brothers of ours.
But no! The submarine is perhaps waiting and is aiming a new torpedo.
It is lying in wait for the rescuer with her formidable strength, her
thousand able men, and is counting on her rashness to send her to join
the victim it has just sunk. The duty of the officer tells him to save
a sound ship for France, so that to-morrow she may avenge the dead in
some victorious action.
The English Admiralty has solved the dilemma. “Woe to the wounded!” it
has said. “I order the living to flee!”
The men who drew up this formidable law in the privacy of their
offices were thinking only of the glory of their navy, of the fate of
their country. Would these same men, as officers of the watch, hearing
the appeal of drowning men, have the terrible courage to flee?
During the long hours of the watch I have pondered over this riddle.
To-morrow, this evening, in an instant, the drama of which I am
thinking may rise on the horizon. If fate wills that I be struck, I
know that as my mouth fills with water, my last cry, to those who
approach me will be this:
“Begone, for the submarine is watching for you too!”
But if in the treacherous night or under the kindly sun, I see one of
the companion ships of the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ destroyed, I hope some
inspiration will dictate my conduct. I cannot foresee what it will be.
There are tragedies where the reason stumbles, and man is outdone by
the malignity of things, where only revelation and divine grace permit
him to find his way.
This is the way weariness bewitches one. If we were in action, I should
never feel these dilemmas. I should not like to repeat here what all
my comrades every minute and every hour are saying around me. Never
have the cruisers been plunged into a profounder ennui. The great naval
routes pass north or south of our present beats, the battleships are
at the Peloponnesus, in Crete, and we can no longer see the coasts of
Italy, our companions in recent months. We should never suspect that
land existed if wireless messages did not bring us a suggestion of it.
Whence come these birds which for many days now have followed our
cruiser as it emerged from the winter? What woods, what nests, have
they left? By day they fly from mast to mast, cat-head to bridge, and
by night they hide in dark corners.... We are wandering on the treeless
waste, two or three hundred kilometers from any shore, and yet these
birds with their fragile wings choose our island of steel to rest upon
before continuing their journey. They are very young birds, and carry
themselves badly upon their inexperienced wings.
_14 March._
A swallow, a chaffinch, a robin and a bullfinch, are what I have seen
this morning, about sunrise.
In the wide expanse there was the growing light, a pale moon leaning
towards the west, some idle curls of smoke, and my vague thoughts.
And then, from nowhere, came this chaffinch, and stopped on the
bridge at my feet, looked at me impertinently, seemed reassured by
its examination, and without further concerning itself with me, began
hopping on the floor. Then the swallow arrived, restless and swift, but
so awkward that, as it rested on the steel bars, it swayed and caught
itself as if it thought it was falling.
It remains faithful to us. The sailors with their affectionate and
clumsy hands, have already tied on its dark body a yellow favor which
it wears coquettishly. It is our passenger. The others, more lively,
only pause between two flights; they peck on our deck, and by chance
discover something to store in their tiny paunches; perched on a rod, a
partition, or the rigging, they rest awhile, with their heads hunched
in their feathers and their wings up to their eyes like blinkers. We
call them; they do not answer, for they are asleep. And then all of
a sudden the chaffinches and robins fly away, as if they really knew
where they were going. They trust themselves without fear to the great
mysterious emptiness, and to-morrow other finches and other robins will
come, and will also fly away. We love them when they are there. We
forget them when they fly away. We shall not weep for their death. They
are like us, mariners of the air.
_15 March._
They are happier than we, for they are not preoccupied with their fate,
all the winds that pass are favorable to their wings. Carelessness is
their daily bread. They never ask the reasons for their pilgrimages,
and do not guess that their lives might be more useful. We envy their
spirit and their empty heads. How many times have we not wished to kill
our reason and become like machines, which work without thinking? The
sailors cannot know this infinite weariness of anxious thought, and
they would never say the bitter things that rise in our minds from
the strain of overwork. Are there any combatants in this war who have
need of so much patience for so painful a task? For weeks and months,
ever since the origin of time, it seems, the sailors have been here
performing the same duties, seeing the same faces, hearing the same
voices. They know beforehand what their neighbor is going to say.
Whether we are paradoxical or bitter, braggart or fatalistic, each of
us has long ago finished emptying out his intellectual baggage. There
is no chance of evasion or of renewal. One sees the very inside of
hearts. Some solid friendships, cemented by common miseries, cheer this
existence. But aversions and enmities are strengthened. In many ward
rooms now the meals have become gloomy or charged with ill-feeling. One
has to keep silent for fear of setting off the evil spark. Everything
provides material for discord, and nothing inspires amiable thoughts.
One does not wish to make venomous relations that are already strained,
and so one says nothing.
Spasmodically, at the reading of an important communiqué or wireless
messages, discussions burst forth and wax intense. For the thousandth
time we sift over what has been said, and as all the arguments were
laid on the table eight months ago, no one can win in the encounter
unless he can shout louder than the others. The president of the mess,
cool and benevolent, throws himself into the fray, and his advice makes
us see the inanity of such disputes. The officers understand that he is
right. Better to keep out of it.
Silence falls again. While awaiting his watch, the officer returns to
his cabin and tries to forget his troubles. Shall he write to his dear
ones? What for, and what shall he say to them? Everyone devotes himself
to some mechanical task. This one is learning Spanish, Greek, Japanese;
others are measuring their strength on the Ethics of Spinoza, or the
theory of the equations of partial derivatives; some are doing carving,
collecting stamps or raising turtles. The essential thing is to get a
man’s mind away from the ship, from the water, from himself.
The night, solitary, kindly, ends with the dawn. Sleep effaces
everything, and our duty transforms us into automatons. On the bridge
the officer no longer thinks of anything but his superior duties. Near
him stand watching the accustomed statues of gunners and steersmen;
under him gently vibrates the moving vessel; and all around stretch
the silent shadows. Above his head wings like felt open and close, and
form rings of sound. They are the horned owls, migratory birds too,
which have substituted our masts for their native nests. Frightened,
they wheel above the watchers, and their hairy wings sometimes brush
our caps. In the blackness of the sky, they fly uncertainly about,
hiding the stars and then disclosing them again. Their flight and their
silence are congenial to our thoughts. For them the sun does not exist,
any more than happiness exists for us. Perhaps they would like the
light, but their blinking eyes cannot endure it. They are like our own
hearts. For months past we have lost all the joys of life, and dare no
longer look them in the face.
_17 March._
After four hours of anxious thought and watching, the officer leaves
his successor in charge and goes down to his cabin or the ward-room.
He is too wide awake to fall quickly asleep, too tired to think. The
cruiser is like a castle of the Sleeping Beauty. In the labyrinth of
ladders, doors and passages, black holes alternate with the shadows
from dim lamps. On each side of the corridors are the rows of closed
doors leading to the cabins where the officers and the boatswains toss
between insomnia and bad dreams. A smoky light reveals the suspended
hammocks. After their hard work the sailors fling themselves down there
and sleep just as they fall; their dangling hands and knees are covered
with coaldust; many of the faces seem masked in black.
At the staircase to the engine-room, the fireman and swabbers
(soutiers) tumble out pell-mell on the metal floor, too exhausted to
lift themselves into their hammocks. One has to be careful not to step
on someone’s chest or ear. The ship could go down, and these men would
not wake from their stupor. Some of the more fastidious ones have taken
the trouble to procure a pillow; it is a lump of coal, very hard and
dusty; their cheeks press it as softly as if it were of down.
With outstretched hands and hesitating feet, the officer makes his
round, runs into something, and stops. He passes the watchers, the
gunners, the sentries. Wrapped in his cloak, and leaning against the
breech, a pointer is observing the flight of the gray water through a
port hole. His eyes are wide open, but what can be the reveries of this
man who every day and night for so many months has watched the gliding
of the water?
“Well, Kersullec, it’s tiresome! You are almost through!” whispers the
officer.
“Yes, Captain. It isn’t that I’m not sleepy, but I’ll hold out the rest
of my fifty minutes.”
And further on:
“You’ve got your eyes open, eh, Le Bihan? You know that yesterday
evening they signaled a submarine.... Quite near....”
“Let it come, Captain. It will see if Le Bihan sleeps on his watch!”
Reaching the ward-room, the officer takes off his cloak, his muffler,
his gloves, and puts down his glasses. He nibbles a crust of bread or
refreshes himself with a drop of wine. The room is in disorder from
the preceding evening, with newspapers left on the red sofas, games on
the green tables. One turns the pages mechanically without reading, and
shuffles the dominoes and cards without thinking, and before going back
to his dull bed, one casts a glance at the betting-book.
_22 March._
A happy find, this betting-book, which has banished acrimonious
disputes from the _Waldeck-Rousseau_! For since in this war our
prophecies about to-morrow or next week have nothing to base themselves
upon, what good does it do to argue? If one of us, through some
revelation, acquires a definite opinion on future events, he writes
it in this notebook with the date, the hour and the place. The page
is divided into two columns, one for, and the other against the
prediction; the man who bets proposes the stake. The other signs in
the right column or the left, and when the bet falls due, the bad
prophets pay up as gracefully as possible. There is no opportunity for
contradicting, and it is much more amusing than all the discussions.
_30 March._
This morning, towards four o’clock, I signed my name in the column of
the most recent bets. Here are the three wagers which interested me:
Friday, March 26. 8.50 A.M. at 38° 11´ N. and 16° 11´ E.
M. X.... bets that within three months Italy will be at war, but not
Roumania. Stakes a dinner in Paris in 1917, for which the winner shall
choose the restaurant and make up the menu.
The page of this wager is scribbled over with emendations and remarks.
The number of signatures in the two columns is equal. The winners will
be awkward in their triumph.
Sunday, March 28. Midnight: at 38° 02´ N. and 18° 7´ E. M. J.... bets
with M. Z.... that the Viviani ministry will not last out the year
1915. Stakes: the two bettors being unmarried, the loser agrees to act
as groomsman at the marriage of the winner, who agrees to choose him a
pretty maid of honor.
The page is sprinkled with facetious comments. To tell the truth, I do
not know which are wittier, those which mention the wager, or those
which discuss the stakes. Between the fiancée and the Premier, the maid
of honor, the winner and the loser, it is all humor of the cleverest
kind.
Tuesday, March 30. 2.30 A.M. at 38° 10´ N. and 16° 23´ E. M. W....
wagers that inside of a month one of the seven Ionian cruisers will be
sunk by a submarine and lost without anything’s being saved.
For this wager I see neither any stake nor opposing signature.
_4 April._
For seven weeks I have not been off the cruiser, but this morning I was
given a new duty; namely, to land during our coaling; my turn has come
to provide the food for my twenty-five comrades of the mess.
At no time is this a pleasant business; during our war campaign it
requires an angelic patience, for supplies are difficult to get and the
quality uncertain. Each one of us watches without enthusiasm the day
approach when he becomes the scapegoat for the dyspeptics and those
with ailing livers. But the implacable schedule, drawn up by lot before
our departure from Toulon, appoints a new “chief of the mess” every two
months.
You housekeepers who complain of the price of provisions and the bad
quality of the eggs had better take passage on the ships which move in
the Ionian Sea, and you will learn about unknown miseries. It is no
mere question in our latitudes, of varying the menus, of serving such
a fish or such a meat, nor even of calculating almost to a half pound
what will feed the household without waste. The task is more difficult.
For fifteen or twenty days the cruiser has kept to sea without quitting
it; she has done her coaling outside and has not revictualed anywhere.
Fresh provisions are a mere memory; eggs, preserved in straw or lime,
acquire with each meal a richer and more vigorous flavor. The wine,
shaken about in warm casks, ferments. The fresh water absorbs the
rust of the iron-casks, and tastes like the mephitic beverage of some
invalid resort. Our bread is heavy and indigestible, for the bakers
are seasick and the flour is mouldy. For dessert we nibble some empty
or frost-bitten walnuts, dried raisins, excessively dried, and almonds
which either cannot be cracked or are filled with powder.
Despite our work and weariness, we push aside these pitiful
refreshments sweetened with coaldust. Our teeth crack lumps which have
no taste of vanilla; these are cinders which have got into our sauces.
Morning and evening we have to face one or two dishes of beef. And
such beef! Battered by the wind and spray, tossed by the rolling of
the ship which bruises their tender nostrils, the poor animals of the
shambles trample listlessly the steel deck and sniff their fermented
hay listlessly. After a few days at sea they have lost their fat. They
have to be killed in time, for fear they will die during the night. For
this maritime agony they avenge themselves upon our teeth; their flesh
is like a ball of discolored twine, with the pleasant elasticity of
rubber. I will not describe the chickens which survive a few weeks of
the cruise. I should need the vocabulary of a cordwainer.
And then, in their distant campaignings, the sailors habitually provide
themselves with some digestive or rheumatic complaint, which is quiet
enough in hours of prosperity, and revives exactly at the moment when
one wants to keep well. Seven entire months at sea under this régime
have resurrected all these ailments. The martyrs require a light
but nourishing diet of good food. Where can we get it? The chief of
the mess cannot transform into fresh eggs these shells in which are
stirring chicks anxious to hatch out, nor into fresh milk the viscous
compound which comes in metal cans. Musty cakes, greenish purées,
coagulated rice, become more and more common on our plates. Complexions
become yellow, features drawn, and good-humor vanishes. Discussions on
the war or the service turn bitter. Those who are endowed with unbroken
health take the diatribes philosophically: “Take it easy, my poor
friend,” they think. “Take it easy. I would reply to you, if it wasn’t
only your enteritis that is speaking!”
One night a wireless arrives from the Commander-in-Chief.
“You will coal Wednesday at Dragamesti, with the cargo-boat
_Marguerite_.” It is only Sunday, but a smile appears on a thousand
faces. The whole cruiser takes on the alert pace of a horse which
sniffs the relay. A sorry relay however! From morning to evening, in
a harbor where the wind blows violently, the ship will be shrouded in
coaldust; the sailors will wear themselves out, the officers shout
themselves hoarse trying to hurry the filling of the sacks, and we
shall leave more exhausted than at dawn, for fifteen or twenty days of
pilgrimage. But we shall have made a halt. Sailors in any part of the
world, you will all understand me!
The chief of the mess is happy, but becomes anxious. Between two
watches he has a conference with the cook and steward. Both are
neurasthenic; it is as disagreeable to them to prepare our little meals
as it is to us to swallow them. But hope, invincible in the heart of
man, cheers the trio:
“Captain,” says the steward, “buy some figs, some salad and some fresh
cheese. That will improve the menu for a week.”
“Certainly,” replies the captain chief of the mess. “But shall we find
any?”
“I want some lambs,” demands the cook, “some fish for two or three
days, and if I can lay my hand on a good fat sheep, I can guarantee
that you gentlemen will be satisfied.”
“All right. But I’m afraid we shall not find very much.”
“And then, I must have at least four hundred dozen eggs. The last time
we only took two hundred; a good half of them were rotten, and we use
six to seven dozen a day. So, in twenty days....”
“Oh! But, great heavens, my friend! Where am I to get the money?”
For it is a fact: in war times, and in almost impossible regions, the
sailors have for their pay and food not a cent more than in times of
peace. Upon this detail the chief of the mess has his own opinion, but
keeps it to himself. Pencil and memorandum in hand, he wavers between
fear of overspending his credit, and of incurring the anathema of his
comrades. He opens his till and counts the notes and change, closes the
lock with a sharp click and murmurs:
“I shall never get away with it....”
Monday and Tuesday pass. The general satisfaction increases. The
furrows deepen on the brow of the chief of the mess. To-morrow is
Wednesday, the fatal day. But at dusk another wireless message arrives:
“Collier _Marguerite_ delayed by bad weather. You will coal Thursday
with the _Circe_.”
At this delay which desolates all the others, the chief of the mess
calms down and has a better sleep. He has just gained twenty-four
hours. But his calm is shaken at table by the remarks which unanimously
agree that the food is uneatable--they are right--and that the chief of
the mess ought to be hung. Poor chief of the mess!
A third wireless follows:
“Remain in the third sector until next Saturday. You will coal Sunday
at Santa Maura with the _Bayonnais_.”
Horror and desolation! The language of sailors is not unresourceful,
but in desperate cases it becomes magnificent. This is one of them.
Rabelais himself, the prince of truculence, would open his ears wide to
hear the sailors--ordinarily civilized--comment on this third message.
I dare not reproduce these explosions, but will keep to my hero, the
chief of the mess.
The bitterest pleasantries have an end. Towards sunrise the ship finds
its way to the appointed rendezvous and anchors there. I will not say
it is at Santa Maura, or on Sunday, or with the _Bayonnais_. It may be
with the _Biarritz_, at Antipaxo, on the following Wednesday. We are
within neither a week or a hundred kilometers of the original order,
but the cruiser lies still, with the collier alongside, and the crew
have already plunged into a cyclone of black dust. With his pocket
full, but with an anxious heart, the chief of the mess, accompanied
by his two acolytes, reaches the shore in a steam cutter. There is
nothing but ten houses and a small church. The horizon consists of
solid rock, without a sign of cultivation. At each step the hope of
provender diminishes. We touch the quay, if there is a quay; when
there is nothing better we run up on the beach, and the trio makes
for the cluster of houses. Some Greeks with intelligent smiles and
unintelligible language are always to be found to conduct you to
persons who will sell you eggs, poultry, groceries or animals. They
take your hand and pull you by the sleeve. They show certificates from
another cruiser which has left the evening before, and which, like
the brigand she is, has surely taken everything! After many muddy
puddles, many ruts, the three victims arrive in front of the herd, the
poultry-yard, or the baskets of fruit.
I suspect the people of this region of having founded along their
coasts sanatoriums of lymphatic sheep and tuberculous cattle. I suspect
them of cultivating boxwood and fusain, cutting the twigs off with
scissors, and calling them salad. I suspect them finally when they sell
eggs at eight sous apiece, of wishing to give you your money’s worth,
and of setting odor above cheapness.
“If you want to see better animals, there is another herd ten
kilometers away, behind the marshes.”
“In that island opposite, I know a man who grows vegetables; go to him.
It will only take you three hours there and back.”
“Yes, you could find fresher eggs at my neighbor’s, but he just left
for the mountains last night.”
The chief of the mess devotes forty minutes to understanding these wily
proposals. He has only a few hours in this remote region, and before
night he has to provide for the food of twenty-five men for twenty
days. Followed by the steward and the cook, he perspiringly visits the
miserable shops and doubtful poultry-yards.
“We have no more figs or raisins. The Germans bought them all three
months ago.”
“Yesterday one of your ships took the finest head of cattle. If you had
only come the day before yesterday!”
Hours pass, but they do not in the least improve the quality of what we
are offered. The agents become more and more cunning as they press you
to buy, for they know that the cruiser sails at dusk, and their kind
souls fear she will leave without provisions. In a creaking carriage or
on a broken horse, the chief of the mess goes to see this herd, or that
famous poulterer, and returns with a desire to slaughter his guide.
Evening comes. The cruiser whistles, raises the flag of recall, and is
to put to sea in half an hour. We must buy now, whatever the cost. Then
pell-mell, in sacks or boxes, under the goad of the shepherds, on the
shoulders of the boys, the eggs and suspect vegetables, the consumptive
animals and the parchment poultry begin to move towards the cutter.
The Chief’s spirit is haunted by dark presentiments, but he offers
fresh blue notes and new gold pieces in exchange for these precarious
victuals. The sons of Mercury wrangle over the change and the price,
the porters demand their tip, and the market becomes an uproar of
invective. But all that is nothing to what is in store on board.
At last everything is in order. The cutter leaves the quay, followed by
pleasantries, and arrives at the ship, which weighs anchor and begins
in the night its twenty days of cruising. In answer to the questions
of his comrades the chief of the mess tries to put on a good face, but
the evening meal gives him a hint of the refined torture he will endure
until the next landing, and he invokes the god of resignation to his
aid.
* * * * *
This afternoon, since I had used up my store of gold and silver, I gave
a hundred franc note to some breeder of elastic chickens. I owed him
fourteen francs. Instead of giving me back eighty-six francs, he made
the entire change for the note in pieces of five, two and one drachmas.
In the midst of a crowd of boys and attentive men he counted it,
recounted it, and put it in my hand.
From these hundred francs which he gave me I took out two five-drachma
pieces and two two-drachma pieces, making up the total amount. But he
returned me the two five-drachma pieces, and I cannot describe the air
with which he said to me: “Your two coins are bad. Give me two others.”
If I had been a German, I should have knocked him on the head. But I
contented myself with throwing the two coins into a pile of mud that
happened to be there, and jumped into my cutter without saying a word.
As we returned, I examined the other coins. They were sound. And I
could not help laughing, for if I had chosen two good coins to pay him
with, this good breeder would have robbed me of ten francs.
I have traveled much, I have seen many swindlers; but this one takes
the first prize.
_Strait of Otranto,
25 April to 1 May, 1915._
The cruisers on the Ionian Sea have received orders to go up as far as
the Strait of Otranto. Perhaps the Commander-in-Chief, who is stationed
towards the south of Greece, has learned that the Austrians are
preparing certain naval operations and so sends us to watch the enemy
at closer range; perhaps this movement corresponds to some play on the
chess-board of war. Little do we care. We leave these desert regions,
and go to find the friends of our early days: Santa Maria de Leuca,
Fano, Corfu.
Again we encounter their charms and their graces. Autumn had decked
them in soft colors; April envelops them in a virginal light. At
the end of Italy the lighthouse of Leuca rises like a marble finger
always white; and the islands and the mountains of Epirus are pink in
the morning, blue through the day, and mauve at dusk. The air is so
marvelously pure that the night itself does not rob things of their
color. Violets and yellows remain, even under the moon.
We have plenty of time to admire these beauties, already so familiar.
The cruisers move very slowly, for they must not use too much coal.
Several times we have been surprised to find one of them wanting to
hurry the schedule of coalings and do its provisioning two or three
days earlier. So in order not to incur the reproach of stopping oftener
than is necessary, the cruisers have taken a leisurely pace, and the
consumption of fuel has become satisfactory. Especially at night, in
the religious calm over which the hills of Corfu and the lighthouse of
Leuca watch as sentinels, it seems that we are quite motionless.
The family of cruisers, which was formerly dispersed over the Ionian
Sea, now meet each other continually, and play at puss in the corner.
In the course of a day one sees three or four gently rise on the
horizon, make a curve as they double the edge of their sector, and
nonchalantly depart again. When they have something to say, two
comrades approach each other: the _Ferry_ talks to the _Gambetta_ by
wigwagging, the _Waldeck_ to the _Renan_ with flags and pennants;
through the glass one recognizes friends; salutations are exchanged by
waving caps or hands. When the conversations are finished, each one
turns her back and goes to patrol her watery field. Every morning,
from eight to nine o’clock, the ships signal information about the
amount of coal remaining, their daily consumption, the number of sick
on board, and the number of the sector they are patrolling. If one of
them has done or sighted something interesting, she mentions it. We
have a little daily chat; thanks to which we feel less lonely--within
reach of a voice, so to speak. During their watch the officers consult
the memoranda of the wireless messages, and read hastily the news from
their neighbors, just as one listens, without paying attention, to
the friend one meets in the street who gives one the bulletin of his
family’s good health.
We have, moreover, plunged back into the great road of international
traffic. Again the throng of steamers, freighters or sailing vessels,
passes along the Italian and Greek coasts. We may not go too near them,
for fear of penetrating the territorial waters, and of thus finding
Italy or Greece, with whom the Entente is carrying on negotiations,
touchy about their sea frontiers. If one of the cruisers visits some
ship too near the limit, she is accused of having overstepped the line,
and the affair, exaggerated, becomes disquieting. Better to evade the
controversial line, and only accost, with a clear conscience, the ships
that risk themselves on the high sea.
In order that the crews may not lose their skill in firing the guns,
which sleep in a profound slumber during this disconcerting war, from
time to time we practise firing at floating targets. Not shooting with
a regular charge, for our guns make so much noise that an hour later
all the telegraphs of the world would announce “the great naval battle
in the Strait of Otranto,” but what is called in the navy reduced
firing. With small charges and small shells we fire upon little canvas
targets which float on the water like children’s toys driven by the
breeze. This makes proportionately no more noise than a pea-shooter
firing peas, but the entire organism of the ship--engines, system of
direction and of firing, telemetry and rules of firing--functions
as it would in battle. When we pick up the target the crew examines
the canvas and the framework, counts the holes and the scratches,
criticizes this parody of battle. A pitiful solace for our desire for
action! One thought consoles us: the Austrians at Pola, the Germans at
Kiel, the English in the bases where they wait, are tiring themselves
with the same vanities as ourselves, with reduced firing and the
pretences of battle. Yes, this naval war is indeed disconcerting.
These were my thoughts during the watch the other night, when
everything about me was so fair. A full moon with soft features, but
with a contour as sharp as that of a new medal, rode in a sky as
pure as the face of a child. The stars were swollen with joy. Vague
lightning illuminated first one part of the sky and then another,
like vagrant smiles of the night, without arrière-pensée. The sea,
drowsy with warmth, had a calm and fragrant breath, and it seemed as
if our prow in cutting it was profaning a divine slumber. It was one
of those moments when the most unhappy man feels love flood his heart,
and as my eyes fell only on eternal things, my spirit absorbed all
their blessing. The cruiser was patrolling the middle of the Strait
of Otranto; on its left a comrade kept guard towards Fano and Corfu;
on its right the _Gambetta_ in the Italian sector received from time
to time the flashes from the lighthouse. During the afternoon we had
come quite near the _Gambetta_; our boats had exchanged the parcels,
the mail, and orders, and it is now the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ who will
occupy the Italian sector after we separate. At the last moment some
new order has given our place to the _Gambetta_ and kept us in the
central rectangle. It is of no particular importance, and our turn to
be neighbors with the lighthouse will come to-morrow.
I shall not try to describe the train of thought which haunts the
officer of the watch when nature becomes kindly again and accords
him a respite for his body. As he surveys the sea with unrelenting
eyes, he makes the tour of the weather, of the world, of his ideas.
The fluttering butterfly is less capricious than this reverie of his,
but he rests at last on some flower of thought. I remember that on
this night, towards the third hour of my watch, I was thinking of the
contrast between the peace of Nature and the human agony of the war.
I had taken off my cap to feel the caressing fingers of the night; I
had even opened my vest, and felt almost on my skin the freshness of
the reviving breeze. On the sea, so light that it seemed transparent,
I saw nothing in particular; but that was undoubtedly the weakness of
my vision, the fatigue from too long cruises, the lassitude which on
this night all my comrades of the watch on the cruisers felt with me.
Otherwise my mind was clear.
The work of France and Russia, the enterprise of the Dardanelles and
Gallipoli, all that had not been done, all that could be done, and
ought to be done, everything defined itself in precise images. Around
the cruiser was so much silence and so much silent light that my
thoughts seemed to speak aloud to me. When my successor came to replace
me on the watch, I quickly told him all the routine things, and then
remained several minutes before going down to my cabin, in order to
enjoy the marvelous night for a little while longer. There was not a
single sound or light, and I left the bridge regretfully. I thought of
the officers of the nearby cruisers, towards the right and the left of
us, several miles away, feeling the same sensations, and I was consoled.
The arriving day brought dazzling beauty after the quiet charm of
the night, but everything around the cruiser remained the same--calm,
silence, warm air. After a heavy sleep, a listless morning and a short
meal, I resumed at noon the interrupted watch. The same thoughts
continued to accompany my duties. Between them there was only the
difference of moonlight and sunlight. My reasonings were clearer, my
rancor stronger, but the sparkling of the waves revealed nothing. As we
had nothing to communicate to the cruisers on our right and left, we
remained quietly in the center of our sector, and my only companions of
the watch were the sun, the migrating birds and some dolphins in the
water.
Towards two o’clock I received the sudden news of the death of a sailor
on board. The news tore me from my peaceful mood. I know that in this
far place the death of one man does not count, especially when one is
acquainted with that man only by a number. Yet I could not refrain
from a certain melancholy, and the train of my reveries became somber.
You poor little sailor, who has given up his life in this iron prison,
where will be your grave? The perfumed rocks of Greece, or the sands of
Apulia, or a shroud in the Ionian deeps? Wherever it be, no hand will
ever strew flowers on your white wooden cross, and those who write you
to-day perhaps will not know to what part of the vast world they should
direct their tears.
To the end of my watch I keep thinking of this destiny of the sailors,
who do not even halt to die. Around me the faces of the lookouts and
gunners show the same aspect of gravity which mine should have. This
morning, it seems to me, touches us more than it should. Is there not
going on somewhere a drama much more terrible?
In order to banish such reflections, I go to look in my cabin for
my little dog Jimmino, with his cold nose, his soft eyes and silky
hair. Since my last stay in Malta, he has exchanged the ease of his
mistress’ home for the hard existence of a ship. At night he sleeps in
the hollow of my shoulder, and when he wakes, he watches my slumber
without stirring. When I work, he whines softly until I lift him up on
my desk. He puts his head between his paws, and follows the course of
my pen. He does not like me to remain too long without speaking to him,
for I think he is of a jealous temperament. In order to let me know he
is there, Jimmino rises and walks across my pages where his paws trail
thick threads of ink. Then I give him a little tap on his cold nose and
scold him:
“Get away, you horrible, badly brought up little thing! What would your
mother say if she...”
“Well, well,” replies the little tail as it wags. “You have spoken,
silent master, and you have struck me; so you must love me. I am not
vexed with you any more.”
Jimmino lies down again within reach of the paper, his nose so near the
sheets that at the end of every line I feel his warm breath on the back
of my fingers. He watches my bent head, and thinks:
“I know very well you are bored, and that you brought me with you to
distract you. I am very happy when you deign to think of me. But do
you suppose that I am amused? Formerly, I played with the cat, on the
stairs, under the furniture, and around the kitchen. Everything smelt
good all around, and they washed me every morning. Here everything is
full of coal and bad odors. The moving sea makes me dizzy. And then I
have become the dog of an officer, and cannot go with the crews’ pets.
What have I done that you should exile me? Listen to me, silent master.
Speak to me.”
The paw stretches out cautiously to the edge of my freshly written
line. “Back, Jimmino! You will make a bad blot!”
The paw draws back.
“Bah! You are right,” the master goes on. “It is late. In a quarter of
an hour we shall eat. Come up on the bridge. We will take the air.”
I take Jimmino, warm and soft, up on my shoulder, where he weighs
nothing. He settles himself, snuggles against my ear which he tickles.
He trembles at my rapid course along the corridors, up the companion
ways, to the height of the bridge.
The twilight is marvelous with its soft and delicate shades of color.
“What news?” I say to the officer of the watch.
“Nothing.... The same old story.”
“Any interesting messages?”
“None! Communiqués from Eiffel, Norddeich, Poldhu. The cruisers have
nothing to say. Go read the memorandum.”
I hasten to read the book of telegrams, glancing over the hundred or
two hundred messages of the day. It is the same strain as yesterday,
and as it will be to-morrow. “Left Navaria at 2 P.M.,” says this one.
“I count on finishing coaling this evening,” says another. “I am on my
way to Bizerta,” says a third, and so on for four pages.
“Well,” says the officer of the watch. “You see there is nothing.”
“It’s queer. The _Gambetta_ has not spoken to-day.”
“There was probably nothing to announce.”
“It should have signaled its daily position this morning.”
“Wireless damaged perhaps.”
“Perhaps. All the same it has said nothing since 9 o’clock last night.”
“Have any of the cruisers called her?”
“Yes! And she has not responded.”
“You are sure?”
“Go and see. I will watch in your place.”
Five minutes later my comrade returns, after running over, examining
and considering the four pages of messages.
“You are right,” he says. “It is strange. However, nothing has happened
to her. She would always have had time to signal S. O. S. That doesn’t
take two seconds.”
“That’s true. But all the same, she should have replied to the ships
that called her.”
“She was wrong. We shall see to-morrow.”
I go down to dinner. On my chair Jimmino, crouched like a sphinx, is
waiting for bits from my meal. Our assembly is not very noisy. We
comment upon the end of the day, and the doctor receives placidly
the usual pleasantries. The conversation turns listlessly on Turkish
affairs. Why is there no animation? The officers who are going to
take the watch rise to put on their uniforms for the night. We greet
them in the familiar way as they pass out. “A good watch to you, old
man! Keep your eyes open!” “Don’t delay us!” “You know I’m taking the
Paris express this evening.” “If you see a submarine try not to waken
me.” “And then,” I added, “let me know if there is a message from the
_Gambetta_.”
“Why?”
“She has not spoken for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“The deuce!” murmured the assembly. “What has happened to her?”
The game tables are set up, for dominoes, chess, bridge; the smokers
light their pipes; the readers open their paper; others stretch out on
the cushions. Interpretations are offered concerning the silence of the
_Gambetta_.
“Accident to the wireless....”
“She had nothing to say....”
“She ought to have signaled her daily position....”
“She should have replied when she was called....”
“We shall see to-morrow...!”
The cards fall, the dominoes grate, the newspapers crackle, and the
pipes pull. All in this little world are silent, absorbed in their
game, their reading or their reveries. But it is appearance only.
Yesterday afternoon we talked with the _Gambetta_; last night she
cruised in the sector where we were to go. For twenty-four hours she
has been silent. In the cards, in the papers, and the smoke from the
pipes, each one of us reads these disquieting thoughts. But no one
speaks of it. I go to bed, for I have to take the watch again in the
middle of the night.
Jimmino trots behind me, installs himself near the pillow, and sleeps
with a dreamless slumber. But I await through the long hours some news
of the _Gambetta_. Eyes closed or open, I cannot escape being haunted
by her. All my comrades tell me they have passed a sleepless night.
In the shadow I go up to take the watch. My predecessor repeats the
sacred phrases. I interrupt him:
“But the _Gambetta_?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you think of it?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you believe that...?”
I dare not finish. He dares not answer, but disappears in the darkness.
I fix my eyes on this treacherous sea which never gives up its secrets.
An anguish with iron fingers presses my heart. There is no more doubt
of it, death has passed over one of our brothers. Each hour that slips
by proves the magnitude of the disaster, and if no news ever reaches
us, it will be because all at one stroke eight hundred men will
have plunged into the sea. Leaning on the rail, I stroke the metal
mechanically, and the wood and canvas which meet my hand. I enjoy
feeling the good cruiser, alive and in motion, quivering under me.
I realize how much I love her, and it seems to me, that in order to
pierce the darkness, my eyes take on the acuteness of a father’s who
scans the face of a child of his that is menaced by death.
A little later our wireless operator sends me a bundle of messages.
With nervous fingers the ensign translator turns over his codes and
dictionaries in order to transform these ciphers into French. Each
minute I go to his shoulder to read the line, or the half-line, or the
word he has transcribed. Heavens! How long it takes to spell out the
horror!
* * * * *
It happened yesterday evening, during that fatal watch which I found
so beautiful. The moon was quite round; the sea was transparent, and
I saw nothing on it. Like me the officers on watch on the _Gambetta_
were weary of their useless vigil; at the end of their route they saw
the gleam of the lighthouse at Santa Maria di Leuca. In the distance
passed the shadows which I should have seen if the _Waldeck-Rousseau_
had cruised in the sector which it was to have had. These shadows were
ships going along the Italian coast.
But another shadow, covered by the water, had been on watch for many
days. It knew we were going by way of the Strait of Otranto. Advised by
its accomplices, it awaited, motionless, the occasion for striking a
decisive blow. For three nights, for four nights, the majestic cruisers
passed too far from this shadow submarine, from this octopus with
deadly tentacles. The moon, as it approached its full glory, became
more and more luminous.
During these splendid hours, when I had almost disrobed to feel the
caresses of the night near me, the submarine saw approaching a slowly
moving vessel, with four stacks and graceful outline. It made ready, as
it had the night before and the night before that, and hoped that the
ship’s present route would permit it to cast its death thrust.
What pen could describe this drama in all its fullness?
On the _Gambetta_, sailors and officers scanned this sea that was
almost too bright; they had seen it raging or seething with billows,
or tormented by the wind, or calmer than a sleeping eyelid. It was the
ninth month! Flashes of lightning dazzled their eyes, and they moved,
like the watchers on the _Waldeck-Rousseau_, in a confusion of gleams
and darkness. It was the two hundredth night! They were weary. They had
waited so long, they no longer expected anything. Their eyes met only
illusion.
The submarine lay in wait in the bosom of the waves. It knew that
some time or other its wonderful prey would pass within range of its
torpedo. Through the lens of the periscope its commander saw the
luminous circle where the moon danced, the surface of the mirrored
water, and the phantoms which move in a night at sea. He heard on the
submerged hull the lapping of the dark waves. All the sailors at their
posts watched the gesture of his hand and the sound of his voice.
Suddenly this man’s heart began to beat as if it would burst. God of
death, you were speaking in his ear! He had just seen in the funnel of
his periscope two masts and four stacks. She rose in the midst of the
lightning flashes, a phantom. Tense and still, the man asked himself if
the vision would approach, or would vanish as on the preceding nights.
She approached. She came, a vagabond, predestined, without knowing that
a demon was plotting her death. With closed lips and moist hands, this
man prepared his words. Twenty-five men watched him as if he were a
destroying angel.
At the given moment he said: “Fire!”
The torpedo left the submarine like a breath in the water and as
silently. For a few seconds, a few endless seconds, it rushed through
the echoless water. Two flashes, three flashes, gleamed in the sky; the
lookouts on the _Gambetta_ covered their faces with their hands. They
did not suspect that this moment, which followed so many other moments,
held in it the last breath they would draw.
Then a dull sound behind her made the cruiser tremble. She was seized
with a sudden fever, and each of her metal plates resounded. Death
spread through her limbs and muscles. In through a breach in her very
heart rushed the dark water, leaped and broke everything before it.
What happened then?
I do not know. I do not yet know. But some of the messages make it
possible to imagine the details of the horror.
Filled with water on her wounded side, the _Gambetta_, lurched toward
her sea grave, and the sailors who were not killed at once thrust
out their arms to save themselves. Everything slid around them. To
stand upright they had to lean over; their hands had to serve them
for eyes, for darkness enveloped the cruiser. Naked and silent they
rushed on toward the deck, but the slanting companion ways were now
as perpendicular as walls. How many unfortunates perished in their
suddenly interrupted sleep, without realizing that their ship was going
down for the last time?
* * * * *
On the deck, a black chaos! Each second the cruiser sinks deeper.
The gulf of the waves grows larger, and each moment perhaps will be
the final plunge. By main force the sailors launch the boats and the
cutter, which drop into the water wrong side or right side up. The
officers are calm and have put aside their fatigue; they give the
necessary orders for the rescue. In the sky the two masts and the four
stacks sink lower and lower. The cruiser, with its apparatus damaged,
can send out no signal for help, and all those who dwell on her plunge
into the depths as if down a silent stair.
A handful of men have been able to enter the boats. Chilled, but
struggling for life, they have taken the oars, and during the last
hours of the night have rowed towards the friendly lighthouse. At
the first gleam of day, with bleeding hands, but with a marvelous
tenacity of will, they have made a supreme effort, and the Italian
customs-officers take in sixty exhausted men almost at the point of
death.
* * * * *
From Tarentum to Rome, from Rome to Paris, from Paris to Malta, and
from Malta to the _Waldeck-Rousseau_, this story of the drama has been
traveling for twenty-four hours. The good neighbor we loved to see
in our meetings on the high sea has met the death which might have
been our own. She has disappeared without a word, felled at the first
stroke in an eddy of the sea, as befalls her pilgrims. The wound was
muffled and dumb, for over there on the horizon I saw nothing. One of
the flashes that played in the sky was perhaps the gleam of the torpedo
which killed her, but I was deceived by the illusion of distance.
* * * * *
Without mourning or benediction they laid their bodies in the cemetery
of the sea. From Admiral to midshipmen, all the officers are buried
in this sea, at once so maternal and malevolent. The superhuman souls
of these officers attempted the impossible. They wished to save the
cruiser, and the cruiser went down. They wished to save the men, and it
is not their fault that nearly eight hundred sailors perished.
And then, according to that law of the sea which ordains that the
officer shall wait until the last sailor is saved, they went down with
their ship. The ignorant will criticize them, but they are wrong. If
each Frenchman, in civil or military service, performs to the uttermost
the task his country demands of him, his country, with a heave of her
shoulders, will chase the Germans out of France.
Officers of the _Gambetta_, you have your place in the paradise of “_la
Revanche_.”
FINIS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.