Chapter IV: Part II: In the Adriatic (3)

You would imagine yourself in a cavern of the infernal regions. Around the cruiser and the collier a thick halo sullies the atmosphere. Bound together by heavy hawsers, the two boats roll on the waves or in the wind like two black swans. On the decks and broadsides you see only dark forms which move with sluggish gestures; bare feet travel furtively the carpet of coal spread over the steel; electric lights under a black film throw a strange and somewhat sinister light; human beings pass, loaded with heavy sacks, knees bowed, eyes and teeth white in a perspiring negro mask; they pant and blow and suffer. Their muscles are aching with this work fit only for horses, and beg for mercy. Yet they sing. At the moment when the cloud is heaviest, the odor most acrid, and the light most livid, a hoarse young voice rises out of the gloom. It attempts the first verses of some gay song: “The Young Girls of Rochelle!” “Queen Pomare!” “The Gray Lark!” Right and left, high and low, invisible singers respond. The coalholes become alive; behind the partitions of steel a smothered baritone joins its raucous tones to those of a tenor armed with a pick. And in the immense maze of the holds, the broadsides and corridors, flows a harmony, at once sad and joyous, a memory of France in days of peace. There is no conductor and no metronome, but the singing is in good time and tune. The cruiser vibrates in unison with it.

When the song is ended, one hears for several minutes only indistinct breathings and stampings. Sack by sack the tons of coal stock the holds, and the monotonous rain accompanies the interminable labor.

For Nature begins to grow somber. The worst weather has not come yet, but the sky suggests the melancholy of winter; the South Wind sometimes gives place to the North Wind, and we have bitter hours. Then the coalings are unspeakably dismal; our beautiful cruiser is clothed in a dusty cloak which trails over her hull like a mourning mantle; the smoke from the stacks mingles with the gusts of coaldust which the wind and rain plaster over the guns, the cordage, and one’s own skin. Floods of despair seem to descend from the clouds.

To chase away these evil impressions we go to talk with the Captain and the officers of the collier. They come from Cardiff or from Newcastle, are familiar with the ports of England and France, have seen our French comrades and the British fleets; they bring us news of the vast world. We listen to them eagerly. They too belong to the great fraternity of navigators, and the tales they tell us are like the Odyssey we live. Up there, far up, between Norway and Scotland, the English cruisers are keeping indefatigable watch, and they are less fortunate than we. For there the sea is sinister. Around England, without pause or respite, in terrible storms, the Allied destroyers prowl everywhere. Covered with spray, laboring through the fog, they contend with the sea without meeting any other enemy; and the fleet of Admiral Jellicoe dances attendance like our own “naval army!” Ignominious and cowardly, the German enemy hides himself, just as here the Austrian burrows away. The proud descendants of Nelson await a new Trafalgar, and to them the prudence of the Germans opposes only hidden enemies, the submarines. As for our French brothers, the destroyers and Atlantic cruisers, they journey from Calais to Brest without adventure; convoyers of transports, policemen of the waves--customs-officers of contraband, they do not experience the excitements of the Adriatic hunts. Their task, more obscure than ours, is also more ungrateful. And since the happiness of man is measured by the unhappiness of others, we are happy in the Adriatic in spite of our disillusion and our exile.

But the day passes. The Captain of the collier offers us the latest papers, we give him the last wireless messages, and we must separate. Whether or not the coaling is ended, the cruiser never stands still during the night. We cast off the hawser, the screws turn; the crew, black with coaldust, go to rest their weary limbs after the crushing toil of the boilers, the engines, and the watch. And during the rest of the night the cruiser makes a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles. It matters not whether the sea is calm or disturbed, the sky clear or rainy. Men and officers observe the same vigilance as they did yesterday and will to-morrow; every boat that is sighted is chased, stopped, visited; one takes no account of weariness or sleep. One goes steadily on, always steadily on.

And if the thousand or twelve hundred tons necessary are not taken on in a single day, we return next day to the collier. The rendezvous is not at the same place, but in quite a distant roadstead or bay, for fear that the enemy, forewarned, will send us a submarine while we are practically helpless. In all haste we finish emptying the coal; the holds are full to the jaws, the sailors take courage and forget their weariness in a supreme effort. We fortify ourselves again for eight or ten days, for the excitements of the Adriatic, the dangers of the sea and the torpedoes.

Everything is impregnated with coal. There is no barrier or filter against this microbe. Bathing in floods of water, brushing and scraping does not chase it from its lairs. In our food our teeth encounter crunching lumps; our hair is tarnished with a black cosmetic; and the folds of our whitest linen conceal little hoards of soot. Our whitest linen! Is there a world where they know the pleasure of immaculate shirts? Of handkerchiefs pure as snow? When we set out, each one of us took along only what was strictly necessary. Our boxes are few, and in a day we soil more than in a week of peace. Where are the washes of other days? where the polite laundresses of the ports, who washed the linen and cambric in twenty-four hours? Our cruises last eight or nine weeks.

How many times already I have washed in my basin two handkerchiefs and a shirt so covered with coaldust that the white places spotted it! Like all my comrades I have a sailor at my service. But he is a good gunner, who only looks after me when his duties do not call him elsewhere. Every day he has ten hours of lookout and three or four of preparation of materials. Must he not sleep and eat? When he is free, I try to take a few hours of broken rest on my bunk, and he respects my sleep. When my cabin is empty, he is watching behind his gun. Each one of us washes what he can. The soft water we use does not come from clear fountains, but from the boiler tubes which distil the sea-water; it stands in great metal casks, it is filled with rust and retains the color of it. In vain we throw in soap and borax; the washed linen turns yellow as if powdered with mustard, and it is never quite dry. The falling rains, the smoke which sweeps the deck, do not permit hanging it outdoors. In my cabin my gunner has stretched two strings between the port hole and the moulding above my bunk, and up there the linen dries as well as it can. Sometimes, while I sleep or work, an idle drop falls on my face or my paper; other times the constant vibration of the cruiser throws the linen to the coal-stained linoleum, and the whole thing has to be done over again. In the “naval army,” as in the trenches, nothing is clean but the wind.

As in the trenches, too, we try to kill time, which lags so terribly. The study of the military map is misleading; we are accustomed, as each communiqué is received by wireless, to stick flags on the Western and Eastern fronts. The pins change every day by a quarter or a tenth of a millimeter; they have made so many holes in the paper that one can no longer read the names, and we have given up taking them out. Bundles of papers arrive in each mail, are quickly read and thrown aside; they feed neither our conversation nor our reveries. We brought no books from France because we thought them superfluous in a short war, and those we have ordered for these interminable cruises have not yet come. Letters are quickly written when one has nothing much to say and the censor forbids details.

What have we to do except play? Some spend their hours off in Patience; it is all one to them whether the combinations come out or not. Others bend over the chess-board, or become absorbed in bridge. But these are unusual kinds of chess and bridge; no one ever has time to finish a game. The service, the watch, meals, the time for sleeping, interrupt you; you leave the chess game or the rubber where it is, and another officer takes your place. A game commenced with certain partners ends with a completely new set. Winning or losing does not matter; one has time only to kill, and must think of nothing else.

_Adriatic Sea, 16 November._

For several weeks now the monotony of our vagabondage has been broken by a pleasing distraction--divine service celebrated every Sunday. For the duration of the war the Government has appointed on every admiral’s ship and every hospital ship a volunteer chaplain. Ours arrived the middle of October. His name is Mgr. Bolo.

Without regret he has left his care of feminine souls, his delightful home in Touraine, and has sought the hard life of the sailors. After a long voyage he appeared at some bay in the Ionian Isles where we were coaling, and climbed the iron ladder of our ship in the thick of the rain and soot. For several days, while he was bewildered by the mazes of the cruiser, or breathless in his stifling cabin, he might have wondered into what world he had got. But a serene soul dwelt in his athletic body; he quickly got over his confusion, and in order to preach better to the sailors, he wanted to learn their trade.

He is constantly asking questions; our jargon, the complicated machinery, its mechanism and control, do not repel him. His talk is enlivened with racy words; in him the sailors recognize a brother. He is one of the crowd. Although his hands are accustomed to priestly gestures, he takes part in the embarkations. Each time we put the gig or long-boat in the water, he takes his place beside the coxswain and tries to direct the crew. He soon learned the usual orders, how to manage the sail and the oar, and how to make a difficult landing or tack. In a few weeks he could safely be entrusted with the direction of a ship’s boat in all the difficulties of current, wind and waves; he directed it with confident voice and hand. Then we made him undergo the same examination as the able seamen, and if it would please him to have the title _in partibus_, we will deliver to him the certificate which will make him a real priest-sailor.

During the cruises he tries to pierce to the soul of that mysterious race, the sailors. For those who have preached to country and city folk the task is not easy. The sailors, artless and at the same time instructed by their travels, used to danger and to duty, do not take to specious rhetoric or childish advice. Hyperbole and platitude displease them equally. They have minds like the fishermen and workingmen whom of old John the Baptist or Jesus persuaded. One must search their heart rather than their reason, their imagination rather than their intelligence. In this way the preaching may bring them some simple truths, admonish their rather loose impulses, and give them resignation for their fatiguing tasks.

Every Sunday religious service is held on board; it is a simple and dignified ceremony. Around the portable altar, the flags make stained windows; the arch of the church is replaced by the low whitewashed ceiling between decks; to right and left the partitions of the cabins, the white bodies of the stacks form the metallic walls of our temple; variegated funnels, valves, well-polished faucets, throw out sparkling reds and yellows; chairs for the officers, benches for the crew, cover eight or ten meters of the space. Anyone who wishes attends. A bugle call announces the Mass, and anyone not on duty may be present or may excuse himself. While the priest recites, one hears the respiration of the engines below, the snorting of the ventilators; overhead on deck tramp the sailors of the watch; the great waves of the Adriatic slap against the hull, and the quiver of the moving ship makes the altar tremble. Now and then there is music, old liturgic airs and modern themes.

The priest addresses the sailors. He does not need to teach them heroism, to make fine phrases. The instinct of the sailors is surer. They are convinced by eternal truths, discussed with sincerity. Our Bretons, our Provençals, listen receptively to the gospel of the day. When they hear simple words, like those the Galilean used two thousand years ago, their lips are parted, their deep eyes become absorbed, their souls grow better. But if they hear argument, they make an effort to understand, they knit their brows, they discuss within their own minds. They reflect what is good and clear and simple; one is sure to touch them when one seeks their hearts.

The _Domino, salvam fac rempublicam_ is played. The priest passes between the rows on his way to his cabin, and the congregation disperses. Five minutes later, benches and flags have disappeared, the place has recovered its solitude and its calm. The sailors before the engines or behind the guns remember with pleasure what they have just heard. Believers or not, they know that sincere words have been spoken and yield themselves to their influence.

Thus, in early ages, in the clearings or the fields, the apostles must have preached to rude peoples. They sowed the seed that ripened throughout the centuries; their temples were no more splendid than this steel vessel which spends every Sunday traversing the sea.

_Near Santa Maria de Leuca,
17 November._

We have on board an eye which never sleeps; it is the wireless. Its apparatus is buried in the depths of the ship; a cabin hung with mattresses isolates the operators from the noise of the engines, and the general confusion. The telegraphers listen to messages from every direction; the lowest murmurs of the electric voice do not escape their ears.

The air vibrates continually. From stations far and near, from ships sailing the Atlantic or nearer waters, the calls and messages find their way; the air carries them instantaneously. The powerful poles of the Eiffel Tower, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Constantinople, overcome the fainter messages. They send out to any distance, with all their force, the official news of the conflict. If someone else is speaking too loud five hundred or a thousand kilometers away, they increase their current, swell their voices, until these interlopers are silent.

There is a certain tacit agreement about their transmission. Germany does not interrupt France; the Turk waits until Malta has finished; Madrid, talking with Berlin, ceases when London speaks. For these great stations, controlled by the Governments, send out only the more important messages, those which the entire world ought to hear; they wish neither to be confused nor to confuse others. Communiqués from the front, events at sea, diplomatic or financial transactions, apologias or recriminations, circulate in all languages. One can be sure the papers will not publish them. If by chance the reader finds them in his daily newspaper, it will be a week or two later, under some disconnected, unrecognizable form.

The sailors, however, get all the news. While the censor limits the rest of the world to meager and belated information, we know it all already. We can rejoice or mourn in advance of the rejoicings and grief of millions. Ireland announces a simple strategic movement of the Russians, but Norddeich--the German station--echoes everywhere the claim of a German victory, with an advance and the taking of thousands of prisoners. Norddeich relates briefly some happening at sea, but Eiffel makes her most powerful sparks crackle as she sends to Moscow, to Terra Nueva, to the Soudan and the Red Sea, the news of a naval disaster to some German ships. How soon and in what distorted form will the public read this news? At every hour of day and night we receive the messages, brutal and imperious.

We cannot be deceived. Even our enemies take no pains to prevaricate in these messages to ambassadors, consuls, and their innumerable agents who uphold German prestige throughout the world. It is of the utmost importance for Germany that these men receive honest information with which to make a case for their negotiations. There is nothing in common between the rhapsodies of the papers or the Wolff Agency, and its wireless information. At the most, in the case of defeats, it carefully renders a vague account. But this vagueness makes us prick up our ears, and in a few hours London or Paris confirms the English or French victory.

Outside of chancelleries and Government offices there are no maps kept up to date except those on ships of war. In the ward-room we argue over the flags that are placed at the precise spot where they should be; our predictions and our hopes are rarely deceived. And if secrecy did not bind us to silence, we could tell our friends much news.

But underneath these important voices of the wireless are whispers of many lesser tones, just as in the tropical forest the roaring of the lions does not silence the sounds of insects and rodents; this undertone of smaller voices is what gives the jungle its deep voice. The thin voices of the ships that speak to us give the sea air a mysterious animation. A great liner on its way from tropic seas announces its passage by some frequented cape. A torpedo-boat on patrol near Gibraltar tells Port Said of the ships it has sighted. This torpedo-boat’s apparatus is not powerful enough to call the other end of the Mediterranean; it signals Bizerta or Toulon, which answer it, take its message, and send it like a ball rebounding on the stations at Malta, on the masts of a French cruiser in the Ionian, on the wires of a Russian ship in the Ægean Sea, until it finally reaches the station at Port Said. A mail-boat gives information about its position; a squadron asks for orders; a naval attaché or ambassador sends word about espionage; the Resident General at Morocco is sending grain to Montenegro; the patrols warn of a submarine in sight; colliers ask us to tell them where they will find certain battleships: the whole Mediterranean knocks at the wireless station of the Commander-in-Chief, like a crowd of subalterns at the door of the officer who is giving out orders.

And the Commander-in-Chief on his splendid battleship--a moving office--decides, orders, directs; the sonorous rays shoot out from the mast where floats his flag that represents France, and through space, far and near, through the stations which relay them farther on, travels their echo to the ear of the recipients.

There is no disorder, no discord, in these messages. Just as with the players in a well directed orchestra, all the speakers speak on the minute, at the very instant they should; watch in hand, the telegraphers wait for their moment, and at the highest speed send their dashes, short and long; at the end of their period whether they have finished or not, they stop and wait, for immediately a distant voice begins to play its tune, and would complain violently if someone prevented its talking. The Mediterranean is divided into sectors, and the time distributed between them, so that no one is allowed to speak if the schedule requires him to be silent.

Offenders, moreover, are soon recognized. Just as the finger of a blind man acquires surprising sensibility, the telegraphers come to know the timber, sharpness of tone and musical richness of these babblers they have never seen. For the initiated the electric radiations have a personality like human talk. Two stations, two ships, have distinct voices and deliveries. This one sputters, that one speaks slowly and gravely; the sound of one resembles a match struck on sand paper, another buzzes like a fly, another sings sharply like a mosquito. It is a magic concert. In his padded cabin the receiver hears and makes out the whisperings of the grasshopper, the scrapings of violins, the rattle of beetles, the frying of boiling oil, all the sounds which the fantastic electricity reproduces hundreds of miles away. It jumps, stops, recommences; one would call it a symphony of goblins in a boundless land. And yet the least of these vibrations is a messenger of war, of life, or of death.

They are careful to use secret languages. There is not a word or phrase in this continual interchange which anyone could interpret without the keys upon which depends the safety of the ships. Nothing but cipher circulates through the air. All the combinations which the human mind could invent, all the ingenuities devised by specialists, have been prepared beforehand. We improve on the arrangements of ciphers; for fear that the enemy, after receiving pages and pages of ciphered texts, will succeed in forcing the lock, the “naval army” does not long maintain the same keys. It modifies them, turns them about, rubs them down; and the officers in charge of the translation are like travelers who change languages at every frontier.

* * * * *

Furthermore, everyone does not speak the same language; sometimes they address one another without anyone’s being able to understand. From Englishman to Englishman, Frenchman to Frenchman, minister to admiral, admiral to cruiser, commander-in-chief to the least of his satellites, ambassador to battleship, consulate to shore station--between these leap dialogues in unknown patois. The curious can listen, but they will learn nothing. As worthy descendants of the Gauls, whom Caesar describes as stopping travelers en route to get news from them, we are all eager to know the message of the ciphers which we read without our codes’ being able to interpret them. Labor lost! Perhaps one of us has patience, enough, or works long enough, to decipher a secret not meant for him. He is happy. He acts important. He thinks he is very superior to have known how to listen at the keyholes. But some fine day the key whose secret he has learned becomes useless in his hand; it gives him only words without order, nonsense. The two talkers have amused themselves with changing the lock, and everything has to be done again. The naval allies dread enemies with ears that are too wide open as much as indiscreet friends with too long tongues. And it is a good thing they do.

Besides, we have enough to do in translating the intelligible messages. In addition to the lieutenant of the chief vessel of the patrol and the chief of the watch and his second, there is a fourth officer who spends his whole time looking over files of texts received by the wireless. At his side are codes and dictionaries containing every word, phrase or signal which he needs to know. He spends four hours translating the numbers into French. English, Russians, French, Montenegrins, Serbs, all have something important, something vital, to say. During the day a hundred or even two hundred telegrams arrive, and are transcribed in blankbooks; the sender, the destination, the number, the hour of transmission, are all carefully noted. These are the archives of our naval Odyssey.

A wireless is often addressed to the _Waldeck-Rousseau_. The station that is calling sends out into space the name of our cruiser. We respond. From shore and from the ships come unexpected instructions and questions. In the dark night we transmit to the Commander-in-Chief whatever message demands a reply. The Commander considers, weighs carefully the words which he will send back; the officer in charge of the translating writes it out clearly and concisely in cipher. And a few minutes later the masts of the ship flash out their long and short dashes into the midst of the darkness. It is the answer that we are sending. The wires stretched between the masts become phosphorescent, the sparks crackle drily, and instantaneously, at no matter what distance, the one who is calling us hears the faint echo of our voice.

Thus pass the days, vibrant with this invisible business. Everyone tells what he knows, listens to what he ought to hear, responds when he is called. From the ocean to the Red Sea, all the wandering ships are held together by these bands, and the magical electric current effaces distance. But there are times when one is silent.

When, on the trail of adventure, the bold vessels go up the Adriatic to the threshold of their enemy, their voices are as hidden as their path is dark. However imperious the calls, they do not reply. All about them, at Cattaro, at Lissa, in the islands and arsenals, the telegraphic spies would hear their voices as they approached. Dark and silent, they move without speaking. All chinks are stopped up in the cabin where the men listen. All along the route, in these furtive hours, they catch mysterious conversations. Some Austrian spy in Italy or the Greek Islands has seen in the twilight the departure of the French fleet towards the north. In a chimney, or cellar or well, this spy has concealed a transmitting station of which the neutrals are ignorant; he sends brief messages which sound like a whistle. We do not understand the numbers, but we guess what they mean. “The French are about to leave,” “they are leaving,” “they are in the Adriatic,” “they are approaching Cattaro.” No French mouth is responsible for this hostile voice; we know it by its singing timber like a flute or a mosquito’s buzz. It is the Telefunken apparatus which produces this sound, which one would recognize among a thousand. All night its vibration follows us. Whence come these whispers in the darkness? By what miracle, from moment to moment, do we hear these sonorous flashes which talk about nothing but us? “The French are passing Brindisi;” “they are passing Bari;” “they are turning towards the northeast;” “about two o’clock they will be near Pelagosa.” In the distance vibrate the responses, which become more and more distinct. It is Cattaro, Pola, the Dalmatian Isles, awaiting us.

Yes, we move in a circle of sinister spirits, and these Germans have prodigious ears. Their high shrill murmur, undecipherable yet very clear, darts round us as we advance through the darkness. Perhaps destroyers and submarines are lurking on our course. Those that have missed us in our too rapid progress telegraph the next sentinel, and he rushes toward us with his torpedo ready. Where is he? Behind or in front? Gunners, do not sleep at your guns! Officers, bend over the empty blackness! Cruiser, enveloped in shadow, move faster and ever faster! These evil specters of the Adriatic are lying in wait for you; the whistling of their ghostly lips prepares your destruction! But do not be afraid. They will wear themselves out in the pursuit, and to-morrow you will be at the post where France desires you.

But what cruiser, which battleship, is destined to receive the fatal wound from these singing demons?

_West of Corfu, 26 November._

The naval struggle in which the Germans pretended to imitate the great corsairs of France has ended with the destruction of the _Emden_ by an Australian cruiser in the Bay of Bengal. The armed liners--the _Kaiser Wilhelm_, _Cecilie_, _Cape Trafalgar_, and many others--have already paid the penalty for their futile audacity. They thought they could terrorize sailors and starve out nations; but in fact the resources of life are going to flow more abundantly than ever into the markets of the Allies.

The navy is the guardian of the granaries. We already knew it who frequented the important routes in times of peace, but five months of labor have proved to us that we never realized its full significance.

We have seen pass us, and have protected, innumerable freighters loaded with grain for bread, with animals for meat, and steel for the manufacture of shells. The warships have freed the routes which supply our champions with food, and have closed up the routes of the enemy. How many months longer will this enterprise take? The lips of the future are sealed. But the cruisers and torpedo-boats, from Norway to the Ægean Sea, do not shrink from their task. A nation at war requires some of its defenders to labor in assuring a living to those who fight. The deeds of sailors are not brilliant and showy; and men are not grateful to them for their fatigue. What matter? If this obscure work of the ships keeps the tears of famine from being added to the grief of mourning, it will not have been without a glory of its own; the smiles of happy little children will be our reward.

But I am forgetting the _Emden_ and the corsair liners. Like the sea my imagination is somewhat capricious. These restless corsairs are of a piece with the general parody which German Kultur offers us. What would the Jean Barts and the Duquesnes say to the bandits that are spewed forth from Kiel and Hamburg? In the great period of Dunkirk and Saint Malo, pirates attacked magnificent galleys, sailing before the wind to Spain and the Thames. Like the brave foxes they were, they reveled in bold and clever combat. They were the prodigal sons of the sea. They played an honorable game, and never took pride in mere blind massacre.

One can imagine how the terrors of the sea would have been increased if a few years more of peace had permitted Germany to forge new weapons. Of her liners and cruisers she has picked the most powerful and rapid, and has said to them: “Kill, sink, and fun away!” Nothing is sacred to the barbarians of Rheims and Louvain, neither cathedrals nor the routes of the sea. What would not have been the horrors of this privateering war if William II himself or one of his lieutenants had had control of these maritime massacres? Before them the grisly imagination of the Middle Ages would have paled. What crimes will the Germans not commit when they realize that they are conquered?

Honor to the officers of the _Emden_! They have destroyed ships, but they nobly refused to commit the crimes commanded by their master. They generously spared the lives of the sailors who were at their mercy, and blood does not dishonor the tale of their exploits. Doubtless the praise of blood has disgraced them at Berlin, but the fraternity of sailors does not condemn them.

England accepted the challenge. Over the vast expanse of ocean she deployed her cruisers, launched them forth on the path of the marauders, and ordered: “Suppress them!” No pardon, no weakness! The Emperor at Berlin had revived the law of blood; so one took vengeance on his satellites. They all disappeared.

The last victim, the _Emden_, suffered the doom which it had so often inflicted. It had hunted down twenty harmless steamers, and was then in pursuit of a British convoy. To-day, broken, lying on an Indian reef, it serves as a reminder to wandering sailors. First they will salute this heroic prow, which knew how to die and how to redeem its enterprise from ignominy. Then they will give thanks to the fate that had them born of another race than the German.

_Strait of Ithaca, 30 November._

The Commander-in-Chief has ordered the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ to leave its Adriatic station--Otranto, Fano, Albania--for an anchorage in the Ionian Isles at Arkudi.

We go a short distance out to sea before approaching the maze of islands. To the north disappear Corfu, Paxo, and Anti-Paxo; to the south rise Saint Maure and Cephalonia; the great wall of the Orient covers the east; all the landmarks of our course are slowly displaced, giving way to others.

The officers of the watch pore over the chart. This great white sheet with its fine print indicates the contours, the data, the dangers, the routes. To those who do not know how to read it, it is nonsense; but its marks are our gospel. By its fine and intricate lines we can foretell how easy our voyage will be and where the dangers lurk. We sometimes think of the mariners of old who had no other guide than Providence. Reading these charts we wonder whether these regions were loved or feared, and whether, before risking his life there, the pilot invoked Neptune or the Virgin of the Waves.

We to-day are not so uneasy. Sky and sea are smiling. There is something treacherous in those blandishments of Nature, which recall the delights of autumn and yet suggest the coming of winter frosts. Their last tenderness is fragile.

Here we are in the strait of Dukato, between Saint Maure and Cephalonia. It is a splendid boulevard. To the right, Ithaca, Ulysses’ native land, lies reddish brown under the sun; to the left, lie jewels of rocks and liquid paths more delicate and beautiful than remote trails in the depths of woods; before us a cluster of islands with names from the musical language of the rhapsodists--Arkudi, Meganisi, Astoko. And like a highly polished tapestry, the marvelous mountains tower above the water, blue and crowned with light. The sea has the hue of mother-of-pearl; the sky is pale, the islands are veiled in faint color; the gods have composed these tints, outlines and places into a perfect fairyland.

Space seems to have a divine soul, of unknown substance. The eyes are ravished, the blood exhilarated. When Homer sang the return of Ulysses, the Ionian gods gave him a flexible and sonorous language. That secret the men of our times have lost, they must pause feebly on the threshold of the inexpressible. Surely Ionia was the garden of the gods.

The cruiser, slender and swift, glides between these historic shores, which have seen the barques of the Achæans, the triremes of Rome, the Venetian galleys, the ships of the Crusaders and the feluccas of Barbary. In our wake have passed generations of pilots, who came from regions where the sea is evil, and who laughed with delight in this sailors’ paradise. Why should they not all--poets or merchants, pirates or soldiers--celebrate these delights and long to remain here? Blundering through schoolbooks, I have hated the very name of Ithaca; I have cursed Olympia--when it was assembled in a detestable book. Since then I have seen all the most perfect skies; my eyes have exhausted the miracle of light. And yet it is here that I place the cradle of the gods. When the fancy came to them to descend to earth, where else should they have lighted but on majestic islet, like Juno on a steep bank made by Vulcan? Was it not in this fair atmosphere that Apollo shook out his radiant locks?

And is it not this sea that gave birth to Venus? How happy he would be who could catch the secret of the outline and color play on this sea? Her fish are more beautiful in tint and form than the loveliest animals. Her plants have a rich metallic luster, with lines and curves that no land plants approach. The men who frequent her, the cities she laves, are fortunate. All beauty comes from the sea; every vital germ has floated in her depths. And the subtle intuition of the race of Homer, who gave divine form to symbols, made the goddess of life and beauty spring from the Ionian waves.

Aphrodite! Triumphant, naked, I see you emerging from the transparent blue sea: you stretch your soft limbs under the caress of light. You open your enchanted eyes upon an earth where men, harassed by the ugliness of their souls and the futility of their labors, stretch their hands madly toward your eternal beauty! You go to meet them. It was here you made your first appearance on our earth. Blessed be the Greeks, your sponsors, who chose this cradle for you!

And at this moment, when yonder on the field of murder the German ruffians are trying to destroy everything that is beautiful, everything to which you have given birth, I understand more clearly the patrimony which the French are called upon to defend. O Aphrodite, you extend across the ages your protection to France, your child. From this spot have come that clear thought, that delicate feeling, that fertile vision, which you loved in the people who nourished you. As a humble defender of that beauty, born of the bridal of sea and sun, a Frenchman thanks you for what you have given him, for all that which is now in danger of destruction; he salutes you in passing, Ionian Aphrodite, and wishes he could see the very circle of gold where the Greeks have placed your birth.

Do not think it is the force of antique memory alone that has produced this adoration of mine. From the bridge where I am carefully guiding the cruiser through the windings Ulysses loved, I see on deck a thousand sailors, silent and attentive. They have stopped talking and laughing, and no longer turn their backs to the too familiar sea. To-day a great silence hovers over these Bretons, these Flemings and Provençals. In what naive way are they absorbing the beauty before their eyes? They are not acquainted with the poetry and the prose which have endowed me with this ancient heritage. There they are, however, with wide eyes, lost in admiration. Beauty could not be celebrated more significantly than in this stupor of theirs. Their souls, I imagine, imprisoned in dark dungeons, unconsciously regret the speed of our passage. Their emotions are profounder than mine; theirs rise from depths where are no words to translate the mystery. When you do not understand a thing, you discuss it; but you are silent when it is revealed. All the sailors are silent. Beauty has just made itself one of their souls’ memories.

_At sea off the Peloponnesus, 2 December._

After so many weeks of cruising, without contact with the world, we had hoped to enjoy a few days of rest at Malta, a favor which the Commander-in-Chief grants to weary ships. We cherished the illusion that he had had us come so that he might deliver his communications to us and send us quickly on our mission. But in the navy one must never hope unless one wishes to be deceived. Hardly had we arrived at the anchorage of Arkudi when the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ was charged with an urgent mission on the other side of the Balkan peninsula, to Saloniki. Regretfully she takes the southern route, winds around Greece and the Peloponnesus, turns towards the north, and through the mazes of the Ægean Sea seeks the road to Thessaly.

Our faces and eyes begin to show their weariness. It is not without betraying the strain that the stokers before their furnaces, the engineers before their pistons, the gunner lookouts before their guns, have lived this interminable length of days and nights, alternating between heavy labor and broken rest. The air between decks becomes heavier and more stifling with each passing day; dust and heat lie over everything, and one is as weary after a heavy sleep as at night on a railroad train with all the windows closed.

Everyone wonders whether we shall ever have the pleasure of engaging these Austrians or Turks, who hide in corners out of reach and send only submarines against us. The submarines are there; they are everywhere, they are nowhere. We stretch out our arms in the empty air; we strain our eyes in looking for the hiding enemy; and suddenly into the side of the vessel passes the wound that has no mercy. And it all happens in silence, for the naval warfare of this age is dumb.

I should only be tedious if I told in detail all the vain pursuits of our chases in the upper Adriatic, of patrols by night, of the sunrise, the light, the dusk. The days stretch hand in hand in a gray undulating vista across the water, at the end of which vanish the last hours we passed in France.

The Commander-in-Chief has cheered our dejection. The mission which takes us to Saloniki will take us later to Marseilles. That at least is the hope contained in our instructions. And we will be allowed to take a rest while we are in France. Everyone builds visions, calculates the time, and persuades himself that the Christmas holidays will find him again with his family. Already fathers seem to be caressing the fair heads of their children before the fireplace, husbands and lovers are trembling with a grave joy at the thought of this homeward voyage, a simple enough episode in our vagabond career, but charged with emotion because of the suffering of yesterday and the dangers of to-morrow. No one, however, dares complete these castles in Spain; too many miscalculations have marked our existence, as it is. As for me, who for eleven years have passed no single Christmas Eve in France, can I believe that a freak of war will grant me this happiness denied me by peace?

While we wait, each turn of the screws takes us further from France. Sparta, Cythera, the Cyclades, Corinth and the Piræus; these are the names which the officer of the watch gives to the lands that in turn come to salute us from the horizon. At the end of the map are marked the Dardanelles and Constantinople, other boundaries of this world war. Our cruiser has left the regions of danger in the Adriatic, and advances as fast as possible towards the waspish Turk. We move among beautiful scenery. Our eyes seek out a lighthouse on some island of celebrated name; our lips pronounce the name of some cape which the poets have made famous; we maneuver our engines and helm in an archipelago of tabernacles: Cythera, the temple of Venus, and Delos, the homeland of Apollo; Sparta, with austere countenance, and Athens, the rose of antiquity. Why cannot the sailor enjoy this dry, pure December weather? Under his feet the noble cruiser quivers. During his lookout, he smokes a light fragrant cigaret, and his thoughts, fluid like these pale curls of smoke, in happier times would have drifted back to the legendary epochs of old. But no human evil darkens the shining skies. For Austrian or Turk we must not cease to watch. I do not dream of complaining of that, for undoubtedly these hours portend violent homesickness for me.

_Gulf of Saloniki, 7 December._

According to the schedule of watches I am in charge of the entry into the Gulf of Saloniki. From two to six o’clock in the morning I have directed the ship in this funnel of water, without lighthouses, with treacherous currents, at the end of which lies the much coveted city, that apple of discord between the Eastern peoples.

A treacherous fog sleeps on the surface of the water and shrouds the shores. Above it the moon dominates the heights and sheds its idle sparkling rays on the snows of Mount Olympus, Pelion and Ossa. Between the mists on land and the starry mantle of the sky, these peaks, whitened by the snow and by the decay of their own glory, keep watch in the deep silence. They are the only guide of the sailor lost in the fog; the officer of the watch and the young midshipman who assists him do not take their eyes off these tutelary presences. It is very cold. Towards four o’clock a freezing wind blows from Thessaly, and sharpens the edges of the snow to shining razors. My hands freeze on the glasses, and my eyes shed tears under the north wind. But one must forget such miseries.

A faint paleness lingers in the East, and spreads over the sky to our right. Straight ahead appear low plains, dotted with fires. The dawn comes, a moment full of difficulty and danger. My midshipman and I steer the course among the shoals.

At the moment when the last tack opens before us the roadstead of Saloniki, my successor comes to relieve me. The sunrise has taken possession of our world; the marvel of an Eastern morning emerges from the shadows of the night. I go quickly and drink a steaming cup of coffee, and come on deck again, to admire as simple spectator the panorama which I approached as pilot.

A stretch of frozen water, girdled with sands and marshes, reflects an uncertain light. Our prow breaks a way through the film of ice and broken splinters fall back on either side, like the crackling of frying cakes. Towards the mouth of the Vardar, legions of birds are skating and tumbling on this crust in which their claws can get no hold--the tumult of their voices disturbs the peaceful morning: fluttering moorhens, raucous herons, ducks in triangular flocks, wake and swarm about; rose-colored flamingoes poise themselves, motionless and pensive, on their needle-like legs, only a few meters from our course.

As our cruiser, sparkling with dew and glistening in the cold, penetrates farther into the white fog, a town emerges from the vagueness. It is still swathed in its morning gauze, its base is plunged in the fog, but its minarets offer their heads to the tints of the sunrise. One by one they show their slender outlines; soon they can no longer be counted for they form a forest of columns over the city. Surrounded by massive towers, the walls of the fortified castle on the summit of the hill are bathed in light; and beyond, stretching to the horizon, a desolate plain without trees or houses carries the eye towards Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, or the steppes of Turkey.

Our anchor falls, and tears the parchment of ice. At length, after so many miles and journeys, the cruiser halts. All Saloniki is smiling under the kiss of the sun. Close to the water, as along all the Mediterranean shores, the buildings on the quay show their black commercial signs, gold façades of moving-picture palaces, and the white stucco and marble of hotels and banks. The streets, like dark tunnels through the mass of houses, rise from the harbor and plunge into the tiers of Christian and Jewish walls, up to the heights of the great amphitheater, where are massed the light blue Turkish cottages, surrounded by cypresses and clusters of plane-trees.

An Orthodox basilica flaunts its humped dome; the synagogue, geometrical and ugly, seems to hide in a confusion of terraces; a Catholic church raises its cross on a stone abutment; and the fifty minarets, with their slender swelling and tapering tops, point upward toward Allah’s heaven. To the left, above the harbor, are tall smoking chimneys of brick; these are the minarets of the new god, industry, who has come at last to take his place among the sleepy Orientals.

Since we carry the flag of war in neutral waters, our cruiser must act with great scrupulousness. Greece consents to observe toward our mission a courteous hospitality, and we are careful not to abuse it. Since the beginning of the war the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ is the first belligerent vessel to anchor in this cosmopolitan roadstead. All the East shudders. From the Serbian and Turkish storm clouds come bursts of thunder. Envies, hatreds and hopes wait only the hour to explode; Saloniki is a crossway where all currents collide. The presence of French sailors on shore might excite unpleasant demonstrations; the officers of the cruiser and the authorities of the city agree in refusing permission to sailors and officers to land until new orders arrive. This restriction does not include couriers, or negotiators, who are protected by the diplomatic immunities.

And here we are, imprisoned only a few fathoms from shore. Weary with walking the steel deck of the ship, we were rejoicing at the thought of getting acquainted with softer ground. After the glittering sea our eyes longed for the peaceful sights of the streets or the fields. We abandon hope of these meager pleasures, and, like Tantaluses of the sea, try to satisfy ourselves with the attractions in the roadstead.

From morning until evening, and up to nightfall, the harbor caiques come out to the French ship, besieging her and trying to fasten to her. But the same orders which forbid our visiting Saloniki in turn forbid access to the ship. No cajolery softens the officials; they repulse the most impudent attempts; and the rush of the barques is broken against our armor-plate. These resemble the narrow caiques of Constantinople. The people are curious as only the Easterners know how to be; they come in little groups, not haphazard, but according to race, beliefs, or opinions. The different groups correspond to the diversity of the city, where under the same heaven the mosques, the temples, the basilicas and the churches, adore so many different gods.

Large numbers of Greek soldiers with tanned faces come to observe us. To free themselves from the menace of war, they have hired boats together and come out to see what sailors look like who for four months have followed this profession of fighting. Later in some village of Bœotia or Locrida, they will relate to a rural audience the talk they had with sailors from Cornouailles or Provence. But between these two tribes of simple souls there is no common language to make intelligible conversation. An animated pantomime--sounds, grimaces, smiles, which everyone understands--has to serve. A finger is pointed towards the Dardanelles or Constantinople; another indicates the Adriatic; some comedian from Marseilles cries “Pan! Pan!” and a Theban gunner answers “Boum! Boum!” Great shouts of laughter burst from them. Hearts, if not lips, speak the same language.

Hearing this wild laughter, a crowd of Turks in black jacket and spotless fez, come round us silently. Their caiques are polished and painted green. Formerly these men were masters in Saloniki, but German duplicity launched their country into an adventure which lost them their fortunes. To them our flag is accursed. If some Turkish mine, wandering from the Dardanelles, should rip open our hull before their eyes, I swear they would raise to Allah strident cries of gratitude. But they are helpless and morose.

Their spite is only increased by the attentions we get from the friends of France. Some Englishmen, for instance, with their short pipes between their teeth and their chests open under a soft shirt, row about in pirogues; their bright eyes admire the cruiser as an instrument of sport, and the sailors as men who play the game of death. Passing, they rest their oars in front of the officers, and shout a “Hip! Hip! Hurrah!” at once emotional and precise, just as they might hail some cricket or football team.

Pretty Greek girls, with pure profiles and sly glances, add smiles, showers of flowers, and the brilliance of their new gowns to the enthusiasm of the men; as they leave, their gloved hands throw towards the cruiser kisses which they think are unperceived; but our glasses miss nothing.

Serbs with tragic faces, with sunken and burning eyes, come to get new courage from contact with the French Navy. At this very moment their country is prostrate before the Austrian. Our flag comes to tell them: “Do not despair!” and they respond to our friendly salutations with pale smiles.

Quite at their ease, some Russians push their way among the crowd of barques. Whether their territory be invaded or not, whether their troops advance or retreat in the varying fortunes of this war, the Russians suffer neither extreme anguish nor extreme joy. They are quite serene. A cloud effaces the sun, but does not extinguish it. A reverse may annoy Russia, but she can wait; her victories will be the work of time. With a grand viva on their white teeth they salute their comrades of the great war, and then stay still, smiling.

These vivas excite ferocious glares in many an eye. Crouched on the benches in the boats are old Ottomans of Bagdad, or Mecca, or Erzeroum, who are telling over a shining chaplet of coral or nuts. These men are incorrigible. From their half shut lids, between their full lips, they dart towards the _Roumis_ looks of hatred and imprecations. They glide at a distance of several meters from us, and do not stop their boat. The glances we are exchanging with our friends are profound, and charged with significance; the Mussulmans turn their eyes away to pretend indifference, but their rage is betrayed in the movement of their fingers which miss several beads at a time on their rosaries.