Here we are again in the Levant after all, but not without adventures, and it’s really no joke to have wandered all round Europe from Archangel to the Dardanelles only to fall into our present scrape. At Toulon I received your letter of the end of September in answer to mine from Archangel. Thanks very much. I shall speak of it if I have time, but for the moment I am going to tell you the adventures of the old Pamir for the last three months. You might indeed call us the Wandering Jews! The longer it lasts, the more they grab merchant ships wherever they find them, putting no matter what on the deck provided it goes away—and to Hell with it!

Fourgues finally did get his stuff unloaded at Archangel and succeeded in sailing without a convoy. He said it wasn’t worth while losing time with boats that can’t get up any speed, and that when there are too many hookers and not enough convoying ships it’s just a little bit too good a target for submarines. Wherever we called I noticed that Fourgues had not been far wrong when he said, at the beginning, that the submarines were going to count later on. The officials are beginning to find them a nuisance. What would happen if all those bureaucrats had to go to sea! They might then find something to say besides: “Pshaw! Don’t believe everything you hear, and, anyway, we sink so many that soon there won’t be any more!” Of course, after that one can only shut up. Mum’s the word in the newspapers and everywhere else!... I will tell you all my little notions as occasion arises.

The Pamir was told to go to Newcastle for orders and, in case there were none, to take aboard coal. We were pretty well shaken up as we were empty. On the return trip we met a good many boats going to Archangel. They needed to hurry, for the ice will soon begin, and if the Russians do not set themselves seriously to work, they can’t smash the Germans with the stuff they received this summer. What good does it do not to tell the public the truth, when sooner or later it is sure to come out? They tell us that in two weeks or in three months everything will go like greased lightning, and then, three months later, things are just the same or a little bit worse. And on whom shall the public lay the blame? On those who have deceived it! For they knew that things would go badly and it was not worth while to say they would go well, and the public is obliged to believe the leaders are to blame, because they didn’t know how to get out of the scrape. You can’t deny it, it’s those who govern who are on the wrong track.

At Newcastle they told us to go to Southampton to ship equipment for the English Expeditionary Forces in France. We had just enough coal to get us across and the Pamir went down the North Sea and the Channel, the papers everywhere saying that the Channel is completely closed to German submarines by means of nets and a host of ingenious devices; saying too, that to reach the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, they will have to go around by way of Scotland, and as they haven’t sufficient radius of action there is nothing further to be feared from them. I don’t know much about it, but having seen what the Germans have done elsewhere, I expect them to find some way of getting through those ingenious devices and also of constructing submarines that will go to the ends of the earth. It’s as plain as the nose on your face and to say the contrary is to act the ostrich. Fourgues says there will be a painful awakening, but that everybody will blame it on the Boches instead of recognizing that we did not make proper provision for the danger. He gets into awful rages, but as far as I’m concerned, if I can only go to La Rochelle I ask for nothing more.

At Southampton we took on motor-cars and tractors for the English Army and carried them to Havre. I had time in England to make a trip on land where there are posters everywhere, begging folks to enlist. It really does look as if the English were bestirring themselves more than last year when they regarded this as a mere Colonial war. That’s not to say they have as yet been affected as seriously as we. They still leave swarms of Boches at liberty, their business firms continue to ship cargoes to the neutral neighbours of Germany, and of course, they can’t with one stroke of the pen re-form an army ready for active service. The majority of their regular officers have already been killed and they are obliged to make captains and first lieutenants out of good cricket and golf players. It will take time for them to train. As to equipment, it’s the same thing—they have hardly begun to mobilize their factories for war production because they did not want to stop British foreign trade. But we can’t say much, for we did the same and it’s hardly a matter of weeks since France began to go to England, America, and Spain for materials—where there are plenty. The Germans went to work early and we’re a year behind them.

There is an awful confusion at Havre and they say Rouen is the same. Really it’s astonishing how the responsible people let cars and war-material pile up in the ports. That comes doubtless from the general ignorance in France as regards all maritime matters and also from the fact that the high Naval officers who are in command at the commercial ports know nothing about traffic. Anyway, Fourgues has to fight to get his stuff unloaded at Havre. They piled it in a heap on the dock, and when we left it was still there in the rain.

While we were there we got orders to go to Marseilles, to get a cargo for the army of the East. The Pamir could have taken from the wharf at Havre some hundreds of tons destined for Toulon or Marseilles; in this way the freightage would have cost less. But it was officially arranged for to go by rail and we left in ballast. Once more we went around Spain without paying for our trip, and even so arrived ahead of time, as our cargo had not all reached Marseilles—because the trains were held up as usual. The papers may talk what rot they like about the preparations made and all the success that will attend us on all the fronts next spring, but we who do the work of transporting the necessary material see plainly that we shan’t outstrip the Boches at our present rate of going.

You know I’ve no excess of admiration for the Boches, and if there were no other reason I should have a grudge against them for the dog’s life they have made us lead for a year and a half, and because of them I don’t see when I can go home. But you know, there are things they do better than we and which we should learn from them if we don’t want to lose months and years. How does it help us to refuse to imitate them in such matters? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We shan’t become savages because we forestall them in their tricks. Much good it will do us to wait till we’re compelled to imitate them. In the Naval History you lent me I read recently that the Coalition only beat Napoleon when by dint of being beaten, they learnt to copy him. And it took them fifteen or twenty years, and if they had caught on sooner it wouldn’t have taken so long. Why is it that in France we still run the limited and express trains which I saw arriving in Havre and Marseilles? The Norwegians and Swedes told us that for a long time the Germans have been running all their trains at the same speed, the passengers in between the goods. In that way traffic is not delayed, whereas in France, with the idea of making people behind the lines believe that the war is being won as easily as a game of cards, they put on a lot of fast trains which are only of use to the shirkers and which hold up the shells and war-material at all the stations. So how can you expect things to happen?

I pondered all this when the Pamir was ordered to anchor at Estaque, near Marseilles, for five or six days, as there wasn’t a single foot of unencumbered dock in the port of Marseilles and all because of the congestion on the railways. One day twenty-four of us were rolling and pitching in the mistral; another day there were thirty-two, empty and loaded, each earning a thousand or two thousand francs a day doing nothing.

I tell you, if a Boche submarine came into this road, which is open and without protection, about one or two in the morning, she could send a good half-dozen of craft like the Pamir to the bottom and get away before anyone had time to say “Jack Robinson!” But the land-lubbers, civilians or service men, said the idea was really too funny and that submarines wouldn’t dare come near the coast of France, either here or on the Atlantic! After that, all we can do is to pull ourselves together and await the torpedo with arms folded.

Finally they towed us from Estaque to Marseilles, and then, as the authorities had made us lie around for nearly a week without doing a thing, we must take on board three thousand tons of cargo right off, at one go. The country would be in danger if the Pamir hadn’t slung her hook in forty-eight hours! They made us roll down into our hold the contents of thirty trains, which came in solemn procession, night and day, without stopping. The Pamir was away off to “Hell and gone” in the basin of Arenc and all the stuff was for Mudros—carriages, provisions, shells, guns, shoes—everything, I tell you.

They were tumbled in as they came and I had to stow them. You can imagine how easy it was. Fourgues never ceased cursing, saying that if we had bad weather the cargo would shift to blazes. But they told him to shut his mouth, and they didn’t pick their words. There was one train which came with cases from Milo. There had been a mistake, and they turned out not to be for the Pamir, but for another boat. They arrived about midnight of the second night, and I said to the military officer in charge that it must be a mistake. I didn’t half catch it. He fairly wiped his feet on me, saying that Mudros, Milo, and the whole caboodle, they were all in the East, and that he was ordered to pack into the Pamir all the trains that came and that I was not going to send that one back when they were already late. That Johnny wouldn’t get through a geography exam.

So I shipped the things because the Army bloke ordered me to, but when I informed Fourgues in the morning, he told the Navy bloke, who had come to give us our sailing orders. And the Navy bloke was furious, and said that we were idiotic to load on stuff for Milo when the rest of the material was for Mudros. The military bloke had gone to breakfast. The Navy bloke went after him and they said a few pleasant things to each other. At last it was agreed that the Pamir should stop at Milo and unload the cases and then go on to Mudros. We closed the holds and battened down the hatches and were ready to leave our moorings when another train with a dozen cases of aeroplanes pulled in and came alongside. The non-commissioned officer in charge jumped on board and asked for the skipper:

“Are you the Pamir?”

“Looks like it,” said Fourgues.

“All right; here are twelve aeroplanes for you to take.”

“Well, old fellow, we can tow them if you wish, but as for taking twelve aeroplanes on board, it’s now too late, our hold is full.”

“Not at all! I’ve been waiting at Miramar for two days and I just got the order to-night to send them by the Pamir. The matter is one of the utmost urgency.”

“Oh, yes. And how long ago did your utmostly urgent train leave Paris?”

“Twenty-three days ago!”

What can one do, old man? Such things simply disarm one! When Fourgues heard that the poor devil had been knocking about the main lines of France for twenty-three days with twelve aeroplanes to look after he said we would take all we could. We found places for six, three forward and three aft. The cases are regular monuments, and when they dangle at the end of the cable you have to look out so as not to get your jaw stove in. And to make all that fast! The deck was just broad enough to take them, however, and we served lines over them and lashed them to starboard and port. They rose as high as the bridge.

At this point our old friend the Army bloke paid us another visit and said that, as the Pamir was ordered to take all twelve cases, we must load the remaining six in a second tier on top of the first. Then Fourgues fairly let rip. He produced cusses that I had never heard before and I assure you they were great! He said that his boat was as full as an egg; that it was not the custom to pile cargo higher than the masts; that he had to see to navigate; that he was not sure the six cases we had already wouldn’t pitch overboard with the first good blow, and that the other six might go by the air-route, perhaps, but certainly not on the Pamir. Thereupon he gave the order to sail and we skipped out, leaving the three blokes, the railway man, the Army officer, and the sailor, discussing each other’s characters on the quay.

Fortunately we had no really bad weather from Marseilles to Milo—nothing but moderate rolling and pitching, just enough to get the wind up us about the stowage of our cargo. We could hear hollow sounds of boxes knocking around the hold and some of the stuff must be in a nice state. We didn’t open it up, but it will be lovely and we are the ones that will catch it! However, Fourgues will give as good as he gets, for he can’t stand being blamed when it’s somebody else’s fault. I don’t know what the aeroplanes in their cases will look like. As they were on the deck they swung about a good deal, and no matter how much we tightened the lines with which they were lashed, every time the boat rolled they shifted a little with a “Bang!”

At Milo no one wanted to unload the cases we had taken from the wrong train because the Head of the military unit to whom they were consigned, who should have been there, had gone away several days before. We haven’t yet been able to ascertain his whereabouts. It’s the same old story over and over—enough to make one wild!

In the harbour at Milo there were a lot of war-vessels—French, English, Russian, and Italian—for it seems we are ready to fall upon the Greeks if they keep on keeping on. The English, who got here first, didn’t lose any time before installing nets and a barrier against submarines. It’s very nice to say in the papers and on the platforms that submarines don’t exist, but it’s better to take measures, for they are beginning to sink ships a little bit everywhere. Fourgues says he would have preferred to be wrong, but that everything he had thought is beginning to come true and that it doesn’t amuse him to act the part of Cassandra quite so successfully.

All this time the Pamir continues to be without wireless or guns or anything to protect her, and she is not the only one. At Milo and at Mudros, where we are now, out of every ten ships seven or eight have no wireless, and by gum, you should hear the skippers and officers of those cargo boats! But all they say and all they think, what difference does it make? Everybody knows they will keep on just the same! If they are done in by a submarine the paper will say, “Hun piracy!! Such and such a boat sunk! There were no military on board!” Damn! It’s simply too idiotic the way things at sea are run.

The Pamir went straight on to Mudros without unloading anything. You can have no idea of the moving that’s going on all over the country. They are evacuating everywhere. Good-bye, Constantinople! Good-bye, end of Turkey! Good-bye, Gallipoli, the Dardanelles, the coast of Asia! Good-bye, everything! All the munitions and men that are not too badly damaged are going to Salonica. We are going to save Serbia if it isn’t too late. Suvla is evacuated. The English left millions of francs worth of material which they set on fire. Seddul-Bahr, Kum-Kalé, and Gaba are being rolled into one to make an army of the East, and it’s not a bit too soon to think of putting troops at Salonica, for where, I wonder, are the Boches going to be stopped? It seems that this was an idea of our Président du Conseil. It’s a jolly good thing he put his finger on the spot, for the Dardanelles business was done for several months ago. With an army in Salonica and a Franco-British army at that, we can keep the Boches from getting down any farther. What couldn’t they do in the Mediterranean, I wonder, if they had Greece and the Peloponnesus? But all that is politics again.

The Pamir is waiting at Mudros. All the empty vessels are taken to hasten the evacuation. We are as full as an oyster, and we are left here because there’s no room at Salonica. Where the deuce shall we unload our different sorts of merchandise, our aeroplanes, and our victuals? I don’t know any more than you! But one thing I do know—nothing of all we have brought from Marseilles will ever reach its destination! Oh, it will be used somewhere or other, but everything in this country is upside down and all the Pamir can do is to empty her hold on to the wharf she’s ordered to without troubling about what becomes of it. All this is not funny, old man!

And how long are we going to stay here? Fourgues raises Hell, but that doesn’t help matters. The other ships come and go, but the Pamir receives no orders. I hope she will go to Salonica because I want a squint at what is going on there, but ever since the beginning of the war nothing we have expected has happened, so I don’t care much what it is as long as it can’t be La Rochelle.

So long, old man. I got your last from Bizerta when the Auvergne was in dry-dock. You gave me a good bit of Navy gossip and I should like to comment on it, but a boat is about to leave for Malta and I want to get this letter off. All I can say is that it seems to me not much better on the warships than on hookers like the Pamir. May God grant that on land, in politics, and the diplomatic service they are cleverer than our Naval chiefs! My sole consolation is that the Germans seem to be more fat-headed than we; else, with their preparation and our mistakes at the beginning, they would have mopped us up long since. Not having done so, they won’t be able to. With this consoling thought I wish you a happy New Year and hope that we shall meet in 1916. Je t’embrasse.