Titoff, fearing that some informer among the passengers might notice us, still kept White and myself under cover all day, until we took our usual exercise on deck each evening. The other stowaways were mingling with legitimate passengers, whose bedding was spread over the hatches.
I remember in particular a vivid-looking, much-jewelled Jewess, who was minus money and passport. I found her exchanging violent words with two firemen, who were levying blackmail, using the Austrian port authorities at Odessa as bogey-men. When, with tears and protests, she had fulfilled their demands, two other ruffians from among the crew took their place and demanded money, or in default jewels.
All the stowaways, in fact, except ourselves, were blackmailed in this fashion. The woman thief was victimized less universally than the others because she was known to be the bo'sun's especial graft. As for us, we were under the protection of the ship's officers, and, more important still, we carried revolvers. In any case, Bolshevik Bill the Greaser was our good friend and a power among the crew.
On the second evening at sea the firemen stole a case of árak from the cargo, drank themselves amok, and told Josef they were far too busy over private concerns to trouble about stoking the furnaces. The private concerns were mostly women from among the stowaways and poorer passengers.
The fires sank lower and lower, the engine-power dwindled, the propeller revolved more and more slowly. Finally we came to almost a dead halt in the middle of the Black Sea. Throughout that night we crawled forward with a minimum number of revolutions; and even this small progress was only because the ship's officers took turns in the furnace-room to act as stokers. Next morning the sobered firemen graciously agreed to let bygones be bygones, and resumed work.
The rest of that nightmare voyage included only one incident worth recording. On the morning of the fourth day, when we should have been within sight of land, the horizon in every direction was blank. The Turkish merchant who had chartered the Batoum was impatient to reach Odessa, and asked the captain for our position. The ancient tugged at his white beard, and said he was not quite sure, but would take soundings. These revealed shallow water, showing, according to the chart, that the ship must be some distance off her course.
The dodderer was astonished, and called the first mate into consultation. Belaef's calculations with sextant and compass proved us to be heading several degrees too far east, so that the then line of sailing would have taken us nearer Sevastopol than Odessa. Thereupon the captain handed over the ship's direction to the first mate. We edged northward, and sighted Odessa at noon of the next day.
The city, with its pleasant terraces round the hills that slope to the foot of the wide-curved bay, and its half-Western, half-Byzantine towers and domes gleaming yellow-gold in the sunlight, looked inviting enough. But for us it represented a gamble in the unknown. Odessa was in enemy occupation, and might be more inhospitable even than Constantinople. On the other hand, we should no longer be on the police list of wanteds, as in Turkey, and it would be easier to pass muster among Russians than among dark-skinned Levantines.
On the whole, we were optimistic. From Odessa a man with friends and money might make his way to Siberia, where were some Allied detachments; and if, as the latest news indicated, Bulgaria was about to be emptied of Austro-German forces, Odessa would be a good jumping-off point for Sofia.
Meanwhile, our immediate concern was to get ashore without meeting the dock officials. Kulman and Josef promised to escort us, and thus lend the protection of their uniforms. We ourselves discarded seamen's clothes for the mufti worn when we escaped from the Turkish guards. White still had no lounge coat, and although it was a hot day of August had to put on his faded old overcoat. For the rest, the luggage we were bringing to Russia—each of us possessed a toothbrush, some cartridges, a revolver, a comb, and a razor, a spare shirt, a spare collar, and two handkerchiefs—could be wrapped in two sheets of newspaper.