At four o'clock the dead sailors from the Borodino were buried. The admiral was present at the requiem service. Their bodies were taken in a boat to the torpedo-boat Bravy. She took them further out to sea and committed them to the deep. It was a sad ceremony. When the cutter shoved off from the Borodino with the bodies, they fired guns; the band played the funeral march, "Kol Slaven." The officers and crews of all the ships stood at "attention."
Phew! how stuffy! I can scarcely write. In the Borodino I saw that the officers, to escape the heat, slept on deck among the coal, like the crew, undressed and dirty. The beds of the officers are only distinguished from those of the crew by being mats. When I first saw this sleeping company I could hardly believe my eyes.
What an unfortunate day it has been for the Ural! In the morning a sailor had a sunstroke, and in the evening two officers, an ensign and a lieutenant, were struck by the traveller of the Temperley,[5] which had carried away. The ensign was killed on the spot—his chest was crushed and his spine broken. There is still hope of saving the lieutenant. He received a blow on the head, and fell down unconscious; it may be he will pull through. It is a strange thing about this lieutenant. He is a Black Sea officer, and has only just come to the Ural. He was sent from the Black Sea at half an hour's notice to this cruiser. You see many officers in the fleet, but his Black Sea cap (all white with a peak) attracted the eye. He was on board the Suvaroff an hour before the accident. They induced him to remain; he was late for his watch; but all the same, to his misfortune, he went to his ship. When he came on board us he met some comrades, told them a lot about the Black Sea fleet, abused it and its personnel. I was sitting near and was an involuntary listener. His stories interested me. Abusing the personnel, he related how three of his comrades with whom he lived made an end of their lives. "See," he said, "I lived with four comrades, and three of them have put an end to their lives, and something of the same kind will happen to me." He said this about an hour before the accident. For a few minutes before his departure I talked to him, and he told me how he had come to the Ural.
There is a great talk in the wardroom now about the Suvaroff being forbidden communication with the shore, because a sailor was absent and they made no attempt to find him. In every ship you must look out for animals—parrots, monkeys, oxen, chicken, geese, chameleons, frogs, pigs, and dogs; in a word, every sort is collected together. In one of the ships they brought a snake in the hay for the cattle. It bit an engineer in the breast, which swelled tremendously. They feared he would die. Now he is all right; the swelling has subsided.
It is late; I must go and try to sleep. Haven't slept much for the last two nights.
December 31st.—There has been a great deal of talk about the sending of money to Russia for the crew. It cannot be managed. New Year's Eve is on us, but the days are so much alike that no one ever thought about it up to the present time. The sailor who had sunstroke died, and after death the temperature of his body was 43° R.
I had scarcely finished my letter when I had to go in the cutter to the Ural. The Ural is one of the steamers bought from the Germans. She is very well finished. In the saloons are paintings, gilt and carved decorations. She is very big.
I went below, and the requiem service began. I shall not forget it soon. Here were joined luxury and poverty, elegance and squalor. The church is the former first-class saloon, now the wardroom, turned into a shrine. Eight large fans made a peculiar noise in quick time. A crowd of officers were there, dressed in white. The choir sang almost a gay chant—badly, but in tune; the priest helped them. During the pauses the dull noise of the fans was clearly heard. There were sentries on both sides of the coffin, which rested on a rude table, not covered with anything. It was more like a box than coffin, and had been made roughly out of pine boards, badly painted. The wood showed through the paint in streaks. During the service they sewed the coffin up in white calico. They could not find a whole piece, so added scraps. The wreaths were composed of fresh flowers.
A sad spectacle. Apparently the ensign was not killed by the traveller, but by the Temperley itself. After the service the coffin was lowered into the boat by the very Temperley that wrought the accident. A steam cutter towed the boat to the shore, and was followed by a long line of boats, filled with the funeral party. When the coffin was being lowered, they fired a gun, and all ships put their ensigns at half-mast. The crews stood at "attention," and the band played the funeral march.