"Well, Captain, you are not the only one to lose your ship during the war. To-morrow I, too, may be sunk, or the next day."
He replied in the most doleful tone imaginable.
"It is not so much the loss of my ship. But it's that I feel I have only myself to blame for it. In Valparaiso, where I lay in port with my Dupleix, two of my fellow captains warned me not to start until they had cabled our owners for final instructions and news about U-boats and cruisers. Possibly our owners would instruct us to keep off the usual course, they said. But the wind was fair, and I thought it best to take advantage of it. So, without waiting for a reply from our owners, I sailed from Valparaiso ahead of the other two captains. And now, because I did not take their advice, I have lost the Dupleix, my ship. Mon Dieu, what an ass I was! Now they will report it to my owners, and I will never get a ship again."
"What were the names of your friends' ships?"
"The Antonin——"
"The Antonin under Captain Lecoq?"
"Yes. And the La Rochefoucauld?"
"Orderly," I called in German, which the captain did not understand, "bring up captains numbers five and nine."
While we waited, I invited my mournful guest to have some more champagne, but he refused and continued holding his head and moaning.
A knock at the door.