II
FELIX RUNS OFF TO SEA
Take a windjammer out as a cruiser? Sneak through the blockade and go buccaneering on the high seas?
"By Joe!" I thought, "that's something."
It was a romantic thing all right in this day and age, when the sailing ship is getting to be something of a relic of the fine old times, the heroic age of the sea. But it wasn't because I had read a lot of sea stories and had become fascinated with the old world of rigging and canvas. I had been there myself, had been there good and proper.
The reason I was assigned to the command of the Seeadler was because I was the only officer in the German Navy who had had actual experience with sail. I was born Graf Felix von Luckner and was now a lieutenant commander, in the Imperial Service, but I had spent seven years of my early life as a common jack-tar before the mast. The fo'c'sle was as familiar to me as charts are to an admiral. That was why this windjammer cruise of war meant so deuced much to me, why it hit so close and was so personal.
I cannot make that part of it clear without telling you something of my early life at sea, a thing or two about the old days when sailing before the mast was all they say—and more. It's a yarn about shipwreck, storm, and cantankerous captains. So, sit yourself down there, by Joe, while I light my pipe and weigh anchor.
My first mental picture of life at sea dates away back to the time when I was a little fellow living in quiet, charming old Dresden. I saw a bill of fare from the liner, Fuerst Bismarck. By Joe, there were fine delicacies on it. I read it until my jaws began to move. So that was how people feasted at sea? Ah, then, how wonderful it must be to be a sailor. Perhaps, some day, I might become the captain of a great steamer where they had meals like that. The more I thought of it, the better I liked the idea, and from then on I had my mind set on going to sea. I read of the voyages of the wily Odysseus and of Sindbad the Sailor. On the river near our home I built a boat of an old box and christened it the Pirate.
"Oceans, straits, and gulfs are all very fine, but of what concern are they to a Von Luckner?" asked my father. "You are to be a cavalryman."
You see, my great-grandfather had started the cavalry tradition among us Von Luckners. They had tried to make a monk of him, and had put him in a monastery. But he didn't like that job, and among his fellows at the monastery he was called "Luckner libertinus." When he was thirteen years old, he ran away and joined the army of the Turks, in a war against the Austrians. In those days, the cavalrymen all had boys to feed and look after the horses, carry munitions, and clean rifles. So, while still a mere lad, my great-grandfather became a professional soldier, a soldier of fortune. After he had learned a lot about the Turks, he left them and joined the Austrians. That was when he was fifteen years old. Later on, he joined the Prussian Army, as a lieutenant of cavalry, under Frederick the Great.