Tragedy, nevertheless, comes close on laughter. From the bridge the officer of the watch has seen something, two or three miles away, that is not quite the color of its surroundings. He fastens his glass on this dark or light speck, which moves slowly like a periscope on the lookout.... The thing disappears and reappears, like a periscope which is taking its bearings, ordering its course, and waiting.... The officer’s heart leaps. His orders start the engines, direct the pilot, send the gunners to their guns. His body is tense with joy, his eyes shine; on the bridge, at the port-holes, officers and sailors follow the alarm with excited interest, and gaze out at the suspicious speck in the distance. Everyone envies the comrades who have charge of the ship at this brave moment, the gunners and steersmen who will pit their wits against the submarine. A sort of joyful anguish grips their hearts, for it is war to the death, and perhaps the torpedo is already launched and making straight for the keel. We fairly suffocate with excitement.
But some more experienced eye has made out the shape. “It’s a bit of wood!” murmurs a top-man.... “No, it’s a bottle!” whispers a gunner. Each one gives his opinion. “It’s a seagull!” “It’s the branch of a tree!” “It’s a broom-handle!” “It’s a box of preserves!” The uproar increases and rises to the officer on the bridge, who wipes his glass in order to see better. He is still expectant; he curses this encounter a thousand times. He is responsible for the boat and for all these laughing sailors. Torn between derision and danger, he remains prudent, and makes for the dangerous object, with the order to open fire still on the tip of his tongue.
Suddenly, when we are eight hundred or a thousand meters away, he takes a few nervous steps, countermands the alarm, orders the engines to slow down, and turns his eyes away from the preserve-box, the branch, the bottle, whatever it may be. The ship shoots by at a short distance. The jokers in the crew salute the innocent waif that floats past and disappears.... Unless it be a gull, busy with its bath; in which case it dives, preens its feathers, dives again, without bothering about the ship, or her officer on the bridge. Between its plunges, sunk up to its breast in the water, it rides past the flying steel monster with a mocking “Kwang! Kwang!”
At the end of his watch, the officer goes below to the ward-room where he is received with mocking laughter. These sorry jokes he scorns as a stoic should. He knows that the next night or to-morrow, at any moment, his comrades are as likely to make a mistake as he. We had all rather see a periscope than seagulls or branches. In the North Sea the Cressy, the Hogue and the Aboukir had seen gulls and branches a thousand times. The day they sighted nothing they went to their doom.
Adriatic Sea, 15 October.
The Adriatic is our private estate. The cruisers make use of it as if Austria did not exist. They ascend it, circle about, stop in front of the islands, challenge the coasts, without a single visible enemy’s attacking them. Doubtless the submarines come out daily from Cattaro in quest of the prize booty that our vessels would make. But either chance or our vigilance has prevented the disaster. We watch, we are worn out; nothing happens. Sometimes in the West, low on the water, trails the Italian coast; smoke floats over Otranto or Brindisi; for forty days this is all we have known of human activity. The lighthouse of Santa Marin of Leuca marks the uttermost point of Latin soil; it is a desolate object, like a pale needle stuck into the blue air. By night, its light falls on the veils of the horizon. It is one of the lonely friends of our solitude.
Towards the eastern coasts other friends watch our passage—the gaunt peaks of Albania or Epirus, or even the Ionian Archipelago, that delicate jewel of stone. Albania and Epirus! Famous but sinister names! Wherever Islam rules dwells devastation. The bases of the mountains are buried in the sea, and they look colossal; death lives on their gray slopes. A warm sun, however, shines on them, and busy hands may be tending vineyards and olive orchards. Yet one sees only masses of rocks, and the scars of mountain-streams. Here and there a bald yellowish circle stains the mass of stone. In that spot flourished in former times an Albanian or Epirote village. Fire destroyed it, and the fury of men has left it only a charred waste. A dizzy silence comes from these mountains. It falls and rolls over the blue water, so hard a blue one thinks a hammer might strike sparks from it. No one lives in these somber regions. Along the bays and inlets barks with Levantine sails scud before the wind, passing by in all possible haste. These barks carry mountaineers crowded in their holds like sheep in a pen. In these brigand realms life is so unsafe that even the brigands themselves prefer the hazards of the sea to journeys by land.
Our cruiser halts these tiny boats. Then the human cargo bursts out from the hold, and their distress shows that they think their last hour has come. Clothed in sheepskins, armed with daggers and pistols, these rascals conceal in their hearts a world of unknown crime; every time they find it profitable they are ready to massacre and betray. Their dark minds do not know who we are nor why we have come. We can only be executioners, equipped with irresistible weapons.
The visiting officer reassures them, of course, with his gestures. The passengers remain suspicious; their keen eyes watch him as he points to the holds and orders their contents turned out. The bullies understand; we are robbers and will let their lives go in exchange for their merchandise. Pell-mell they throw out their figs, their bundles of dried fish, their little sacks of corn—wretched food of wretched beings. They spread them out at the foot of this plunderer in a lace-covered uniform. Their broken language and raised hands call Christ to witness, or Allah, or even the Demons of the caves, that nothing further of value is left in the hold. The officer turns the sacks over, opens some, for fear that cans of essence or cases of explosives have been the object of this furtive journey to Cattaro or Pola. His foraging fingers encounter nothing but figs or herrings, which leave on his finger-nails a faint spicy smell. Carelessly he wipes off with his handkerchief the mixed fragments of fruit sugar. With a severe glance he makes a last inspection of the boat. The good bandits relapse into disquietude. They don’t understand; what does he want of them? One of them speaks, and at once their faces clear up. It is gold he demands, good sterling coin, an easy ransom to carry. The richer ones extract from their belts some pieces from the Balkan States, much worn and effaced; the poor ones spread out on their palms some sous and centimes, so bent and filed they are good only for jacket-buttons for our sailors. An old bashi-bazouk, white around the temples and at the ends of his mustache, has not a single good coin; crouched on the deck, he tells over a blackened rosary and from his god begs absolution for past sins. The others plead; the women kiss the hands and knees of the uniformed stranger; the children cry bitterly. The visiting officer embarks majestically in his long-boat, and makes a gesture of disdain that sends all this misery on its way again. The pilot hoists the sail, the rich man pockets his piasters and the beggar his coppers, the bashi-bazouk his prayers, the women their kisses, and the children their tears. The sheet swells, and the bark passes below the cruiser, whose crew smile indulgently, while our Albanians and Epirotes, seated on their hatches, understand nothing whatever.
On other days our police duty takes us further south. Steamers and sailing vessels frequent the approaches to Corfu, and our visits are more careful and more profitable. The shores have lost their gloomy appearance; black herds are pasturing on the hills; each slope is checkered in squares of olive orchards and clusters of vineyard; in little well-sheltered coves four white houses are grouped round a ruined mosque.