Serbs with tragic faces, with sunken and burning eyes, come to get new courage from contact with the French Navy. At this very moment their country is prostrate before the Austrian. Our flag comes to tell them: “Do not despair!” and they respond to our friendly salutations with pale smiles.
Quite at their ease, some Russians push their way among the crowd of barques. Whether their territory be invaded or not, whether their troops advance or retreat in the varying fortunes of this war, the Russians suffer neither extreme anguish nor extreme joy. They are quite serene. A cloud effaces the sun, but does not extinguish it. A reverse may annoy Russia, but she can wait; her victories will be the work of time. With a grand viva on their white teeth they salute their comrades of the great war, and then stay still, smiling.
These vivas excite ferocious glares in many an eye. Crouched on the benches in the boats are old Ottomans of Bagdad, or Mecca, or Erzeroum, who are telling over a shining chaplet of coral or nuts. These men are incorrigible. From their half shut lids, between their full lips, they dart towards the Roumis looks of hatred and imprecations. They glide at a distance of several meters from us, and do not stop their boat. The glances we are exchanging with our friends are profound, and charged with significance; the Mussulmans turn their eyes away to pretend indifference, but their rage is betrayed in the movement of their fingers which miss several beads at a time on their rosaries.
And what of these swarms of Germans, merchants, spies or fomenters of trouble, who crowd into the boats and instal themselves under our guns, to study the cruiser and the sailors? Here are these smiling but shameless faces, their eyes hidden beneath round spectacles, with which Germany blinds the world. Some of them, accustomed to this work, photograph us, enumerate our guns, observe our system of surveillance and protection. Before evening, telegrams in cipher will carry to Berlin all this information. They do it without shame; their disdain insults us with its impunity. Is not our territory invaded? Are not our Russian Allies harassed in Poland? Did not the British fleet, only a month ago, lose ships like ours off the coast of Chile? Have not our Serbian friends been driven back by the Austrians. “Germany over all!” We hear the arrogance they do not express. One of them dares to throw on deck a newspaper written in French. Attracted by the language, a sailor brings us the paper. But it comes from the press of the Wolff Agency; quibbles, monstrous lies, written in a French that would make negroes laugh, are dished up to the Levantines by the Teutons. We do not even want to shrug our shoulders; that would make these Germans who are watching us too happy. One among us rolls the sheet into a ball and throws it into the water; our impassive glances pass over these Germans encrusted along our hull. But under our uniforms our hearts beat a little faster.
A new arrival distracts us from these unpleasant neighbors. The children of the French school, conducted by French monks, bring us their rosy faces. Instead of games in the schoolyard, they have been rewarded with a view of the great ship, the ship which brings into the harbor the majesty of the great unknown nation. The ancestry of these children is diverse; their parents were born in Armenia, in Syria, in Thrace or Macedonia, but the gentle hand of France has already moulded their minds. They laugh with pleasure, their eyes show animation and clearness, traits of French thought. They rise and sit down again, curious to see everything, disappointed in not coming aboard, boisterous and friendly. When they go back regretfully in the twilight, they crane their young necks after us for a long time, and suddenly their young voices chant a thin but touching “Marseillaise.” Their voices are inharmonious, their feeling breaks the verses, but the distance and the hour give to the sacred hymn an unbearable beauty. Like a perfume from our native land it floats over the water, fades away in the setting sun, and over there near the jetties becomes so faint that we seem to be hearing across space the song of our soldiers crouched in the trenches.
At that moment the sun disappears, and the cruiser makes its customary evening salute. Two gun shots resound in the pure air; our brass band plays the “Marseillaise;” the entire crew, hats off, turn towards the flag, which slowly descends from the top of the mast, brushes the bridge and guns in passing, and the soul of its native land comes to rest softly on the steel deck. During the night hours this standard, rolled up, preserves the love of France in its folds, and to-morrow, unfurling them to the sun, it will make them float anew on the seas we sail. Every evening and every morning in the wandering life of the sailor, these religious moments bring together Nature and Country, the two eternities; more religious even to-day in the presence of a thousand witnesses who are deeply moved. Standing, uncovered, all our comrades turn their gaze towards the tri-colored symbol, tinted with the blood, the purity, the hope, of our native land. In fury our enemies turn their heads away. The colored flag descends gracefully, smiles at us, but sets the others at defiance.
The water, purple for an instant, darkens and freezes. Our steam cutters disperse the boats, for the Waldeck-Rousseau must be solitary through the night. In this country where so many thieves prowl about, vigilance must not be relaxed. The German boats do not want to go. We jostle them, chase them, and soon the spies’ faces have been cleared away from the approaches of the ship.
The night lights are lit in Saloniki; its quays are blazing, its slopes are flaked with light; the highest mingle with the stars. Dark and silent, the cruiser takes up her sentry duty; the roadstead is fast asleep, and the cold gradually covers it with a new shroud. On board it seems as if everything slept too, but the eyes of the lookouts never close, and the flag of France can repose in peace.
Pointe Kassandra, 10 December;
On the Fight in the Falklands.
What a fine revenge! The German squadron was sailing down the American coast. In this vast ocean she thought she had realized the ambition of the Kaiser: “The future of Germany is on the sea!” Admiral von Spee, the herald of Teutonic glory, was unfurling in the harbors of Chile the standard he said was invincible when a telegram from Berlin recalled him, probably to the North Sea, in order to add the strength of his cruisers to that of the fleet at Kiel.