Vagabonds of the sea

by Maurice Larrouy

They go back up the path which the Curie traversed. They go to hold the sentry-post of honor before the enemy coasts, and none can foretell their fate of glory or death. Like their brothers they seek in the Dalmatian Isles before Cattaro some ship worth sinking. But probably the Austrian spies have not failed to follow our cruise, and the Gay-Lussac will find nothing. For three or four days, to the limit of its breath and its electric power, it will prowl invisible. Through the lenses of the periscope its commander will see the aviators describing great circles in search of it; he will make out the onset of the destroyers, will hide himself in the depths of the sea, and will hear the passage of the screws above him, frantic but impotent.

20 January.

One evening, out of breath, aching in body and soul, he will descend the Adriatic, the Ionian Sea, the Archipelago, to the harbor where not even repose will be his reward. The entire “naval army” when it hears the news will breathe more lightly at the wireless which announces: “The Gay-Lussac is returned.” And will share in its discomfiture at the postscript: “It has seen nothing.” It will hardly have left the shores of Austria when the ships will begin to move more freely, until the coming of the next one. Such is the Odyssey of the submarines of Plateali. Good luck, Gay-Lussac!

22 January.

The Waldeck-Rousseau has left the Albanian waters and reached its cruising sector. The Ionian Sea is divided into rectangles of vast extent, each one of which represents the territory of a cruiser. There she patrols for several days, reaches the next sector, and so on until she comes near land. Then she coals in all possible haste, goes to the farthest rectangle and begins all over again. Our post for the day is far in the west near the strait of Messina, at the end of the Italian boot, and we do not reach it before twilight. We take a route outside the cruising zones.

Two masts and four smokestacks rise on the horizon like a play of shadows. It is the Gambetta prowling about. She sights us, approaches swiftly, assures herself that we are friends, turns back and disappears. For several hours we see nothing but the surge of water and the clouds of shifting slate. And then the Michelet looms up in her turn, having just recognized us. We profit by this proximity to perform a telemetric exercise. In the course of this exercise the two cruisers execute a hundred movements which bring them together, and separate them, by anywhere from five to fifteen thousand meters; the gunners at their places, the telemetrists at the measuring apparatus, at the proper moment note the distances. Ships which meet by chance do not fail to indulge in this practice. A signal rises to mark the end of the exercise.

The Michelet returns to its patrol, and we push towards the west. By evening a great wall bars our horizon. Later a light gleams out with a pale track across the water. The lighthouse is called Rizzutto, and shines at the base of the Calabrian mountains. If the weather were more favorable we could see the summit of Etna in a clear atmosphere. Its beautiful outline would make us forget the proud heights of Albania, in front of which, this morning, we parted from the Gay-Lussac. But the sailor must be satisfied with a gloomy evening and a sullen sea; his only friend at night will be the light of Rizzutto, which we shall lose and find again as we move towards the offing or towards the coast. We have another companion in the wind, which whistles itself out of breath, perhaps for fear we should think it asleep.

Early in the night, as the cruiser nears Calabria, a sort of luminous halo plays over the land. We recognize the aureole of a town. Over there, human beings are at rest, or amusing themselves, or talking pleasantly before sleeping. Here, dressed in leather and rubber, the sailors struggle with the gale and defy shadows in which danger may lurk. This contrast haunts the minds of the lookouts. Are they happy in their sentry duty in the rain? Do they envy the Italians sheltered in their peaceful homes? The two ideas alternate, and in order the better to curse the Calabrians who are giving them not so much as a thought, the sailors look for the name of this troublesome town on the map.

It is called Crotona. In the days when Rome was weak and Athens powerful, she waged repeated and bitter war against her rival Sybaris. Softened by too much luxury, the Sybarites could not defend themselves against their powerful enemies, and Crotona, after effacing her voluptuous enemy from the world, survived throughout the centuries to show the light of her lamps this night to some passing French sailors.

Have we not a right, we officers, companions of the darkness, guardians of a crew of gallant men—have we not the right to send our dreams across the war to the regions of antiquity? The carefree Sybarites left a name which serves only for jesting. The map is almost ignorant of the exact places where they ignominiously disappeared, and the pick of the excavator exhumes only chalky debris. The people of Crotona bequeathed the future to proud descendants, because the sweetness of life did not make them disdain war. A stern lesson which we repeat in the biting north wind and the rolling waves; a parallel which forces itself upon one in these hours when France gathers herself together against the barbarians. But I have no doubts about her. The men of the Gay-Lussac who went this morning towards Cattaro, the men of the Curie, who were stopped by the glorious net at Pola, the men of the “naval army” who since August have lived in company with hardship, the men who freeze in the trenches of Artois and the Vosges, the men who have fallen on the plains of Flanders and Champagne—these men will not play before posterity the rôle of Sybarites.