And then, in their distant campaignings, the sailors habitually provide themselves with some digestive or rheumatic complaint, which is quiet enough in hours of prosperity, and revives exactly at the moment when one wants to keep well. Seven entire months at sea under this régime have resurrected all these ailments. The martyrs require a light but nourishing diet of good food. Where can we get it? The chief of the mess cannot transform into fresh eggs these shells in which are stirring chicks anxious to hatch out, nor into fresh milk the viscous compound which comes in metal cans. Musty cakes, greenish purées, coagulated rice, become more and more common on our plates. Complexions become yellow, features drawn, and good-humor vanishes. Discussions on the war or the service turn bitter. Those who are endowed with unbroken health take the diatribes philosophically: “Take it easy, my poor friend,” they think. “Take it easy. I would reply to you, if it wasn’t only your enteritis that is speaking!”
One night a wireless arrives from the Commander-in-Chief.
“You will coal Wednesday at Dragamesti, with the cargo-boat Marguerite.” It is only Sunday, but a smile appears on a thousand faces. The whole cruiser takes on the alert pace of a horse which sniffs the relay. A sorry relay however! From morning to evening, in a harbor where the wind blows violently, the ship will be shrouded in coaldust; the sailors will wear themselves out, the officers shout themselves hoarse trying to hurry the filling of the sacks, and we shall leave more exhausted than at dawn, for fifteen or twenty days of pilgrimage. But we shall have made a halt. Sailors in any part of the world, you will all understand me!
The chief of the mess is happy, but becomes anxious. Between two watches he has a conference with the cook and steward. Both are neurasthenic; it is as disagreeable to them to prepare our little meals as it is to us to swallow them. But hope, invincible in the heart of man, cheers the trio:
“Captain,” says the steward, “buy some figs, some salad and some fresh cheese. That will improve the menu for a week.”
“Certainly,” replies the captain chief of the mess. “But shall we find any?”
“I want some lambs,” demands the cook, “some fish for two or three days, and if I can lay my hand on a good fat sheep, I can guarantee that you gentlemen will be satisfied.”
“All right. But I’m afraid we shall not find very much.”
“And then, I must have at least four hundred dozen eggs. The last time we only took two hundred; a good half of them were rotten, and we use six to seven dozen a day. So, in twenty days....”
“Oh! But, great heavens, my friend! Where am I to get the money?”