The American consul nearest was George Emerson Haven at Catania, by train three hours distant. We told him for twenty-four hours we had been prisoners, and that unless we were set free he was to declare war on Italy. The telegram was written not for the consul to read, but for the benefit of the port authorities. We hoped it might impress them. We certainly never supposed they would permit our ultimatum to reach Mr. Haven. In any case, the ship was allowed to depart. But whether the commandant of the port was alarmed by our declaration of war, or the unusual spectacle of the British attaché, “Tommy” Cunningham, in khaki while three hundred miles distant from any firing-line, we will never know.[A] But the rumor man knew, and explained.
“We had been delayed,” he said, “because Italy had declared war on Greece, and did not want the food on board our ship to enter that country.”
The cigarette king told him if the food on board was the same food we had been eating, to bring it into any country was a proper cause for war.
At noon we passed safely between Scylla and Charybdis, and the following morning were in Athens.
CHAPTER V
WHY KING CONSTANTINE IS NEUTRAL
Athens, November, 1915.