The next day, as I had anticipated, the reply came from Chicago giving me free hand. The die was cast. I called Morris and turned him loose to get a cook and provision the boat the moment she arrived in port, if on examination she proved fit. Beaming from ear to ear, he disappeared. Ten minutes later there was a tap at my door, and the magnificent Leo entered with the greatest deference and humility.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “for my intrusion, but your secretary, Mr. Morris, tells me that you expect your private yacht to arrive in the course of a few days. I beg of you, sir, command me if I can be of service in facilitating your plans.” And saluting with great respect, he withdrew. I called Morris off on the yacht story as soon as he came in, but it was too late. My credit in Constantinople was fixed, and as affairs transpired, it was well for me that it was so.
While I waited for my tug to arrive there were other things to do, and as time was the essence of my business, I had not a moment to waste. In the first place, there was the matter of funds to be arranged, and funds, needless to say, are the bone and sinew of any enterprise requiring quick action in Turkey. In China it had been much simpler, for there I had a boat under four months’ contract, and my paper arranged a long credit in the Hong-Kong Shanghai bank, on which I drew checks when needed. A dispatch boat (even a small one) costs five or six thousand a month to operate. First there is the charter, and then the fuel bill to meet, and when one is burning from fifteen to twenty tons in the twenty-four hours, at anywhere from $5.00 to $15.00 gold a ton, the cash goes fast. My friend, Pandermaly, insisted on two weeks’ cash in advance for charter money, and the balance of the operating expenses to be met by me. Besides this, I needed cable money, for down in this suspicious zone it was all cash in advance at the telegraph offices. I was only paying as far as London, to be sure, but even that was fifteen cents a word. One has to figure on the possibility of at least 5000 words a week, which counts up into big money. The worst of it all was that what I needed was currency, for conditions were so unsettled where I was going, that I figured I would be laughed at if I asked for sight-drafts or checks to be honored, much less such an impossible thing as credit. Cash here means gold coin of some sort, for the notes that float about in Levantine banking circles are subject to big discounts outside the vicinity of their origin. One cannot conveniently carry more than a thousand dollars in gold, but on this occasion I proposed to stow all I could get in my money belt and pockets, and trust to my revolver and Morris to keep anyone from separating me from it. So I figured on the maximum amount needed and cabled my office to arrange so that I could get it quickly.
Next came the question of how I was to gain access to the ports of interest in Russia, and when in, how I was to get out. I had operated a boat outside of Port Arthur for four months under somewhat delicate circumstances. The Russian admirals were anxious to sink us, and the Japs were equally anxious to be rid of us, although they did not admit it. I learned at that time the somewhat crude way that wars are conducted. The spectacle of a British merchant steamer sunk by the Russians, off the Liotung peninsula one dark night, with the idea that they were destroying my boat, had given me a graphic idea of what press boats must expect when operating in belligerent waters. Since then it has been my policy to avoid getting into trouble without preparing myself in advance for the means of getting out. Down here in the Black Sea, as I sized it up, there would be no one backing us, and as far as I could see, any irresponsible Russian warship on a strike might sink us with never a murmur or protest from any quarter. But I turned up what I hoped would be a solution to this difficulty. My paper maintained in Europe, besides some sixty local correspondents, four staff representatives, sent out from Chicago, and occupying palatial offices in the four most important capitals of Europe,—one in Trafalgar Square, London; one on the Place de l’Opera, in Paris; one in Friedrich Strasse in Berlin; and one on the famous Nevsky Prospekt in Petersburg. All these men were picked for their tact and social qualifications, and each was supposed to know, and be known, to all the prominent diplomats and statesmen within his territory. At the moment, as I well knew, there was not a foreign office in Europe that had not been frantically trying for two weeks to get word both to and from their consular representatives in South Russia—for all the news that came out of Odessa, Sebastopol, and the Caucasus, these diplomatic gentlemen residing in these places might as well have been at the bottom of the sea. So I sent to our news bureaus in the capitals, the message that the News had chartered a dispatch boat to cover all points of interest in the Black Sea, and that I would be glad to carry dispatches from the respective foreign offices to their isolated consuls in the zone of silence, and furthermore, requested an immediate reply. In addition, I cabled Chicago a similar message, asking them to offer our services to the State Department in Washington for a like purpose. A package of dispatches had gotten me out of the clutches of a Japanese fleet in Korean waters the previous year, and I had great faith in the persuasive power of anything with an official seal in getting one out of a tight fix. The next day our London man wired that he had seen the foreign office and that my offer was accepted with thanks, and that the British Ambassador at Constantinople had been instructed to communicate with me. Berlin and Paris declined, but I did not care. I had all that was necessary, for one bunch of official dispatches would answer my purpose as well as a dozen. Besides, I had a wire from Chicago that the State Department was also going to send me cables for delivery in the Black Sea. So far so good. I had a strong card, and I thought I knew how to play it so as to keep myself out of the hands of any irresponsible meddlers. The next day Sir Nicolas O’Conor presented me with two bottles of old Irish whiskey, and asked if I would carry dispatches and official documents to the British consul in Odessa. Without undue enthusiasm, I replied that I would be pleased to be of service to him, and he promised to send them around that night.
At three in the afternoon, the France slipped into the Golden Horn, after a terrible trip from Zungeldak. I went aboard with Pandermaly, and an hour’s investigation settled my mind. She was the boat for me. I knew enough about ships to know that if any steamer her size could do my business, it was she. Built in Falmouth, England, five years before, she was 125 feet long and 22 feet in the beam, with nice lines and a maximum draft, bunkers full, of 12 feet. Seven bulkheads and steel-plated construction steadied my mind on her toughness. The engines interested me next, for a tug in any angry sea is like a child in the lap of Niagara, but when I stepped down in the engine room my mind was made up. Triple expansion engines good for 1000 H.P., with two big Bellville boilers and a bunker capacity of 140 tons, enough to keep her at sea for ten days at a fair speed, looked good to me. I didn’t care much what the accommodations were, after I had seen the vitals of her, and was pleased when I found them fairly comfortable. Some cabin space forward had been converted into a hold for salvage pumps and wrecking apparatus and bunks for the crew. The rest of the accommodations was directly aft the engines. One entered a small saloon by a ladder through a hatch. Two tiny staterooms flanked a dining-room table, while a nice open fireplace opposite the stairs gave a homelike look that was most acceptable. An oil lamp hung above the table, while two others swung on pivots over the fireplace. Superficially, then, she would do.
“How about her boilers?” I asked. After a little debate the engineer admitted two months without cleaning. Pandermaly agreed to draw the fires and open up the boilers as soon as they cooled, and to turn in with chisels all his available staff, to chip the salt out of the tubes. We closed on the spot, and I went to get a charter drawn. Pandermaly seemed all right, but after all, a Greek is a Greek, and I was playing the safe game, so I got an English attorney to draw my papers. He said he would call in some shipping friends and talk matters over, and would have the charter ready the next morning. What I feared most was my inability to control the crew, for I had agreed to take those on the boat as it stood. They were all Greeks but the stokers, who were Turks. What would I do if they refused to go on at some critical moment? A friend of mine told me that the Greeks had no sporting blood anyway, and would insist on flying to the nearest port at the first cloud that appeared on the horizon. However, there is an element in the Greek character stronger than fear. It is cupidity. At least, that is what my friend told me, and he had lived in Greece and Turkey, so I finally decided to enter a clause in the charter, which, after many wailings, I persuaded Pandermaly to accept, that I thought would cover the situation. It was mutually agreed that if the Captain, with his superior and nautical experience, thought the sea risks too great to venture forth, I should abide by his decision, but that every time he insisted on going to port against my wishes, he should pay a fine of twice his salary. Every day he remained at sea he got a bonus.
That night a messenger from the British Embassy delivered the dispatches into my hands. I signed the receipt for them and took them to my room. On the top of the envelope in large letters was printed, “On his Britannic Majesty’s Service,” and on the back in red sealing wax as big as a dollar were the arms of Great Britain. The package was worth its weight in gold to me!
In the meantime my money did not arrive, and I wanted to sail at once. Any inquiry at the cable office brought back the dismal news that there was a blizzard of fearful proportions in western New York, and that the telegraph wires were down. When I had laid in provisions, filled my bunkers with 120 tons of coal and paid two weeks down on the charter in advance and settled my hotel bill, I had only $25 to operate on, and I must say this looked pretty small. I was to sign the charter the next morning, and planned to sail as soon as I could get up enough steam to start the engines. My plans were to go first to Odessa, then to run to [Sulina at the mouth of the Danube] in Roumania, which, I learned, was the nearest uncensored cable. I hoped that my 25 would get me that far, and I could not wait longer in Constantinople for the remittance, and decided to chance it on getting financial reinforcement when I sent my first cable.
The next day at ten o’clock in the morning I went to my lawyer’s office. He had the charter drawn in due form and had brought in three of his shipping friends to talk matters over with me. They were a sad lot. Stiffly they sat against the wall, hands on knees, and regarded me much as an undertaker does a prospective customer.
“Here is your charter,” my friend said, “but before you sign it, I would like to have you talk the situation over with my friends. They are shipping men of a great deal of experience in this part of the world, and what they will say ought to carry a great deal of weight with you. As a matter of fact, they think it unwise and very hazardous for you to attempt to get to Odessa in the month of December, especially in that small boat.”