“We can’t keep this seven knots and our heads above water,” he said. “We’ll have to slow her down some more.” So I said “All right.” The look on his face told me it was time for me to get up, so I staggered out into the saloon and got into my clothes. Lamps were swinging to the ceiling, and the howl and roar of water on the outside and the drip of it on the inside did not make me feel any too happy. Throwing on my heaviest campaign coat, I went up the ladder. The hatch swung out heavily against the wind. For a moment I stood clinging to the railing of the skylight. Like a wounded duck the France was beating her wings and laboring to make headway against the tumult, which strove to force her back. Great mountains of sea rose before us in successive chains as far as the eye could reach. Like assaults of infantry in close columns they stretched for miles, and bore down upon us. Each time the staunch little tug would put her nose into the angry front, she plowed forward. For a moment she would smother in the crash of waters, then she would shake herself clear of spray and foam and lift to meet the next sea. As I stood there, a great black silent roller struck her on the bow. She bent beneath the impact and then before she could stagger to her feet, another hit her, and three feet deep the seas swept across her decks. A coop of chickens torn from its position near the galley came sailing down on the crest of the water and struck a stanchion, breaking it open with a crash, and as the sea flowed out of the scuppers, some dozen wet and melancholy fowls came fluttering and squawking out of the wreck. They were wet and seasick, but their impact with the cold salt water had put some spirit into their souls. The rooster, who seemed to be in command of the expedition, spread himself on the rolling deck, closed his eyes, stretched his neck and uttered one long triumphant crow, whereat his followers began to cackle. At that moment another wave struck us, and as it went roaring over the stem it took that sad company of birds with it. There they sat on the crest of the wave; surprise, indignation and distress were pictured on their silly faces as I saw them disappear in the wake.
Drenched and cold, I fought my way forward and crawled up over the back of the deck-house to the bridge deck, where the two gallant little red funnels were belching smoke into the spray and mist, undaunted by any adverse seas, while the engines beat out with steady rhythm the tune of their determination to fight on until the last. On the bridge old man Gileti, covered with oil-skins, made dismal grimaces and deprecating gestures when he saw me. With Stomati to interpret I soon learned the meaning of his shrugs and murmurings. These big seas were getting to the France and we could not afford to take any more chances. Already the two forward hatches had been beaten in. The chain locker, the forecastle and the salvage hold were filled with water flush to the deck. So low had we sunk forward that each sea swept us from end to end. We slowed down to five, to three, and at length to one knot to keep her from pounding into those relentless seas that surged and beat at us from every side. In the meantime all available hands were working at the pumps and bailing water for dear life. I saw at a glance that we were in a bad way. Two out of seven bulkheads were flooded. If the water forced the next, where the boilers were, we would sink like a stone. We were making no headway, and our efforts to reclaim the flooded parts were of small avail. The skipper renewed his plea for a refuge on the Bulgarian coast. It was now past noon, and the men were wet and cold, and even the dispatches must wait, so I gave assent and we turned her nose for the shore.
Some miles south of Konstanza a great headland peninsula juts into the sea and swings a little south. This is called Kavarna Head. In the elbow of this bend is a semi-bay where even the north wind fails to wreak its vengeance, and to this shelter it was that we slid in about six that night, wet and cold, decks sea-swept and the cables twisted into snarls of halyards and guys. Fragments of wreckage stuck in the scuppers and the salt encrusted funnels told of the storm we had braved. Once in the still water we let go the starboard anchor, which slipped into it with a splash and cheerful rattling of cables as the steel links came clanking over the rollers out of the chain locker. From six to ten that night the work of ousting the water was carried on, and when four bells struck, we were as fit and sea-worthy as when we slid out of the Bosphorus and ran into the jaws of what I subsequently learned was one of the worst storms of the year.
The wind howled outside our haven, and the wet and weary men appealed strongly, so we lay to for the night, the steam simmering in the boilers, and the crew, exhausted by their hard day’s fight against wind and weather, slept on the grating over the boilers, for the forecastle was still too cold and wet for comfort.
In the dawn of as dismal a day as ever brought light we pulled up our anchor and turned our nose seaward again. The wind had subsided, but the waves still snapped at us, licking us now and anon with an angry slap. But the strength of it had oozed with the dying of the wind. Clouds hurried across the sky as we dipped and plunged northward, parting the seas to right and left as the sturdy little ship responded to the steady throb of the loyal heart down in the engines, that beat out its 110 revolutions to the minute. By noon the sun was breaking through, and the sea had subsided enough so that we could keep plates on the table, and the first meal at sea of the trip was served. When I came on deck after tiffin the sun was shining and the air as fresh and invigorating as a fall morning on the prairies in North Dakota. To the west stretched the broken coast of Roumania. An hour’s run or more northward, one could discern with a glass the site of that prosperous little nation’s greatest port, Konstanza. Two dreary nights had made me feel the need of rest. My saloon was cold and damp. The only place of refuge, where warmth was sure, was the engine room, and there I went, throwing myself on the rude bench in one corner where the engineer spent the idle moments of his watch, and fell fast asleep. About three I was aroused by being vigorously shaken. It was the engineer. As I sat up I noticed, to my surprise, that we were again rolling heavily.
“Well, what’s the trouble now?” I asked sleepily. He never smiled, but looked at me grimly.
“Bad. Very bad,” he said.
“What’s bad?” I asked. I was too tired to be even apprehensive. I wished he had let me sleep instead of bothering me with his fears.
“Come on deck,” he said, without any further explanation, and led me up the steel ladder to the top of the gratings and out on the deck. I could scarcely believe my eyes. The darkness of dusk had settled down upon us, and cloud upon cloud of snow were driving past us. I could barely see across the deck where the captain and the bulk of the crew were wringing their hands. As they all spoke at the same time, either in Greek or some other unknown tongue, and as each seemed to have a distinct and separate idea in mind as to what the exigencies of the situation required, it was difficult to gather what all the excitement was about. Everybody was presenting at one and the same moment a different course of action, each of which it would appear was the only road to safety. The captain urged in Greek that turning about and going somewhere astern was the only thing to do. One engineer advised Sulina in broken English, while the other had some ideas in Greek which have not yet come through. The Turkish fireman and others of our crew all wanted to do something or other, and each was howling the merits of his policy at the top of his lungs in his own peculiar dialect. Stomati was there with his seven different languages, which he was using all at once. Someone had dug him out of the galley and brought him forward to use his influence on the situation. Speaking a word in each of the seven languages to one of English, he started out into a detailed account of the storms of the Black Sea, their origin and cause, and their inevitably fatal termination. He had all the others faded for noise, and he soon had them in the background. Already the sea was lashing itself into a vortex of fury. The engineer had eased her down to half speed. I could scarcely believe my eyes. An hour before I had not seen a cloud in the sky, and yet we now appeared to be in the heart of a very enterprising blizzard. However, I could not see the overpowering danger, and personally I favored Odessa as being as safe as any other course and most convenient to the ends I had in view. Stomati finally got my ear, and, backed by old man Gileti, Spero and the mate, explained that these storms were the peril of the Black Sea; that at any moment it might turn up a cyclone and bring up seas that would swamp us in five minutes. I could not see how this could be possible myself, and neither did Morris, who had recovered his equilibrium, and we told them so. Stomati at once reached into the past and told of the wreck of the Roumanian mail, a 4000-ton boat of 21 knots, that had gone down only 20 miles from where we were, in just such a storm. Everyone knew of a dozen similar cases, and when word went aboard of what Stomati was saying, they all began at once to tell of the disasters that they knew of personally. I was beginning to be impressed, when, without warning, just as it had come, the snow ceased, and in two minutes the sun was out and shining brightly, with only a choppy sea and a black cloud sweeping astern to show the passing of the storm. Everyone, but Morris and I, seemed to be disappointed about it. However, they accepted the inevitable and returned gloomily to their posts, and I went back to the engine room bench. By eight o’clock that night we were off the mouth of the Danube at a place called [Sulina Mouth]. I had dined and reinforced myself with a cigar, when the captain, with his deprecating gestures and up-turned palms, came down and asked for permission to put in for the night. This would mean a delay of twenty-four hours at least, so I declined flatly. We were already nearly forty-eight hours out of the Bosphorus, and Odessa still a night’s run away, besides the night in port and one day lost. I considered it a very bad precedent. Stomati, who was clearing the dinner table, began to reminisce about a series of wrecks that had occurred between Sulina and Odessa, but after the false alarm snowstorm in the afternoon, I was determined to try the sea, even if it should be rough.
“Old Gileti has got cold feet sure,” volunteered Morris, who stood at my elbow as we watched the harbor lights of Sulina fade away beyond our bubbling wake. I was inclined to believe that he was right.