The whys and the wherefores were transmitted later by Morris, who spent an hour in getting the facts from the slow-witted old Greek. My chief of staff, secretary and steward was filled with disgust and had spent a half hour outlining through an interpreter to the wretched captain the enormity of his crimes.
“Yes, sir,” he told me, “I have surely made old man Gileti sit up. I have put him wise to the fact that for a sure-enough dub and promiscuous fat-head, he has the rest of the world beat, yes sir, beat, backed into a siding with the switch locked. In fact, I regard that man, sir, as dead slow; yes, sir, slow, paralyzed in fact,” etc.
Just how all these things had been translated I did not ask, but I did ask why the man had failed to get the shipping papers, without which we could not go to sea. When a skipper enters a port, he takes his papers ashore and leaves them with the authorities until sailing time, when an official brings them off and gives clearance of the harbor. If a ship sails without its papers, it loses all caste and is liable to confiscation by any warship that might get wind of the fact. Hence the necessity of the delay.
“The old man, sir,” Morris continued, “was stalled. How? Yes sir, by some old Roosian! These dogs (meaning Greeks) are easy bluffed. Old man Gileti goes ashore this morning as directed. He sits for some hours on a bench. Along comes a guy in rich uniform and sees the old man with our papers in his mit. Gileti hands over and then sits some more. Finally another general or something comes along and gives him a bum steer that the stuff’s off and its back to the ship with him, bein’ as it’s a holiday and too much trouble to do business. The old man hollers a little, but bein’ a fool and using Greek when it ain’t getting through none, he fails to score, and next he knows he is showed out of the office by one of those Cossack fellers that has a bayonet on his gun. Quick as he’s out they locks up and goes home, and there ain’t nothing doing for Gileti, so he comes aboard.”
The next morning early I had a kindly interview with the Greek, and sent him off again for his papers, with two men to interpret and my Black Prince to see that the goods were delivered. But even this formidable array found Russian officialdom a hard proposition to get quick action out of. Eight hours of red tape, bluffs and counter bluffs, persuasion, threats and pleadings, it took before the business was completed, and it was five in the afternoon when I saw the official launch with Morris and the Greeks sitting in the stern, coming out to us.
“Have got. Can do,” yelled the steward when he was in ear-shot. This time there was no delay, and as soon as the skipper was on deck the forward donkey engine was spitting the water out of the valves, and a moment later dragging in the anchor, and a delightful sound it was to hear it coming in over the windlass, link after link. Clang! Clang! Clang! rang the telegraph and the dial registered, “Stand by” in the engine room.
Old man Gileti was slow usually, but with an anxious correspondent at his elbow to “jack him up,” he moved fast this time. No sooner did the rusty anchor head come dripping out of the water than “slow ahead” rang in the engine room. Black smoke pouring out of the two red funnels and the rattle of coal from the stoke-hold testified that the Turkish firemen were working for once in their lazy lives. “Hard aport” went the wheel, and the France swung her nose toward the open sea. “Steady,” and she straightened out for her course. “Half speed” and then “Full speed ahead,” read the dial down where the engines were picking up their sea-pace at every stroke. Two minutes later we were outside the breakwater, dipping our sturdy little nose into the chop of that wretched Euxine. “South by west a quarter west,” the skipper called in Greek, and the man at the wheel spun the helm until the compass checked the course, and the France stiffened down for the 90 mile run to Sulina, where the Roumanian cable to the outside world lay awaiting us.
Once on our course I went below and had my dinner served royally in the saloon with Stomati presiding over the cuts in the galley and Monroe D. talking like a windmill and “standing by” with the service.
“Yes, sir. Fine business, sir. We are making 12 knots, sir, and we are about to pull off an immense cup (no doubt intended for coup) on the situation. Yes, sir, I regard this trip as one of the great events in the history of journalism. I assure you I do, sir, yes, sir. I have just told Stomati that I regard this as one of the great achievements of our career and Stomati, sir, he was impressed. I could see it, sir, Stomati was dead to rights. I told that man, sir, that we had all the rest of the men in our profession looking like two-spots,” a pause for wind, and then—“In my opinion, sir, old man O’Conor (referring to the British Ambassador) will be delighted. His important dispatches have been delivered. Yes, sir, delivered; in fact, placed in the hands of his Britannic majesty’s consul at Odessa, and, sir, I must say I do say that I regard this as a most important act. Yes, sir, most important. I have told Stomati so, and, sir, Stomati agreed, for he told Spero and Spero, sir, he feels awe, sir, yes, I assure you he does, awe, that he is a member of this important expedition. Spero, sir, is a slow man and a heavy thinker, but when Stomati explained, I could see that Spero understood and appreciated. (Yes, sir, I will pass you another cut.) But as I was saying, it is my opinion that the British government will decorate us—yes, sir, handsomely. No doubt the Victoria Cross will—”
But here I cut him off, having finished my dinner and a cigar besides, and sent him to the galley to get his own meal, and more important, to give me an opportunity to write my story. During the delay of the day, I had examined every member of the crew that had been ashore, to gather any additional data for my cable. This with the mass of material picked up the day before, gave me enough for a column message, which I proceeded to rap out on my machine. People generally seem to think that newspaper stories must be in cipher, for few of the uninitiated realize that a thousand dollars on cable toll for a single dispatch is nothing unusual. The writing of a cable differs only from a written article in that one cuts local color and descriptive matter a bit in favor of facts. By force of habit, a cable arranges itself in one’s mind unconsciously and can be written as fast as one can work a machine. Then there only remains to read over the copy and blue pencil all superfluous “thes,” “ands,” adjectives, and everything in fact that the foreign editor in the office can supply by the study of the context. Thus a 2000 word story will “skeletonize” to perhaps 1200 and be re-expanded in the office to 2500. The office files contain vast stores of information. If a name or place is mentioned, it is looked up and its significance or location incorporated into the cable as printed. The result is a detailed story and an accurate one as far as the editorial half is concerned. It took me a half hour to write my story and another fifteen minutes to “skeletonize” and re-copy it ready for the telegraph office. It came to 895 words.