What the writer has tried to portray is the atmosphere and fascination of THE CABLE GAME—the game that takes a man far from home ’midst alien races and into strange lands and makes him stake his all in his effort to win that goal of the journalist’s ambition—A World Beat.

S. W.


CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
IFrom War to Peace in Manchuria—Peking—A New Assignment, “Russia Direct”—Shanghai[ 1]
IIThe Race for the Situation—Ceylon—Across India—Stalled in Bombay—Russia via the Suez Canal[20]
IIIConstantinople at Last! The Threshold of the Russian Assignment—A Nation in Convulsion[35]
IVWe Charter a Tug and become Dispatch Bearers of His Britannic Majesty and Learn of Winter Risks in the Black Sea too late to Retreat[54]
VWe sail out into the Black Sea in the Salvage Steamer “France” and for Sixty-five Hours Shake Dice with Death[73]
VIWe Land in Odessa on the Day Set by the Revolutionists for a General Massacre, but because of Effective Martial Law Secure only a “General Situation” Story[94]
VIIThe France does her Best in the Run for the Uncensored Cable, Sticks in the Mud, but Gets Away and Arrives at Sulina Mouth with an Hour to Spare[113]
VIIIWe Send our Cable and Find Ourselves with 5 Francs and Expenses of $200 a Day, but Make a Financial Coup d’Etat, and Sail for the Crimean Peninsula[134]
IXWe Reach Sevastopol and Land in Spite of Harbor Regulations, Get a “Story” and Sail away with it to the Coast of Asia Minor[150]
XWe Send our Cable from Sinope and then Sail for the Caucasus where Rumor States Revolution and Anarchy to be Reigning Unmolested[167]
XIChristmas Morning on the Black Sea[180]
XIIWe Find Turmoil in the Caucasus but Celebrate Xmas in Spite of Storm and Stress[190]
XIIIWe Sail away from Batuum with a Beat, Official Dispatches, Foreign Mails and a Boat Load of Refugees that Keep Us Awake Nights[200]
XIVThe Return to the Golden Horn and the End of the Assignment[217]

TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Dispatch Boat “France” lying at anchor in Odessa harbor

[Frontis]

PAGE

From far Mongolia’s borders for 180 miles eastward stretches the line of the Japanese trenches

[20]

Regiment after regiment, fresh from Japan, pour along the newly made highways

[20]

With clanking chains and creaking limbers, batteries are going to the front

[48]

In eighteen months’ association with the army, we have not seen such activity

[48]

When the France entered Odessa harbor after the storm she was pretty well shaken up

[92]

Sulina—the mouth of the Danube River

[92]

General Nogi—than whom no finer gentleman ever drew the breath of life

[198]

Morris inspecting our Christmas dinner

[198]

CHAPTER I