What I did hear, however, was that there really was a fierce row in progress down in the Caucasus, at the other end of the Black Sea, and the details seemed to be sufficiently numerous and accurate to convince me that I would be better off there than where I was. Anyway, it would be only a question of a few hours before some “kill-joy” would hold me up for my pass-port and learn that I was on shore without leave and be sure to kick up a row that might delay me for days.
So, after getting a good square meal at the hotel and smoking a cigar, I walked leisurely out to the remote nook among the rocks, where my ship’s boat lay, and with no more trouble than at landing was rowed back to the France.
As soon as I was aboard the captain raised the Blue Peter, that little white centered blue flag, which says “I am sailing to-day. Please come out quick and give me a clearance.” Of course, no one noticed the flag, but as we had plenty of steam under our decks, we kept the fog horn groaning dismally until the officials ashore, in sheer distress at our tumult, came back in their launch. The man in charge was the same as had come off to us in the morning, and almost his first words were that it would be impossible for us to go ashore that day. So, looking as disappointed as I could, and after a few protests at being kept in the harbor all day without being allowed to go into their most interesting town, I told him that we had decided not to wait any longer, and would go away that very night if he would fix up our papers. The complacent smile of the official who had succeeded in blocking someone in the pursuit of his business wreathed his face. He was sure it was best for us to go away, he told us, for it would be quite impossible for him to permit us to land. If we would wait he would go back to his office and fix our papers and have them aboard so that we might get away that night. Strangely enough, he was as good as his word, and a little after 8 p. m. a launch came alongside, and the papers, properly viséd and countersigned, in a sufficient number of places, which authorized us to depart, were handed over the rail. Our friend then departed with self satisfied regrets that we had been able to see nothing of their beautiful city.
Sevastopol is an interesting town of nearly 60,000, replete in the history of that ghastly siege of the Crimean war, the marks of which are still traceable on the bleak hills lying about the town. But as nothing of very keen interest related to this story transpired on the occasion of my visit, I will not burden the reader with more than a bare paragraph on the subject. The roadstead and the harbor and the extensive establishments connected with them form the most important features of the place. The great harbor fortifications which existed at the period of the siege were planned in 1834. The hand defenses, lines of trenches, and so forth, had not been fairly completed when the allied armies of England and France commenced their siege operations. Though compressed into a comparatively small space, the real strength was enormous, five to six thousand men being engaged on them daily during the eleven months of the siege. The garrison during this period was usually about 30,000 men, and the number of guns said to have been in position at the final assault was placed at 800, though several times that number were rendered unserviceable during the siege. The Russian loss in the defense has been placed at 80,000. The fortifications and naval establishments were after the capture destroyed by the allies, and by the treaty of Paris, which terminated the war, Russia was debarred from building arsenals and maintaining a naval force in the Black Sea above a very limited magnitude, but this restriction was removed in 1871. The town has been completely rebuilt, and since 1885 the fortifications have been actively replaced and the docks reconstructed. Sevastopol has become a pleasant watering place, and is Russia’s greatest southern Naval Headquarters.
It was a little after eight when a “Stand By” on the engine telegraph and a “Heave Away” to Spero at the donkey engine brought the crew to their stations. The gentle throb of the engines ahead and astern to clear the water out of the valves and the chug chug and “clinkety clink” of the anchor chain as it came jerking through the hawser hole in the bow was the only sound on the stillness of the water, save the occasional far away call of a sentry on one of the battleships. While the deck crew were hoisting the anchor over the side and lashing it into place, the France swung gently about, and the steady strengthening beat of her engines pulsed through the ship as she headed out to sea.
The moon was all but full, and cast a silvery sheen over the still waters of the harbor. Every prospect during the early afternoon and evening had cheered us with a hope of a still night, but the “kill joy” barometer that hung over our little fireplace had been steadily falling. We had hoped that, like our weather men at home, it might be on one of its breaks. But before we had fairly cleared the harbor our friend, the moon, politely made its apologies, and, with a last flicker of light, disappeared into a cloud bank. One by one the stars that twinkled brightly in the cold, crisp air faded from sight, until at nine o’clock the only light on the horizon was the steady glow of the beacon on a bit of a peninsula that lay to the south of us. In half an hour we had cleared this, and the France was riding with long sweeps over an oily sea that was coming up from the south in long rippleless swells. An occasional gust of wind foretold what was coming. With each minute the bursts became more frequent, and in an hour we were running into a steady gale that by midnight had become a veritable tempest, driving the waves before it in great sweeping billows, their crests shrouded in spray that blew across our bridge and decks almost unintermittently.
By midnight the hope of a night’s sleep had been abandoned, and the roar and crash of waters flooding us at every dip, mingled with the melancholy howling of the wind, that seemed to whip and circle around our little craft like an avenging spirit, created a tumult, which would have banished rest even had we been able to remain in our bunks. As a matter of fact, this was a proposition which I abandoned after a few futile attempts.
Earlier in the day I had weighed carefully our next move, and had decided to run for the little port of Sinope, almost due south of Sevastopol on the coast of Asia Minor. I wanted to go there for two reasons: first, because it was a cable station, from which I could send my Sevastopol story, and, second, because there I hoped I might learn more definitely of the situation in the Caucasus, which had been reported so acute at my last two ports of call. I figured that if the outlook there was good for a “story,” I would keep right on down the Black Sea, and if not, I would be within easy run of the Bosphorus or any other point of interest. Hence it was that we were driving southward through the storm on this winter night.
A description of the wretched night we passed would merely be a repetition of those that had gone before, and so the reader can, and, no doubt, will, gladly pass over the next few hours. Along toward daylight I snatched a few hours of sleep, wedged in a corner of the cabin, with pillows stuffed about me to keep me steady in my moorings. We had reckoned on reaching Sinope by nine or ten in the morning at the latest, but the gale and head sea had fought our every inch of progress, and it was past that hour when we first traced through the mist of spray ahead of us the range of dreary snow-capped hills that loomed dimly before us, barely discernible with our glasses. By ten the clouds began to clear and the face of the sun showed itself brightly over the waters.
The wind died away as suddenly as it had risen, leaving the sea an undirected tumbling mass of water, which seemed to lash at us from every direction at once. I ordered breakfast served in my saloon, and for an hour preparations were in progress, but the first attempt to set the table resulted in a mass of broken crockery, and breakfast being deposited in one corner of the saloon. I told Morris that I would take my breakfast in the galley, where I could be right at the fountain head of all good breakfasts. I found Stomati there hanging on to one of the steel columns with one hand and holding a pot of oatmeal in place with the other. A coffee pot was wired in place on the other end of his stove, and the contents thereof were slopping out every time the ship rolled. He announced that the coffee was ready, and while he was taking off the wire the oatmeal pot, released for a second, leapt nimbly from its place and landed in the garbage receptacle across the galley. However, I did get the coffee and a piece of burned toast into the bargain, which, after all, wasn’t too bad under the circumstances.