CHAPTER XI
Christmas Morning on the Black Sea.
It is approximately a ninety-mile run from Trebizond to the harbor of Batuum, and for this entire distance there is not an anchorage along the coast. From the time one leaves Trebizond the mountains rise sheer up from the sea, their bases studded with reefs and ragged rocks or else rising in cliffs, going straight up for hundreds of feet above the water. At Batuum there is a bit of a bay with a breakwater across the narrowest part of it, which justifies its being called a harbor. Then the coast reaches on in another bleak and barren stretch of forty miles to another nominal port rejoicing in the name of Poti. And for this distance the mountains march grandly along, reaching an altitude which must be at least six or seven thousand feet. The constant storms of winter had left them mantled deep in the glaring white of winter snows, save where here and there some great black elbow of rock had been stripped of its cloak by the whipping winter winds.
The sea was running strong and the wind high when we put out that Xmas Eve, but in spite of adverse conditions we figured that daylight would find us off the little town of Batuum. As we did not want to get there before the light should show to us the uncertain channel ’midst the rocks and reefs that led to the harbor, we turned the engines down to a conservative ninety revolutions, which kept her going easily into the seas, which she was riding with the serenity of a strong swimmer disporting himself in the surf.
The motion, though a bit too active to permit of continued sleep, was still not vigorous enough to cause any particular anxiety. A large part of the night we spent on the bridge. The moon rose late, and by its intermittent light, as it sailed along behind the ribbon of clouds that spread o’er the heavens, we could see the grim and ghostly line of the mountain range that silvered and darkened as the light of the moon came and went.
The first gray light of Christmas day disclosed a bleakness of coast far more dismal than we had left behind.
We were running along the rim of the Black Sea basin, so near that we could plainly see the coming and going of the clouds of spray that told of the never ceasing struggle of the waves against the relentless cliffs that for centuries have grimly turned the surging waters into foam and noisy tumult. Aye, and long before the dawn the roar rose and fell on our ears as sea after sea dashed upon the sterile sternness that ever hemmed them in.
In the dim half light of the morning I stood by the skipper on the spray showered bridge, and with him through the dissolving darkness tried to pick out the harbor bearings of the port that was to be our Christmas refuge. The man had evidently been drinking during the night, as I gathered, and he was dense in mind and stupid beyond conception. The little engineer, who spoke English, joined us on the bridge, for all realized the general necessity of reaching port within a reasonable length of time, as our coal was running short. We had just about enough, as a matter of fact, to get back to Trebizond, but I had learned on the previous day that none was obtainable there, and hence we were relying on Batuum to replenish our bunkers. By eight o’clock the sky gave promise of a dreary day, and the barometer, with no uncertain index finger, was pointing to worse. In fact, it was creeping down perceptibly each hour, and already recorded the lowest figure that we had read on its ever cynical face since we had come to live in its sinister shadow.
Breakfast, as usual, was out of the question, and anyway we were all eagerly searching the coast line for the harbor mouth that had brought us hence. A new snow during the night had turned the whole landscape white, and with the snowy mountain wall rising up sharply in the background, we could not discover a sign of anything that might be construed into a symptom of a port. Eight-thirty came at last, and the little engineer discovered a mountain elbow on our port bow which he emphatically stated that he knew, and knew well. In his opinion, we had overshot Batuum. The skipper was easily persuaded that this was the case, and so we put about, and with a redoubled watch crept back along the coast. An hour or more we cruised with our eager spyings, rewarded by not a sign which might betoken the longed for haven. In the meantime in the west the evergrowing cloud of black verified the fact that the barometer had not been working in the dark. I was eager enough to reach the harbor in the beginning, but with each minute that I watched that black mass grow and bulge against the western sky, my anxiety increased. I called the Chief and asked for an estimate as to how much coal we had remaining in our bunkers. He was gone fifteen minutes, and his troubled face confirmed my intuitions of uncertainties ahead.
“Not as much coal as we had hoped,” he replied to my look rather than to any spoken word. “We have enough to last until this afternoon, and no doubt we will be in port ere that, unless—” and his bright little eyes swept the western heavens where the great relentless cloud was throwing its sable mantle across the sky.