We sail Away from Batuum with a Beat, Official Dispatches, Foreign Mails and a Boatload of Refugees That Keep Us Awake Nights
I had hoped to sail away from Batuum the day after Christmas, but so fierce was the storm that it was impossible to take on coal. All this day and well into the next the roar of the sea on the breakwater sounded in our ears like a never-ending bombardment of big guns. Not in the memory of the oldest inhabitant had such a furious tempest raged within the harbor. Even the buildings along the shore were in danger and the beautiful little yacht clubhouse, a fraction of a mile above the port, was completely carried away by the great waves that broke beyond their accustomed bounds and crushed the frail structure as though it had been but a house of cards. But there is an end of all things and on the morning of the third day the wind abated and only the heavy swell that surged without in the winter sunshine was left to tell the tale of wreck and devastation that had swept the coast during the past days.
By ten o’clock I had two barges of coal alongside and a double crew at work passing baskets over the side and emptying them into the bunker holes in the deck. It was vile stuff that we were getting and the engineer fairly tore his hair as he saw the little better than dust being poured into his bunkers.
“She will never make steam on that rubbish,” he kept crying again and again. Yet it was all that there was in Batuum and we had to take it or leave it. So we took it and at war prices at that. It certainly was a scandal and it broke my heart to pay out fifteen dollars a ton for stuff that in any other market would have gone begging at three dollars. But there was no alternative, so we took it, paid out our Rodwaner gold and smiled.
By noon we were fairly well stocked and ready to put to sea. Then there came to my mind the cable that I had sent not only to my paper but also to the American Embassy at Constantinople. “I propose to bring off American refugees,” they had read. I had talked the matter over with Stuart and it appeared that the only Americans there were Armenians (nationalized in name only) and they for the most part declined to be deported, not even to help me to live up to my cables. I called Morris and explained the situation to him. American refugees was what the contract called for, but lacking the letter of my cable we would have to fill in with any kind of refugees that the market offered. I told him to go ashore and make the necessary arrangements and to pass the word around that we were sailing that very afternoon at four o’clock. In the meantime I ordered up the “Blue Peter” to the foremast head that all ashore might know that we proposed to depart that day for the world that lay without. I went ashore and had lunch with Stuart, who introduced me to a number of the consuls of the Powers that were represented in Batuum, all of whom were eager to get word out to their governments. By three that afternoon I had packages of official dispatches, inscribed in impressive terms and sealed authoritatively, consigned to the governments of Austria, Holland, America and Great Britain, while a fair-sized sack was required to hold the mail that poured in upon us.
Stuart could not leave his office and I bade him farewell at his desk, accepting his cheery promise to “look me up” in America at an early planned visit to my country. Little did either of us think that ere a month would pass an assassin’s bullet would cut him down in the very prime of his life. Yet so it was. I read a few weeks later in the European press my good, kind, cheery friend was shot from ambush by some unknown man, even as he was entering the door of his house. An excellent man was Stuart and a public servant true to his trust in time of trouble; so true, in fact, that in the execution of his official duties he had encountered the opposition of some discontent in that seething vortex, who had availed himself of the cure of all evils in that wild country—assassination. A bare line or two announced his death and he was forgotten. Yet this man was in his way as much of a martyr to his duty as any soldier who falls gloriously in battle.
I made my way down to the landing place that afternoon with my dispatches and the bag of mail. On the pier alongside of which bobbed the little ship’s boat of the France a great crowd was gathered. To me there seemed to be at least five hundred. And such a collection! Every race and nationality that a nightmare might conjure up. Armenians, Georgians, Turks, Jews, Persians, Russians from the Caucasus, Tartars and a dozen other races that resembled nothing that I had ever beheld. Each had his own roll of filthy baggage, mostly done up in sacks. Never had I in my life seen such an heterogeneous gathering nor such an assemblage of men that looked so utterly desperate and woebegone. It took me five minutes to work my way through the mass to the stairs where my boat lay. Morris was there swearing and arguing with the mob that was crowding about him yelling and entreating all at the same time. It sounded like the tumult one hears in the parrot house at the Zoo.
I jumped into my boat and called to the crew to “give way” for the France. As soon as I could make my voice heard above the din I asked Morris what in the world it all meant anyway. I nearly fainted when he told me. They were my refugees! Not less than half a thousand, each with his heart set on escape from the country. Their plight was pitiful indeed, for the bulk of them had come from burning villages with only what they could carry in their hands. Driven from place to place they had finally landed in Batuum, which they found the worst of all, what between warring factions and the brutal soldiery, who chased them about the streets like sheep. Morris had done his work too well. It appeared that he had been to every shipping agent and had notices posted up that the France was leaving that very day and would carry refugees out of the Caucasus free of charge. No wonder the mob was on the pier! Morris was in high feather and fairly clicking his teeth with sheer delight. “Yes, sir,” he said, “this is our busy day, sir! There hasn’t been a minute since I came back from shore this noon that Monroe D. Morris hasn’t been attending strictly to business. We are sure going to carry The Mails this trip, sir, and carry them right!” and he took me down in the little saloon where he had hung up a row of gunny sacks. Above them was a crudely printed notice: “Mails Close at 3:30 p. m. to-day.” On each sack was a separate placard which read “Constantinople Mail,” “Russian Mail,” “Trebizond Mail,” etc., on down the line of bags. Much to my surprise each of the bags was pretty well filled and more was coming in every few minutes.
But in the meantime I had to decide about our refugees who were still roaring in the distance, not clearly understanding whether they were to be abandoned entirely or not. I called the skipper and asked him how many we could possibly carry. As a matter of fact there was no room for any save on the deck and in the chain locker forward, as our own crew filled the balance of the France’s very small accommodations. We made an inspection and finally decided that we might stretch our space to hold thirty. Stomati the cook, armed with his seven languages, was sent off in the boat to pick out thirty likely-looking refugees. I instructed him to accept none without passports, which at once cut the total down about half. When the crowd on shore heard that only thirty could go there was a rush for the boat that nearly put the entire front rank into the sea. So after all there was not much of a chance to pick and choose and the boat brought off the first that came to hand, with their sacks and miscellaneous dunnage. Morris and Spero stood at the gangway inspecting passports and hustled the unaccepted passportless back into the boat to be relanded. For an hour the little boat plied back and forth until the France was alive with the human wrecks and their impedimenta.
In the meantime I was entertaining a few friends in my saloon who had come out to say good-by. By four in the afternoon our refugees were all aboard and our papers duly received from the port officials. The sun had gone under a cloud and a stiff wind was blowing in from the sea as with anchor up, we swung around the end of the breakwater, with long blasts from our deep-toned foghorn as a farewell to friends ashore. The flag on the American Consulate was dipped and some enthusiast on the roof let go both barrels of a shotgun, to which we replied by bending our own ensign. In fifteen minutes we were at sea and the top of the Greek Church, the only sign left to us of the little town, to which it had been the first to welcome us from the storm a few days before.