II—IN THE WAKE OF A TORPEDO
After a few hours of unquiet dozing I arose, made a summary toilet, ate I know not what food, swallowed hastily, before going on watch. In the middle of the day I found myself on the bridge again. A bright sun was silvering the distance. The three cruisers, deployed in loose order, continued their course toward the south of the Adriatic; behind, almost invisible, the smoke of the naval forces formed a black mane on the horizon. On board, every one who was not on duty was enjoying a siesta. Every one was finding consolation in dreams for the disappointments of the day before, but a few scores of eyes were watching the very calm sea. The Ernest-Renan, a few thousand yards away, was following a parallel course.
Something very white suddenly appeared in the furrows of foam. My binocular immediately followed this wrinkle on the water; you would have said a jet of steam, slipping along just under the surface. For a few seconds I hesitated. Perhaps the fin of a porpoise swimming close to the top deceived me. The remembrance of training in peace times brought back to my memory the track of a periscope, and I hesitated no longer.
"Quick! All on the left! Raise to eight hundred meters! Declination, forty! All engines at full speed ahead! Close the bulkheads! Begin firing!"
The cruiser bounds. In the hold the men of the watch close the bulkheads. The artillery fires. The shells fall around the white, moving streak. They burst like balls of dry snow on a blue wall. All the men, awakened from their siesta, all the officers come up on deck. A few meters from our hull passes the fleecy track of a torpedo launched against us. It has missed us, but a big 194 shell (7¾ inch), fired from one of our turrets bursts immediately above the periscope. It plows the water and splashes it up in the air; the stem of the periscope rises, falls, rises again, falls again, as a wounded animal tries to stand and falls again. Then nothing more is seen. The blue waves show only their habitual indolence. Across the void a storm of cheers comes to us from the Ernest-Renan; they have seen the shell tearing up the water, and they are certain that the explosions have crushed in the submarine.
We are going fast, so fast that in a few seconds the cruiser is far from the place of death. The guns turn and follow it, ready to fire again, but nothing shows any more.
"Cease firing! As you were! Open the bulkheads! Resume your course! Engines at sixty revolutions!"
III—DIVINE SERVICE ON A WARSHIP
Every Sunday, divine service is celebrated on board—a serious, simple ceremony. Around the movable altar, flags stretched make stained-glass windows of bunting; the vault of the church is formed by the low whitewashed ceiling of the space between decks; to right and left, the partitions of the cabins, the white stems of the smokestacks, form the metal walls of the shrine; the parti-coloured tubes, steam pipes, well-polished cocks, cast red and yellow reflections; chairs for the officers, benches for the crew, are grouped to a depth of eight or ten yards. He comes who so desires. A bugle call announces services, and whoever is not on duty, either comes or stays away. While the priest is accomplishing the holy rites, you hear in the hold the breathing of the engines, the snoring of the ventilators; above your head, on deck, patter the sailors of the watch; the big Adriatic rollers slap against the hull and the quivering of the rapidly moving cruiser makes the altar tremble.
IV—THE BOOTY OF THE HIGH SEAS