Mare Nostrum (Our Sea): A Novel

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Before setting out, Ferragut, like all the other captains, would receive sealed and stamped orders. These were from the Commodore of the convoy,—the commander of a torpedo destroyer, or a simple officer of the Naval Reserve in charge of a motor trawler armed with a quickfiring gun.

The steamers would begin belching smoke and hoisting anchors without knowing whither they were going. The official document was opened only at the moment of departure. Ulysses would break the seals and examine the paper, understanding with facility its formal language, written in a common cipher. The first thing that he would look out for was the port of destination, then, the order of formation. They were to sail in single file or in a double row, according to the number of vessels. The Mare Nostrum, represented by a certain number, was to navigate between two other numbers which were those of the nearest steamers. They were to keep between them a distance of about five hundred yards; it was important that they should not come any nearer in a moment of carelessness, nor prolong the line so that they would be out of sight of the watchful guardians.

At the end, the general instructions for all the voyages were repeated with a laconic brevity that would have made other men, not accustomed to look death in the face, turn pale. In case of a submarine attack, the transports that carried guns were to come out from the line and aid the patrol of armed vessels, attacking the enemy. The others were to continue their course tranquilly, without paying any attention to the attack. If the boat in front of them or the one following was torpedoed, they were not to stop to give it aid. The torpedo boats and "chaluteros" were charged with saving the wrecked ship if it were possible. The duty of the transport was always to go forward, blind and deaf, without getting out of line, without stopping, until it had delivered at the terminal port the fortune stowed in its holds.

This march in convoy imposed by the submarine war represented a leap backward in the life of the sea. It recalled to Ferragut's mind the sailing fleets of other centuries, escorted by navies in line, punctuating their course by incessant battles, and the remote voyages of the galleons of the Indies, setting forth from Seville in fleets when bound for the coast of the New World.

The double file of black hulks with plumes of smoke advanced very placidly in fair weather. When the day was gray, the sea choppy, the sky and the atmosphere foggy, they would scatter and leap about like a troop of dark and frightened lambs. The guardians of the convoy, three little boats that were going at full speed, were the vigilant mastiffs of this marine herd, preceding it in order to explore the horizon, remaining behind it, or marching beside it in order to keep the formation intact. Their lightness and their swiftness enabled them to make prodigious bounds over the waves. A girdle of smoke curled itself around their double smokestacks. Their prows when not hidden were expelling cascades of foam, sometimes even showing the dripping forefoot of the keel.

At night time they would all travel with few lights, simple lanterns at the prow, as warning to the one just ahead, and another one at the stern, to point out the route to the ship following. These faint lights could scarcely be seen. Oftentimes the helmsman would suddenly have to turn his course and demand slackened speed behind, seeing the silhouette of the boat ahead looming up in the darkness. A few moments of carelessness and it would come in on the prow with a deadly ram. Upon slowing down, the captain always looked behind uneasily, fearing in turn to collide with his following ship.

They were all thinking about the invisible submarines. From time to time would sound the report of the guns; the convoy's escort was shooting and shooting, going from one side to the other with agile evolutions. The enemy had fled like wolves before the barking of watch-dogs. On other occasions it would prove a false alarm, and the shells would wound the desert water with a lashing of steel.

There was an enemy more troublesome than the tempest, more terrible than the torpedoes, that disorganized the convoys. It was the fog, thick and pale as the white of an egg, enshrouding the vessels, making them navigate blindly in full daylight, filling space with the useless moaning of their sirens, not letting them see the water which sustained them nor the nearby boats that might emerge at any moment from the blank atmosphere, announcing their apparition with a collision and a tremendous, deadly crash. In this way the merchant fleets had to proceed entire days together and when, at the end, they found themselves free from this wet blanket, breathing with satisfaction as though awaking from a nightmare, another ashy and nebulous wall would come advancing over the waters enveloping them anew in its night. The most valorous and calm men would swear upon seeing the endless bar of mist closing off the horizon.

Such voyages were not at all to Ferragut's taste. Marching in line like a soldier, and having to conform to the speed of these miserable little boats irritated him greatly, and it made him still more wrathful to find himself obliged to obey the Commodore of a convoy who frequently was nobody but an old sailor of masterful character.

Because of all this he announced to the maritime authorities, on one of his arrivals at Marseilles, his firm intention of not sailing any more in this fashion. He had had enough with four such expeditions which were all well enough for timid captains incapable of leaving a port unless they always had in sight an escort of torpedo-boats, and whose crews at the slightest occurrence would try to lower the lifeboats and take refuge on the coast. He believed that he would be more secure going alone, trusting to his skill, with no other aid than his profound knowledge of the routes of the Mediterranean.