Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 28

Ulysses hesitated, looking toward the door, as though fearing to be overheard. Then he leaned over toward Toni.

The voyage was going to be one without any danger, but one which must be shrouded in mystery.

"I am counting on you, because you know all my affairs, because I consider you as one of my family."

The pilot did not appear to be touched with this sample of confidence.

He still remained impa.s.sive, though within him all the uneasiness that had been agitating him in former days was reawakening.

The captain continued talking. These were war times and it was necessary to take advantage of them. For those two it would not be any novelty to transport cargoes of military material. Once he had carried from Europe arms and munitions for a revolution in South America. Toni had recounted to him his adventures in the Gulf of California, in command of a little schooner which had served as a transport to the insurrectionists of the southern provinces in the revolt against the Mexican government.

But the mate, while nodding his head affirmatively, was at the same time looking at him with questioning eyes. What were they going to transport on this trip?...

"Toni, it is not a matter of artillery nor of guns. Neither is it an affair of munitions.... It is a short and well-paid job that will make us go very little out of our way on our return to Barcelona."

He stopped himself in his confidences, feeling a curious hesitation and finally he added, lowering his voice:

"The Germans are paying for it!... We are going to supply their Mediterranean submarines with petrol."

Contrary to all Ferragut's expectations, his second did not make any gesture of surprise. He remained as impa.s.sive as if this news were actually incomprehensible to him. Then he smiled lightly, shrugging his shoulders as though he had heard something absurd.... The Germans, perhaps, had submarines in the Mediterranean? It was likely, was it, that one of these navigating machines would be able to make the long crossing from the North Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar?...

He knew all about the great atrocities that the submarines were causing in the vicinity of England, but in a greatly reduced zone in the limited radius of action of which they were capable. The Mediterranean, fortunately for the merchant vessels, was quite beyond the range of their treacherous lying-in-wait.

Ferragut interrupted with his meridional vehemence. Beside himself with pa.s.sion, he was already beginning to express himself as though the doctor were speaking through his mouth.

"You are referring to the submarines, Toni, to the little submarines that were in existence at the beginning of the war--little gra.s.shoppers of fragile steel that moved with great difficulty when on a level with the water and might be overwhelmed at the slightest shock.... But to-day there is something more: there is a submersible that is like a submarine protected by a s.h.i.+p's hull which is able to go hidden between the two waters and, at the same time, can navigate over the surface better than a torpedo-boat.... You have no idea what these Germans are capable of! They are a great nation, the finest in the world!..."

And with impulsive exaggeration, he insisted in proclaiming German greatness and its inventive spirit as though he had some share in this mechanical and destructive glory.

Then he added confidentially, placing his hand on Toni's arm:

"I'm going to tell it only to you: you are the only person who knows the secret, aside from those who have told it to me.... The German submersibles are going to enter the Mediterranean. We are going to meet them in order to renew their supplies of oil and combustibles."

He became silent, looking fixedly at his subordinate, and smiling in order to conquer his scruples.

For two seconds he did not know what to expect. Toni was remaining pensive with downcast eyes. Then, little by little, he drew himself erect, abandoned his seat, and said simply:

"No!"

Ulysses also left his revolving chair with the impulsiveness of surprise. "No?... And why not?"

He was the captain and they all ought to obey him. For that reason he was responsible for the boat, for the life of its crew, for the fate of the cargo. Besides, he was the proprietor; no one exceeded him in command; his power was unlimited. Through friendly affection and custom, he had consulted his mate, making him share in his secrets and here Toni, with an ingrat.i.tude never seen before, was daring to rebel.... What did this mean?...

But the mate, instead of giving any explanation, merely confined himself to answering, each time more obstinately and wrathfully:

"No!... No!"

"But why not?" insisted Ferragut, waxing impatient and in a voice trembling with anger.

Toni, without losing energy in his negatives, was hesitating,--confused, bewildered, scratching his beard, and lowering his eyes in order to reflect better.

He did not know just how to explain himself. He envied his captain's facility in finding just the right word. The simplest of his ideas suffered terribly before coming anxiously from his mouth.... But, finally, little by little, between his stutterings, he managed to express his hatred of those monsters of modern industry which were dishonoring the sea with their crimes.

Each time that he had read in the newspapers of their exploits in the North Sea a wave had pa.s.sed over the conscience of this simple, frank and upright man. They were accustomed to attack treacherously hidden in the water, disguising their long and murderous eyes like the visual antennae of the monsters of the deep. This aggression without danger appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who, nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast, battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding s.h.i.+p as their only means of struggle.

"If they would torpedo only the armed vessels!" he added. "War is a form of savagery, and it is necessary to shut the eyes to its treacherous blows, accepting them as glorious achievements.... But there is something more than that: you know it well. They sink merchant vessels, and pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps carrying women, carrying little children...."

His weather-beaten cheeks a.s.sumed the color of a baked brick. His eyes flashed with a bluish splendor. He was feeling the same wrath that he had experienced when reading the accounts of the first torpedoing of the great transatlantic steamer on the coast of England.

He was seeing the defenseless and peaceable throng crowding to the boats that were capsizing; the women throwing themselves into the sea with children in their arms; all the deadly confusion of a catastrophe.... Then the submarine arising to contemplate its work; the Germans grouped on the decks of dripping steel, laughing and joking, satisfied with the rapid result of their labors; and for a distance of many miles the sea was filled with black bulks dragged slowly along by the waves--men floating on their backs, immovable, with their gla.s.sy eyes fixed on the sky; children with their fair hair clinging like masks to their livid face; corpses of mothers pressing to their bosom with cold rigidity little corpses of babies, a.s.sa.s.sinated before they could even know what life might mean.

When reading the account of these crimes, Toni had naturally thought of his own wife and children, imagining what their condition might have been on that steamer, experiencing the same fate as its innocent pa.s.sengers. This imagination had made him feel so intense a wrath that he even mistrusted his own self-control on the day that he should again encounter German sailors in any port.... And Ferragut, an honorable man, a good captain whose praises every one was sounding, could he possibly aid in transplanting such horrors as these to the Mediterranean?...

Poor Toni!... He did not know how to express himself properly, but the very possibility that his beloved sea might witness such crimes gave new vehemence to his indignation. The soul of Doctor Ferragut appeared to be reviving in this rude Mediterranean sailor. He had never seen the white Amphitrite, but he trembled for her with a religious fervor, without even knowing her. Was the luminous blue from which had arisen the early G.o.ds to be dishonored by the oily spot that would disclose a.s.sa.s.sination _en ma.s.se_!... Were the rosy strands from whose foam Venus had sprung to receive cl.u.s.ters of corpses, impelled by the waves!... Were the sea-gull wings of the fis.h.i.+ng-boats to flee panic-stricken before those gray sharks of steel!... Were his family and neighbors to be terrified, on awakening, by this floating cemetery washed to their doors during the night!...

He was thinking all this, he was seeing it; but not succeeding in expressing it, so he limited himself to insisting upon his protest:

"No!... I won't tolerate it in our sea!"

Ferragut, in spite of his impetuous character, now adopted a conciliatory tone like that of a father who wishes to convince his scowling and stubborn son.

The German submersibles would confine themselves, in the Mediterranean, to military actions only. There was no danger of their attacking defenseless barks as in the northern seas. Their drastic exploits there had been imposed by circ.u.mstances, by the sincere desire of terminating the war as quickly as possible, by giving terrifying and unheard-of blows.

"I a.s.sure you that in our sea there will be nothing of that sort.

People who ought to know have told me so.... If that had not been the case, I should not have promised to give them aid."

He affirmed this several times in good faith, with absolute confidence in the people who had given him their promise.

"They will sink, if they can, the s.h.i.+ps of the Allies that are in the Dardanelles. But what does that matter to us?... That is war! When we were carrying cannons and guns to the revolutionists in South America we did not trouble ourselves about the use which they might make of them, did we?"

Toni persisted in his negative.

"It is not the same thing.... I don't know how to express myself, but it is not the same. There, cannon can be answered by cannon. He who strikes also receives blows.... But to aid the submarines is a very different thing. They attack, hidden, without danger.... And I, for my part, do not like treachery."

Finally his mate's insistence exasperated Ferragut, exhausting his enforced good nature.

"We will say no more about it," he said haughtily. "I am the captain and I command as I see fit.... I have given my promise, and I am not going to break it just to please you.... We have finished."

Toni staggered as though he had just received a blow on the breast. His eyes shone again, becoming moist. After a long period of reflection, he held out his s.h.a.ggy right hand to the captain.

"Good-by, Ulysses!..."

He could not obey, and a sailor who takes disrespectful exception to the orders of his chief must leave the s.h.i.+p. In no other boat could he ever live as in the _Mare Nostrum_. Perhaps he might not get another job, perhaps the other captains might not like him, considering him to have grown too habituated to excessive familiarity. But, if it should be necessary, he would again become the skipper of a little coast-trader.... Good-by! He would not sleep on board that night.

Ferragut was very indignant, even yelling angrily:

"But, don't be such a barbarian!... What a stubborn fool you are!...

What do these exaggerated scruples amount to?..."

Then he smiled malignly and said in a low tone, "You know already what we know, and I know very well that in your youth you carried contraband."