Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 37

"I believe that he has gone by railroad," said one of the clerks.

Another of the office force supported his companion's supposition with a positive affirmation in order to attract the attention of his chief.

He was sure of his departure by land. He himself had helped him to calculate what the trip to Barcelona would cost him.

Ferragut did not wish to know more. He must get away as soon as possible. This inexplicable voyage of his son filled him with remorse and immeasurable alarm. He wondered what could have occurred in his home....

The director of the offices pointed out to him a French steamer from Suez that was sailing that very afternoon to Ma.r.s.eilles, and took upon himself all the arrangements concerning his pa.s.sage and recommendation to the captain. There only remained four hours before the boat's departure, and Ulysses, after collecting his valises and sending them aboard, took a last stroll through all the places where he had lived with Freya. Adieu, gardens of the _Villa n.a.z.ionale_ and white Aquarium!... Farewell, _albergo_!...

His son's mysterious presence in Naples had intensified his disgust at the German girl's flight. He thought sadly of lost love, but at the same time he thought with dolorous suspense of what might greet him when reentering his home.

A little before sunset the French steamer weighed anchor. It had been many years since Ulysses had sailed as a simple pa.s.senger. Entirely out of his element, he wandered over the decks and among the crowds of tourists. Force of habit drew him to the bridge, talking with the captain and the officers, who from his very first words recognized his professional genius.

Realizing that he was no more than an intruder in this place, and annoyed at finding himself on a bridge from which he could not give a single order, he descended to the lower decks, examining the groups of pa.s.sengers. They were mostly French, coming from Indo-China. On prow and p.o.o.p there were quartered four companies of Asiatic sharpshooters,--little, yellowish, with oblique eyes and voices like the miauling of cats. They were going to the war. Their officers lived in the staterooms in the center of the s.h.i.+p, taking with them their families who had aquired a foreign aspect during their long residence in the colonies.

Ulysses saw ladies clad in white stretched out on their steamer chairs, having themselves fanned by their little Chinese pages; he saw bronzed and weather-beaten soldiers who appeared disgusted yet galvanized by the war that was s.n.a.t.c.hing them from their Asiatic siesta, and children,--many children--delighted to go to France, the country of their dreams, forgetting in their happiness that their fathers were probably going to their death.

The pa.s.sage could not have been smoother. The Mediterranean was like a silver plain in the moonlight. From the invisible coast came warm puffs of garden perfumes. The groups on deck reminded one another, with selfish satisfaction, of the great dangers that threatened the people embarking in the North Sea, hara.s.sed by German submarines. Fortunately the Mediterranean was free from such calamity. The English had so well guarded the port of Gibraltar that it was all a tranquil lake dominated by the Allies.

Before going to bed, the captain entered a room on the upper deck where was installed the wireless telegraph outfit. The hissing as of frying oil that the apparatus was sending out attracted him. The operator, a young Englishman, took off his nickel band with two earphones. Greatly bored by his isolation, he was trying to distract himself by conversing with the operators on the other vessels that came within the radius of his apparatus. They kept in constant communication like a group of comrades making the same trip and conversing placidly together.

From time to time the operator, advised by the sparking of his induction coils, would put on the diadem with ear pieces in order to listen to his far-away comrades.

"It is the man on the _Californian_ bidding me goodnight," he said after one of these calls. "He is going to bed. There's no news."

And the young man eulogized Mediterranean navigation. At the outbreak of the war, he had been on another vessel going from London to New York and he recalled the unquiet nights, the days of anxious vigilance, searching the sea and the atmosphere, fearing from one moment to another the appearance of a periscope upon the waters, or the electric warning of a steamer torpedoed by the submarine. On this sea, one could live as tranquilly as in times of peace.

Ferragut suspected that the poor operator was very anxious to enjoy the delights of such tranquillity. His companion in service was snoring in a nearby cabin and he was anxious to imitate him, putting his head down on the table of the apparatus.... "Until to-morrow!"

The captain also fell asleep as soon as he had stretched himself out on the narrow ledge in his stateroom. His sleep was all in one piece, gloomy and complete, without sudden surprises or visions. Just as he was feeling that only a few moments had pa.s.sed by, he was violently awakened as though some one had given him a shove. In the dim light he could make out only the round gla.s.s of the port hole, tenuously blue and veiled by the humidity of the maritime dew, like a tearful eye.

Day was breaking and something extraordinary had just occurred on the boat. Ferragut was accustomed to sleep with the lightness of a captain who needs to awaken opportunely. A mysterious perception of danger had cut short his repose. He distinguished over his head the patter of quick runnings the whole length of the deck; he heard voices. While dressing as quickly as possible he realized that the rudder was working violently, and that the vessel was changing its course.

Coming up on deck, one glance was sufficient to convince him that the s.h.i.+p was not running any danger. Everything about it presented a normal aspect. The sea, still dark, was gently lapping the sides of the vessel which continued going forward with regular motion. The decks were cleared of pa.s.sengers. They were all sleeping in their staterooms. Only on the bridge he saw a group of persons:--the captain and all the officers, some of them dressed very lightly as though they had been roused from slumber.

Pa.s.sing by the wireless office, he obtained an explanation of the matter. The youth of the night before was near the door and his companion was now wearing the head phone and tapping the keys of the apparatus, listening and replying to invisible boats.

An half hour before, just as the English operator was going off guard and giving place to his just awakened companion, a signal had kept him in his seat. The _Californian_ was sending out by wireless the danger call, the S.O.S., that is only employed when a s.h.i.+p needs help. Then in the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds a mysterious voice had spread its tragic story over hundreds of miles. A submersible had just appeared a short distance from the _Californian_ and had fired several sh.e.l.ls at it. The English boat was trying to escape, relying on its superior speed. Then the submarine had fired a torpedo....

All this had occurred in twenty minutes. Suddenly the echoes of the distant tragedy were extinguished as the communication was cut off. A prolonged, intense, sibilant buzzing in the apparatus, and--nothing!...

Absolute silence.

The operator now on duty responded with negative movements to his companion's inquiring glances. He could hear nothing but the dialogue between the boats that had received the same warning. They too were alarmed by the sudden silence, and were changing their course going, like the French steamer, toward the place where the _Californian_ had met the submersible.

"Can it be that they are already in the Mediterranean!" the operator exclaimed with astonishment on finis.h.i.+ng his report. "How could the submarines possibly get 'way down here?..."

Ferragut did not dare to go up on the bridge. He was afraid that the glances of those men of the sea might fasten themselves accusingly upon him. He believed that they could read his thoughts.

A pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p had just been sunk at a relatively short distance from the boat on which he was traveling. Perhaps von Kramer was the author of the crime. With good reason he had charged Ulysses to tell his compatriots that they would soon hear of his exploits. And Ferragut had aided in the preparation of this maritime barbarity!...

"What have you done? What have you done?" wrathfully demanded his mental voice of good counsel.

An hour afterward he felt ashamed to remain on deck. In spite of the captain's orders, the news had got out and was circulating among the staterooms. Entire families were rus.h.i.+ng up on deck, frightened out of the calmness usually reigning on the boat, arranging their clothes with precipitation, and struggling to adjust to their bodies the life-preservers which they were trying on for the first time. The children were howling, terrified by the alarm of their parents. Some nervous women were shedding tears without any apparent cause. The boat was going toward the place where the other one had been torpedoed, and that was enough to make the alarmists imagine that the enemy would remain absolutely motionless in the same place, awaiting their arrival in order to repeat their attack.

Hundreds of eyes were fixed on the sea, scrutinizing the surface of the waves, believing every object which they saw,--bits of wood, seaweed or crates floating on the surface of the water,--to be the top of a periscope.

The officials of the battalion of snipers had gone to prow and p.o.o.p in order to maintain discipline among their men. But the Asiatics, scornful of death, had not abandoned their serene apathy. Some merely looked out over the sea with a childish curiosity, anxious to become acquainted with this new diabolical toy, invented by the superior races. On the decks reserved for first cla.s.s pa.s.sengers astonishment was as great as the uneasiness.

"Submarines in the Mediterranean!... But is it possible?..."

Those last to awake appeared very incredulous and could only be convinced of what had occurred when they heard the news from the boat's crew.

Ferragut wandered around like a soul in torment. Remorse made him hide himself in his stateroom. These people with their complaints and their comments were causing him great annoyance. Soon he found that he could not remain in this isolation. He needed to see and to know,--like a criminal who returns to the place where he has committed his crime.

At midday they began to see on the horizon various little clouds. They were the s.h.i.+ps hastening from all sides, attracted by this unexpected attack.

The French boat that was sailing ahead of them suddenly moderated its speed. They had come into the zone of the s.h.i.+pwreck. In the lookouts were sailors exploring the sea and shouting the orders that guided the steamer's course. During these evolutions, there began to slip past the vessel's sides the remains of the tragic event.

The two rows of heads lined up on the different decks saw life preservers floating by empty, a boat with its keel in the air, and bits of wood belonging to a raft evidently constructed in great haste and never finished.

Suddenly a howl from a thousand voices, followed by a funereal silence.... The body of a woman lying on some planks pa.s.sed by. One of her legs was thrust into a gray silk stocking, her head was hanging on the opposite side, spreading its blonde locks over the water like a bunch of gilded seaweed.

Her firm and juvenile bust was visible through the opening of a drenched nightgown which was outlining her body with unavoidable immodesty. She had been surprised by the s.h.i.+pwreck at the very moment that she had been trying to dress; perhaps terror had made her throw herself into the sea. Death had twisted her face with a horrible contraction, exposing the teeth. One side of her face was swollen from some blow.

Looking over the shoulders of two ladies who were trembling and leaning against the deck-railing, Ferragut caught a glimpse of this corpse. In his turn the vigorous sailor trembled like a woman, and his eyes filmed with mistiness. He simply could not look at it!... And again he went down into his stateroom to hide himself.

An Italian torpedo-destroyer was maneuvering among the remains of the s.h.i.+pwreck, as though seeking the footprints of the author of the crime.

The steamers stopped their circular course of exploration to lower the lifeboats into the water and collect the corpses and bodies of the living near to death.

The captain in his desperate imprisonment heard new shrieks announcing an extraordinary event. Again the cruel necessity of knowing what it could be dragged him from his stateroom!

A boat full of people had been found by the steamer. The other s.h.i.+ps were also meeting little by little the rest of the life boats occupied by the survivors of the catastrophe. The general rescue was going to be a very short piece of work.

The most agile of the s.h.i.+pwrecked people, on reaching the deck, found themselves surrounded by sympathetic groups lamenting their misfortune and at the same time offering them hot drinks. Others, after staggering a few steps as though intoxicated, collapsed on the benches. Some had to be hoisted from the bottom of the boat and carried in a chair to the s.h.i.+p's hospital.

Various British soldiers, serene and phlegmatic, upon climbing on deck asked for a pipe and began to smoke vigorously. Other s.h.i.+pwrecked people, lightly clad, simply rolled themselves up in shawls, beginning the account of the catastrophe as minutely and serenely as though they were in a parlor. A period of ten hours in the crowded narrowness of the boat, drifting at random in the hope of aid, had not broken down their energy.

The women showed greater desperation. Ferragut saw in the center of a group of ladies a young English girl, blond, slender, elegant, who was sobbing and stammering explanations. She had found herself in a launch, separated from her parents, without knowing how. Perhaps they were dead by this time. Her slight hope was that they might have sought refuge in some other boat and been picked up by any one of the steamers that had happened to see them.

A desperate grief, noisy, meridional, silenced with its meanings the noise of conversation. There had just climbed aboard a poor Italian woman carrying a baby in her arms.

"_Figlia mia_!... _Mia figlia_!..." she was wailing with disheveled hair and eyes swollen by weeping.

In the moment of the s.h.i.+pwreck she had lost a little girl, eight years old, and upon finding herself in the French steamer, she went instinctively toward the prow in search of the same spot which she had occupied on the other s.h.i.+p, as though expecting to find her daughter there. Her agonized voice penetrated down the stairway: "_Figlia mia_!... _Mia figlia!_"

Ulysses could not stand it. That voice hurt him, as though its piercing cry were clawing at his brain.

He approached a group in the center of which was a young barefooted lad in trousers and s.h.i.+rt open at the breast who was talking and talking, wrapping himself from time to time in a shawl that some one had placed upon his shoulders.

He was describing in a mixture of French and Italian the loss of the _Californian_.