Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 50

A swift flame flashed out, followed by a report. They were already shooting at him. Other little lights began to twinkle from different sides of the dock, followed by reports of a gun. It was a sharp cross-fire; behind him, they were firing, too. He felt various whistlings near his ears, and received a blow on the shoulder,--a sensation like that from a hot stone.

They were going to kill him. His enemies were too many for him. And, without knowing exactly what he was doing, yielding to instinct, he threw himself on the ground like a dying person.

Some few shots were still sounding. Then all was silent. Only on the nearby s.h.i.+p the dog was continuing its howling.

He saw a shadow advancing slowly toward him. It was a man, one of his enemies, coming out from the group in order to examine him at close range. He let him come close up to him, with his right hand grasping his revolver still intact.

Suddenly he raised his arm, striking the head that was bending over him. Two lightning streaks flashed from his hand, separated by a brief interval. The first flitting blaze of fire made him see a familiar face.... Was it really Karl, the doctor's factotum?... The second explosion aided his memory. Yes, it was Karl, with his features disfigured by a black gash in the temple.... The German pulled himself up with an agonizing shudder, then fell on his back, with his arms relaxed.

This vision was instantaneous. The captain must think only of himself now, and springing up with a bound, he ran and ran, bending himself double, in order to offer the enemy the least possible mark.

He dreaded a general discharge, a hail of bullets; but his pursuers hesitated a few moments, confused in the darkness and not knowing surely whether it was the captain who had fallen a second time.

Only upon seeing a man running toward the s.h.i.+p did they recognize their error, and renew their shots. Ferragut pa.s.sed between the b.a.l.l.s along the edge of the wharf, the whole length of the _Mare Nostrum_. His salvation was now but a matter of seconds provided that the crew had not drawn in the gangplank between the steamer and the sh.o.r.e.

Suddenly he found himself on the gangplank, at the same time seeing a man advancing toward him with something gleaming in one hand. It was the mate who had just come out with his knife drawn.

The captain feared that he might make a mistake.

"Toni, it is I," he said in a voice almost breathless because of the effort of his running.

Upon treading the deck of his vessel, he instantly recovered his tranquillity.

Already the shots had ceased and the silence was ominous. In the distance could be heard whistlings, cries of alarm, the noise of running. The Carabineers and guards were called and grouped together in order to charge in the dark, marching toward the spot where the shooting had sounded.

"Haul in the gangplank!" ordered Ferragut.

The mate aided three of the hands who had just come up to retire the gangplank hastily. Then he threatened the dog, to make it cease howling.

Ferragut, near the railing, scanned carefully the darkness of the quay.

It seemed to him that he could see some men carrying another in their arms. A remnant of his wrath made him raise his right hand, still armed, aiming at the group. Then he lowered it again.... He remembered that officers would be coming to investigate the occurrence. It was better that they should find the boat absolutely silent.

Still panting, he entered the saloon under the p.o.o.p and sat down.

As soon as he was within the circle of pale light that a hanging lamp spread upon the table Toni fixed his glance on his left shoulder.

"Blood!..."

"It's nothing.... Merely a scratch. The proof of it is that I can move my arm."

And he moved it, although with a certain difficulty, feeling the weight of an increasing swelling.

"By-and-by I'll tell you how it happened.... I don't believe they'll be anxious to repeat it."

Then he remained thoughtful for an instant.

"At any rate, it's best for us to get away from this port quickly....

Go and see our men. Not one of them is to speak about it!... Call Caragol."

Before Toni could go out, the s.h.i.+ning countenance of the cook surged up out of the obscurity. He was on his way to the saloon, without being called, anxious to know what had occurred, and fearing to find Ferragut dying. Seeing the blood, his consternation expressed itself with maternal vehemence.

"_Cristo del Grao!_... My captain's going to die!..."

He wanted to run to the galley in search of cotton and bandages. He was something of a quack doctor and always kept things necessary for such cases.

Ulysses stopped him. He would accept his services, but he wished something more.

"I want to eat, Uncle Caragol," he said gayly. "I shall be content with whatever you have.... Fright has given me an appet.i.te."

CHAPTER XI

"FAREWELL, I AM GOING TO DIE"

When Ferragut left Barcelona the wound in his shoulder was already nearly healed. The rotund negative given by the captain and his pilot to the questions of the Carabineers freed them from further annoyance.

They "knew nothing,--had seen nothing." The captain received with feigned indifference the news that the dead body of a man had been found that very night,--a man who appeared to be a German, but without papers, without anything that a.s.sured his identification,--on a dock some distance from the berth occupied by the _Mare Nostrum_. The authorities had not considered it worth while to investigate further, cla.s.sifying it as a simple struggle among refugees.

Provisioning the troops of the Orient obliged Ferragut, in the months following, to sail as part of a convoy. A cipher dispatch would sometimes summon him to Ma.r.s.eilles, at others to an Atlantic port,--Saint-Nazaire, Quiberon, or Brest.

Every few days s.h.i.+ps of different cla.s.s and nationality were arriving.

There were those that displayed their aristocratic origin by the fine line of the prow, the slenderness of the smokestacks and the still white color of their upper decks: they were like the high-priced steeds that war had transformed into simple beasts of battle. Former mail-packets, swift racers of the waves, had descended to the humble service of transport boats. Others, black and dirty, with the pitchy plaster of hasty reparation and a consumptive smokestack on an enormous hull, plowed along, coughing smoke, spitting ashes, panting with the jangle of old iron. The flags of the Allies and those of the neutral navies waved on the different s.h.i.+ps. Reuniting, they formed a convoy in the broad bay. There were fifteen or twenty steamers, sometimes thirty, which had to navigate together, adjusting their different speeds to a common pace. The cargo boats, merchant steamers that made only a few knots an hour, exacted a desperate slowness of the rest of the convoy.

The _Mare Nostrum_ had to sail at half speed, making its captain very impatient with these monotonous and dangerous peregrinations, extending over weeks and weeks.

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 doc.u.ment 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p.

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 sh.e.l.ls would wound the desert water with a las.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.body but an old sailor of masterful character.

Because of all this he announced to the maritime authorities, on one of his arrivals at Ma.r.s.eilles, his firm intention of not sailing any more in this fas.h.i.+on. 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.