The odyssey of a torpedoed tramp

You must be wondering what has become of me in this unholy mix-up. How far it seems to our Fourteenth of July in New Orleans when we said good-bye at the Dollar Bar after a cake-walk to the sound of the gramophone! Here goes for my tale of woe.

Well, the Pamir was loading her cotton--five thousand bales--up to the twenty-fifth of July. It was hottish and we were in a hurry to clear for Liverpool and find cooler weather. The news, too, seemed a bit inflammable. American papers were getting up stunts in big headlines over Serbia and the rest, but we thought it a “try-on” of the pro-German press and the Hearst crowd. You guess we were glad to be going to see what was happening in France and what the old things thought about it.

We got under way at 2 a.m. At the start a d---- great sea-elephant just missed ramming us, but the Old Man steered like a wizard. I took the watch at three o’clock for Blangy, who was having a touch of fever and had been loading up with quinine for two days.

The ship nearly had sunstroke in the Gulf! Ninety-five on the bridge, one hundred and four in the cabin--not a breath of wind! In the Atlantic it freshened up a bit and Blangy reported fit again.

The boat was doing ten knots and a bittock, but at the end of three days our engine started racing like the very devil. The propeller shaft broke off short about a yard from the thrust block. We must have run into a submerged spar which had fouled the screw. It wouldn’t surprise me if a chunk of the propeller had gone to the bottom.

No good trying the S.O.S. stunt, as we have no wireless! Muriac, the engineer, was a wonder. He found some way of forging on our wretched anvil a couple of steel collars which he fixed on to the two broken ends of the shaft with eight bolts. That took two days. You can imagine how Old Man Fourgues cursed to see himself a-floatin’ like a bloomin’ buoy in the middle of the sea. You figure him, with his slant eyes and his goatee, shouting down the engine-room hatch every five minutes:

“Hullo there! Muriac! Will your turnspit be ready to turn by the time the grapes are ripe?”

“Another hour--maybe two!” yells Muriac. “But for God’s sake leave us alone!”

We got under way again after having drifted fifty miles to the west. Fourgues was afraid the engines would not run to more than ten knots, but the shaft was stronger than ever.

This delayed us considerably. On the night of the seventh of August we entered the Irish Channel and looked for lights. Search me! I had the watch and for three hours Fourgues blackguarded me like the expert he is, because I could not see a lighthouse or any other kind of light!

“What have I done to have a blind man like this? Get a new set of eyes! Run her aground! Shove her up against it! Get nice and close! You may see the lighthouses then. You’ll have made us lose three hours. This trip will never end!”

He couldn’t see the lighthouses any more than I and that was why he was making such a row about it. We had got almost near enough to touch land; you could see it, like a wharf--but devil a light anywhere!--when, all of a sudden, a craft going at full speed over-hauled us! It only showed lights at intervals. It kept its position as we could see it to port. I kept on my course. Bang! Bang! The ship fired twice with blank.

“The devil!” said Fourgues. “We have struck destroyers at practice. There must be others. Keep your weather eye skinned, my boy.”

I did! Bang! A shell fell ten yards ahead of us. The destroyer came up and yelled through the megaphone:

“Stop! Or we’ll sink you!”

Sir, we stopped! The destroyer came closer still. We could see nothing except a red hot cinder or so now and then.

“Who are you?”

“_Pamir_, French cargo-boat with cotton from America for Liverpool. Why do you stop us?”

“Oh! You’re French, are you?”

“Yes!”

“Right-oh! War’s declared!”

“By G----!” cried Fourgues and I at the same time and he fell on me and hugged me.

“_Ça y est_, my boy! We are having it out with the Boches!”

“What are you going to do?” yelled the destroyer.

“Go back to France!” answered Fourgues immediately, and added:

“Is England with us?”

“You bet!”

“Hurrah!” cried Fourgues. “Hard a-starboard and full speed for H----. We’ll report to the Admiralty.”

The destroyer accompanied us a little way and finally left us, calling:

“Good-bye and good luck!”

“Thanks. Same to you!”

You can’t deny it, Fourgues is a brick! No hesitation about his turning back to France! He slapped me on the back, offered me a cigar, and joked on the bridge.

“No wonder there weren’t any lights! It’s likely we’d show the Huns the way! Tumble down, my boy, and tell Muriac and Blangy. Rout them out if they are asleep. My word, won’t they stare! Send them to the bridge and bring up a bottle of fizz. My treat!”

Blangy and Muriac didn’t faint; the guns had awakened them, but they supposed it was manœuvres.

“Not pulling our legs?” they both said.

“No, to H---- with pull-legs. The Old Man will tell you.”

Every one embraced every one else. No one thought of sleep. On the bridge Fourgues tried to pour the champagne, but he spilled it on our hands in the dark, he was trembling so with excitement. We drank what was left.

“With all this,” he said, “we don’t know when the thing started. Pretty fools we look without wireless or anything! We might have butted into the Boches! However, all’s well. Decent chaps, the English, to be on our side. What should we have done if they had left us in the lurch?”

“What about the Russians?” queried Muriac.

“They’re all right!” said Fourgues. “We are all going in together.”