CHAPTER XVII SOFIA, SALONIKA, AND SO TO BED Stimulated by the knowledge that Varna was occupied by the British we walked the decks openly, flaunting our protean rôles of British officers, highly contented men, first-class passengers, and third-class scarecrows. Like the _Batoum_, the Red Cross ship brought others who began the voyage as semi-stowaways. Commodore Wolkenau had told us in Odessa that among our shipmates would be a certain General from Denikin's army. We found him--a tall, bearded, Grand-Duke-Nicholas-like man--dining in the second-class saloon, and wearing a suit of clothes nearly as shabby as our own. To dodge investigation by the Austrian port authorities he had assumed, with the connivance of the ship's captain, the character of an engineer's mate. The "engineer" who owned him as mate was in reality a commander of the Russian Imperial Navy, also attached to Denikin's forces. The pair of them were travelling to Salonika, as emissaries of General Denikin, to ask the Franco-British command for arms, ammunition, and financial support. Another fellow-passenger was a former lieutenant of the Russian navy, who, since the German occupation of Sevastopol, had been acting as an agent of the Allies. He carried a complete list of the German and Austrian ships and submarines in the Black Sea, and details of the coast defences. The three days' voyage was uneventful. The Black Sea remained at its smoothest. A pleasant sun harmonized with the good-will and friendliness of all on board, and with our deep content, as we continued to tread on air and impatient expectation. A Bulgarian destroyer pranced out to meet us, and led the vessel through the devious minefields and into the miniature, toy-like harbour of Varna. The Bulgarian authorities imposed a four days' quarantine upon all passengers; but the general, the naval commander, and the Franco-British agent joined with us in avoiding this delay by sending ashore a collective note to the French naval officer who controlled the port. As at Odessa, we rowed ashore with our complete luggage wrapped in two newspapers, each of which contained a toothbrush, a revolver, some cartridges, a comb, a razor, a spare shirt, a spare collar, and a few handkerchiefs. Outside the docks a British trooper in dusty khaki, shoulder-badged with the name of a famous yeomanry regiment, passed at a gallop. The sight of him sent an acute thrill through me, for he was a symbol of all that I had missed since the day when I woke up to find myself pinned beneath the wreck of an aeroplane, on a hillside near Shechem. White looked after him, hungrily. He had been among the Turks for three years, and since capture this was his first sight of a British Tommy on duty. "How about it?" I asked. "I don't know. Somehow it makes me feel nohow in general, and anyhow in particular."