From Salonica we went to the Piræus, Salamis, and all around there to deliver spare stores and supplies to the ships of the Fleet: screws, boiler-tubes, electric cables, torpedoes, sheet-iron, and tools--a regular hardware shop! We went from one anchorage to another, spitting out a few tons here and a few there, and picking up scraps of stories about the 1st of December at Athens, first-hand, all of them. Don’t expect, though, that I will blab any of it to you. The mails aren’t safe. But it isn’t the things that really happen that count--it’s what is said officially. Fourgues maintains that it’s very philosophical: only the official folks have any interest in telling lies for their own protection and they’re the only people who are believed. He adds that this war, no matter where you turn, is the Triumph of the Lie! He’s got a way of hitting things off just so! While the _Pamir_ was making her little Odyssey (Villiers’ expression) in the Greek ports, we three asked ourselves again of what use those great warships were, with their thousands of crew and their enormous guns. If it’s for our prestige in the East, one day like the 1st of December can wipe out the effect of a thousand battleships. If it’s for a Naval battle, then against whom? The Austrians? In that case there’s no need to keep more than twice as many ships as the Austrians have, and it would be better to dismantle the other French ships which are devouring coal and stupefying tens of thousands of sailors with idleness who would be much better on trawlers and little patrol-boats. With one great useless ship they could arm ten or fifteen that would be of some use. If all they want is to give the Boches targets worth shooting at when the big ships go for refit to France or Bizerta--why not Kamchatka?--when Italy is close by, we can understand. But it doesn’t concern me, of course, and, indeed, I have enough with the _Pamir_ and navigation.