I’m sorry I haven’t written for so long, even at New Year. You know that I’ve thought of you, but honestly, I’ve not had time to call my soul my own! If I’m not mistaken my last letter was from Cardiff and we were expecting to leave for the Strait of Otranto. But we got a counter-order. The English fleet need a lot of coalers in the North Sea and is jolly short of them. At the beginning of the war they took for their motto “Business as usual,” and the Bulls let the coaling ships go about their regular jobs so as not to disturb “business.” But as the war kept dragging on, they could no longer guarantee supplies everywhere, so, in short, the _Pamir_ was sent to Senegal, Togoland, and the Cameroons, where there is a Franco-British squadron which needed coal. At first everything went well, but off Cape Finistère we ran into a squall. The _Pamir_ was loaded to the very brim and you should have seen her! The decks were awash for thirty-six hours. The trouble was that the shaft was up to its old tricks, and we saw that the collar repaired at K---- was going to leave us in the lurch in the middle of the gale. Fourgues reduced speed as much as he could without risk of broaching and made for Cadiz to have the collars manufactured by Muriac put in place again. The repairs didn’t go at all smoothly because my men don’t understand a thing about it and I hardly more. We profited by the occasion to lay in water and provisions. Really, it’s not amusing to be a Frenchman in Spain at present. They looked at us out of the corners of their eyes and laughed behind our backs. The Boches have a good footing there, their Government supports them, while Fourgues was pretty badly received. And then all the French had been recalled at the mobilization--there is no one left to represent us. All our affairs there are going to the dogs. The Boches are profiting by this. They are getting ready for the war after the war, seriously. And don’t think for a minute that they all stay there! There are big vessels full of Germans sailing from Barcelona and Cadiz, which go to neutral countries and from there to Germany. We could make a big sweep if we went after them. I hope you’ll tell me if any have been taken. You ought to know. I don’t know much. I have my hands full on board and the papers talk such rot, and then, once you have left land you think of other things. But you only have to walk along the docks there to see the boats sailing with the Boches. With a Secret Service Agent on the spot, France could know the hour and the day of sailing and a warship would bag them as they left Spanish waters.