“You’ll see, my boy. They’ll make us unload all that and go back for coal.” He doesn’t like coal because, he says, although it keeps the teeth white and is good for the stomach, you can’t have clean shirts and handkerchiefs with it. But we were sent to Oran to make up our cargo with shoes, blankets, and all sorts of clothing. They must be absolutely on their beam-ends in Montenegro. Finally the _Pamir_ spent several hours at Bizerta, taking in petrol for the Montenegrin army. Though we did not loaf around anywhere, all this took time, and at the worst time of the year, too. I could never have believed that the Mediterranean was so bad. It is worse than the Atlantic and the China Sea: rain or wind, wind or rain, and a choppy sea all the time. Fourgues takes it all in the day’s work and laughs at me: “Eh, my boy! You see it’s a mistake to run down the South. The Mediterranean is not much bigger than a cup, but it takes a devilish clever fellow to go up and down it without striking a snag. Now look at that one--and that!” I can understand why there should be waves as high as the funnel where they have space in which to pile up, but to find such waves in the Mediterranean, that beats me. You, old man, have some peace in your turret, but the bridge of the _Pamir_ is seldom dry. Our rendezvous was for ten miles west of Fano and the _Pamir_ arrived about noon. From far off we asked ourselves what on earth was going to happen. We expected to see a destroyer or perhaps a cruiser, but not fifty or sixty of you! We could see the smoke thirty miles away, and all the time other boats kept coming along. It was the first time I had seen the Fleet out in full force, battleships, cruisers, and T.B.D.’s. I won’t deny it, the sight’s a staggerer! I looked for the _Auvergne_, but she wasn’t there. What were you doing? I was so interested watching the wigwagging, the flags, and all the pinnaces going from one ship to another, that I forgot to drop you a line during the half-hour we lay-to in the middle of the lot. I was asking myself what you were all doing there, dead-still and apparently idle, and it was only at the end that I saw the mail-boat which had been hidden by a big cruiser, and understood why there were so many small craft running around. Well, your Admiral isn’t afraid to stay there in broad daylight, all of you together, under the very noses of the Greeks. As soon as we had stopped, a steam launch came for Fourgues and took him aboard the Admiral’s ship, where he didn’t stay fifteen minutes. When he came back, he ran up the ladder in a hurry. “Full steam ahead at once, my boy--due North. Put her behind that destroyer while I read my orders.”