The Commander-in-Chief has cheered our dejection. The mission which takes us to Saloniki will take us later to Marseilles. That at least is the hope contained in our instructions. And we will be allowed to take a rest while we are in France. Everyone builds visions, calculates the time, and persuades himself that the Christmas holidays will find him again with his family. Already fathers seem to be caressing the fair heads of their children before the fireplace, husbands and lovers are trembling with a grave joy at the thought of this homeward voyage, a simple enough episode in our vagabond career, but charged with emotion because of the suffering of yesterday and the dangers of to-morrow. No one, however, dares complete these castles in Spain; too many miscalculations have marked our existence, as it is. As for me, who for eleven years have passed no single Christmas Eve in France, can I believe that a freak of war will grant me this happiness denied me by peace? While we wait, each turn of the screws takes us further from France. Sparta, Cythera, the Cyclades, Corinth and the Piræus; these are the names which the officer of the watch gives to the lands that in turn come to salute us from the horizon. At the end of the map are marked the Dardanelles and Constantinople, other boundaries of this world war. Our cruiser has left the regions of danger in the Adriatic, and advances as fast as possible towards the waspish Turk. We move among beautiful scenery. Our eyes seek out a lighthouse on some island of celebrated name; our lips pronounce the name of some cape which the poets have made famous; we maneuver our engines and helm in an archipelago of tabernacles: Cythera, the temple of Venus, and Delos, the homeland of Apollo; Sparta, with austere countenance, and Athens, the rose of antiquity. Why cannot the sailor enjoy this dry, pure December weather? Under his feet the noble cruiser quivers. During his lookout, he smokes a light fragrant cigaret, and his thoughts, fluid like these pale curls of smoke, in happier times would have drifted back to the legendary epochs of old. But no human evil darkens the shining skies. For Austrian or Turk we must not cease to watch. I do not dream of complaining of that, for undoubtedly these hours portend violent homesickness for me. _Gulf of Saloniki, 7 December._ According to the schedule of watches I am in charge of the entry into the Gulf of Saloniki. From two to six o’clock in the morning I have directed the ship in this funnel of water, without lighthouses, with treacherous currents, at the end of which lies the much coveted city, that apple of discord between the Eastern peoples.