On certain evenings we go to sleep on land. Friend of those who frequent her, the sea is execrated by the women who live on her shores; their mourning is harsh and bitter. War adds tenfold to their anxieties. Our comrades who left at the beginning of August suffered an uprooting that was short and sharp. We, who have remained too long, run the gamut of anxious concern. For those men from my cruiser who meet feminine affection on shore, each moment holds an unknown torture. Between a sob and a caress passes the phantom of naval hecatombs. Beneath his lowered eyelids the sailor sees his future glory, but the arms clasped about his breast are an embrace of despair. A sunset, a walk between dusty hedges or over fragrant grass--everything suggests agitation and dread. Eye and ear acquire a mysterious perceptivity. One longs to retain, like a viaticum, the voices of loved ones in their most inconsequential inflections. We can bid farewell to France, for the treasures of our hearts have been wrung dry. To this feeling the sadness of the news from the front adds poignancy. When in the morning the officers study the map of operations, brought up to date according to the communiqué, a profound silence falls over the salon of the _Waldeck-Rousseau_. We cannot believe this sweep over Belgium, this tidal wave over the French provinces. We wish to depart, to do no matter what, to work, to die. Under our feet the cruiser trembles, our own child, our friend, our master. Each hour of delay irritates us. We are indifferent about the road to victory. Painful and tragic as it is, all Frenchmen accept it, and the sailors about to leave cherish no other thought. The other day, while a crew of gunners were loading shells charged with melinite, I overheard this exclamation from a man whose brawny arms held a yellow projectile: “Gawd! Why don’t they just use shells stuffed with sawdust? It wouldn’t take any more than that to give them theirs!” I doubt if this war will be won in so childish a manner. But it is pleasant for an officer to command such children. PART II IN THE ADRIATIC _Adriatic Sea, 25 September._ The ships keep shelter in Pola and Cattaro, and will not come out! There is nothing Austrian in sight except the names on the maps and the silent coasts. We continue, however, to sail along the shore, we brave their submarines, their mines, their torpedo-boats. Like the knights of the Crusades challenging their adversaries, we go to offer ourselves to their attack. But they do not issue forth. Like a great army corps that waits the engagement, the armored squadrons run the barrage of Otranto. They are the lions of our naval menagerie. Claws sheathed, jaws closed, they strain their ears for the call of the cruisers.... In small groups the torpedo-destroyers circle round them, sweeping the road where the great beasts of battle are about to pass, and watching to see that no submarine is prowling on the path.