o the motor-boats, and sometimes a squad of
marines lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French or
English flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute. So crowded
was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.

Close to the stone quay, stretched along the three-mile circle, were
the fishing smacks, beyond them, so near that the anchor chains fouled,
were the passenger ships with gigantic Greek flags painted on their
sides, and beyond them transports from Marseilles, Malta, and Suvla
Bay, black colliers, white hospital ships, burning green electric
lights, red-bellied tramps and freighters, and, hemming them in, the
grim, mouse-colored destroyers, submarines, cruisers, dreadnaughts. At
times, like a wall, the cold fog rose between us and the harbor, and
again the curtain would suddenly be ripped asunder, and the sun would
flash on the brass work of the fleet, on the white wings of the
aeroplanes, on the snow-draped shoulders of Mount Olympus. We often
speculated as to how in the early days the gods and goddesses, dressed
as they were, or as they were not, survived the snows of Mount Olympus.
Or was it only their resort for the summer?

It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one might
obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to cable for
money. So, we had many strange visitors, some half starved, half
frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail, of the Austrian
prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain passes heaped with
dead, of the doctors and nurses wading waist-high in snow-drifts and
for food killing the ponies. Some of our visitors wanted to get their
names in the American papers so that the folks at home would know they
were still alive, others wanted us to keep their names out of the
papers, hoping the police would think them dead; another, convinced it
was of pressing news value, desired us to advertise the fact that he
had invented a poisonous gas for use in the trenches. With difficulty
we prevented him from casting it adrift in our room. Or, he had for
sale a second-hand motor-cycle, or he would accept a position as
barkeeper, or for five francs would sell a state secret that, once made
public, in a month would end the war. It seemed cheap at the price.

Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the Turkish
bath rumor, the cafe rumor. Some of our scouts journeyed as far afield
as Monastir and Doiran, returning