Читать книгу By-ways on Service: Notes from an Australian Journal онлайн

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Their wives and mothers incontinently came to the wharf to see them leave. Poor fellows! Poor women! They wailed as the women of Israel wail in Scripture, as only Israelitish women can wail. The Egyptian police kept them back with a simulated harshness, and supported them from falling. Many were physically helpless. Their men broke into a melancholy chant as we moved off, and sustained it, as the ship passed out over the laughing water, until we reached the outer-harbour. They got frolicsome soon, and forgot their women's weeping. We stood steadily out into the rich blue Mediterranean. The Zionites fell to the care of their beasts. By the time the level western rays burned on the blue we had the geography of the ship, and had ceased speculation as to the geography of our destination—except in its detail. We knew we should run up through the Sporades: it was enough for us that we were about to enter the Eastern theatre of war. That was an absorbing prospect. To enter the field of this War at any point was a prospect to set you aglow. But the East had become the cynosure of all eyes. No one thought much about the sporadic duelling in the frozen West. The world's interest in the game was centred about the Black Sea entrance. It was the Sick Man of Europe in his stronghold that should be watched: is he to persist in his noisome existence, or is the community of Europe to be cleansed of him for ever?