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RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE. BY ETHEL SMYTH,

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SWIFT, STEELE, AND ADDISON. BY J. A. STRAHAN,

493

THE DREAMERS. BY GANPAT,

66

THE FAGS' APPEAL TO GOD. By C. R. L. FLETCHER,

478

THE "GOOD OLD DAYS" IN MOROCCO. BY WALTER B. HARRIS,

729

THE HERITAGE OF THE SUN. BY RAJPUT,

542

THE ISLE OF SAINTS. BY J. A. STRAHAN,

823

THE KING'S PRIZE MONEY. BY GILBERT SINGLETON-GATES,

98

THE LOSS OF THE SAPPHO.

BY H. A. LE F. H.,

301

THE LURE OF SEA CLIFFS. BY LEO WALMSLEY,

THE MAD MULLAH OF BRITISH SOMALILAND. BY D. J. JARDine,
THE OLD SERAGLIO. BY COMMANDER H. C. LUKE, R.N.V.R.,
THE PILGRIM FATHERS. BY THE DEAN OF EXETER,

THE RECENT EVENTS IN ULSTER. BY J. A. STRAHAN,
THE SALVING OF THE ULIDIA. BY DESMOND YOUNG,
THE TERROR BY NIGHT. BY AN IRISHWOMAN,

THE WISDOM OF TI YUNG SENG. BY ST JOHN LUCAS,

"TURKEY FOR THE TURKS." BY JACK LEONARD,

393

108

660

310

354

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YOU CHANGE AT CLAPHAM JUNCTION. BY EVELYNE BUXTON,

710

INDEX,

842

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THE Ulidia was a typical "three-island" tramp steamer -3081 tons grosa; 330 x 42′ x 21', built by Redhead's at Shields in 1903: so much was to be gathered from Lloyd's Register.

For thirteen years she had plodded round the world at eight or nine knots on her lawful occasions, carrying her five thousand tons or so of cargo-a good honest ship for her owners, and a comfortable ship for her officers and orew. It is to be supposed that in those thirteen years she had had her share of the trials and vicissitudes common to all ships; but for me her history began in September 1916 with a sheaf of telegrams in a dusty file at the Salvage Section of the Admiralty-a file entitled "Details of wrecks on the

VOL. CCVIII.-NO. MCCLVII.

I.

Murman Coast and in the White Sea," which I read in April 1919.

It was not one of those "allrecording files" of which it is said

"Every question man can raise,

Every phrase of every phase
Of that question is on record in the
files."

Indeed, the "details" which it professed to give were meagre enough.

From the telegrams and reports, however, it appeared that the Ulidia in September 1916, while loading timber at Soroka, on the south-western shores of the White Sea, had parted her cables in bad weather, and had gone ashore on a patch of rocks in the middle of Soroka Bay. Attempts to lighten her by discharging the cargo already

A

loaded into barges succeeded only in putting her in a worse position, since those responsible omitted to lay out anchors to prevent her driving further up on the rocks as she was lightened.

The Russian ice-breaker service from Archangel then took a hand, and, doubtless with the best intentions, made fast two powerful ice-breakers to the stern-post and endeavoured to tow off the vessel, now damaged and partly filled with water.

Beyond carrying away the stern-post and rudder they achieved nothing, and returned to Archangel. This was the extent of the salvage operations, and there the ship still lay. Two winters in the ice, with the water rising and falling with the tide in the engine room and stokehold and all four holds, two years' exposure to the winter gales in the White Sea, two years' straining and pounding upon the rooks, to say nothing of a passing Bolshevik occupation of Soroka, could hardly be expected to have improved her condition.

Yet, from the first time I read her name, I felt a premonitory interest in her, though I did not realise that for the next six months she was to be a constant preoccupation, an obsession, and often a nightmare to me.

For one thing, various Russians in Archangel, whose names were afterwards familiar enough, but then were only a jumble of consonants at the end of a telegram,

seemed very anxious to buy her as she lay-though, with remarkable unanimity, the prices they offered never rose above about eight thousand pounds.

At the time I knew nothing of Russians—an ignorance which I was not long to enjoy; but it needed no great discernment to see that any one prepared to pay eight thousand pounds for a ship in such a position and such a place must have some reasonable hope of refloating her, and if she could be refloated, her value, at current prices, was nearer to eighty thousand pounds than eight.

The Admiralty Salvage Seotion had themselves done the majority of the possible salvage cases in home waters during the war; but North Russia had necessarily been beyond their beat, although casualties on those unfriendly and often unlighted and badly charted coasts were only too frequent, even before the German submarines came round the North Cape into the Aretio Ocean and thence down to the White Sea. Information as to the actual position and condition of ships wrecked up there was difficult to obtain; for cables were delayed and mutilated, while the Naval and Transport Staffs at Archangel and Murmansk were sufficiently occupied during 1918-when Admiral Kemp and General Ironside were holding on to hundreds of miles of the most desolate country in the world with a few hundred "category" men

Marines, Serbians, French,

1

disloyal Finns, and dejected 46th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, Russians, without concerning the vanguard of the North

themselves with so much of a "side show" as Salvage.

Moreover, ships do not, as a rule, choose the most accessible places to go ashore, even on the British coasts. But on the British coasts it is only a question of a few miles from the nearest town in a car, or a few miles from the nearest port in a tug-boat.

In Russia distances are measured by days. That the information in the file was not exhaustive was therefore disappointing but not surprising, and we soon came to the conclusion that the best course was to go and see on the spot what salvage work there was to be done.

The Admiralty and the Ministry of Shipping were ready to encourage British enterprise, for they had a natural disinclination to dispose of what might still be valuable property for a few thousand pounds to Russians who were, so far, the only prospective buyers, and would not discuss salvage except on the basis that all their expenses should be paid, whatever the results. It was therefore with every kind of official pass, and with the official list of wrecks in my pocket (on which the Ulidia was marked with blue pencil

of the "possibles"), that I left Tilbury on May 31st, 1919, in the Præterian, which, in addition to Cæsar and his prospective fortunes, carried General Sadleir-Jackson and his brigade staff, and the

Russian Relief Force, whose adventures readers of 'Maga' have followed during the past few months.

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At Murmansk-a village of wooden huts built in mud and inhabited by mosquitoes I met a representative from the Admiralty Salvage Section, together with a Russian salvage expert, Captain G., with thirty years' experience in the Baltic.

After an evening's discussion, we came to the conclusion that the Ulidia was the first ship to inspect.

The next evening (June 14th), we took the train from Murmansk for Soroka, vid Kandalaksha and Kem.

The railway had only recently been finished, and, but for the war, it is doubtful whether it would ever have been finished at all, in view of the appalling death-rate from fever of the labourers employed upon its construction. Chinese had been tried, but these died faster even than the native Russians; and it was not until practically unlimited supplies of German and Austrian prisoners were available, who, as they died, could be buried alongside, or incorporated in, the permanent way, that any real progress was made.

It was six months since the armistice, but some of the survivors of these prisoners were still about; whether because they had no means of returning home, or from some incomprehensible preference for Murmansk, I did not discover.

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