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the swarming commerce in the river below, and I was getting sicker and sicker, but I wouldn't admit it to Harold. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer and I said, “Harold, I'm sick. I've got to get back to the hotel,” and Harold said, “Thank God, so am I.” We wouldn't tell each other. We both had a beautiful attack of dysentery which laid us up for 24 hours. We were darned if we'd tell each other!

At Istanbul we picked up the assistant managing editor of the New York Times, a fellow named Harvey Getzloe, who was going our way, and the three of us booked on a Russian freighter from Istanbul to Odessa. It was scheduled to sail on a Wednesday night, as I recall. The boat was called the Novorosisk, a name we had never heard of before, but where there was a famous battle fought later in World War II. We boarded the boat Wednesday night, but we didn't sail till Saturday afternoon! They were expecting a cargo of olives, and they wouldn't sail without it. It was an overnight trip to Odessa. We took one look at our cabin and spent the night up on deck.

Harvey Getzloe had a Russian wife. She was a white Russian. He spoke a few words of Russian. Harold and I didn't know one word of Russian. But the crew was wonderful. The Russians are wonderful people, you know. We became friends with them while we were waiting for the olives. We didn't care. We had all the time in the world. So did everybody else. By the time we did sail we had made friends with the captain, too, and we were invited to dinner with him and his crew when we sailed. They danced with each other. There were no women.