The Captain came out of his sleeping-cabin as the last chord of the
National Anthem died away on the quarter-deck overhead with the roll of
kettledrums.
"Carry on!" sang the bugle; and the ship's company, their animation
suspended while the colours crept up the jackstaff, proceeded to
"breakfast and clean." The signalman whose duty it was to hoist the
Ensign at 8 a.m. turned up the halliards to his satisfaction, and
departed forward in the wake of the band.
The Captain had "cleaned" already, and his breakfast was on the table
in his fore-cabin. He sat down, glanced at the pile of letters beside
his plate, propped the morning paper against the teapot, and commenced
his meal. He ate with the deliberate slowness of a man accustomed to
having meals in solitude, who has schooled himself not to abuse his
digestion.
As he ate his quick eye travelled over the headlines of the paper,
occasionally concentrating on a paragraph here and there. Ten minutes
sufficed to give him a complete grasp of the day's affairs. The naval
appointments he read carefully. His memory for names and individuals
was unfailing; he never forgot anyone who had served under his command,
and followed the careers of most with interest. His daily private
correspondence, which was large, testified to the fact that not many
forgot him.
Breakfast over, he laid aside the paper, lit a cigarette, and turned
over the little pile of letters, identifying the writers with a glance
at the handwriting on each envelope. Only one was unknown to him: that
he placed last, and carried them into the after-cabin to read, leaning
his shoulder against the mantel of the tiled and brass-bound fireplace.
The first letter he opened was from his wife, and, in consequence, its
contents were nobody's affair but his own. He read it twice, and
smiled as he returned it to the envelope.
The next, written on thick notepaper stamped with the Admiralty crest,
he also read twice, and mused awhile. Apparently this also was
nobody's concern but his, for, still deep in thought, he tore it up and
put the pieces in the fire before taking up the third. This was an
appeal for assistance from a former watch-keeper who aspired to the
Flying Corps. The next was also a request for assistance from a young
officer, who, having recently taken a wife to his bosom, apparently
considered the achievement a qualification for the command of one of
H.M. torpedo-boat destroyers.
The Captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I sent him a silver
photograph frame. . . . He'll want me to be godfather next." He
occasionally spoke aloud when alone.
An appeal for funds for a memorial to someone or another followed.
Then two advertisements from wine merchants and a statement of his
account with his outfitter were consigned in turns into the fire. The
last envelope, in the unknown hand, he scrutinised for a moment before
opening. The postmark was local, the caligraphy illiterate. He opened
the letter and read it with an inscrutable face. Then, with a quick
movement as of disgust, he crumpled it up and threw it into the flames.
It was anonymous, and was a threat, couched in lurid and ensanguined
terms, to murder him.
Judges, and post-captains of the Royal Navy, perhaps as a reminder of
their great responsibilities, occasionally receive communications of
this nature. Their life insurance policies, however, appear to remain
much the same as those of other people.
* * * * *
The after-cabin, where the Captain perused his correspondence, was an
airy, chintz-upholstered apartment leading aft through two heavy steel
doors on to the stern-walk. The doors were open on that particular
morning, and the high, thin cries of seagulls quarrelling under the
stern drifted through almost unceasingly.
Forward, the white-enamelled bulkhead was pierced by two entrances.
One led from a diminutive sleeping-cabin and bathroom, the other from
the fore-cabin, which the Captain had just quitted, and which in turn
communicated with a lobby where a marine sentry paced day and night.
The after-cabin was lit by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the
ship's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones,
winked on the butterfly clamps of burnished brass and small rods from
which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a
corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, affixed to white
enamelled battens, hung water-colour paintings of his ships. A sloop
of war under full sail; a brig, close-hauled, beating out of Plymouth
Sound; a tiny gunboat at anchor in a backwater of the Upper Yangtse.
There were spick-and-span cruisers; a quaint, top-heavy looking
battleship that in her day had been considered the last word in naval
construction, and whose name to-day provokes reminiscences from the
older generation and from the younger half-dubious smiles; then, near
the door, came modern men-of-war of familiar aspect. They represented
the milestones of a long career.
A chart lay folded on a table in the centre of the cabin, with a pair
of dividers and a parallel ruler lying on it. Another table stood in a
corner near the door--a small, glass-topped table such as collectors of
curios gather their treasures in. The contents of this table, however,
were not curios in the strict sense of the word. A number of them were
very commonplace objects, but each one held its particular associations.
You will find just such a collection of insignificant mysteries in a
boy's pocket or a jackdaw's nest. Bits of string, a marble polished by
friction, a piece of coloured glass, an old nail--in themselves
rubbish, but doubtless linking the possessor to some amiable memory,
and cherished for no better reason.
Some men retain this instinct of boyhood. But whereas the boy is
secretive and reticent about the particular associations his pocket
holds, the man will talk about his hoard.
In the glass-topped table in that corner of the after-cabin were ties
with all the seven seas and the shores they wash. Mementoes of folly
or friendship, sport or achievement; fragments of the mosaic that is
life.
A bit of brick from the Great Wall of China recalled a bag of geese in
the clear cold dusk of Northern Asia. Memories, too, of the whaler's
beat back to the fleet in the teeth of a rising gale that swept in from
the Pacific, when the bravest unlaced his boots and they baled with the
empty guncase.
There was a piece of the sacred pavement of Mecca, brought back in the
days when few Europeans had brought anything back from there--even
their lives. A gold medal in a morocco-leather case, won by an essay
that had called for months of unrelaxed study. A copper bangle from
the wrist of a Korean dancing-girl (it was somebody else's story,
though). A wooden ju-ju from Benin, dark-stained and repulsive; a tiny
clay godling that had guarded the mummied heart of an Egyptian queen.
A flint arrow-head picked up on Dartmoor during a long summer tramp
after the speckled trout. A jewelled cigarette-case, gift of an
empress who could give no more than that, however much she may have
wanted to.
Rubbish, all rubbish. Yet occasionally, when two or three
post-captains, contemporaries and fleet-mates, gathered here to smoke
after-dinner cigars, the host would unlock the glass-topped table,
select some object from his miscellany, and hold it up with a "D'you
remember----?" And one or other of his guests--sometimes all of
them--would laugh and nod and blow great clouds of smoke and slide into
eager reminiscence. Yesterday is the playground of all men's hearts,
but more especially those of sailor men. These odds and ends were only
keys that unlocked the gate.
A few photographs stood on the shelf above the hearth. Some books
occupied a revolving bookcase within reach of anyone sitting at the
desk; not very interesting books: old Navy Lists, a "King's
Regulations," a "Manual of Court Martial Procedure," one or two volumes
on International Law, and a treatise on so-called 'modern'
seamanship--which, by the way, is a misnomer, seamanship, like love,
being of all time.
The revolving bookcase supported a bowl of flowers. The Captain's
Coxswain had personally arranged them that morning; had, in fact, had a
slight difference of opinion with the Captain's valet (conducted _sotto
voce_) over the method of their arrangement. The Coxswain won on the
claim of being a married man and understanding mysteries beyond the ken
of bachelors. The result in either case would have brought tears to
the eyes of any woman.
* * * * *
The Captain finished his cigarette and opened the roll-topped desk,
slipped his letters into a pigeon-hole, and closed the desk again. As
he did so the Commander entered the cabin, tucking his cap under his
arm.
"Nine o'clock, sir; all ready for divisions. The Chaplain is
sick--will you read prayers?"
"Sick, is he? What's the matter?"
"He twisted his knee yesterday playing football. The Fleet Surgeon has
made him lie up."
The Captain nodded. "All right; I'll read them." As the Commander
turned to go he spoke again: "By the way, that fellow I gave ninety
days to yesterday--was there a woman in the case, d'you happen to know?
There was nothing in the evidence, of course, but I wondered----"
The Commander paused while the busy brain searched among its dockets.
The man whose business it is as Executive Officer to control the
affairs of close on a thousand of his fellow men must of necessity
sometimes learn curiously intimate details of their lives.
"Yes; the Master-at-Arms mentioned to me that a woman was at the bottom
of it. She's a wrong 'un, I understand."
"Thank you."
The Commander went out, and a moment later the bugle overhead blazed
forth "Divisions."
"I thought it was a woman's writing," added the Captain musingly.
"Divisions correct, sir!" The Commander saluted and made his report.