The bugle sounded again, the bell began to toll for prayers, and the
band on the after shelter-deck struck up a lively march as the men came
aft.
Anyone interested in the study called physiognomy might with advantage
have taken his stand at this moment on the after part of the
quarter-deck, where the shadow of the White Ensign curved and flickered
across the planking. Perhaps the Captain, who stood there, was himself
a student of the art. At any rate, as the men marched aft through the
screen doors his level eyes passed from face to face, reflective,
observant, intensely alert.
The last division reached its allotted position on the quarter-deck,
turned inboard, and stood easy. The band stopped abruptly. The bell
ceased tolling. In the brief ensuing silence the Commander's voice was
clearly audible as he made his report.
"Everybody aft, sir."
The Captain slipped a small prayer-book out of a side pocket. The
Commander gave a curt order, and five hundred heads bared to the
sunlight.
"Stand easy!"
There is much beauty in the sonorous periods of the English Rubric.
Read in the strong, clear voice of a man who for thirty years had known
calm and tempest, sunset and dawn at sea, the familiar words--of appeal
and praise alike--assumed somehow an unwonted significance; and when he
closed the book, slipped it back into his pocket, and looked up, the
face he raised was the face of one who, whatever else his creed had
taught him, found in all success the answer to some prayer, in every
disaster a call to courage and high endeavour.
* * * * *
Down in the after-cabin, five minutes later, the Fleet Surgeon handed
the sick-list to the Captain, who read it with care. For the first
time that day his brow clouded. The two men looked at one another.
"It is heavy," said the Fleet Surgeon; "but----" He made an
imperceptible upward movement of the shoulders, for his mother had been
French.
For some moments after he had gone the Captain stood staring out
through the after doorway. A barge, heavily freighted, was passing
slowly down-stream. His eyes followed the brown sail absently as long
as it was within his field of vision. The anger had gone from his brow
and left a shadow of sadness.
"'_Si j'etais Dieu_,'" he murmured, following some train of thought and
musing aloud as was his habit. Then, still in a brown study, he opened
the roll-topped desk and pressed a bell.
"Tell Mr. Gerrard I'll sign papers," he said to the marine sentry who
appeared in the doorway.
"Double-O" Gerrard (so called because he wore glasses with circular
lenses and his name made you think of telephones) answered the summons,
carrying a sheaf of papers. He was the Captain's Clerk: that is to
say, the junior accountant officer, detailed by the Captain to conduct
his official correspondence and perform secretarial work generally.
The position is not one commonly sought after, but Double-O Gerrard
appeared to enjoy his duties, and as a badge of office carried a
perpetual inkstain on the forefinger-tip of his right hand.
The Captain sat down at his desk with a little sigh. If the truth be
known, he had small relish for this business of "papers." He picked up
his pen and examined the nib.
"Do you ever use your pen to clean a pipe out?" he asked his Clerk.
"Oh no, sir."
"I suppose it depends on the nib one uses whether it suffers much."
With a piece of blotting paper the Captain removed fragments of tobacco
ash and nicotine from the nib, and dipped it in the ink. "It doesn't
seem to hurt mine. Now then, what have we got here?"
A quarter of an hour later he pushed aside the last of the pile of
documents and lit a cigarette with the air of a man who had earned a
smoke.
"Any defaulters?"
"No, sir, none for you to-day."
"Humph! Tell the Commander I'll buy him a pair of white kid gloves
when I go ashore. Request-men?"
His Clerk placed a book upon the desk open at a list of names. The
Captain ran down them with a pencil.
"Badges, all entitled? . . . Stop allotment--who does he allot to?
Mother? . . . Restoration to first class for leave. . . . To be rated
Leading Seaman--Jones. Jones? Oh, yes, I know: youngster in the
quarter-deck division with a broken nose. The Commander spoke to me
about him." The pencil slowly descended to the bottom of the page,
ticking off each man's request as it was gone into and explained. He
stopped at the last one. "'To see Captain about private affairs.'
What's his trouble?"
"I don't know, sir. He put in his request to see you through the
Master-at-Arms. He didn't say what it was about."