"No, sir."
"Right. I'll see 'em at eleven." The Clerk gathered the papers
together and departed. As he went out there was a tap at the door.
The Captain frowned. The tap was repeated.
"Don't knock," he called out. "If you've got anything to report, come
in and report it."
The Chief Yeoman of Signals entered with an embarrassed air. He was
new to the ship, and, as everyone knows, all captains have their little
peculiarities. Here he was up against one right away. He'd never had
much luck.
"I don't want anyone to knock when they come into my cabin on duty.
I'm not a young woman in her boudoir."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the Chief Yeoman. "Signal log, sir."
* * * * *
"Don't forget now," counselled the Master-at-Arms to the request-men
fallen in on the starboard side of the quarter-deck. "When your names
is called out, step smartly up to the table, an' keep your caps on.
You salutes when you steps up to the table an' when you leaves it."
The request-men, who had heard all this a good many times before,
sucked their teeth in acquiescence.
The Captain was walking up and down the other side of the deck talking
to the Commander. They turned together and came towards the table.
The Captain's Clerk opened the request-book and laid it before the
Captain.
"'Erbert Reynolds," intoned the Master-at-Arms in a stentorian voice.
"Able seaman. Requests award of first Good Conduct Badge."
The Captain put his finger on the first name at the top of the page,
glanced keenly at the applicant, and nodded. "Granted."
"Granted," echoed the Chief of Police, and Able Seaman Reynolds
departed with authority to wear on his left arm the triangular red
badge that vouched to his exemplary behaviour for the last three years.
Five others followed in quick succession with similar requests, and
trotted forward again at a dignified and amiable gait through the
screen door.
"To stop allotment." The Captain raised his head.
"Who do you allot to?"
"Me mother, sir."
"Doesn't she want it?"
The request-man was a young stoker, little more than a boy, and his
eyes were troubled.
"She don't deserve it," he replied; "she drinks, sir. I got letters
from fr'en's----" He thrust his hand inside the breast of his jumper
and produced his sad evidence--a letter from a clergyman, one or two
from lay-workers in some north-country slum, and one from his mother
herself, an incoherent, abusive scrawl, with liquor stains still upon
the creased paper.
"I send 'er my 'arf-pay reg'lar ever since I were in the Navy, sir.
But she ain't goin' ter 'ave no more." He made the statement without
heat or sorrow.
"Stopped," said the Captain, with a nod.
"Allotment stopped," repeated the Master-at-Arms, and the allotter
passed forward out of sight to whatever destiny awaited him.
"To be rated Leading Seaman, sir."
A tall, young Able Seaman stepped forward and fixed eyes of a clear
blue on the Captain's face.
The Captain met his gaze, and for a moment threw all the weight of
thirty years' experience of men into the scales of judgment. "There is
a vacancy for a Leading Seaman's rate in the ship," he said. "The
Commander has recommended you for it. You're young. Keep it."
"Rated Leading Seaman. 'Bout turn."
The newly created Leading Seaman, whose nose was a reminder of the
vagaries of the main sheet block of a cutter when going about, flushed
with pleasure and turned smartly on his heel. The vacant rate was due
to a lapse from rectitude on the part of one Biggers, leading hand of
the quarter-deck, who had returned from leave with a small flat flask
tucked inside his cholera belt. The flask contained whisky, and had
been thrust there by a friend ashore in an access of maudlin
good-fellowship on parting. The night had been a convivial one, and
Leading Seaman Biggers overlooked the gift until, coming on board, the
keen-eyed officer of the watch drew his attention to it. He paid for
the misplaced generosity of his well-wisher with his "Killick."[1]
He happened, moreover, to be employed in coiling down a rope--in the
capacity he had reverted to--while his supplanter received the rating;
but he eyed the ceremony stoically and without resentment. He had
failed, and, of his less frail brethren, another was raised up in his
stead. It was the immutable law.
"To be restored to the first class for leave."
A stout Able Seaman stepped forward, and, from force of a habit
engendered by long familiarity with the etiquette of the defaulters'
table, removed his cap.
"_Put_ yer cap on," added the Master-at-Arms in a fierce undertone.
The suppliant deftly replaced his cap. As he did so a packet of
cigarettes, a skein of darning worsted and a picture postcard
(depicting a stout lady in a pink costume surf bathing) fell out on to
the deck in the manner of an unexpected conjuring trick. An attendant
ship's corporal retrieved them, while the conjurer affected an air of
complete detachment.
The Captain glanced at the conduct book. "Clean sheet?
Right--restored to the first class. And see if you can't stop in it
this time."
The stout one made guttural noises in his throat intended to convey
assurances of future piety, and departed with an expression that
suggested a halo had not only descended upon his head, but had been
crammed inextricably over his ears.
The last request-man--the man with "private affairs"--was a small
leading stoker with a face seamed by innumerable tiny wrinkles. His
skin resembled a piece of parchment that somebody had crumpled in a fit
of petulance and made a half-hearted attempt to smooth out again; even
his ears were crumpled. His brown eyes, big and sad, were like the
eyes of a suffering monkey.
The Commander interposed with an explanation: "This man wishes to see
you about a private matter, sir."
The Captain made a little gesture with his hand, and the small group of
officers and ship's police near the table stepped back a few paces out
of earshot. The Commander, perhaps the busiest man on board, snatched
the moment's respite to confer with the Carpenter, who had been
hovering round waiting for his opportunity. The Master-at-Arms was
standing by the bollards alternately sucking a stump of pencil and
making cryptic notations in his request-book. The two ship's corporals
had removed themselves with great delicacy of feeling to the screen
door, where in an undertone they settled an argument as to whose turn
it was to make out the leave tickets. The Captain's Clerk became
interested in the progress of work in an ammunition lighter alongside.
The Captain, with knitted brows, was reading a letter that had been
handed to him across the table. He folded it up when read, and handed
it back to the recipient; then, holding his chin in his fist and
supporting the elbow with the other hand, he listened to the tale the
small man with the crumpled ears had to unfold. It was an old
tale--old when Helen first met the eyes of Paris. But there was no
veil of romance to soften the outline of its crude tragedy. It was
just sordid and pitiful.
For five minutes, perhaps, the two men faced each other. At the end of
that time the Captain was leaning forward resting both hands on the
table, talking in grave, kindly tones. He talked, not as Captains
commonly talk to Leading Stokers, but as one man might talk to another
who turned to him for advice in the bitter hour of need, drawing on the
deep well of his experience, education, and kindly judgment.
"Troubles shared are troubles halved." The Captain had said so, and
the tot of rum served out at one-bell to the little man with the
crumpled ears went some way to complete the conviction.
* * * * *
Jeremiah Casey, Petty Officer and Captain's Coxswain, hauled himself
nimbly up the Jacob's ladder to the quarter-boom and came inboard. The
Captain was walking up and down, deep in thought, with his hands linked
behind his back. Casey pattered up and saluted.
"I've bent on that noo mainsail, sir. . . . There's a nice li'l
sailin' breeze, sir." Casey, hinting at a spin in the galley, somehow
reminded one of a spaniel when he sees the gun-case opened. Had he
been blessed with a tail, he would most certainly have wagged it.
The Captain walked slowly aft and looked down into the galley lying at
the quarter-boom. Few men could have resisted the appeal of that long
slim boat with the water lapping invitingly against her clinker-built
sides. The brasswork in her gleamed in the sun like jewels set in
ivory, for the woodwork was as near the whiteness of ivory as holystone
and sharkskin could make it. She had little white mats with blue
borders on the thwarts and in the sternsheets, and her yoke, of curious
Chinese design, had a history as mysterious and legendary as the
diamonds of Marie Antoinette.
"Get her alongside," said the Captain. "I want to try that mainsail."
Five minutes later the galley was spinning across the sparkling waters
of the harbour.
Once the Captain spoke, and the bowman moved his weight six inches
forward. Then she sailed to his light touch on the helm as a violin
gives out sound under the bow of a master.
Casey, sitting motionless on the bottom boards with the mainsheet in
his hands, gazed rapturously at the new mainsail, and thence into the
stolid countenance of the second stroke.
"Ain't she a _witch_?" he whispered.
For half an hour the galley skimmed to and fro among the anchored
fleet, now running free like a white-winged gull, anon close-hauled,
the razor bows cleaving a path through the dancing water in a little
sickle of creaming foam.
The Captain brought her alongside the gangway with faultless judgment
and stood up. Like Saul, he had taken the cares of high command to a
witch, and lo! his brow was clear and his eyes twinkled.
"Yes," he said in even tones as he stepped out of the boat, "that
mainsail sets all right," and ran briskly up the ladder two steps at a
time.
Casey thumbed the lacing on the yard. "Perfection is finality, and
finality is death."
"I don't know but what I wouldn't shift the strop '_arf_ an inch
aft--mebbe a quarter . . ."
Inboard the ship's bell struck eight times, and the boatswain's mate
began shrilly piping the hands to dinner.
[1] Anchor. The distinctive badge of a leading rating.