The Junior Watchkeeper squirmed with delight. "He is--he _is_! He's
going poodle-faking. And in war time, too! You dog, Bunje!"
"Can't a fellow know people ashore without a lot of untutored clowns
trying to be funny about it?" demanded the victim.
"It's the spring," said the Young Doctor. "Bunje's young fancy is
lightly turning--yes, it is." The Surgeon sniffed the air judicially.
"The bay rum upon your hair proclaims it. Ah, me! The heyday of
youth!" He sighed. "'Time was when love and I were well acquainted.'"
"That's a fact," retorted the Indiarubber Man bitterly. "But you
needn't brag about it. I haven't been shipmates with you for four
years for nothing. There's nothing you can tell me about your hideous
past that I don't know already."
The picket-boat slid alongside the landing place and went astern.
The Engineer Commander made his way towards the little cabin. As the
senior officer of the party, his was the privilege of embarking last
and disembarking first. "Don't wait for me," he said. "Unstow! I've
got to get my golf-clubs."
The Indiarubber Man took him at his word. "Right. I'll carry on, if I
may." He leaped ashore, and set off with long strides in the direction
of the town.
The First Lieutenant gazed after him. There was a general feeling that
the Indiarubber Man had suddenly assumed an unfamiliar and inexplicable
role. "Now, what the devil is he up to, I wonder?"
The others, mystified, shook their heads.
2
The mothers of Midshipmen have a means of scenting the whereabouts of a
fleet that mere censorship of letters cannot balk. There were at least
half a dozen mothers in the _foyer_ of the big, garish hotel on the
sea-front. Some were tête-à-tête with their sons in snug, upholstered
corners, learning aspects of naval warfare that no historian will ever
record. Others presided over heavily laden tea-tables at which their
sons and their sons' more intimate friends were dealing with eggs and
buttered toast, marmalade, watercress, plum-cake, and toasted scones in
a manner which convinced their half-alarmed relatives that famine must
have stalked the British Navy ever since the War started.
"We shall never have time," said one mother, "to hear all you have to
tell, dear."
"There's really nothing very much to tell you about, mother. Can I
order some more jam? And Jaggers could scoff some more eggs, couldn't
you, Jag? Waiter, two more poached eggs and some more strawberry jam.
You see, dear, we haven't done anything exciting yet. That's all been
the luck of the battle-cruisers and destroyers. They've had a topping
rag--three of our term have been wounded already. But we aren't
allowed to gas about what we're going to do--why, that waiter might be
a German spy, for all we know."
"Didn't know the Admiral confided his plans for the future to
Midshipmen," commented an amused father, who had run down from the War
Office for the day.
"He doesn't _confide_ them," admitted another, "but my chest is in the
flat outside his steward's cabin, and, of course, _he_ hears an awful
lot."
"But, Georgie, tell us about your life. Do you get enough sleep?"
queried his mother.
"Rather," replied her son, whose horizon three months before had been
bounded by the playing fields of Dartmouth College, where the
dormitories are maintained at an even temperature by costly and
hygienic methods. "We're in four watches, you know--we get one night
in in four. At sea we sleep at our guns. I've got one of the
six-inch, and we get up quite a good fug in our casemate at night.
Jaggers dosses in the after-control. It's a bit breezy up there, isn't
it, Old Bird?"
The Old Bird signified that the rigours of Arctic exploration were as
nothing to what he had undergone.
"And your swimming-jacket--the one Aunt Jessie sent you? The outfitter
said it was quite comfortable to wear. I hope you always do wear it at
sea, in case--in case you should ever need it."
Her son chuckled. "The pneumatic one? Well, we liked it awfully when
it came, and we blew it up; and then we thought we'd have a bit of
scrum practice one night after dinner, and we rolled it up for a ball,
and--and the half wasn't nippy enough in getting it away to the
three-quarters, and somehow or another it got punctured. But I wear it
all right, mother. It's jolly warm at nights."
"And do you like your officers--is the Captain kind to you all?"
The boy stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"They're a topping lot. One has got the Humane Society's gold medal
for jumping on top of a shark at Perim when it was just going to collar
a fellow bathing--you'd never think it to look at him. There's another
we call the Indiarubber Man, who takes us at physical drill every
morning. He's frightfully strong, and they say he licked the Japanese
ju-jitsu man they had at the School of Physical Training. And, of
course, there's old Beggs. You know, he was captain of
England--Rugger--some years ago. He's broken his nose three
times. . . ."
"We all skylark together in the dog-watches," added another. "We put a
seining-net round the quarter-deck, and play cricket or deck hockey
every evening after tea to keep fit."
"And they come into the gun-room when we have a sing-song on guest
nights, and kick up a frightful shine. Oh, they're an awful fine lot."
"The Captain is a topper, too. He has us to breakfast in turns."
A third took up the epic. If you have ever heard schoolboys vie with
each other to laud and honour the glory of their own particular House
among strangers in a strange land, you can imagine much that cannot be
conveyed with the pen. There were similar tea parties in various
corners of the hotel and in lodgings along the sea-front, but the
conversation at all of them ran on much the same lines, and this may be
considered a fair sample of the majority.
"He gives a lecture every few days showing what is going on at the
front. His brother's a General, and, of course, he gets any amount of
tips from him. The brother of one of our Snotties--Karrard--was killed
at Mons, and the Captain sent for Karrard (who's rather a kid and felt
it awfully) and showed him a letter from the General about Karrard's
brother--he had seen him killed--which bucked Karrard up tremendously.
In fact, he rather puts on side now, because he's the only one in the
gun-room who has lost a brother."
"And you don't wish you were back at Dartmouth again?"
"Dartmouth!" The speaker's voice was almost scornful. "Why, mother.
Kedgeree here would have got his First Eleven cap this term if we'd
stayed, and even he----"
A small midshipman with remarkable steel-grey eyes, who had not
hitherto spoken much, shook his head emphatically and flushed at
hearing his nickname pronounced in open conversation ashore. "We were
treated like kids there," he explained. "But now----" He jerked his
head towards the north with that unfailing sense of the cardinal points
of the compass which a seaman acquires in earliest youth, or not at
all. Somewhere in that direction the German fleet was presumed to be
skulking. "It's different," he ended a little lamely.
Suddenly the son leaned forward and pressed his mother's knee under the
table. A tall, sinewy Engineer Commander was walking across the
_foyer_ on his way to the billiard room.
"There, mother, that's old Beggs. He had our term at Osborne. Did you
see his nose? . . . Captain of England!" . . . The speaker broke off
and lifted his head, listening.
Through the doorway opening on to the sea-front there drifted a faint
sound, the silvery note of a distant bugle.
"Hush!" said one of the others, raising a warning hand. "Listen!"
3
At the window of one of the detached houses in the residential part of
the town a small Naval Cadet stood with his nose flattened against the
window-pane.
"I say, Betty," he ejaculated presently, "they're giving leave to the
Fleet. I can see crowds of officers coming ashore."
His sister continued to knit industriously. "Well, I don't suppose any
of them are coming here. You needn't get so excited."
Her brother watched the uniformed figures filing along the distant road
from the landing place. "I hope this war goes on for another couple of
years," he sighed.
"Joe! You mustn't say such dreadful things. You don't know what
you're talking about."
"That's all jolly fine, but you haven't got to do another year at
Osborne---- I say, Betty, one of them _is_ coming here! How jolly
exciting! He's coming up the avenue now. He's got red hair. . . . I
believe--yes, it's--what was the name of that Lieutenant at Jack's
wedding, d'you remember? The funny man. He made you giggle all the
time."
For a moment the knitting appeared to demand his sister's undivided
attention; she bent her head over it. "That was a long time
ago--before I put my hair up. I'm sure I didn't giggle either. Oh,
yes, I think I remember who you mean. Is he coming here? I
wonder--come away from the window, Joe!"
The front door bell rang in a distant part of the house; she dropped
her knitting on a small side table and walked quietly out of the room.
"I'll tell mother," she said as she went out.
"You needn't trouble to do that," said Joe. "She's out--I thought you
knew." But the door had closed.
A moment later the Indiarubber Man was ushered in. The two
representatives of His Majesty's Navy shook hands. "I recognised you
from your photograph," said the host. "D'you remember the wedding
group? You were a groomsman when Jack and Milly were married, weren't
you?"
"I was," replied the Indiarubber Man. "I performed a number of menial
offices that day. But were you there? I don't seem to remember you."
Joe shook his head. "No, I had mumps. Wasn't it rot? It must have
been an awful good rag. But I remember about you because Betty told me
afterwards--she's my sister, you know. She said you were--oh, here she
is."
Betty entered. She cast one swift glance at her brother that might
have been intended to convey interrogation or admonition, or both, and
then greeted the Indiarubber Man with friendly composure. "How nice of
you to come and see us! Mother is out, I'm afraid, but she will
probably be in presently. Do sit down. Yes, of course I remember
you--Joe, ring the bell, and we'll have tea."
"We were 'opposite numbers' at your brother's wedding," said the
Indiarubber Man, taking a seat, and nervously hitching up the legs of
his trousers to an unnecessary extent.
"Yes, I remember restraining you with difficulty from going into the
garden to eat worms! Nobody----" she broke off abruptly. "What a long
time ago that seems!" She laughed quietly and considered him with
merriment in her pretty eyes. The Indiarubber Man made a swift mental
comparison between the schoolgirl bridesmaid who vied with midshipmen
in devouring ices, and his hostess of three years or so later.
"Doesn't it?" he said. For one instant their eyes met, shyly
questioning, a little curious. The laughter died out of hers.
"My eldest brother's in the North Sea now. We haven't seen him since
the War started."
The Indiarubber Man nodded. "Yes, he's in a battle-cruiser, isn't he?
We don't get ashore much either, as a matter of fact. But to-day----"
He entered into a lengthy statement of naval policy that led up to his
visit and the circumstances connected with it. It was a rather tedious
explanation, but it filled in the time till tea arrived, when Betty
busied herself among the tea-cups; her brother drew his chair close to
their guest, and sat regarding him with breathless expectancy. Was
this the side-splitting humorist Betty had talked so much about for
months after the wedding--and then abruptly refused to mention again?
Joe experienced a growing sense of disillusionment. There was nothing
about the Indiarubber Man's conversation to justify high hopes of
laughter-provoking humour. In fact, the guest's general demeanour
compared unfavourably with that of the curate--a shy young man, victim
(had Joe but known it) of a hopeless and unrequited passion.
Joe handed the Indiarubber Man his cup with the air of one prepared to
enjoy at all events the spectacle of a juggling trick with the teaspoon
or saucer. The guest's chief concern, however, appeared to be in
finding a more secure resting-place for it than his knee, coupled with
anxiety not to drop crumbs on the carpet.
Betty, presiding behind the silver tea-tray, had adopted her most
grown-up manner. Decidedly it was all Betty's fault, therefore. The
most confirmed humorist could hardly be expected to indulge in
drolleries in the presence of a girl who stuck her nose in the air and
put on enough side for six. It became increasingly obvious that the
depressed jester must straightway be removed from this blighting
influence or ever the cap and bells would jingle.
No sooner was tea over, therefore, than Joe sprang to his feet. "I
say, would you like to go for a walk?" Once outside, the flower of wit
would expand without a doubt.
The Indiarubber Man appeared nonplussed at the proposal. "I--it's very
kind of you----" Then he turned to Betty. "Shall we all three go for
a walk?"
"Oh, it's no use asking her to go for a proper walk," interposed the
alarmed Joe. "Her skirts are too narrow; she can't keep step, or jump
ditches, or anything."
Betty laughed. "Are you anxious to jump ditches, Mr. Standish?
Because, if not, I think I might be able to keep up with you both."
She rose to her feet, a slim, gracefully modelled young woman who
looked perfectly capable of keeping up with anyone--or of jumping
ditches, too, for that matter. "I'll get my things if you will wait a
second." Joe, unseen by their guest, made a face at her of unfeigned
brotherly disgust.
In the open air, however, the guest's spirits gave no more evidence of
an upward tendency than they had indoors. The trio walked, via the sea
front, to the gardens on top of the cliffs that overlooked the harbour.
Joe directed the conversation; it was largely concerned with battle and
bloodshed.
"Mr. Standish, what do you do in action?" he asked presently.
"Nothing," was the reply. "I just put my fingers in my ears and shut
my eyes--I'm the officer of the after turret. But when it's all over I
put on overalls and crawl about the works on my stomach and get a dirty
face with the best of them. A wit once defined a turret as a bundle of
tricks done up in armour."
"Is it thick armour?" asked Betty.
"They tell me it is--fellows on board who pretend to know everything.
But I suspect that to be a mere ruse to get me to stay inside it."
Joe sighed. "I _do_ envy you," he said. "Everyone seems to have
something to do, 'cept me. Even Betty here----"