THE IMMORTAL GAMBLE
AND THE PART PLAYED IN IT BY H.M.S. “CORNWALLIS”
By A. T. STEWART, ACTING-COMMANDER, R.N.
AND THE
REV. C. J. E. PESHALL, CHAPLAIN, R.N.
_Post 8vo. Containing 32 page Illustrations from photographs, and a Map_
PRICE 6/- NET. (Post free 6/5)
This book, written by two officers of the battleship from whose
fore-turret was fired the first shot of the bombardment, gives an
account of happenings of vital interest and importance. It is absorbing
because the truth shines out everywhere, and you feel that for once
you are really getting first-hand information as to what did happen.
It bridges the gap between February 19th and April 25th (the date of
the Great Landing), and of this period we have hitherto heard hardly
anything. Besides the valuable nature of the material, this chronicle
of great events is written with considerable literary skill. The
authors have succeeded in making their “log” intimate. It is before
all things a man’s book, and unless the publishers are much mistaken,
this originally conceived Saga of the Straits will attract attention
everywhere.
PUBLISHED BY
A. AND C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 AND 6, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1
THE GUNROOM
BY
CHARLES LANGBRIDGE MORGAN
“We are carried so far out to sea that we lose sight of the quiet
haven whence we set forth.”
--_Dialogus beati Gregorii Papæ ejusque diaconi Petri_,
translation 1608 and ROBERT BRIDGES.
A. & C. BLACK, LTD.
4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1
1919
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE SHORE RECEDES 1
II. SEEN THROUGH STEEL 25
III. A CHAPTER WITHOUT NAME 36
IV. WAR, CARPETS, AND CANDLES 62
V. TWO WORLDS 85
VI. STRAIN AND RELIEF 101
VII. MARGARET 113
VIII. THE NET 143
IX. QUARTERED ON THE KINGDOM 149
X. EASTERN SEAS 162
XI. AWAY FROM THE SHIP 169
XII. THE CAPTAIN IN CONFIDENCE 177
XIII. LOOKING BEYOND 196
XIV. WASTE AND WONDER 212
XV. TRAFALGAR AND THE RED LAMP 227
XVI. THE ENGINES 236
XVII. DECISION 263
XVIII. IN THE CROSS-PASSAGE 276
XIX. CRISIS 287
XX. WINGFIELD ALTER 305
XXI. THE CURRENCY 311
XXII. MARGARET IN THE NET 320
XXIII. AN INSTANT FREE 334
XXIV. ONE YEAR LATER: THE WORLD IN THE NET 347
THE GUNROOM
CHAPTER I
THE SHORE RECEDES
I
Late on an afternoon in September a boy, wearing a naval mackintosh
and a felt hat, came out of Torquay railway-station and hailed a cab.
His figure, his voice, and his manner, which was nervous and a little
self-conscious, suggested that his age was about eighteen. He took a
handful of change out of his pocket, and, when he had selected from
it, with momentary hesitation, a sixpence to give the porter who had
brought his luggage, he cast over the few bystanders a look almost of
resentment, as if he thought they had been watching and criticizing
him. If an older man had intercepted this glance its character might
have puzzled him. He would have asked himself how, in eighteen years,
a boy, who had obviously known nothing of the poverty and hard usage
that age the street urchin, could have made the discoveries about life
which were reflected in the face he saw. Not that a man’s experience
lay in this boy’s features; rather did he seem to have lost too early
the swifter wisdom of a child. He had developed a faculty of suspicion
before the years had taught him what he should suspect. He had faced
sorrow before he had learned to distinguish clearly between sorrow
and bitterness. A child’s pride and the humility that springs from
discipline; a love of freedom and an acquaintance with restriction; a
hatred of cruelty and a knowledge of its refinements--all these had
been mingled in him to the destruction of simplicity. He stood there,
on the outskirts of the strange naval world into which this cab was to
bear him, a boy whose premature manhood might have caused a perceptive
woman to fear for him. She would have seen that he was not physically
delicate, and have been glad that his body, at any rate, had power
to endure; but she would have noticed, too, and trembled for her
discovery, that the boy’s lips and eyes suggested an imagination which
could throw ugliness as well as beauty into relief.
The cabman, his face screwed up and his cheeks blown out as a protest
against the driving rain, looked queerly at the luggage he was hoisting
on to his roof. It consisted of a green canvas trunk, bound with wooden
splines and leather, and an oblong tin case. Their pattern, which the
cabman recognized as uniform, betrayed at once their owner’s calling,
for they differed in nothing but the name they bore from the boxes that
were invariably brought with them by midshipmen joining their ships. On
them was printed in white letters:
JOHN LYNWOOD, R.N.
“You’ll be goin’ to the ’otel, sir, same as the others, I expec’?”
“Yes; you recognize the luggage?” Lynwood answered.
“Ay, sir. It ain’t often the young officers joins their ships ’ere in
Torquay, but I knows that tin box an’ the green one, sir, as if they
was my own. There’s no mistakin’ ’em.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I’d just done with three other young gentlemen,” the cabman went on,
“when I came back to the stand to catch more of ’em off this train.”
“Well, you’ve caught one,” Lynwood said, with a smile at the phrase.
“The mare, she’s bin servin’ ’is Majesty to-day, she ’as. Old army
pensioner, she is.” He shook a stream of water from his oilskin cape
and ran his hand over his dripping beard. “Old sailor meself, sir,” he
remarked, as he picked up the reins.
Lynwood settled himself among the thin cushions as the cab’s loose
wheels rattled into the street. This, in his childhood’s dreams, was
to have been the beginning of adventure--this “going to sea.” It was
not thus he had imagined it. The books he had read had conjured up
pictures of bright sunshine and blue water, of admirals who welcomed
the new-comer in a fatherly manner, of petty officers whose ambition
it was to teach him knots, splices, and cutlass drill. All this was to
have been but a prelude to a life among friends, who would share with
him glories, perils, and promotion, and whose kindliness would make
all things pleasant for him in strange and gaily coloured lands. And
now, looking forward, he saw none of these delights. His experience
at Osborne and Dartmouth and, above all, in the training cruiser had
taught him what he might reasonably expect. He had done well as a
cadet. He had taken firsts in his passing-out examinations, and--for
what it was worth--had been a Cadet Captain in both colleges. There
was no reason why his promotion should not be as rapid as that of
any of his contemporaries. But the element of romance had to be
excluded--unless there were a war. Those who had lived through it
had given him to understand, with a clearness that could permit of
no further disillusionment, that the naval officer’s life was as
mechanical and monotonous as that of a book-keeping clerk. There
were drills and watches, tactical exercises and coaling. There was a
discipline of iron, and a requirement, equally inelastic, of absolute
efficiency. Faults were not pardoned nor weaknesses forgotten. Motive
was a matter of small account, for only success and failure appeared on
the final balance-sheet.
This, Lynwood had come to recognize, was inevitable in a service
conducted with one object alone, the object of victory in battle.
Never, even in the bitterest of criticisms, had he heard one word
against the Navy’s efficiency. It was a perfect machine, as inhuman
as a machine, as pitiless as perfection. The object of its training
was the production of a war personnel, and this implied the production
of human beings who possessed certain definite qualities and in whom
certain qualities were not found. If a required quality were lacking
it had to be instilled; if a surplus quality were present it had to
be removed. The process was often painful. Not infrequently men were
broken by it, and went; or rebelled against it in their hearts, and
went likewise. Many, though broken, were forced by circumstances to
remain.
Lynwood remembered having asked the officer who had given him this
summary of the naval system how it was, then, that so many of the
officers he had met at the colleges had been visibly happy, and,
within certain limits, contented. “To start with,” his informant had
replied, “the officers who are appointed to Osborne and Dartmouth are
picked men--men who, because they were born with most of the required
qualities, haven’t had their natures badly damaged. The colleges are
star billets. You don’t meet there--or, for that matter, in the society
from which most civilians draw their conclusions--the two and a half
stripe salt-horses who will never become commanders or the engineers
who have sweated their souls out for the sake of a family which attains
the ultimate glory of a Portsmouth suburb--in short, the underworld of
H.M.S. And you don’t meet the drunks. But there’s another reason. The
Service does its training young, on the principle of flog a dog while
it’s a puppy. And if you get through that stage--well, you’re probably
shaped to the mould like the Chinese women’s feet, and you forget, and
it doesn’t do you any fresh hurt. But if you break while the pressure
is being applied, you break--that’s all. A good thing you broke so
soon. If you can’t afford to leave it, the Service has your measure.
It knows you broke, and your promotion is not rapid.... Of course,” he
added, “there are a few who are neither broken nor shaped. They go on
in the Navy, successful up to a point, dabbling in something else they
might have been masters of. Or else they go--often too late.”
And now Lynwood looked forward to the inevitable pressure of the
mould. It was applied, he knew, to junior officers for the Service’s
and their own good. The customary phrase was: “Junior snotties must be
shaken.” The system was unofficial; indeed, its more obvious extremes
had been expressly forbidden; but it was a recognized system, of whose
existence the whole Navy was aware. No protest against it--and this
had been particularly impressed on cadets--would gain any sympathy
from any rank. So the Navy had been created, and so it must continue.
Conditions, said the senior officers, were much better than in Nelson’s
time--much better, indeed, than in their own days as midshipmen.
Comparatively, modern midshipmen were wrapped up in cotton-wool. The
senior officers, in their Wardroom armchairs, didn’t know what the
Service was coming to!
Some captains, it was rumoured, made a stand against the system in
their own ships, on the ground that it was not, in fact, essential
to the efficiency of the Service. Some sub-lieutenants, too--and
they had more control in this matter than any captain--stood out
against the system in their own Mess, simply because cruelty disgusted
them. But these well-intentioned people dared not proselytize. They
resisted the system quietly within their own domain, and, lest they
should be considered old women, said as little as possible about
their resistance. Their number was said to be increasing. Whether
a junior midshipman did or did not experience the extremes of the
system depended nowadays on the ship to which he was appointed and the
sub-lieutenant who ruled his Gunroom. The system, to the accompaniment
of the shaking of many conservative heads, was said to be dying.
But it was by no means dead. Lynwood had decided that, if he was
subjected to it, the system should not break him. After all, its
greatest violence was unlikely to last more than a year. In his second
year he would be partly exempt from it; in his third, he would be in a
position to enforce it, if he wished, upon others.
The cab drew up at the hotel door. As he stood on the pavement fumbling
for money he looked out across the harbour. The railings were jewelled
with raindrops. Beyond them a sea of dull green tossed itself into
livid foam and spray. Further from shore all colour was lost. No
horizon was distinguishable from the opaque sky. Once he thought there
became visible the ghostly form of a warship, infinitely lonely and
apart, but a moment later he could see nothing.
“Good luck t’ee, sir,” said the old sailor, and, as the boy turned
towards the hotel, he added under his breath: “And Gawd ’elp ’ee.”
Lynwood heard, and looked over his shoulder. Then he pulled himself
together, gave his instructions to the hall-porter and walked quickly
into a ground-floor sitting-room, to the door of which was attached a
temporary notice written in blue chalk:
REEVE & CO.
Mr. Reeve, though he had never held a commission, was one of the
great personalities of the Navy. He described himself as a tailor
and outfitter, but he was more than that. He had taken charge of
Lynwood--as of almost all cadets--from the beginning of his career.
From Mr. Reeve’s descriptive pamphlet Lynwood and his father had drawn
their first ideas of life at Osborne, at Dartmouth, and at sea. A
telegram signed Reeve had told of success in the entrance examination
long before any official intimation had been received. Reeve had
advised as to equipment, and had provided it. Reeve had been on the
Portsmouth jetty to explain the intricacies of a strange uniform on
that great day when seventy new cadets were inspected by an admiral
before they crossed the Solent to Osborne and their destiny. Nothing
seemed outside Mr. Reeve’s scope. He had made himself responsible for
the transport of the great sea-chests from Osborne to Dartmouth, and
from Dartmouth to the training cruiser. He had laboured exceedingly
in things large and small, and had prospered exceedingly. And now,
here was his representative, again in charge of the sea-chests and the
luggage, prepared to aid his charges as they entered upon the next
great stage of their careers. A room had been taken and a placard
attached to the door. Within was Mr. Binney, “Reeve’s man,” helping
the midshipmen to change the plain clothes in which they had travelled
for the Number One uniform, with dirks, in which they were to join
their ship. Mr. Binney unpacked and repacked their bags for them. He
undertook the sending of telegrams for things forgotten. He answered
innumerable questions, and, with an odd sympathy which showed he knew
they had cares enough, promised to have their luggage taken to the
landing stage at which the _King Arthur’s_ boat would call. Certainly,
sir, the luggage would be there in plenty of time. Where were the
sea-chests? Already, as if by a miracle, they were at the head of the
steps. In the rain? Yes, but they would come to no harm. Had all the
young gentlemen got the keys of their sea-chests? It would be awkward
to arrive on board and not be able to open them. In case any young
gentleman had forgotten or should lose his key, he had a skeleton which
would open any chest. Perhaps they would not mind sharing it?... Yes,
he had heard that the _King Arthur’s_ captain was a very good captain;
and the rear-admiral--of course, everyone knew that he was one of
the coming men: not that the captain or the admiral would make much
difference to them.... Before long they would have to coal ship....
Mr. Binney had remarkable information. Moreover, he talked and made
discreet jokes to such effect that silences, in which there might
have been time to think, were pleasantly avoided.... Was it true that
Mr. Reeve had a son who was going to enter the Service? Ah! that he
didn’t know. Was the sub of the _King Arthur_ a good fellow? That he
couldn’t say. Mr. Binney knew exactly what things he ought to know and
say. Personalities--save in a complimentary context--were to him an
abomination.
Lynwood found that he was absurdly sorry for Mr. Binney--so eager, so
capable, so warm-hearted a man and yet a tailor’s assistant! What, in
the terms of this world, was his reward for all these excellencies?
Lynwood pictured the little man’s family, the boy for whose education
he had saved, the girl for whose happy marriage he was already laying
plans. What were Mr. Binney’s castles in the air? He was too good a man
to have none.... Then Lynwood’s thoughts shifted abruptly. He became
envious of Mr. Binney, who would not have to go into that bleak ship,
who would return comfortably to London--though it were in a third-class
compartment--who would dine that evening among friends, who would
sleep that night, not in a strange hammock, but in a familiar bed. Mr.
Binney’s future was at least certain. Lynwood glanced at his kindly
eyes. He saw the beads of perspiration which much stooping had produced
upon his red forehead. Mr. Binney was tired, very tired.
Three other midshipmen--Sentley, Cunwell, and Fane-Herbert--were in the
room when Lynwood arrived. He knew them all intimately, for they had
served their training as cadets in his term. Sentley was small, dark,
and a little pompous in manner. An unimaginative conscientiousness was
written plainly on his face. Cunwell was of a heavier type, square
headed, square bodied, and coarse skinned. He had loose lips that were
usually wet, and self-assurance that was aggressive. He possessed,
however, a certain force, not of intellect--for his flat, almost
concave, forehead proclaimed his stupidity--but of personality, a
personality impervious to satire. It was not his habit to think more
deeply than mere physical action demanded. He was neither an observer
of himself nor an analyst of others. To him nothing was a symbol,
everything a fact. He treated the mind with suspicious hostility, as if
it derived its strength from witchcraft and the evil powers. Mental
capacity seemed to him no more than an unfair advantage over himself
exercised by others in examination-rooms, and he did not allow himself
to be troubled by his own deficiency in this respect. He brushed it
aside characteristically. “You brainy fellows will soon learn that
exams don’t count for much.”
In Fane-Herbert the effect of good breeding was conspicuous. When he
smiled, his small white teeth and dancing eyes could not fail to cast
a spell. In anger he became cold and aloof, refusing the easy relief
of passion. He faced injustice and humiliation with an air of scornful
pride which served him ill by irritating his oppressors. Intellectually
he was unremarkable; but he was expert in all physical exercises that
required quickness of eye and subtlety of wrist rather than force and
speed. His whole manner was slow, almost languid. His reserve was not
easily pierced, and only to his most intimate friends would he speak of
himself. Upon the rest of the world he looked calmly, seeming scarcely
to expect that others would be interested in him. Lynwood knew him
well, liked him well, admired him for a dozen qualities; but he felt
that in Fane-Herbert there was an element, not deliberately concealed,
which was, however, never fully in the light of day, and therefore not
entirely comprehensible.
“How did you get here?” Sentley asked. “You weren’t in our train,
Lynwood?”
“No, I came across country--not from London.”
“Did any of the others come with you--Driss, or Dyce, or any of the
senior snotties?”
“No, I came alone.”
“They’ll come by a later train,” Cunwell declared. “They can go off by
the seven o’clock officers’ boat. You bet the senior snotties anyhow
won’t go on board before they must. I shouldn’t have come so early
myself, but----”
“Aren’t the senior snotties on board already?” Fane-Herbert asked.
“No, of course not,” explained Cunwell, who knew everything. “The five
senior snotties are also joining the _King Arthur_ to-day. Didn’t
you know? They’ve been doing their destroyer time, and things like
that. Now they are coming back to a big ship for a year before their
lieutenant’s exams. But I believe there are four intermediate snotties
there already--second year people, one year senior to us.”
“I expect they won’t be too pleased with the seniors’ coming,” Sentley
remarked.
“Oh, they’ll take it out of us,” Fane-Herbert said.
Lynwood was talking to Mr. Binney, and beginning to undress preparatory
to getting into uniform. His round-jacket was lying on the table.
Cunwell picked it up, and ostentatiously examined its sleeves.
“I say, Lynwood,” he said, “I can see the marks where your Cadet
Captain’s stripe has been.”
“Can you? I can’t help it.”
“Well, I shouldn’t let the senior snotties see it, if I were you. My
brother told me that when he went to sea for the first time, one of the
snotties who were with him had the marks of his stripes showing, and
he got a dozen cuts once a week till they disappeared--just to teach
him that Cadet Captains at Dartmouth have got to learn their place when
they go to sea.”
Lynwood, who was well aware that Cunwell had been bitterly
disappointed because he had never been made a Cadet Captain himself,
knew what triumph lay beneath the friendly appearance of his warning.
Cunwell delighted to impress upon him the indisputable fact that he had
fallen from relatively high estate.
“Well, I expect you are glad now, Cunwell,” he said, “that you were
never made a Cadet Captain? You won’t get beaten once a week--not for
that reason, at any rate.”
“All right,” Cunwell exclaimed angrily, “you needn’t be sarcastic
about nothing. I thought you would like to know; and then you lose
your temper because I warn you. You are an extraordinary fellow! My
brother----”
“Oh!” Fane-Herbert interrupted. “For four years and a half we’ve heard
about your brother. You told me all about him the first night we were
at Osborne.”
“You’re another of the Cadet Captains. Are the marks of your stripes
showing?... At any rate, my brother is one of the best officers in the
Service. The men love him.”
“I dare say.”
Sentley, as did all save Cunwell, resented this wrangling. To him it
was as if prisoners insulted one another on their way to the scaffold.
Moreover, youthfully conscious of his dignity as a naval officer, he
felt that such disputes were not for the ears of Mr. Binney.
“It doesn’t really matter now,” he said mildly. And then, determined to
be cheerful at all costs, he added: “Do you think we shall get leave
at Christmas?” and Fane-Herbert echoed him: “It doesn’t really matter
now.”
But the question set Lynwood looking across the months. “It’s a long
way off,” he said.
“Not longer than a Dartmouth term.”
“No.”
“But you won’t get four weeks’ leave, as you did at Dartmouth,” Cunwell
said. “Of course, snotties sometimes get both watches of leave, but I
shouldn’t count on it.”
“Don’t you want leave?” Lynwood asked.
“Of course I do; but I’m not so damned homesick already as you are.”
There seemed to be no reply to this, so silence fell for a moment. Mr.
Binney interposed quickly:
“The _King Arthur’s_ pretty good about leave, I think.”
“Is she?” Cunwell turned on the others. “One might think you fellows
weren’t keen on the Service. Don’t you want to go to sea?”
“Why not wait till you get there?” Fane-Herbert said coldly.
“Yes, you just wait!” Cunwell warned them. “I can tell you,
Fane-Herbert, your smiles and your cricket won’t help you there; nor
your English and _x_-chasing, Lynwood. That isn’t the kind of thing
Commanders look for.”
Even Cunwell’s voice became less strident when at last they had left
Mr. Binney with their luggage, and, under his directions, had gone into
the street. Their best uniform, in which they were bound to report
themselves on board, added to the discomfort caused by wind and rain.
Soon their trousers were wet to the knee.
“I say,” said the careful Sentley, “do you think the Commander will
mind our trousers being like this?”
“I can’t help the Commander’s troubles,” Fane-Herbert answered. “What
makes me swear is that our cap badges will get spoilt.”
“What do our cap badges matter? You should see my brother’s cap, and he
says----” Derisive applause checked him.
“Do you hear the water from the gutter roaring below that grating?”
Lynwood said.... “Those must be the steps. Yes, I can see our chests
standing there.”
Sentley stopped suddenly outside a Chemist’s shop. “I say, hold on a
minute. I want some shaving soap.”
They turned to look at him. “Oh, Sentley, do you have to shave now?”
and they laughed good-humouredly till the colour rose to his cheeks.
“I shall have to very soon--at any rate, for Sunday Divisions. Will you
wait for me while I get it, Lynwood?”
“Don’t stand about in this deluge,” Cunwell put in. “The messman will
keep shaving soap. Most messmen do. You can get it in the ship if you
want it.”
They left the chemist unvisited, and pressed on to the head of the
landing-steps. Here they wrapped their mackintoshes round them and sat
down on the wet lids of their chests. Someone began to drum his heels
against the painted wood.
“If you kick off all the paint,” said Cunwell promptly, “you’ll be in
the soup at Captain’s inspection.”
The heels stopped, and silence fell. Presently their luggage was
brought on a barrow chartered by Mr. Binney. The sea was splashing and
hissing on the stone steps. In a little time, out of the mist of rain,
the bows and funnel of a picket-boat became visible.
“That’s our boat,” said Cunwell at once. “She has a sailing pinnace in
tow--that’s for our chests.”
A bell rang clearly four times; the engines slowed. It rang once, and
the throb of machinery ceased; the tow-rope slackened.
“Cast off the pinnace! Take the pinnace inside, coxswain. I’ll come
outside you.”
“Aye, aye, sir!... Get them fenders out, Micky.”
The picket-boat’s engines roared astern as the midshipman brought her
bows round in readiness to come alongside the pinnace. In a couple of
minutes both boats were in position.
“Are you the snotties for the _King Arthur_?”
“Go on, Sentley, you are senior--you answer.”
“Yes,” shouted Sentley.
“Down into the boat, then.... No, not in the pinnace. Get into the
picket-boat’s cabin.”
They clambered across as they were bid.
“This must be one of the intermediate snotties,” Lynwood said to
Fane-Herbert.
“Yes. Don’t you remember him at Dartmouth? Ollenor?”
“Ollenor, is it? I haven’t seen his face yet under his sou’wester.”
The picket-boat’s cabin was divided into two parts--an outer section,
comfortable, light, and clean, which in fair weather was adorned no
doubt with white-covered cushions with blue crests; and an inner
section, dark and ill-ventilated, wherein were kept signal lamps and
all manner of spare fittings. They seated themselves in the outer
section because they came to it first.
“Do you think we ought to sit here? Suppose some officers come down?”
Sentley suggested. In the training cruiser it had been the custom for
cadets to sit on the cabin’s roof.
“Well, so long as there is room for them it’s all right,” Fane-Herbert
said; “and if there isn’t room, then we can go into that inner cabin.
I’m not going out on to the roof in this weather and these clothes.”
“Yes.... I know that sounds reasonable enough, but don’t you think
that, as we are junior snotties just joining the ship, it would be
better to move off into the inner cabin _anyhow_ if any officers
come--whether there is room for them or not. You see, there isn’t much
space where we are, and it might get us a bad name to start off with,
and----”
“And you are the senior of us,” Lynwood laughed. “Poor Sentley! The
sins of us all will be visited on you as well as on ourselves.... Let’s
move in if any officers come. It’s as well to be on the safe side.”
While they spoke the boat’s crew were getting their sea-chests down
into the sailing pinnace.
“Any more to come?” Ollenor shouted.
“All on board, sir.”
“The luggage too?”
“All on board, sir.”
“All right. Jump in.... Pinnace, get your painter aft, and shove your
bows out.”
At this moment a thin, pale man, wearing a bowler hat, appeared at
the top of the steps and began to descend them with what speed their
slipperiness would permit.
“Hold on,” said Ollenor.
The man came across the pinnace and jumped into the picket-boat’s
cabin. Sentley glanced at him, hesitated a moment, and then retired
into the inner cabin, whither the others followed him.
“Who do you think that is?”
“An engineer, probably.”
“But does even an engineer officer go ashore in a bowler hat?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe it’s an officer at all.”
“It must be. He’s wearing plain clothes.”
“At any rate, we are on the safe side--coming in here,” said Sentley.
The atmosphere was vile. The little fixed windows were flush with the
upper deck. Through them could be seen, now the grey sky, now the
brown, hardened feet of one of the crew. Ollenor’s voice repeated his
former orders; the bell rang, and the engines turned slowly. Then the
tow-rope grew taut, the pinnace swung out abruptly, and both boats
circled towards the open sea. Land and the old life receded. Through
the narrow stern door of the inner cabin, beyond the pale face and
the bowler hat and the tiller vibrating above the propellor, beyond
the tow-rope and the sailing pinnace, which came sometimes into sight
as the helm swung over, Lynwood could see the hazy outlines of the
roofs of Torquay. Soon a change of course banished even these from
view. Lynwood found himself longing for respite, for a break in this
dream that brought them nearer and nearer to the ship. He wanted the
tow-rope to part! His eyes travelled to it as if there were a chance
of its doing so. But no god intervened.... No word was spoken. They
sat still, avoiding each other’s eyes. Soon Ollenor’s voice was heard
once more shouting instructions to the sailing pinnace. The engine-room
bell rang, and rang again. The propellor cast up new foam, and the
picket-boat quivered as they went astern. And now they rocked at the
foot of the _King Arthur’s_ port after gangway.
The pale man stood aside that they might be the first to leave the
boat, but they had no eyes for that. As they reached the quarter-deck
they saluted as they had been taught, and looked round for the officer
of the watch to whom they should report themselves. His childish
pictures of a shining sunlit quarter-deck flashed irresistibly across
Lynwood’s mind. Here the planks were stained to dark patches by the
rain. The turret, with its unbroken surface of flat grey, wore a hard
blank expression, which was somehow similar to that of an intolerant
and dull-minded human being. Ropes, cheesed down into neat spirals on
the deck, were black and sodden with wet. Over all, casting its shadowy
gloom on brass and steel, lay the sloped awning, from whose edges the
rain dripped and splashed with miserable monotony. The quarter-deck was
like a vast gymnasium, bare, and cold, and sombre.
Ollenor had followed them up the gangway, and stood now in conversation
with the midshipman of the watch.
“Can the picket-boat make fast and go to tea?”
“Yes; you have nothing, so far as I know, till the seven o’clock trip.”
“Come on, you fellows,” said Ollenor; “you’d better come and report
yourselves to the Commander. Then come along to the Mess.... There’s
the Commander’s cabin.”
Sentley knocked.
“Yes?”
Sentley took off his cap, drew back the curtain, and went in. The
others were following him when the Commander broke out: “Who are you?”
“We’ve come on board to join, sir.”
“Speak for yourself.... And you in the rear there, stand at attention!
What do you mean by lolling about in my cabin?” No answer was expected
or given. “Who told you to come into my cabin? Get out of it. When I
say ‘Come in,’ come in--not before.”
They withdrew, and Sentley knocked again.
“Come in.... Well? Don’t stand there like a dumb thing! What do you
want, boy?”
“We’ve come on board to join, sir.”
“Will you speak for yourself? Now, report yourselves properly, one by
one. What’s your name?”
“Sentley, sir.”
“Are you the senior?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are these all the junior midshipmen? I thought we were to have six of
you.”
“Two haven’t come off yet, sir.”
“Send them to me when they do. And see they know how to behave
themselves before they come into my cabin. Understand?” The others then
gave their names in turn. “Very well,” the Commander went on, “clear
out now. I dare say I shall learn your names as soon as you care for.
Go on--out of it!”
The last command was shouted at them. It rang in their ears as they
walked towards the Gunroom.
“I wonder if he’s always like that?”
“Lots of Commanders are half mad with over-work,” Cunwell said. “They
chase everyone--lower deck, snotties, Wardroom--everyone.”
“But have you ever heard anything so absolutely without cause?” asked
Lynwood; “a screaming rage all about nothing.”
“It’s part of the system, I suppose,” said Fane-Herbert, “and all for
the good of the Service. It’s no good to take it too seriously.”
II
When the midshipmen had left his cabin the Commander picked up his pen
and stooped once more over the letter he was writing to his wife.
“... Means more drive,” he wrote. “All one’s life is an amazing drive.
The R.A. never tires. He must be made of iron. It is his affectation--”
The Commander crossed out the sentence and wrote: “He considers it
necessary to be entirely unsparing of himself and others. It’s like
running a mile race at a hundred yards’ pace. He acts as if there were
going to be a war to-morrow. Of course, we all act similarly--and that
means a smart ship. But if you knew how I should like to relax the
pressure on the men--even for one day! But what the R.A. does we must
all do. I have that promotion to think of that you and I are waiting
for.
“When you met the R.A. you thought him charming, didn’t you? And so
he was. You should see him in the ship. And I hope you think me even
more charming than the R.A.? You should see me in the ship. I wonder
if the men think I am always like this. I’m sure the snotties do. I’ve
just cursed some new ones till they fled, and I suppose they think--and
I don’t wonder--that I’m an inhuman beast. What’s more, I’m afraid
they won’t ever have much cause to think otherwise. I shall curse them
and drive them whenever I see them--just as the Admiral, a bit more
politely, drives me. (It doesn’t hurt me, because I can see _through_
it all.) It must be done. It really is necessary. Probably the R.A.
excuses himself to _his_ wife on the grounds that the Vice-Admiral
drives him, and so on up to My Lords Commissioners at Whitehall, who
would put the responsibility on the Germans, and they return it. It is
a circle!
“I’m sorry. I oughtn’t to fill all my letter to you with grousing.
The Service is a fine service, and Peter shall go into it if you’ll
trust him to Commanders even fiercer than myself. But we shall have to
talk it over about Peter. I’m not quite sure that the Navy is the best
place. Your father was an artist, and if any of that has come through
to Peter--well, we eat artists. I know you want it--but then you know
the Navy ashore, and you have a husband who is going to be an admiral,
haven’t you? Do you know anything of the Jesuits of old time and their
methods? I feel rather like them sometimes. But then, of course, the
Service is a really fine ‘end’--that makes all the difference.
“When I come home....”
The midshipman of the watch tapped at the door. “Eight bells, sir.”
“Sound off!”
The bugle sounded. The pen worked quicker now. The last four words were
crossed out.
“... I’ll write again. I want to get this letter ashore. I’m sending in
an extra boat after Quarters. Quarters is sounding off now. I must go.”
He thrust on his cap and walked out on to the quarter-deck. Here the
Marines and the Quarter-deck Division were falling in.
“Where’s the midshipman of the Quarter-deck Division?... Mr. Ollenor,
in future you will come up from the Gunroom in time to see that your
Division falls in smartly to the bugle. Look at them! They’re a damned
disgrace!--all talking when I came.... Don’t answer me. Go to them.”
The Commander was shouting. He swung round on his heel to cover a queer
smile. The sergeant-major, who missed nothing, wondered what joke there
was; but he knew nothing of the Commander’s letter.
At that moment the Rear-Admiral emerged from his quarters. With his
hands clasped behind him he walked to the after-rails and looked over
the stern.
“Commander!”
“Sir!”
The Rear-Admiral pointed upwards to where the white ensign had become
entangled with its staff. “Your ensign’s foul. It looks bad for the
rest of the squadron.” Then he strolled away.
The Commander’s lips tightened. “Midshipman of the Watch!”
“Sir!” The midshipman came running, stopped and saluted.
“Look at that ensign--disgusting! The Admiral noticed it. Why can’t you
keep your eyes open instead of standing about doing nothing? What do
you think you are here for?”
“It was cleared a little time ago, sir. The wind----”
“Damn it! Don’t argue. It’s your job to see that it’s always clear.
Don’t let me find it like that again, or your leave will suffer.”
He dashed for’ard, swinging a telescope. The midshipman knew his cue.
“Sideboy!” And the sideboy, a wizened little creature as yet too young
to be an ordinary seaman, came running in his turn. “Look at that
ensign! The Commander noticed it.”
The sideboy looked; and gulped while he summoned his excuse. “I cleared
it just afore quarters, sir,” he said. “The rain an’ the wind----”
“It’s your job to see that it’s always clear. Understand?”
“Yessir.”
“And put your cap on straight.”
“Yessir.”
“Now go and clear the ensign. Get a move on!”
The midshipman tucked his telescope under his arm and watched for the
Commander’s return.