A CHAPTER WITHOUT NAME
I
On the morning of his first full day in the _King Arthur_ John Lynwood
enjoyed the luxury of a lie-in until a quarter-past seven. In the
course of ordinary routine, he and all midshipmen not engaged in other
duties would by this time have done half an hour’s physical drill on
the quarter-deck; but Krame, trusting that the Snotty Walloper would be
unobservant on this occasion, had sent a messenger for’ard the previous
evening to tell the Physical Training Instructor that the midshipmen
would not require him in the morning. Therefore, when he turned out of
his hammock, John went immediately to his chest, took off his pyjamas,
wrapped a towel round his middle, and pattered barefoot down to the
bathroom.
Here the senior midshipmen, who had already secured the shallow
hip-baths, were sliding them over the tiled floor towards the cold
water tap, disputing with vigour as to whose servants had brought the
cans of hot water, shouting for soap, and calling down curses upon the
heads of those who had presumably stolen their sponges.
“Damn that marine,” Ollenor’s lazy voice was saying, “he has taken
my soap again. I hid it in the corner of this locker yesterday....
Shouldn’t mind so much if he ever looked as if he used it.”
John waited his turn, bathed, dressed, and went into the Gunroom for
breakfast. The senior midshipmen seemed to be in good humour, the sun
was shining, the coffee was hot, and John, in obedience to one of those
moods of his of which it was always difficult to discover the cause,
was a thousand times more cheerful than he had been on the previous
night. When Prayers and Divisions were over, the Chaplain, who was
also a naval instructor, came into the Gunroom to conduct School. John
learned much of him before his arrival. He had hoped that the Chaplain
would be a scholar, a little precious, it might be, but possessed of an
ununiformed mind, more pliant than routine, simpler than discipline.
He had met one Chaplain of such a kind, and had been grateful for the
relief that his contrast afforded. But this man, it seemed, was above
all a Wardroom officer. Ollenor summed him up: “He is always trying to
bowl you out,” he said. Only Reedham, who had a good word to say for
everybody, spoke in his defence. “I dare say he means well. We don’t
give him much chance. We’re not exactly Padre’s blue-eyed boys, are we?”
John saw at once that the Padre, when he entered, looked round him in
expectation of hostility.
“There you are,” said Hambling, in an aside that was intentionally
audible, “he hasn’t even the decency to knock.”
“Will you young gentlemen please keep silence when School has begun?”
said the Padre. He looked round him. “No duster, no chalk; blackboard
not in position. Who is the Senior Midshipman?”
“I am, sir,” said Krame.
“Then you will in future see that the Gunroom is properly rigged for
School _before_ I come in.”
“That will be your job, Cunwell,” said Krame abruptly.
The Padre continued in his even tone. “And you will give your
instructions at a proper time, please, and not interrupt me when I am
speaking.”
By this time the Gunroom, which, in the manner of Gunrooms, resented
nothing so much as cold superiority, was determinedly hostile. If the
Padre had ever hoped to win the midshipmen he had set about his task
wrongly, and had definitely failed. Of all soil the Gunroom is to a
chaplain the most stubborn. Few attempt to cultivate it; fewer succeed
in such an attempt.
The navigation lecture became a mere occupation of time, the teacher
being as mechanical as the pupils. When he talked, they let him talk,
asking no questions. When he drew on the board, they watched him,
for he had a habit of turning quickly to discover the direction of
their eyes. For this amount of attention, because it was a part of
discipline, he made a rigid demand, but so long as their answers to his
questions were not flagrantly irrelevant, he seemed to care not at all
for the direction of their minds. His manner was a strange contrast
to that of the masters at Dartmouth. And here--from the pupils’ point
of view--there were no marks to be won, there was no competition, no
incentive but the fear of the examinations for the rank of lieutenant,
which were yet comfortably far off.
When the lecture was over, the Padre interrupted the thud of books
thrown ostentatiously aside to say he wished every new midshipman to
come in turn to his cabin. He would see the most junior first. “And
I hope,” he added, “that the Gunroom will learn to behave itself at
an early date. If ordinary persuasions, which ought to be sufficient,
fail, there is always the Leave Book. You understand me, Krame?”
“Quite, sir.”
In his own cabin the Padre was more tolerant. John found him sitting at
his desk with a heap of papers before him.
“With regard to Voluntary Subjects for your lieutenant’s exams,
Lynwood--what are your tastes? You can choose three or less of the
following: Higher Mathematics, Naval History, Mechanics, German,
French, and Electricity.” John examined the paper that was handed to
him, while the Padre went on: “Most midshipmen, when they come to sea,
regard it as an opportunity to abandon all their study. I admit that
the ordinary circumstances of their lives--boat running, watch-keeping,
crowded quarters, and--er--so on--do not make book work easy. Commonly,
the work that should have engaged them for three years is left to the
last three months. That is not necessary. It is merely a question of
character and concentration. I want you junior midshipmen to choose
your Voluntary Subjects at once, and to work at them and at the
compulsory subjects consistently from the beginning.”
In this speech it was easy to recognize the intonation of a formula.
The man spoke without enthusiasm, apparently without the least hope
that his advice would be followed. He was doing his duty, that was
all. John chose as his three subjects, Higher Mathematics, French, and
Naval History; the first because it was necessary in Gunnery, and the
last because it was a subject after his own heart. The examination
consisted in the writing of an essay with the aid of books. There were
three years in which to write it. He intended, as he said ambitiously
in a letter home, to “write a big essay in chapters, and if possible to
publish it later as a book.” When he suggested this to the Padre, the
Padre smiled.
“I am afraid you have literary tendencies,” he said.
“I like books,” John answered.
The Padre looked away from him and talked to the open scuttle.
“It would be better from the Service point of view if you liked
mechanics. They promise very rapid promotion to those who specialize in
Engineering.”
“I don’t think I should do well as an engineer, sir.”
“Perhaps not. Make your own choice.... Do you care for poetry?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Padre looked at him sharply, an odd expression in his eyes, as if
memories were pressing on him.
“I have a few books there,” he said, pointing to his cabin shelves.
“Borrow them if you like, but don’t leave them sculling about the
Gunroom--they wouldn’t like volumes of verse. And don’t give too much
thought to them, old man. They won’t make you happier here.”
“Why not, sir,” asked John, “if I like them?”
“Because--oh, never mind why not.... Think over the question of
Voluntary Subjects, Lynwood, and send in the next midshipman, will you
please?”
II
The next two days were spent in sailing to Portland and in coaling
ship. On their first evening in Portland the junior midshipmen had
their earliest experience of Gunroom Evolutions. In this instance the
Evolutions were comparatively mild, being in a manner introductory to
the more serious business which was begun when the _King Arthur_ put to
sea. But these preludes, which began on a Thursday and were repeated
on the following Saturday and Monday, were enough to provide for the
junior midshipmen an engrossing subject of conversation whenever they
were beyond the hearing of their seniors. John and Fane-Herbert landed
together on Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank God,” said Fane-Herbert, “we are out of that for a few hours.”
“Do you think it will happen again this evening?”
“I don’t know. It can’t happen every evening.... I shouldn’t mind so
much if it were a punishment of some kind--if they even pretended that
we had done something wrong. As it is, they chase us for an hour, and
then offer us drinks, and then chase us again.”
“I think I would rather that,” John answered, “than that they should be
avowed enemies. One feels, at any rate, that they are not doing it out
of any personal spite against us. They seem to do it largely because
they feel they must.”
“But why must they?”
“It’s the tradition, I suppose.”
Fane-Herbert, who had uttered no word of protest while the Evolutions
were going on, and who, when they were over, had quietly washed the
dust and blood from him and had turned in, broke out now. He was
talking to his friend. He could afford to let the mask drop.
“I’m keen on the Service,” he said, “keener than most people, I think.
I don’t expect a soft life. I don’t care how much I am chased on duty
by commanders and officers of the watch. Probably that makes you do
your job better--at any rate, it’s all in the day’s work. Every junior
is chased by his seniors in one way or another.... But I swear one has
a right to a certain part of one’s life. The Gunroom is our Mess. It
is the only place we can go to, or write or read in, or do any of the
things we want to do when we are off duty; and it isn’t as if the day
was slack. Heaven knows, what with School, and watches, and boats, and
signals, and divisional work, and sketches, we have enough ordinary
work to do. But then at the end of the day our own Mess is made hell
for us.”
“I know. It’s no good thinking about it.”
“I suppose when you and I are Subs there won’t be any of it in our
Gunrooms.”
“No.”
“And what about the other fellows--Dyce, Cunwell, Driss--do you think
they will carry it on?”
“Probably. Possibly we shall when the time comes. It’s the Service
custom. It has come down through generations. It’s the devil of a job
for any Sub to stand out against it. It might mean his quarrelling with
all his senior snotties, and probably the Wardroom would be up against
him. Every time a junior snotty did something wrong the Sub would be
blamed because the Warts weren’t properly shaken in the Gunroom.”
Fane-Herbert reverted to the personal consideration. “Reedham told me
we haven’t had a proper dose of it yet. He said we had better stand by
for the first night at sea. Krame is planning great things.”
John thrust the thought from him. “Don’t let’s talk about it,” he said.
“We shall have to go back to the ship presently. We shall have enough
of it then.... What are you going to do when we get leave? Didn’t you
say your people were leaving England?”
“It’s rather in the air at present,” Fane-Herbert answered, “but
there’s some talk of my father’s going to Japan to represent his
armament firm out there. My mother may go too, and take Margaret with
her.... Do you remember Margaret, when my people came down to Osborne
years ago? She must have been about fourteen then.”
“Of course I remember her. She stood on the canteen steps with a huge
basket of strawberries over her arm. And as everyone passed she looked
at them and, if she liked them, she said: ‘Are you in Fane-Herbert’s
term, please?’ and if the astonished cadet said he was, she went on:
‘then will you take some strawberries, please?’”
Fane-Herbert laughed. “I never knew about that. It was a good idea of
hers only to be generous to our term. She’s a wonderful person.”
“Yes; I remember coming out to lunch with you and going to Carisbrooke
for tea. She talked to me the whole time. It was a windy day. Her hair
was blowing about.”
“She has good hair,” said her brother shortly. “She has put it up
now.... When we get leave you must come home and see my people. I think
you would find it interesting. My mother was a Stardyke before she
married, so we have dozens of political and literary people about the
place. That is in your line, isn’t it?”
John said it was; but he was chiefly interested in Margaret, whose
hair had made so strong an impression on his boy’s mind. He loved
hair--the colour, the line, the scent, the touch of it. He saw the
wind blowing through Margaret’s, though he had forgotten her features.
And, from searching in the past, his mind went out suddenly towards
the future. His sense of beauty, so acute, so creative, must not be
allowed to develop. It had power to arrest and overwhelm him, to
transform some swift manifestation of loveliness into an essential of
tremendous importance, capable of dwarfing all the other realities of
the world. And then, when the world insistently broke in upon him, he
would be haunted by that flash of appreciation as by the ghost of one
beloved. A moment would light the years, laying them bare, exposing
aspects of existence that he had been happier not to recognize. The
movement of a beautiful hand, for instance, once seen and realized
by him, would become a light in which to consider the movements of
all hands. A phrase of poetry that had once captured his mind would
dwell in it and gather significance from his experience. Margaret’s
hair--though he had forgotten Margaret--had become for him a symbol;
and yet, not her hair as a whole, but her hair as he had seen it at a
certain instant. In his memory the association of colour and light and
movement never varied. He had no recollection of the appearance of her
hair at any time but at this moment which his imagination had endowed
with permanency.... John realized that it was necessary for him to
blunt this sense, which was for ever creating within his imagination a
background to the immediate circumstance. He put it to himself in this
way:
“Seeing that I am to be a naval officer, the sooner I shape myself to
Service conditions the better.” Then he added aloud: “It’s better not
to think too much about those other things.”
Fane-Herbert looked up in surprise. “What other things?”
“The things outside your job that you can’t ever reach. If I were to
have a painter’s training and could ever paint that hair, or a writer’s
and could ever describe it, then----”
“Are you still thinking about Margaret?”
This renewed association of personality with his symbol startled John.
“No,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking about your sister. It might have been
anyone’s hair for that matter.”
As they turned into a shop to have tea, John said suddenly: “You
remember that I told you how the Padre offered to lend me poetry
and then said I should be happier if I didn’t read it?... I’ve just
understood what he was driving at.”
III
If the conditions of John’s life are to be understood, Gunroom
Evolutions must be once described. The detail of this part of his and
his companions’ training need not be referred to a second time.
The Evolution evening of which an account is to be given was not an
isolated or exceptional incident in the junior midshipmen’s lives. It
was part of a persistent treatment to which they were subjected, with
fluctuating vigour, so long as they remained in the _King Arthur_. It
was not applied every night. Sometimes there was an interval of over a
week between two successive applications, and, indeed, towards the end
of their service in the _King Arthur_ there were intervals even greater
than this. The length of the intervals depended upon the leisure and
the inclination of the senior midshipmen. But the treatment, though
not regular, was never definitely suspended. It was seldom possible
to say with certainty on any afternoon, “There will be no Evolutions
to-night.” They were always likely to occur, and when they did there
was no way of escape. The junior midshipmen grew to expect them,
to remember suddenly in the happiest moment of an afternoon leave
what the evening might have in store. The dread of these Evolutions
permeated their waking life, entering their minds when on or off duty,
interrupting their work in School, colouring their speech, inspiring
their manner with furtiveness and bitterness, with resentment and fear.
Only from the letters they wrote home were the Evolutions excluded,
for they did their utmost to make their people believe that they were
happy.
The _King Arthur_ sailed for Gibraltar early in October. During the
day the midshipmen carried out sea routine, keeping their watches on
deck or in the Engine-room. Krame made his arrangements for the evening
with so much success that, as a result of careful interchange, the
midshipmen who, from eight to midnight, kept the first watch below and
on the bridge were three of intermediate seniority, Norgate, Hambling,
and Ollenor. Reedham, the only one remaining of the intermediate group,
left the Gunroom after dinner at the same time as Winton-Black, and
purposely did not return. So it happened that, when mess was over,
and when the midshipmen of the Last Dog had finished their later
watch-dinner, the five senior and the six junior midshipmen were left
in the Gunroom together.
“Warts, fall in! Howdray, you are the mate of the ship’s biscuits.
Elstone, you might look out for the water.”
“Water? What the hell do you want water for?”
Krame pointed to where the junior midshipmen stood in single rank.
“These six young gentlemen,” he said “have not yet been christened.
They are--what’s the word?--unregenerate. As I, being Senior Midshipman
in this ’ere Gunroom, am responsible for the young gentlemen’s
spiritual, bodily, and moral welfare, I propose to christen them.
Therefore water, Elstone.”
“I knew all about that,” said Elstone, “but what I mean is, why not
christen them in crême de menthe? It’s stickier.”
Howdray’s great voice shouted in protest. “And whose wine bill is to go
down the young gentlemen’s necks?”
“Besides,” said Tintern solemnly, “it would ruin their shirts, you
know.”
“Damn their shirts!” Krame answered. “They can buy new ones, can’t
they? They ought to be rich enough. They don’t spend their money on
anything, so far as I can see--no women, no card bill, no extra extras,
no wine bill to speak of.... But I’m with you, Howdray. We won’t waste
crême de menthe on them.”
“It might go down to themselves,” Banford-Smith kindly suggested.
“Lot of good that would be,” Howdray grumbled, “seeing that we have
their wine bills.”
“Water be it,” said Krame. “The jug’s on the slab, Elstone. Howdray,
the biscuits are in my locker, just above your head.”
From his place in the line John watched Howdray climb on to the settee
and fetch the material for the christening. Krame and Elstone sat at
the end of the table, Elstone next the pantry hatch and Krame nearer
the ship’s side. On Krame’s left was Howdray, now sliding back into
his place and arranging the huge ship’s biscuits on the table in
front of him. Further for’ard, sprawling on the settee, and engaged
in a competition of blowing smoke-rings at their liqueur glasses,
were Tintern and Banford-Smith, who seemed less interested than the
others in the business of the evening. Elstone regarded it, perhaps
thoughtlessly, as a tremendous joke; Howdray was frankly a bully of
the old fashion, great in bulk but not in strength, good-humoured on
occasions, happy-go-lucky, for ever at war with authority, a creature
of vast appetites and weak control. Only Krame seemed to derive genuine
pleasure from the proceedings. He possessed a quick, almost brilliant
mind. He was handsome, popular in polite shore-going circles, an
efficient officer, admired, on account of his easy manner and soft,
smiling lips, by women and by men whose acquaintance with him was
but superficial. He enjoyed Gunroom Evolutions. He used to tell his
dance partners about them. It pleased him to play the autocrat in
Oriental style, to see human beings--no matter at what cost in pain to
themselves--subjected to his will. Even as John watched him, he called
the junior midshipmen to attention and stood them at ease again half a
dozen times in quick succession, not because by doing so he served any
purpose, but because he liked to hear his own voice giving orders. He
smiled complacently to see them spring to attention at his behest. He
pretended that they had not moved smartly enough, and turned down the
corners of his mouth in an absurd grimace of disapproval.
Over the table the electric lights beneath their yellow shades swung
with the slow motion of the ship. The air was swirling and blue with
tobacco smoke that clung in long wreaths to the nap of the red and
black tablecloth. The temperature was high, and the atmosphere foul
with the odour of food, for a threatening sea had caused the scuttles
to be shut, and no one had troubled to open them again.
Krame left his place and seated himself regally on a chair between the
table and the door. On his right stood Elstone with a jug of water, on
his left Howdray, clutching an armful of ship’s biscuits.
“Now, first Wart forward. At the run!”
Sentley, who was on the right of the line, hurried from his place and
stood at attention before Krame.
“On the knee!... ’Shun!... On the knee!” The spectators roared to see
Sentley clambering from one position to the other. Howdray picked up a
thick cane from the sideboard and hit Sentley as he knelt.
“Come on,” he said, “get a move on. ’Shun! Now, at the order ‘Kneeling
position--place,’ you’ll drop on your knees--understand?--drop, not let
yourself down like an old woman.... Kneeling position--place!”
Sentley went down. His knees brought up hard against the deck. He kept
his body and head erect, his hands to his sides. Banford-Smith and
Tintern climbed out of their places on the settee; one perched himself
on the edge of the table behind Howdray, the other found a convenient
seat by the piano.
“The child,” said Krame, after the manner of a gunnery instructor,
“will incline the ’ead forward in a reverent attitood and assoom a
mournful aspect. ’E will now repeat the Warts’ Creed.”
Sentley repeated that parody of the Apostles’ Creed which had been
given to each junior midshipman earlier in the day. “I believe in the
Sub Almighty, master of every Wart, and in Peter Krame, ’is noble ’elp,
our Lord ...” and so on to the end. No senior midshipman protested
against this Creed, no junior midshipman refused to repeat it.
When he was silent, a ship’s biscuit, thick and tough, was beaten and
beaten on Sentley’s head until the biscuit broke. Howdray was about to
pour water from the jug when Banford-Smith restrained him. “Cut out the
water,” he said, “it will make such a damned mess on the deck.”
Each junior midshipman came forward in turn, dropped on his knees, was
struck with Howdray’s stick if he dropped not fast enough, bowed his
head, repeated the Creed, and had a biscuit broken upon him. John,
because he stood on the left of the line, came last. When the ceremony
was over, Krame glanced behind him.
“Now let’s have a hymn,” he said to Tintern.
“What hymn?”
“Any old hymn--something to celebrate the young gentlemen’s
regeneration. Lynwood will lead the singing. All Warts will support
him.”
Tintern emptied a glass of port, squared himself to the piano, and beat
out the first chords of No. 165. Not only the Warts sang it; the senior
midshipmen, tired of the many repetitions of the christening ceremony,
were glad of a chance to make a noise.
“_O Gawd, our ’elp in ages pa-ha-hast._” This prolongation was in
response to Tintern’s improvised chords and runs. “_Our ’ope for years
to come._” The voices swelled to a roar, and paused for breath. In the
momentary silence the ship rolled deeply; the sea came surging over a
scuttle and receded, leaving wisps of luminous foam. “_Our shelter from
the stormy bla-ha-hast, And our eternal_----”
Tintern was beating the keyboard with his doubled fists as a kind
of desperate finale. The wild discords screamed under the steel
bars overhead. A locker flew open, and by a lurch of the ship all
it contained was shot across the Gunroom. A Manual of Seamanship,
a “Child’s Guide,” a writing-case, a Gunnery Drill-Book, and a box
of instruments, lay scattered on the table amid a pile of crumpled
letters. An Oxford Bible was open and face downwards on the deck. Near
it a bottle of ink, streaming its contents, rolled to and fro. Finally,
there fell from the locker a photograph of Driss’s mother. He started
forward to gather up his possessions.
“Fall in, damn you!” Krame shouted. “Who told you to fall out?”
Driss went on.
Krame stood up. “Come here, Driss. Did you hear me tell you to fall in?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I am going to pick up my things before they are spoilt.”
“Why don’t you keep your locker properly shut? Look at the ink on the
deck. I’ve a damned good mind--by God, you shall lick it up!”
Driss’s face was pale, his Irish eyes dangerous. Tintern leaned
sideways in his seat and took Krame by the arm.
“Dry up, you fool!” he said in an undertone, and turned back to the
piano. He had tact, moreover.
“_O Gawd, our ’elp in ages pa-ha-hast...._” Before the chorus was ended
Driss had secured his locker and quietly fallen in again.
The next Evolution was known alternatively by two names--one, “The
Angostura Hunt”; the other, which was sometimes attached in other
Gunrooms to an Evolution slightly different, “Creeping for Jesus.”
John was the first taken. Thrust on his knees near the serving slab,
he was blindfolded with two handkerchiefs. He could hear the senior
midshipmen’s voices. “Lay it here.... No, not under the table. We
can’t get at him under the table.... There, that will do. Replace the
bitters, Elstone.”
“Can you see?” asked Krame.
“No.”
“Can you smell?”
“Yes.”
“Can you feel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s what is wanted--a good scent, and probably a bit of
feeling before you’re through with it.” He cleared his throat. “Now,
Lynwood, somewhere in the Gunroom is a piece of bread on the deck.
Between you and the bread is a trail of Angostura bitters--pungent, so
as to make it easy. You’ve got to find the bread by scent and pick it
up with your mouth. No feeling with your hands, mind you. Put his nose
on the trail, someone.”
Hands seized John’s head and thrust it downwards. “Got it? Smell it?”
“Not yet.”
“Give him a sniff at the bottle.... Got it now?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Wait for the order to commence.... Stand by. Go!”
John began to crawl along the floor. They were shouting at him to go
faster. “Get a move on. Good dog. Good dog. ---- ----! the beggar isn’t
trying. Let him have it, Howdray.”
A cane sang through the air and fell upon John’s legs, sang and fell
again. The blood ran to his head. The smell of corticine and dust
sickened him. The blows were falling rapidly now. Someone other than
Howdray seized a stick and sent the pain shooting through John’s body.
He saw now the reason for this creeping position--the excellence of the
target it provided. If he could but regain the scent and get to the end
of it! But the scent was gone, and he could not steady himself. The
weight of his body on his hands was making his wrists ache. The noise
was deafening. On his palms the dust seemed inches thick. When he tried
to rise, they thrust him down again....
Behind the bandage on his eyes was scarlet blindness, and he was
visited by a sense of the desperate impotence of the blind. The words
of those shouting above him conveyed no clear meaning to him now. They
were giving him guidance, he thought. There was a medley of cries:
“Port! Starboard!... He doesn’t know his port from his starboard hand.”
A stick fell again.
“Give him a chance, Howdray. Still a moment; I’ll put him on the
trail.” This was Tintern’s voice.
But help was unavailing. Perhaps some foot had extinguished the trail;
at any rate, even with Tintern’s guidance, John could not detect the
scent. He groped forward to no purpose. Banford-Smith, sliding from
the table, stood unintentionally on his fingers, causing him so much
pain that, though he was now too bitter to cry out, he reeled from his
track. A moment later his hand touched something wet--perhaps the blood
from beneath his crushed finger-nail, perhaps no more than Driss’s
ink. He neither knew nor cared. In his head, which he dared not raise
from the ground, it seemed that fire was burning. His temples and his
eyes were throbbing as if they would burst. He paused bewildered, and
instantly sticks fell on him again.... It would never, never end.
Perhaps he was going to faint. He wished he might. That might end it
for the evening at least. That might end it all.
Shouts, forcing themselves upon his consciousness, suggested that he
was near the bread he was seeking. He groped in the dust with his teeth
and tongue, hoping he might end his quest. The grit was about his lips
and in his nostrils.
Then the bandage shifted, and he saw the bread. He did not dare to
seize it immediately lest they should guess that he could see, but he
worked slowly towards it and picked it up between his teeth. A great
burst of cheering followed, vague cheering, such as he remembered
having heard when, down and out in a boxing competition, he had been
dragged by his seconds to his corner. Presently he found himself
leaning against the table, the bandage having been pulled away. The
sweat was dripping from his forehead and stinging in his eyes. His
whole body ached. He stooped, brushed the dust mechanically from the
knees of his trousers, and tried to smile to show that he was “taking
it well.” And there was Fane-Herbert’s face, indistinct as though seen
through a heat wave, wearing that proud, resentful, unforgiving look.
“Have a drink,” said Howdray, his stick still in his hand. “Dry work on
the deck, eh?” He rang the bell. “You did it in pretty good time, too.”
“Pretty--good--time?” said John slowly, as if he did not understand.
“Pretty good time? I thought it was ages.”
Soon he was taking a glass off the tray that the steward held out to
him.
“Cheer-oh!” said Howdray.
“Cheer-oh!” John answered, and drank thirstily. He sat on the extreme
edge of the table, watching, with set eyes, how the others repeated his
performance. The shouts and the crashes of the canes came up to him as
from a dream. Soon Cunwell was beside him, drinking too. Fane-Herbert
refused to drink. Sentley came last of all.
“Fall in again,” Krame was saying. “Fall in!”
They stood in line, awaiting the resumption. It seemed as though
more would be unendurable; but John’s glance at the clock, combined
with his knowledge that the Evolutions would continue until the
Mess was compulsorily closed, showed him that as yet they had but
began. Hitherto they had been called upon only to act singly, and the
Gunroom’s limited space had added nothing to their troubles, but now
an obstacle race was being planned. Of this John had had previous
experience. He knew that it meant fighting with his own friends in an
attempt not to be last.
The course, as designed by Krame, was long and difficult. They were to
go out of the Gunroom, aft through the Chest Flat, through a watertight
door on the bulkhead, on to the half-deck, into the Smoking Casemate,
round the pedestal of the gun, out of the Casemate, for’ard through the
Chest Flat and into the Gunroom again by the after door. Arrived there,
they were to pass between the stove and the wall, over the table from
port to starboard, between the settee and the table’s edge, under the
table from starboard to port, along the deck to the Gunroom’s after
end, under the table from aft for’ard, over it from for’ard aft, and
out of the Gunroom once more. They had then to go by way of the Chest
Flat ladder on to the upper deck and to the after twelve-pounder gun in
the port battery. Here they would find a signal pad, from which each
was to detach a sheet. With this prize they were to run to the Gunroom,
and, as Krame remarked, the Lord help the hindmost....
The six of them started together. They fought at the narrow door of the
Gunroom. They sped through the dim light of the Chest Flat, doubled
up and with knees bent that they might pass below the hammocks slung
there by the marines. In the Casemate it was impossible for more than
one at a time to pass between the pedestal and the armour beneath the
gun-port. Elstone stood above them as they wriggled through the narrow
space, thrusting each other aside, tearing their clothes, hitting their
heads and knees and elbows against the projections of brass and steel.
They reeled out of the Casemate, not now packed close, but divided by
the intervals that the delay at the gun-pedestal had created. John
was the second to reach the Gunroom. When, having passed behind the
stove, he was about to go over the table, he heard them shouting at
Fane-Herbert, who had entered last. But none dared pause. Over the
table they went, and headforemost on to the deck beneath it; under and
aft, under the table again, canes urging on those in rear, and falling
haphazard across knuckles and arms. Already John was spent; all were
spent. Their legs trembled beneath them. They coughed amid the dust.
Under a hail of blows they battled at the Gunroom door, swept beyond it
through the Chest Flat for the third time, and rattled up the ladder
into the cool, sweet air of the upper deck. At the battery gun, during
the few moments he had to wait before he could tear his sheet from
the signal pad, John caught sight of the great phosphorescence of the
sea. Above him the masts tapered to a dark, clear sky. Smoke drove
ghost-like from the funnels. For’ard the lamps were gleaming in the
charthouse windows, and near at hand, in the uncertain light of the
battery, seamen stood smoking round their spitkids, gazing with an
expression of amusement and contempt at their officers being licked
into shape.
As John raced away with his sheet of paper he heard Fane-Herbert
muttering to himself: “Oh be damned to them! I’m last, any way. I’m not
going to hurry any more.”
They burst into the Gunroom, thrust their sheets of paper into Krame’s
hands, and stood there trembling with exhaustion and pain. Dyce seemed
to be on the verge of losing control. His face was working. They had
fear that his nerves would yield, that he would break, as can even
the strongest men, into ungovernable tears. The atmosphere was charged
with a strange emotion--the emotion that, as it were a sudden fever,
sometimes grips a mob, cutting it free from the restraints men impose
upon themselves, casting it back into the primitive conditions of
self-defence and self-assertion. If Dyce had given way, his collapse
might well have been a signal for forgetfulness of the difference
between senior and junior midshipmen, for a complete abandonment of
control. Near him John could hear Driss--of all of them the youngest in
appearance, the most clearly a simple-minded, high-spirited boy--saying
over and over again to himself: “My God, I want to kill! I want to
kill!” His fingers were twined among the tablecloth, as if thereby
he held them in check. Now he was making odd, inarticulate sounds in
his throat. John saw his face, and turned quickly from the flaming
bitterness he read there. There were passions streaming through Driss,
passions utterly foreign to his apparent nature, fierce desires, called
up from God knew what animal depths, upon which it was not good to look.
Last by thirty seconds, Fane-Herbert entered without signs of haste.
And they put him over the table, and pulled out his shirt, and tried
to flog the pride out of him. He did not move through it all, and when
it was over, with his fine mouth set, he turned away from the faces
grinning above the canes.
“Fall in again!” Krame said. “Fall in, I say!”
Evolution followed Evolution: the obstacle race in reverse order;
an affair called Torpedoes, that consisted essentially in hurling
the junior midshipmen’s bodies along the table against the for’ard
bulkhead; and half a dozen others, the product of Krame’s ingenuity.
Even the flame in Driss died down. There comes a time when resistance,
even mental resistance, disappears. The limbs move as they are told.
At ten o’clock a ship’s corporal tapped at the door and announced that
it was time to close the Gunroom.
“Last drinks,” said Krame, and rang the bell. “Warts fall out!”
Somehow they opened their sea-chests, got out of their clothes,
scrambled aft, and swung themselves into their hammocks. Once in his,
John lay as he was, not caring even to creep between the blankets. He
lay staring at the white-painted T-bar within a few inches of his face,
listening to the rifles, which were stored near by, clicking to and fro
in their racks with each roll of the ship. The half-deck sentry passed
him now and then. Somewhere a pump groaned continually. From the open
door of the Wardroom came the sound of voices and laughter and snatches
of song.
John did not sleep. He lay inert, capable of no consecutive thought.
He went on repeating catchwords to himself, counting the groans of the
pump, counting the sentry’s footsteps, sucking his damaged finger,
running his hand over the rough surface of the canvas hammock. Despite
his efforts to banish so tormenting a vision, again and again he saw
himself crouched in the window-seat of a sun-strewn library, now
looking out to the hills, now turning the pages of a book. He saw the
excellence of open print; almost he heard a clock ticking.... In less
than two hours, Ollenor, who had been keeping the first watch, shook
his hammock.
“Lynwood!”
“Yes, I’m awake.”
“About ten minutes to eight bells. Your middle watch.”
“All right; thanks.”
He swung out on to the deck, went to his chest, and put on
watch-keeping clothes.
On the bridge Ollenor turned over to him such information as he would
need for his watch. When Ollenor had gone, John glanced at the dim
figure of the officer of the watch on the upper bridge. Then, passing
the Quartermaster at the wheel, he stood by the semaphore and looked
aft, beyond the funnels and the boat deck, at the lights of the next
astern. Presently he turned his face for’ard and took off his cap, and
let the wind blow among his hair. Soon he must take a sextant on to
the upper bridge and help the officer of the watch keep station; but
now he stood inactive, one hand on the cool steel of a searchlight.
The incomparable peace of the wide sky; the throb of the main engines;
the rising and dipping lights of the fleet--there was sweet, timeless
monotony in these things. Far below him the cut foam was hissing
against the bows. Behind him the pipe of the boatswain’s mate was
shrilling and shrilling again.
And Krame was asleep, and the hand of God over the sea.