offered his word of honour to make no attempt to escape, and promised
that he and his men would do all in their power to assist. His
parole was accepted, and both he and his men set to with a will,
prisoners and captors working side by side to save the ship. The
Navigating Warrant Officer voluntarily attended to the wounded and
dressed their wounds.
As soon as it was realised that the water was no longer gaining on
them, the attention of the Commanding Officer of the _Prize_ was
devoted to an attempt to restarting the motors. In the course of
this work a fire broke out in the engine-room, due to sparks from the
motor igniting the oil which had leaked from the damaged tank. This
was successfully extinguished, and the wounded Stoker Petty Officer,
assisted by the German Stoker Petty Officer, succeeded in getting one
motor started. By 11.45 P.M. on April 30 all sail was set, and with
one engine working the _Prize_ shaped a course for the Irish Coast,
120 miles to the north-eastward.
Land was not sighted until the afternoon of May 2, during which time
the crew, assisted by the prisoners, laboured at the pumps day and
night. They were finally picked up 5 miles to the westward of the
Old Head of Kinsale by one of H.M. Motor Launches and towed into
Kinsale Harbour. Here two of the wounded were disembarked, and
improvised leak-stoppers, made out of the pieces of plank with
blankets stretched over them, were bolted over the shot-holes.
On May 4 the _Prize_, with her three prisoners still on board, left
Kinsale Harbour in tow of one of H.M. Drifters, and arrived at
Milford Haven, where she was based, at 8 A.M. on May 4.
During the passage an enemy minelaying-submarine was sighted on the
surface to the southward about two miles away. The crew of the
_Prize_ immediately went to "Action Stations" in the hope that the
enemy would close to within effective range, and for an hour they
waited in tense excitement, while the submarine steered a parallel
course to theirs. Apparently, however, her caution got the better of
her curiosity, for she finally drew ahead and was not seen again.
The remainder of the voyage passed uneventfully.
His Majesty the King, in recognition of the conspicuous gallantry
displayed by the Officers and men of the _Prize_, was pleased to
award the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant W. E. Saunders, who was also
promoted to the rank of Temporary Lieutenant Commander, Royal Naval
Reserve.
Lieutenant W. D. Beaton, R.N.R., the Second-in-Command, was made a
Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, the two Skippers,
R.N.R. (T), were decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross, and
the remainder of the ship's company received the Distinguished
Service Medal.
A few months later H.M.S. _Prize_, under the command of
Lieutenant-Commander Saunders, V.C., R.N.R., was lost with all hands,
presumably as the result of an engagement with one or more enemy
submarines. The death of this most gallant officer and his efficient
and highly trained crew was a disaster the Navy and the nation could
ill afford.
V
THE FORFEIT
(1916)
1
The sun was sinking low behind the peach-trees when workers from the
rice-fields came straggling back to the village. By twos and threes
they came, toil-stained women and boys, with here and there an old,
gnarled man, their shadows long on the road before them.
Tani, maker of sandals, looked up from his work as each one came
abreast his shop, responding gravely to the low-voiced, musical
greetings. But after the last worker had passed, his eyes, shaded
beneath the palm of his hand, still sought the road beyond the
village in patient expectancy.
Presently he heard the distant click of clogs, and a little figure
came in sight. Her cotton kimono was looped to the knees, the mud of
the paddy-fields still clung to her slender brown limbs. She drew
near.
"Greeting, Su Su O!"
"Greeting, Tani!" The girl paused before the shop, with quaint
genuflection and the gentle hiss of indrawn breath that in Japan is a
courtesy. The sandal-maker sat back on his heels.
"Tired, Su Su O?"
"Very," replied the girl. She moved the heavy, mud-caked hoe from
her shoulder and leaned on the haft, looking down at him with a
little smile. Her mouth, with its geranium-scarlet lips, drooped
wearily at the corners when in repose: her whole attitude betrayed
fatigue.
The man frowned. "It is not well, Su Su O, that you should do coolie
work. You are not of coolie stock, nor yet of coolie strength. Su
Su O, hearken yet again! Be my wife! Come and live with me here,
and let me labour for us both! I need you so, little Flower. I want
you for my wife ... not to see you only at sunrise and dusk, passing
my dwelling by."
The sun set swiftly; swiftly the purple night swept up over
rice-field and cherry-orchard. Here and there along the village
street a coloured lantern glowed suddenly out of the darkness;
through the frail oiled-paper walls of the cottages drifted the
voices of children and the tinkle of a samisen. The sandal-maker
stood up and took the girl's hand in his.
"I am lonely without you, Su Su O," he pleaded.
Her lip quivered. "I too am lonely, Tani; but I am a beggar--a
coolie girl without father or mother. I cannot marry you: I have no
dowry. I can bring nothing to the wedding--save myself, in rags. It
would bring disgrace upon us."
In vain he pleaded, all the poetic imagery of the Asiatic upon his
tongue. In vain he scoffed at convention--that terrible, inexorable
convention of the East; still the dainty head shook in plaintive
negation. Some unknown strain in her blood set honour before love,
bowed to the decrees that had ruled her unknown forbears. At length,
as if fearing that her resolution might weaken from sheer physical
weariness--and she loved very dearly too--she turned towards the
village.
"I must go, Tani. It is of no avail.... Nay, entreat me not
further.... Nay, Tani, I am so tired...."
The sandal-maker stepped back among his wares. Punctiliously they
went through the little ceremony of genuflection and gesture.
Click-click went the clogs up the narrow street, and among the
shadows the sandal-maker stood with head bent, as if listening, long
after the sound had died away.
That evening a traveller came to the village, a little wizened man,
clad somewhat incongruously in a grey silk kimono, a bowler hat, and
elastic-sided boots. Rumour whispered that he was the owner of a
fashionable _cha-ya_ (tea-shop) in Tokyo, renowned for the beauty of
its Geishas. Gossip spreading quickly from door to door supplemented
this as the night wore on. The honourable stranger was touring the
country on the look-out for pretty girls. He paid well, they said,
and his establishment was much frequented by Europeans, who, as all
the world knows, part freely with the sen. Here was a chance for a
girl with looks!
The old gentleman was sipping saki in the guest-room of the village
inn when Su Su O was announced. His keen old eyes noted with
appreciation the lines of the childish figure as she bowed her
forehead to the matting. But when she raised herself to her knees,
and faced him with downcast eyes, he pursed up his mouth as if
contemplating a whistle. Had he been a European he probably would
have whistled, but this is not an art practised among owners of
_cha-ya_. Otherwise his face was expressionless.
"Who is your mother?" he inquired, breaking the silence.
"She is dead, most honourable one. A peasant woman. I reside at the
house of Matsu the charcoal-burner and his wife."
"And your father?"
"I do not know, O honourable one."
"Ah!" said her interlocutor, as if something had been explained that
he did not understand. Peasants do not beget daughters with hair
like Su Su O's, nor with ears like tiny pink shells, nor yet slender
wrists and fingers. "And you wish to be a Geisha?"
Su Su O prostrated herself in silent acquiescence.
"I will take you on condition that you remain with me three years."
The heart of Su Su O sank. Would Tani wait three years? "And I will
pay you"--he named what was to the girl a considerable sum. That
clinched it: with a dowry like this she could marry Tani over and
over again. Yet her fingers trembled as she painted her signature to
the indentures, and her heart was sick at the thought of the parting.
Even "passing his dwelling by" was better than never seeing it at
all. But she left for Tokyo the next day, and a few moments were all
that she had for saying good-bye.
"Oh, but you will wait?" she pleaded. "It will soon pass, the three
years, and I will come back rich, and--marry you, Tani."
Tani's reply, in flowery Japanese, was to the effect that he would
wait a hundred million years if necessary.
* * * * *
Her life in the Tokyo tea-house was no worse than that led by the
thousands of other Geishas in the great straggling city. In some
respects it was better, because European tourists of many
nationalities frequented the establishment, and her beauty was such
as to appeal not only to Japanese ideas, but Western as well. For
one thing, her cheek-bones were not accentuated; and her mouth,
scarlet-lipped and tremulous at times with laughter, you would have
thought adorable whatever part of the world you hailed from. Also
there was something very bewitching about her plaintive love-ditties
(even if you couldn't understand them), which she sang in a minor key
to guitar accompaniment through her inconsiderable nose.
One day there came to the house a German officer on leave from
Tsingtau. He was a big, bearded youth with blue eyes, and--this was
a ceaseless wonder and delight to the Geishas--the centre of his
front upper row of teeth was crowned with a diamond.
Attracted by the glitter in his mouth, and inured to the oafish
attentions of European customers, she suffered him to put his arm
round her. Without further warning, he lowered his bearded face and
kissed her publicly on the lips.
To the Japanese mind the act was an indignity--worse, indecent. With
a deft wriggle she twisted an arm free and struck him in the face,
her eyes blazing. The big man laughed uproariously, imprisoned her
arm, and kissed her again and again, while she quivered helplessly.
Released at length, she faced him like a tiger-cat.
"Swine!" she cried. "Son of a foreign swine!"--and struck the piece
of gold that he extended towards her out of his hand.
2
The railway terminus at Tokyo was gay with bunting and thronged by a
great crowd of people. A brass band somewhere out of sight broke
into crashing martial music. "Banzai!" roared the khaki-clad figures
in the closely packed carriages, and in response the women and
children waved little hand-flags that bore the national emblem on a
white ground.
Japan had declared war on Germany, and the occasion was the departure
of a Reserve Division which was shortly to operate against the German
fortress of Tsingtau. The windows of the carriages were blocked by
grim, fighting faces: men from the North. Among them was Tani,
sometime maker of sandals; and on the platform beneath his window,
like a painted butterfly hovering round the cannon's mouth, stood Su
Su O, eyes suspiciously bright.
"Return if the gods will it!" she whispered, echoing the murmured
farewells of mothers, wives, and lovers. The grim memories of ten
years ago still lingered. The vaulted roof of the terminus had
echoed so many farewells; so few who parted amid the roars of
"_Banzai!_" had greeted one another again. "If the gods will," said
the women now, and the younger men still shouted "_Banzai!_" in
reply. But at the last, as the long train steamed slowly out of the
station, the finite human heart held sway. The oft-repeated
"_Banzai!_" changed to "_Sai-onara! Sai-i-onara!_"--the saddest,
most plaintive-sounding farewell yet fashioned by the human tongue.
A month later found Tani leading a moist and somewhat precarious
existence in a trench before Tsingtau. His recollection of the siege
since he took part in it had been a series of blurred impressions,
mud being predominant throughout. It had seemed an eternity of mud,
of ceaseless rifle and artillery fire, of being soaked to the skin,
of cold, hunger, and fatigue. Once or twice there had been moments
of ferocious hand-to-hand fighting. They were good moments, those;
and as he sat in the bottom of a trench cleaning the bolt of his
rifle with a piece of oily rag, his thoughts recurred to them with a
certain grim enjoyment.
By clearing away the earth at the top of the trench he was able to
catch an occasional glimpse of his surroundings. An amphitheatre of
barren hills, with the gleam of the sea in the far distance; a small,
slow-moving speck upon it that was a Japanese or Allied warship
shelling the fortress. Elsewhere, as far as he could see, the ground
was scarred by bursting shell, and herring-boned by wire
entanglements. Ahead, where the picric shells were pitching, a
yellow cloud hung low, as the mists sometimes cling to the slopes of
Fujiyama. There were intermittent points of jagged fire beneath the
cloud; shrapnel bursting about the German redoubts.
It all represented to Tani a certain amount of uphill ground to be
covered under fire: how soon he did not know, but the rest was
familiar enough. The inferno of shell-fire that was bursting ahead
would redouble till the mere contemplation of it almost stunned the
senses. Then the order rippled along to advance: you leaped out of
your trench and ran as well as you could across the debris of the
last attack and the chaos of barbed wire till the next trench was
reached. Sometimes you just dropped into it and panted; sometimes
you met other men there, fierce, blue-eyed men who had to be
bayoneted. Bullets would shriek and whimper overhead, or hit
something with a sullen "Zip!" Men grunted and seemed to fall
asleep, or rolled over and lay twitching in a novel and rather
ludicrous fashion. And there was the ceaseless rain, the smell of
cordite smoke, the bewildering roar of the howitzers.
That was War, as understood by Tani, sometime maker of sandals.
Early one morning a flask of raw saki was passed along the advanced
trench. Tani drank deep and tightened his belt, for he was hungry;
the spirit ran through his veins like fire. "It is the end," said
the man next to him, a battle-scarred veteran of Nogi's Army, with a
queer note of exultation in his voice. There, was a sudden lull in
the firing. Whistles sounded shrilly.
An officer near Tani who had been divesting himself of his overcoat
leapt to his feet with a shout. With an answering roar the trenches
seemed to vomit wave upon wave of steel, and yellow-faced, khaki-clad
figures. They swept forward, stabbing and cheering, hewing their way
through the wire entanglement in the face of a tempest of bullets,
leaving their dead dangling as they fell.
Tani reached a line of sandbags at the crest of a rise unhurt, and
drove his bayonet into the chest of a German who was clubbing his
rifle. He heard the breast-bone crunch as the steel went home to the
muzzle of the rifle. The German fell sideways, twisting the weapon
out of Tani's grip with his weight. Then Tani saw a bearded officer,
the haft of a broken sword dangling from a leather thong at his
wrist, struggling to reload his revolver.
As a mongoose jumps for a snake the Japanese leapt at the German's
throat. They fell together in the bottom of the trench, and for a
moment they fought with their hands, in the welter of mud and water,
trampled on by other combatants, breathing in short, savage gasps.
Then Tani got the "neck-lock" he had been struggling for. Something
snapped with a sound like a dry twig breaking, and the German's head
dropped back. Tani sat up, spitting and wiping the mud out of his
eyes. His adversary was dead, and lay staring up at the grey sky as
if amazed. The bearded lips were drawn back, showing his teeth; one
of these sparkled curiously. Save for the dead and wounded, the
trench was deserted: the assault had swept forward. Above them was a
sound of great cheering. Someone was wedging a colour-staff between
the sandbags; the emblem of the Rising Sun, tattered and stained,
stirred in the morning breeze. Tsingtau had fallen.
Tani leaned over to examine more closely the phenomenon in the dead
man's mouth. Then he emitted an interested grunt. The centre tooth
of the German's upper jaw was crowned with a diamond.
3
Tani, maker of sandals, leaned over the parapet of the little
cedar-wood bridge that spanned an artificial hike in the temple
grounds. Every now and again the moon's placid reflection on the
water broke into widening ripples as a carp rose. In the stillness
the sound of its feeding was audible--a tiny "gluck!" as if a greedy
child were smacking its lips. It was late spring, the season of the
cherry-blossom, and the light airs of evening came in puffs across
the water, laden with faint fragrance. The doors of the temple stood
open: inside, a lamp burned dully before the altar.
After a while the man took from his pocket a little pouch of oiled
silk and emptied the contents into his palm. There was some dusty
tobacco, two or three matches, and a small object that caught the
light as he moved his hand. This he retained, and put the pouch and
the rest of its contents back into his pocket.
"Click-click, click-click!" Light, metal-shod sandals were
approaching from the direction of the village. A form fluttered
towards him out of the darkness like a soft grey moth.
"Have you waited long, Tani?"
"So long, Su Su O, that the night had grown into Eternity, and the
sound of my sighing checked the very lamentation of the frogs!"
She laughed in her delicious gurgling way, and pressed her face
against his sleeve. He slipped one hand beneath her chin, raising
the flawless oval face to the full light of the moon.
"Thou art very beautiful," he said, half below his breath. "A
thousand men assuredly have loved thee since we bade farewell."
Su Su O sighed. "But none have laid a finger on me in love,
Tani--save one, and him I struck."
The man smiled a little, and then his face grew grave. He fretted
with the sling which supported his left arm. "What manner of man was
he, this love-besotted fool?"
"A German, Tani; a man of great stature, bearded, with a jewel set in
the centre tooth of his upper jaw."
Tani released her chin. "A diamond, belike, Little Flower?"
She nodded assent. "And by force he kissed me--upon the mouth."
"Ah!" For a moment the sandal-maker stared across the water, his
eyes narrowed into slits, his face inscrutable. Then, with a sudden
jerk of the wrist, he sent something spinning through the
air--something that glittered like a point of flame in the moonlight.
It fell with a splash, scaring the lazy carp that lay just beneath
the surface.
"He has paid his forfeit," said Tani grimly.
All uncomprehending, Su Su O nestled against him and slipped her
slender hand into his. Together they turned towards the temple.
VI
SUPPER BEER
(1914)
1
With the turn of the tide the wind backed and swept a wet mist in
from the sea. During the day promenaders had thronged the stone pier
that partly encircled the deserted harbour; townspeople for the most
part--stolid, sombre-clad folk, taking their constitutionals soberly,
as if they formed part of some inflexible schedule that regulated
their lives. In the afternoons a sprinkling of infantrymen from the
fort intermingled with them; loose-limbed young conscripts in grey
uniforms, with heads too small for their bodies--a phenomenon partly
accounted for by the zeal of the garrison barber, and partly by the
size of their grotesque boots.
Now, however, as the evening set in with every promise of dirty
weather, the promenaders turned in pairs towards the town. The
angler who had been fishing in the shelter of the stone beacon slowly
wound in his lines, gathered together his paraphernalia, and departed
also. A watchman, carrying a short ladder over his shoulder, came
and examined the automatic revolving gear of the lantern, and after
polishing the reflector, briskly returned to the town, taking his
ladder with him.
With the exception of a solitary figure pacing backwards and forwards
under the lee of the rough wall, the pier was soon deserted. But
this figure's constitutional appeared to partake of the nature of a
vigil, for every few minutes he paused and stared seaward into the
mist through a pair of binoculars.
His face, as much of it as was visible above the collar of his
ulster, was that of an elderly man, thin and aristocratic-looking.
When not gazing out to sea, he contemplated his slow-pacing feet with
mild, thoughtful blue eyes through rimless pince-nez. One cheek-bone
was ornamented by a duelling-sabre scar.
Half an hour passed, while the spray drifted over the sea-wall and
collected under-foot in shallow pools that alternately mirrored the
waning light and darkened as a fresh gust of wind hurled itself in
from the North Sea. Out at the entrance to the harbour a solitary
gull faced the wind with steady beats of its powerful wings, calling
with querulous persistency. Lights were beginning to twinkle here
and there along the deserted sea-front when the watcher at the
pier-head lowered his glasses, hastily wiped the lenses, and raised
them again to his eyes. Then he made a guttural observation in an
undertone.
Out of the grey smudge of sea and sky a small vessel suddenly became
an object distinct, making for the mouth of the harbour: a short,
squat craft, with high bows and a tall raking funnel set far aft. To
judge by the derricks topped up to her mainmast she had every
appearance of being a trawler; yet for a trawler returning in the
height of the fishing season she gave evidence of very empty holds by
the buoyancy of her movements. She carried no lights, though the
dusk was now settling fast.
A short, thick-set man in a blue jersey stood at the wheel; at his
side was a younger man, a tall, upright figure muffled in a thick
pilot coat. The crew, with the exception of two who were getting
ready to make the vessel fast, stood in a group in the waist. For a
North Sea trawler the complement of hands appeared somewhat in excess
of the usual requirements.
The man at the helm brought the vessel smoothly alongside without
acknowledging the presence of the watcher on the pier. His
companion, however, smiled a greeting, raised his hand as if to
salute, and checked himself. As the trawler went astern and her way
slackened, he jumped out and joined the figure in the ulster.
"Well?" asked the elder man.
"Absolutely successful! Twenty-four, all told. I got right across
to within ten miles of their coast."
The other gave an abrupt, disconcerting laugh. "You laid them in
fours, as you were ordered?"
The young man nodded. "They cannot miss them. And if a ship fails
to touch one direct she must cross one of the wires that connect
them. The impetus of her speed will swing them aft against her
side--two on each side.... Or three on one and one on the other...!
Then----!" The speaker made a graceful upward gesture with his hands
and smiled.
"And you were not sighted?"
"Once. The fog lifted a little, and one of their Light Cruisers must
have seen us. But I was flying their flag----" He laughed again.
"Oh, they are fools! Fools! They had time to blow us out of the
water six times over before I could slip back into the fog again."
The speaker lit a cigarette and moistened his dry lips. "Then I came
back as quickly as possible. And now I want my supper and some
beer--it's thirsty work, that--that trawling in the North Sea!" He
took a Service revolver out of the side pocket of his coarse reefer
jacket and extracted the cartridges from it as they walked along the
deserted quay.
His companion took his arm affectionately. "My dear boy," he
ejaculated. "Beer! Come along! You shall have a gallon--you have
earned it! Herr Gott in Himmel! You shall swim in it if you like."
2