were enjoying their leisure, after the fashion of the sailor-man,
along the crowded batteries. The sailor's meal, especially in war
time, is a satisfying affair; but he does not linger over it as one
lingers over the tea-table ashore. For one thing, the surroundings
are cramped and stuffy, and the time is short; there are other needs
more pressing: there is a duck jumper to be scrubbed by to-morrow
perhaps; or a few more inches to be added to the wonderful patchwork
quilt destined some day to be the pride and ornament of somebody's
home. Besides, on deck one can smoke a pipe.
The battery was thronged with men; many were sitting in pairs at a
mess-kettle, up to their elbows in soap-suds; forward by the break of
the forecastle the ship's barber was reaping a rich harvest of
pennies--a "penny a shave and twopence hair-cut" is the recognised
tariff. A sewing-machine whirred busily in the lee of a gun-shield;
the crew "standing by" the gun exchanged lazy chaff with the bearded
sempster. Their watch was nearly at an end, and with the prospect of
a meal ahead the sailor brightens wonderfully. The ship's pet goat
wandered from group to group, gravely accepting the
attentions--cigarettes, banana-skins, and the like--that came his way
during stand-easy.
Out of the wreaths of fog and tobacco-smoke forward drifted presently
the strains of an accordion----
"It's a long, long way to Tipperary...." The voices of the men,
singing under their breath as they worked, blended restfully with the
throb of the engines and the swish of water past the ship's side. A
little breeze sprang up, tearing rifts here and there in the
surrounding fog; a few pale gleams of sunlight filtered through, and
on the fore-bridge of the Cruiser the Yeoman of Signals raised his
glass and steadied it against the topmost rail. Suddenly he
stiffened like a pointer.
"Trawler right ahead, sir!" His lynx-like eye and almost lifelong
training told before the others could see anything. The Captain
stepped out of the tiny chart-house, where he had been busy with the
chart and a pair of dividers.
"There, sir." The Officer of the Watch extended his arm and
forefinger. The Navigating Lieutenant joined them, and together they
peered through the shifting veil of vapour.
"Yes, I see...." The Captain adjusted his glasses the fraction of a
degree. "She's flying our colours ... Can you see her number...?"
The Officer of the Watch moved to the voice-pipe, as if to give an
order to the helmsman.
"No; steady as you go!" said the Captain. "She's a mile away yet. I
want to see her a bit closer--ah..." He broke off disgustedly as the
fog closed down on them again, blotting out the pale sunlight. The
distant trawler vanished as a picture vanishes from the screen when a
hand withdraws the lantern slide. The Captain blinked as the tiny
beads of moisture collected on his eyelashes, and rubbed his glasses
impatiently. "Damn this fog! Put a look-out in the eyes of the
ship." Going to the voice-pipe, he gave a curt order to the
Quartermaster at the helm and came back again to the compass. "I
didn't like the look of that fellow, for all his display of bunting.
Too many men on deck for one of our trawlers." He looked up into the
blindfold drifts overhead. "Oh, for one little minute...!"
The Officer of the Watch had stepped to the head of the ladder and
beckoned to a messenger:
"Jump down and tell the Captain of the Forecastle to tell off a hand
as look-out forward in the eyes of the ship. He's to get him there
at once!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" The boy sped off on his errand and darted off along
the upper deck. The petty officer whose official title was "Captain
of the Forecastle" was seated with his back against the engine-room
casings, playing "crib" with a Chief Stoker. The messenger pulled up
panting:
"Please--the--Officer--of--the--Watch--sez--tell
--off--a--hand--to--look--out--in--the--eyes--of--the--ship!" he
gasped. He had run so fast and spoke so quickly, in his fear lest he
should forget the message, that to a less trained ear it would have
sounded unintelligible.
The Captain of the Forecastle turned a clear grey eye upon him, and
moistened a thumb preparatory to dealing. "Right, my son.... Nip
along on to the fo's'cle an' pass the word to Able-Seaman
Eggers--'e's one of the party standin' by the foremost gun--to get up
quick 's 'ell into the eyes of the ship. Tell 'im to get back smart
to 'is gun if 'e's wanted. An' then jump down to 19 Mess an' warn
Able-Seaman Leckey to relieve 'im nex' watch. Tell 'em both from me
to keep their eyes skinned, or they'll get 'ung at the port
fore-tops'l yard-arm!"
The boy departed as if wings were attached to his bare heels, his
freckled face solemn with the burden of these grave responsibilities.
In his Pantheon three deities presided over the affairs of men.
There was Mr. Corbett the Boatswain, terrible in wrath, iron-handed,
implacable, who drank rum (so rumour had it) as weak mortals drink
swipes, and could put an eye-splice in a bit of six-inch wire
single-handed in his sleep.... A more mysterious power was that
invested in a trinity of Lieutenants known collectively as
"Orficer-of-the-Watch"; and, lastly, there was the Captain of the
Forecastle. But the greatest of these was the Captain of the
Forecastle. Other gods there may have been, but they were too remote
and magnificent to concern themselves about Boys 1st Class, or to be
concerned about.
Able-Seaman Eggers was leaning against the shield of his gun,
inhaling the delicate aroma of bloaters that drifted up from the
ship's galley. He hoped his mess was going to have bloaters for
supper; he liked them best when they had soft roes.... To him came
Mercury, in the form of the fore-bridge messenger, repeating
breathlessly the edict of the Captain of the Forecastle. Able-Seaman
Eggers accepted the change of duties philosophically; he would as
soon spend the remainder of his watch in the "eyes" of the ship as
closed up round a gun.
"Oo sez?" he queried--not from any desire to question the order, but
because it was necessary to maintain appearances before the Boy 1st
Class who delivered it.
"Cap'n of the Forecastle. An' 'e sez you gotter keep your eyes
skinned."
Able-Seaman Eggers cuffed the emissary of the Great Powers for form's
sake, and betook himself into the foremost point of the "V" formed by
the ship's bows.
* * * * *
Down in the Wardroom the occupants had finished tea; the Paymaster
rose from the table, and crossed over to the notice-board, carrying a
sheet of foolscap over which he had expended much thought and labour.
He pinned it up, and stepped back a pace to admire the effect.
The Young Doctor came over to his side. "What are you up to, Pay?"
The other smiled in all the pride of authorship. "I don't know what
you think, but I call that rather a neat bit of wit, eh?"
The notice read as follows:
"GRAND QUOITS COMPETITION."
"Subject to interference by atmospherics, barratry, mines, fog,
lyddite shell bursting on board, and the King's enemies, it is
proposed to hold the above in the dog watch whenever possible:
"First Prize--A good cigar.
"Second Prize--A blood orange.
"Third Prize--A bag of nuts.
"Penalty for throwing a quoit overboard:
"First Offence--Fined half a crown.
"Second Offence--Thrown overboard himself.
"And what'll he do the third time?" inquired the Surgeon, who was
suspected of being Irish. "But anyway, it's a grand idea--let's go
and play before the light gets too bad."
The Paymaster stepped into his cabin and returned with half a dozen
discs of indiarubber. "I wheedled these out of the 'Chief.' Padre,
come on and play quoits--you and I'll take on 'Pills' and the Gunnery
Lieutenant."
"Never played in my life. I should probably chuck them down the
funnel or hit the Skipper in the eye on the fore-bridge."
"That doesn't matter--it's your money we want. Come along, 'Guns,'
we'll take these two on." The Paymaster led the way out of the Mess,
followed by the other three.
A Lieutenant dozing in the one remaining armchair opened his eyes and
watched their retreating backs. "Noisy devils," he murmured
drowsily. "Why don't they sleep when they can?" and lapsed into
slumber again.
A Marine servant entered to remove the tea-things and tidy up the
Mess. As a matter of fact, there was not much to tidy: a table and
the bare number of chairs required to accommodate the members was all
the woodwork in the place. Two ash-trays that no one used stood on
the stove, together with a novel, several pipes, and an open tin of
tobacco. On the sideboard lay a little pile of newspapers a week old
and a "Bradshaw"--pathetic reminder of the days when one looked up
trains with a view to leave and suchlike vanities. A couple of
war-maps ornamented the bulkhead: otherwise, the Mess--the home and
place for sleep, meals, and recreation of a dozen English
gentlemen--was bare and unadorned.
The voices of the quoit-players outside came in through the open
door, mingling with the soft thud of the rubber quoits as they
played. The figure in the arm-chair stirred slightly and smiled in
his sleep.
* * * * *
Forward in the bows of the ship Able-Seaman Eggers leaned over the
rail, staring into the mist. The ship's bows seemed to be carving
their way through liquid jade that fell away on either side of the
bows with a deep sobbing sound. He wondered when the bell would
strike ... he wanted his supper...
A blinding sheet of flame leaped into the air, hurling a mountain of
water after it with a report that rent the fog in tatters.
What was left of the cruiser lifted half clear of the water and
lurched forward, sickened and stricken ... her stern rose slowly in
the air, the propellers kicking wildly.
After a while objects began to descend out of the riven patches of
mist overhead--fragments of wood and steel, wisps of clothing still
alight ... shattered images of God...
Then, somewhere aft in the reeling hull, a magazine exploded. The
cruiser sank as a bull sinks in the ring before the crowning mercy of
the last thrust. A pall of smoke closed down upon the outraged sea.
3
In a ground floor room at the back of Portsmouth Hard an old woman
was laying the table for supper. Not much of a supper: the remains
of a loaf of bread, some dripping in a saucer. But the chief item of
the meal, a bloater, lay on a plate in front of the fire, keeping
warm.
An old man sat in a chair by the hearth, reading a newspaper through
steel-rimmed glasses. Laying it aside, he leaned forward and prodded
the bloater speculatively with a nubbly forefinger. He turned and
looked at his wife over the top of the steel-rimmed spectacles.
"It's a soft roe, Mother. '_E_ liked 'em wiv soft roe."
The woman had completed the arrangements for their meal, and was
tying on her bonnet before the scrap of mirror that hung on the wall.
"Well, don' get pokin' it _about_!" she snapped, with unexpected
vehemence that told of overstrung nerves. She took a jug off a nail
on the dresser and covered it with her apron. There is an etiquette
to be observed in these matters when one carries a beer-jug abroad.
"I'm goin' out to fetch the beer for supper, an' when I come back you
shall 'ave your bloater."
The old man nodded. "That's right; an' buy an evening paper 'fore
you come back. P'raps we'll see some news of the boy. Pity 'e ain't
'ere to fetch the beer for supper same's 'e did use to. 'E should
'ave a gallon to 'isself if 'e wus 'ere this minute!" The old man
chuckled.
The woman went out and closed the door behind her. The rays of the
setting sun glowed red on the old tiled roofs and sparkled on the
waters of the harbour. It was a golden evening, and a peaceful haze
hung over the far-reaching Dockyard and the few ships lying at anchor
in the distance.
The hoarse cry of a paper-boy arrested her attention, and she stopped
outside a newsvendor's shop to read the contents bill of the evening
paper. She read slowly, for she was no great scholar and her sight
was not so good as it had been. Then she went quickly into the shop
and bought a copy of the paper.
NAVAL DISASTER IN THE
NORTH SEA
BRITISH CRUISER SUNK BY MINES
FULL LIST OF CASUALTIES
The glaring type attracted several passers-by, amongst them a
policeman on his beat. When the little old woman came out of the
shop her face was screwed up with grief, and she held her apron to
her eyes. Red eyes and tear-blotched faces are not uncommon in
war-time in a garrison town. The bystanders that gathered round
understood as if by common intuition, and the policeman spoke
encouragement in a gruff, kindly tone. Standing there on the kerb,
she had her cry. A Boy Scout held the jug her son would never carry
again to fetch the supper beer.
VII
THE WAY THEY HAVE
(1915)
1
The coastguard was turning over the earth in one of the tiny cabbage
patches that belonged to the row of whitewashed cottages on the flank
of the headland. The sun was hot and he paused frequently,
straightening up and passing the back of his hand across his
forehead. Each time he did this his eyes travelled half-mechanically
round the blue curve of the horizon, thence along the foreshore, and
so back to the cabbage patch, when he resumed his digging.
It was during one of these pauses that he noticed the gulls, and
stood motionless for several seconds, shading his eyes from the sun.
The tide had turned and left a few yards of sand below high-water
mark wet and gleaming in the October sunlight.
Half a mile away a couple of gulls were circling curiously above
something that lay in the shallow water, stranded by the
fast-receding tide.
The coastguard watched the birds intently. The dark speck that broke
the smooth shimmering surface of the sea might have been seaweed or
driftwood, but for them. Seaweed interests nobody--not even
sea-gulls. On the other hand what interests sea-gulls interests
coastguardmen. Acting apparently along this chain of reasoning, the
coastguard dug his spade into the earth, and made off down the
winding gravel path that led to the beach. Once on the sand he
stopped, said something in an undertone, and glanced back at the
coastguard station; he had come without his telescope.
For a moment he paused, measuring the distance with his eye. He was
a man of leisurely and deliberate habit of mind. It was a question
whether he went back for his telescope or walked along the foreshore
and decided at close quarters what it was that the tide was shrinking
from in the warm morning sunlight.
There wasn't much in it one way or the other, he decided after due
reflection, and set out accordingly along the wet sands at the edge
of the sea.
He was in no particular hurry. Whatever his vices, curiosity wasn't
one of them. But it was his job; and as he walked he eyed the sea
distastefully as if it had been responsible for more jobs than he
personally had much use for.
One of the sea-gulls soared suddenly and flew swiftly out to sea with
quick strong beats of its wings.
The other still hovered, as if questioning the sea with thin
querulous cries. The coastguard drew near, and it too fled seaward,
abandoning the enigma that lay with the little waves lapping round it
in retreat.
The coastguard stopped at the edge of the water and stood with his
hands on his hips contemplating the jetsam.
"Another of 'em," he said, and was for wading out there and then,
till he remembered his wife and what she said the last time he went
in with his boots on.
Accordingly he removed his boots and socks, rolled up his
bell-bottomed trousers, and splashed out to where the thing was
lying. He turned it over gingerly and he shook his head.
"'Dentity disc," he muttered, and pulling out his knife, severed the
cord that connected a little metal disc to what lay at his feet.
Then he retraced his steps to where his boots were lying, examining
the disc as he walked. Three rows of letters and some figures were
stamped on it. With difficulty he deciphered them:
A. E. JONES,
TMR. R.N.R.T.
1347
BAP.
With more haste than he had hitherto exhibited the coastguard
replaced his socks and boots and returned to the coastguard station.
His mate was examining a steam-drifter far out to sea through the big
brass-bound high-power telescope. He turned as the new-comer
entered. The latter threw the disc down on to the desk and stepped
to the telephone. "A. E. Jones," he said; "Trimmer, Royal Naval
Reserve, Trawler Section, No. 1347. Religion, Baptist."
The other nodded, and resumed his scrutiny of the distant drifter.
"Bin in the water long?" he inquired.
"Weeks," said the other, turning the handle of the telephone bell,
"an' weeks." Then he picked up the receiver, and in half a dozen
terse sentences set in motion that part of the vast and complex
machinery of the British Admiralty interested in the affairs--even
unto death--of R.N.R. (T.) No. 1347.
An hour later an immaculate young gentleman with paper protectors to
his cuffs, who occupied a corner of a large dusty room overlooking
Whitehall, was running his pen down the pages of a tome resembling in
appearance the Doomsday Book. "J," he said. "Um--m--m.
Jo--Jones--1347. Next of kin, mother. That's the fellah." Then he
wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to a messenger,
glanced at the clock, removed his paper protectors from his cuffs,
and went off to his lunch, and the spiritual refreshment of twenty
minutes' badinage with a rather coy waitress at a popular café.
His part in the drama was taken a couple of hours later by a
Registrar of the Naval Reserve at a grimy Welsh seaport, who was also
the Assistant Collector of Customs and a deacon at the local chapel;
he, at the bidding of a curt telegram, pumped up the back tyre of his
bicycle and rode some three miles along a cobbled thoroughfare, till
he came to a row of cottages that stared across an evil-looking canal
at mounds of slag. He dismounted at the door of the third house and
knocked. An old woman answered the summons, wiping her hands on her
apron.
"Mrs. Jones?"
"Aye," said the old woman. "Have they found 'im?"
"They have," said the registrar grimly. "An' buryin' him they are
to-morrow."
The old woman sat down in a chair and threw her apron over her head.
"Anwl!" she wailed. "Anwl, Anwl! Seven year since I set eyes on
'im, an' then he did hit me a clout and went foreign--drinkin' he'd
been... _Dhu_! _Dhu_! And me his mother."
The registrar entered the squalid room, drew a chair up beside the
old woman, and, sitting down, prepared to enjoy himself.
"The _Ard_-miralty," he began sonorously, unfolding the telegram and
clearing his throat; "the Ard-miralty, look you, gives me authority
to pay your fare to the East Coast of England so's you can be present
at the funeral, Mrs. Jones." Then, his voice rising to the triumphal
mournful "_hoeul_"* of the Welsh preacher, he added, "Are not two
sparrows sold for one farthing----!"
* A sort of sing-song chanty.
The old woman ceased to rock herself to and fro. Her head emerged
from under her apron.
"Maggie Ann!" she cried shrilly.
A slovenly girl, with a sallow face, and masses of untidy hair
twisted up in curl papers, crossed the yard at the back, and stood in
the doorway.
"Get you out my black dress an' my red flannel petticoat, Maggie Ann."
The registrar eyed the girl sternly. "Have you got a black dress
too?" he inquired.
"I have indeed," replied Maggie Ann simply. "In the pawnshop, it is."
The registrar consulted the telegram as if it contained directions as
to the method of redeeming articles from pawn.
"I am authorised by the Ard-miralty to issue two tickets to the next
of kin of the deceased." He cleared his throat and contemplated
Maggie Ann. "I am prepared to give you one so's you can go to the
funeral too."
"There's my married sister," said Maggie Ann reflectively, "with a
black dress as would fit me----"
"Get it you from her," commanded the registrar majestically. "An' be
at the station at 4 o'clock. I will find a train for you." His
manner suggested that trains were things that took even a man a good
deal of finding.
He was as good as his word, however. The two quaint figures clad in
rusty black, voluble and breathless with the enormity of this
adventure, were bundled into a third-class carriage. The registrar
handed the elder woman a sheet of directions, and, being a
kindly-hearted man, he pressed five shillings into the palm of Maggie
Ann's black-cotton-gloved hand. Then he spoke magnificently to the
guard--as one brass-bound official to another--and with a wide
gesture of farewell that was partly a military salute and partly a
parochial benediction he turned on his heel.
The train slowly gathered speed, and the two women sat staring out of
the window as if they were hypnotised. Then Maggie Ann opened her
clenched palm and displayed the two half-crowns which she held
together with the tickets.
"Did 'e give 'em to you?"
"Aye," said Maggie Ann.
"Well, well! Who'd ha' thought it?" said her mother. "Put 'em
somewhere safe, Maggie Ann, for fear of robbers." They had the
carriage to themselves, and Maggie Ann obeyed her mother accordingly.
Then whispering together in the vernacular, after the manner of the
Welsh, crying a little from time to time to keep one another company,
and sustained throughout the long journey by peppermint drops of
amazing pungency, they were whirled out of the land of their fathers
into the unknown.
Among the passengers who shared their carriage later on was a
dignified, elderly lady, with silver-white hair and a face of a
singular, though rather sad, sweetness of expression. She was
dressed in deep black, and listened intently as the old woman told
her story for the benefit of their fellow passengers. She did not
smile, as did the others, when Maggie Ann of the reddened eyes and
nose, with wisps of untidy hair protruding from under her married
sister's hat, was bidden to display the tickets in token of an
Empire's solicitude for the women of the humblest of her sons.
"You are lucky," she said gently. "You can at least bury your dead.
That was denied me. I lost my first-born in that battle too. He was
a sailor like your son was."
They reached Paddington as the dusk was falling, and in the vast
echoing dimness of the station the immensity of the unknown descended
upon the two Welsh women, as they stood bewildered upon the platform
among the jostling throng of passengers.
"Find a policeman, Maggie Ann," said the elder woman, consulting the
sheet of directions given her by the registrar. "An' ask 'im where
to find a tidy li'l' public-'ouse where we can stop the night."
But before Maggie Ann could invoke the aid of the law in quest of
lodgings, the grey-haired lady who had spoken to them in the train
again approached the pair.
"My car is waiting," she said. "Will you both come home with me for
the night? I have a big house and a very empty one; there is room
for you both. Cook will give you breakfast early, and you can start
for the East Coast to-morrow morning in good time for the funeral."
"Well, indeed to goodness!" said Mrs. Jones, and suffered herself to
be led to a waiting car in which, to the visible astonishment of an
elderly chauffeur, she and Maggie Ann were placed. "There's kind you
are, Mum."
"Not at all," said the grey-haired lady as the car started. "I have
very few servants now, and there are plenty of spare servants' rooms.
I am grateful to Providence for bringing us together into the same
railway carriage," she continued simply. "I--I am so glad to be able
to help"--her hands twisted together on her lap with a little
nervous, rather pathetic gesture--"another mother."
The visitors supped in a vast spotless servants' hall, where the
floor was of polished linoleum in black and white squares, and the
electric light shone down on burnished copper pans and scoured
woodwork.
Cook, a stout sentimentalist, afterwards bade the old woman draw a
chair to the fire and together they brewed strong tea.
"I've buried two husbands," she said, "but never a bairn have I
borne. I don't know but what you're to be envied, Mrs. Jones. Her
ladyship, she gave her only son, same's what you did, and her heart
is broken. But she holds her head the prouder 'There's worse things
than dyin' for the right,' she sez." Cook dabbed at her eyes with a
huge pocket-handkerchief.