reasons in which a good-looking signalman "on Jellicoe's boat" played
a considerable part. She it was, early the following morning, who
took Maggie Ann in hand. "Did you ever see such hair wasted?" she
said, contemplating Maggie Ann's honey-coloured tangled thatch.
"Even if you are going to your brother's funeral..." and bade her
comb it, and dressed it with such cunning that the pale slatternly
girl stood silent, staring before the mirror. The generous
enthusiasm of the woman who is fond of her sex seized Janet. "Here,"
she said. "Put this blouse on; it's one her ladyship gave me. I
don't want it. And see if these boots will fit you.... Oh! what
stockings--wait a minute." Drawers were rummaged, bits of lace and
crape unearthed, the married sister's hat was pounced upon and
underwent a swift metamorphosis in Janet's nimble fingers. "There!"
she said at length. "Why, I believe you're pretty!" Maggie Ann
turned from the glass with her hazel eyes aglow, and a faint colour
creeping towards the cheek bones set wide apart in her pale face.
2
Towards dawn a British Destroyer limped into the little harbour
embraced by one flank of the headland where the coastguard station
stood.
One of the blades of the Destroyer's propeller was missing, and the
"A" bracket, designed to support the shaft, threatened to decline any
further responsibility in the matter.
The Destroyer had sighted an enemy submarine on the surface at close
quarters during the night. The submarine had dived with commendable
promptitude, but not quite fast enough to avoid the nimbly
manœuvred Destroyer, who grated over her outer skin at thirty
knots. The conning tower of the submarine, which bumped along the
length of the Destroyer's side, was responsible for the
disinclination of the "A" bracket for anything but a merely passive
attitude towards the damaged propeller.
A couple of depth charges accelerated the submersion of the submarine
considerably, and the Destroyer made for the nearest harbour with
leaking stern-glands, and a ship's company uplifted beyond mere
jubilation.
The Commanding Officer went ashore to telegraph his report of the
incident, while the Chief Artificer Engineer and the Blacksmith put
their heads together over the fractured "A" bracket.
Ashore, the Lieutenant-Commander encountered the Chief Officer of the
Coastguard.
"Seein' as 'ow you're in the harbour, sir," said the Chief Officer,
"mebbe you'd like to land a party for the funeral this afternoon."
His tone was that of a man organising an entertainment under
difficulties. "This 'ere's a dull 'ole, an' a bit of a show would
liven 'em up like."
The Lieutenant, standing on the steps of the telegraph office, looked
up the sleepy street.
"Whose funeral?" he inquired.
"Party o' the name o' Jones," replied the C.O. in tones of melancholy
enjoyment. "Trimmer, Royal Naval Reserve, washed ashore near the
coastguard station. Mother attendin' funeral at 2 P.M. If you was
to land a firin' party, an' a bugler, an' mebbe half a dozen
mourners, sir, we could do the thing in style."
The Lieutenant mused in silence for a while. The "A" bracket would
take till five o'clock, and the funeral was at 2 P.M. "I can't
guarantee the mourners," he said, "but you can have the firing party
and the bugler. And if any of the men wish to attend as mourners,
I'll give them leave."
"Thank you, sir," said the Chief Officer. "The Boy Scouts from 'ere
is turning out, and the firemen from Nordbury, an' the lifeboat's
crew. They was all for 'avin' a collection afterwards in aid of the
institootion. But I sez to them----"
The Lieutenant-Commander had sighted a pink parasol, shading a white
muslin dress above neat ankles, that emerged from a shop farther down
the street. If he walked quickly enough he ought to be able to get a
glimpse of the face hidden by the parasol by the time he reached the
pier, where his gig was waiting. Two years of war in a Destroyer
quickens masculine interest in such problems. He descended the steps
hurriedly. "That'll be all right," he said. "The party'll be at the
landing-place at one-thirty," and hastened down the street in the
wake of the pink parasol.
Twenty minutes later he was climbing on board his Destroyer.
"Mr. Foulkes," he said to the Gunner, "I want you to take a firing
party of eight men and a bugler, to attend the funeral of an R.N.R.
trimmer who's being buried ashore this afternoon at 2 P.M. Better
run them through the manual before they land. And if any of the port
watch want to attend as mourners they can have leave. Some of the
stokers may like to go."
The Torpedo Coxswain who had overheard the conversation went forward
to herald the tidings along the Mess deck. "Blime!" said a bearded
seaman ecstatically, when he heard the intelligence, "first we sinks
a perishin' submarine, an' then strike me giddy if the bloke don't
lush us up to a funeral ashore! I reckon that's actin' proper
'andsome."
At 1 P.M. the funeral party fell in on the upper deck; the
brown-gaitered firing party, with rifles and bandoliers, and an
attendant bugler, were given final injunctions by the Gunner.
"Don't forget now, when we arrives at the mortuary, dead-'ouse or
what-not, the firing party will rest on their arms reversed, the
muzzle of the rifle placed on the toe of the right boot, 'ands
resting on the butt, chins sunk upon the breast, at the same time
assumin' an aspec' cheerful but subdued."
The Lieutenant-Commander arrived on deck and interrupted the oration.
"What's that brigade fallen in forward there, Mr. Foulkes?" he
inquired. "We aren't giving general leave."
"Them's the mourners, sir," said the Gunner, sternly surveying the
crape-swathed ranks, who, after the fashion of sailors when about to
go ashore, were preening themselves and squaring off each other's
blue-jean collars.
"Mourners, 'shun!"
The mourners sprang to attention and gazed solemnly into vacancy.
"How many of the port watch are landing, in the name of mercy?" asked
the Commanding Officer.
"The 'ole lot, sir," said the Gunner, "bein' wishful to pay respec'
to the dead."
The third volley rang out across the quiet churchyard that was the
last resting-place of R.N.R. (T.) 1347.
The bolts of the rifles rattled and snapped as the firing party
unloaded; the last empty cartridge case fell to the ground with a
little tinkling sound, and the bugler raised his bugle to send the
thin sweet notes of "The Last Post" out into the stillness of the
afternoon, speeding the fighting soul upon its final journey.
Its last unfinished note died away, and there was a moment's utter
silence. A hoarse word of command, followed by the grounding of
rifle-butts, succeeded the stillness, and the firing party swung off
down the hill with the air of men who had handled a dramatic
situation without discredit.
The mourners, at the invitation of the Chief Officer of the
Coastguard--who held that a thing worth doing at all was worth doing
properly--repaired to the Coastguard Station to partake of a cup of
tea.
Here as many as could crowd into the little house were introduced, in
a congenial atmosphere of tears, hot tea and peppermint, to the
mother and sister of R.N.R. (T.) 1347.
"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Jones in a gratified aside to Maggie Ann, "to
think Albert Edward had so many friends! There's fine young fellows
too."
The mourners, not one of whom had ever set eyes on Albert Edward in
their lives, acted to this cue with the inevitable instinct of the
sailor for the rôle required of him.
When, reluctantly, they departed, shepherded back to the boat by the
Torpedo Coxswain, Maggie Ann stood at the little gate leading to the
cabbage patch, and gazed after them with swimming eyes.
"There's kind they are," she murmured, "grand, strong men an' all..."
and thrust a crumpled twist of paper one had given her, bearing his
name and address, into the bosom of her dress.
A week later the Commanding Officer of the Destroyer, in the exercise
of his duties as censor of the ship's company's letters, came across
the following epistle:
"DEAR Miss JONES,--Hoping this finds you as it leaves me in the pink,
thank God. I take up my pen to write you these few lines dear Miss
Jones, it gives me much pleasure to write to you as promised after
your brother's funeral which I hope you will find time to write me a
few lines as I am a very lonely sailor. Being an norfun and no
incumbrances whatsoever dear Miss Jones I now draw to a close with
best respects and plese write soon.
"from your sincere friend,
"JOE WALSH, able seaman.
"P.S.--I enclose postle order for £1 so plese don't be offended,
excuse me, hoping you will buy some little present for yourself."
The Lieutenant-Commander restored the document to its envelope.
"Thank God I was taught young to accept responsibility," he said. He
picked up the censor stamp, pressed it fervently on the envelope, and
sent the letter on its way.
VIII
THE EPITAPH
(1919)
It stood in the darkest corner of a West End antique furniture
dealer's shop.
"That?" The proprietor echoed my inquiry.
"Yes, it's one of the desks out of the old _Britannia_. Came out of
the studies where the cadets were given instruction on board. I
acquired it when the ship was broken up." He eyed me thoughtfully
through his spectacles, and passed three fingers round thin,
clean-shaven lips. "Valueless intrinsically, of course. But it
struck me it might have sentimental associations for some: possibly
historic associations in years to come. Generations of cadets have
carved and scratched their names all over it. This was one of the
few remaining. Nearly all the others had been broken up for
firewood--it's only deal."
Together we dragged the relic into the light of day. "You see?" he
said, and switched a duster over the varnished sloping surface. One
glance sufficed.
"Yes," I replied, "I see.... I'll take the desk. I'll take it now
if you can get me a taxi."
"Thank you," he said.
"Thank _you_," said I.
* * * * * *
The fashionable epidemic prevailing at the time was mumps. The
stricken and the suspect were herded in separate enclosures between
decks, segregated by canvas screens hung from the beams overhead to
the deck. The migratory mump germs probably found the canvas screens
less of an obstacle to freedom than their victims, and to these,
doomed to the confines of a hammock, the time passed with leaden
slowness. Even the novelty of contemplating in a mirror the
unfamiliar distortion of one's jowl palled after a bit. "Dracula," a
much-thumbed and germ-impregnated volume, circulated from hammock to
hammock until even Bram Stoker's vampires failed to stir the pulse.
Meals, reduced to proportions in themselves an insult, did little to
break the monotony, and the hour arrived when Satan, on the look-out
for idle hands, must have found his task what a later generation
would have called a "cinch."
It was the custom, when visitations of this nature descended upon the
cadets, for a sick-berth steward to be banished into exile with the
stricken. The job can have been no sinecure, although germs ignored
the individual in question with as great indifference as bees display
towards an apiarist. Frequent sojourns in the camps of the afflicted
had soured the temper of this sick-berth steward and warped a nature
that can at no time have been a sunny one. As a ministering angel
his appearance was not æsthetic; he was a ponderous fellow, with a
neck that ran to creases at the back and appeared to undulate
imperceptibly into his bullet head. In fact, it was difficult to say
where neck ended and head began. His eyes were small and furtive;
his nose a button; Nature, in a well-meaning attempt to balance
matters, had given him enormous ears set at right angles to his head.
It was this peculiarity that earned him the title of "Windsails," a
name by which he was universally known among the cadets, and to
which, curiously enough, he answered without resentment.
Now, it happened that one of the victims of the mump scourge was a
certain cadet whom, for purposes of this reminiscence, we will call
Day. As events transpired, he was not long destined to wear the
King's uniform, but passed a few years afterwards to a walk of life
whose ethics obeyed a less trammelled code than that of the Royal
Navy.
In worldly knowledge, ingenuity of mind, and humour of a certain
standard, he was far in advance of his years. Possessed of a
cold-blooded courage, utterly indifferent to consequences, he was an
unfaltering ringleader in a "rux." In fact, it was this last quality
that made for such popularity as he commanded. No one really liked
him, but there were a good many who held him in half-grudging
admiration, and so passed under an influence not wholly to the good,
but dominated by his personality and controlled by a glib and bitter
tongue.
Boredom hit him harder than the more placid temperaments; they might
be provoked to mischief thereby, but in the soul of Day it roused a
very devil of perversity. Finally, one evening when the slender
evidences of the last meal had been removed, and life became a blank
without outlook or hope, Day broached his scheme to half a dozen of
his languid fellow-patients who lounged round the open gun-port
watching the afterglow dying in the western sky.
"I vote we cut Windsails down when he's snoring in his hammock
to-night," he said in his slow, meditative drawl. Windsails slept at
night in a hammock slung a little forward of his charges, and the
sound of his snoring compared favourably with what one can imagine of
the roaring of the Bulls of Bashan.
There was an aghast silence. The very tone in which Day propounded
such a stupendous outrage was sufficient in itself to compel their
admiration.
"I can reach the foot of his hammock lanyard where it's made fast to
the beam, from my hammock," he went on, with a thoughtful smile on
his thin lips. "I can reach it with my razor." It was in keeping
with other characteristics that he should possess a razor, although
the need for it was not apparent on his smooth cheeks.
"We shall all be run in," objected a faint-heart. "Heaven only knows
what we'd get for cutting down a sick-berth steward. A 'bimming,' as
likely as not." Perhaps some dim shadow of the Hague Convention
floated through the speaker's mind.
Day eyed him contemptuously. "Why should anyone be run in? He'd
never suspect. They'd think his lanyard broke 'cos it was rotten.
Windsails weighs about a ton."
"But suppose they ask us point-blank if we know anything about it?"
"Why, then we should have to tell a lie--a thundering big one--and
stick to it." He mused with his agate-coloured eyes on the far-off
hills turning dark against the quiet sky. "'Course, you fellows
needn't know anything about it. You can shut your eyes when you hear
Windsails start snoring, and keep 'em shut. Then you couldn't
actually swear who did it." His smile was, somehow, never quite
boyish. "D'you see?"
Something like relief spread over the faces of the conspirators.
Assuredly this was a master-mind.
"It 'ud have to be done in a wily way," said one, revolving the
possibilities of the coup with reviving courage. Given this loophole
for the conscience the monstrous proposal assumed an alluring aspect.
"Make the lanyard look sort of frayed.... Windsails told me there
weren't any letters for me yesterday," he added inconsequently, "and
there were two. He was just too jolly lazy to get 'em."
"He found my cigarettes where I'd hidden 'em--in my boots,"
supplemented another, "and collared 'em. Said I could either give
'em to him or be run in." He brooded darkly. "Serve him jolly well
right!" For the moment he almost persuaded himself that the affair
was in the nature of a punitive reprisal.
"It's just possible, though," temporised a more law-abiding member,
"that if no one owns up they'll punish everybody--I mean everybody
who's under the screen now."
"Ah!" observed Day, "in that case something would have to be done
about it."
The evening wore on, and the invalids retired to their hammocks.
Windsails, having concluded the few simple preliminaries to which he
was accustomed, turned into his.
"Fuggy beast!" whispered one of the watchful partners of this unholy
alliance. "He doesn't even take his socks off!"
One by one the law-abiding occupants of the hammocks dropped off to
sleep; but, as the sound of their even breathing swelled and the
minutes passed, the wakefulness of the conspirators increased. Would
Windsails ever start snoring? What was Day doing? Did it hurt much
to be cut down? Supposing he died ... broke his neck?
Then, faint at first, gathering volume and strength every moment,
began the rumbling, stertorous eruption of sound that proclaimed the
reception of Windsails into the arms of Morpheus.
If he died, would it be murder? ... Accessories before the fact....
Of course, as long as one kept one's eyes tightly shut.... What was
Day doing? Why didn't he get it over? Keeping everyone on
tenterhooks----
There was a soft, almost noiseless chuckle. That was Day. Of course
the situation would appeal to him; he knew no one dared open his eyes.
Crash! Then utter silence.
Ten throbbing seconds passed--twenty. Still no sound. He must be
dead!--no need to pretend any longer. Half a dozen heads emerged
from blankets--craned; jaws dropped, hearts beat suffocatingly. But
the huddled figure on the deck made no movement; it remained in the
light of the police-lantern a confused heap of blankets and muffled
humanity that presently emitted a groan--and then another.
No one dared move; blanched faces stared down over the edges of the
canvas hammocks; visions of disgrace, expulsion--worse, the felon's
dock and hangman's noose, came clustering out of the shadows.
And then Day snored.
It was not a loud snore; nothing overdone or inartistic. Just the
heavy, regular breathing of an innocent and tired boy asleep. That
fellow had nerves of steel! Endurance, pent in frailer vessels, had
just reached its limits when the huddled figure on the deck stirred,
rolled out of its blankets, and, with another groan, rose to his
feet. Day's solitary breathing became a chorus of snores,
impassioned in their realism.
Windsails stood motionless, contemplating a massive bollard adjoining
the ruins of his bed.
"That's what winded me," he said with the air of one who had solved a
problem of some complexity. He must have come in contact with it as
he fell. Then, slowly and deliberately he bent down, picked up the
severed hammock lanyard and scrutinised it in the lantern light. In
silence he made the end fast to the beam again, readjusted his
blankets, and climbed ponderously into the hammock.
"Snore away!" he observed with vicious calm. "But there's some of
you as will answer for this!"
There was in the captain's face that blend of sternness and faint
surprise with which he always confronted malefactors. In this case
there were arraigned before him all the recent inmates of the
quarantine quarters.
"It is incredible to me," he was saying, "that any officer--any young
gentleman about to become a naval officer--should so far forget
himself as to perpetrate this outrage. I have personally examined
the hammock lanyard, and there is no doubt in my mind whatever that
it was cut--cut by a sharp knife. There was no one under the screen
at the time with the exception of you young gentlemen." He paused
and allowed his grave, handsome eyes to travel over their haggard
faces. "I expect the cadet who did it to step forward and own up
honourably."
No one moved. There was a pause. "I shall give you all three
minutes to think it over," continued the captain, "and if at the end
of that time no one has come forward, the whole lot will do
instruction on board every half-holiday for the rest of the term."
The captain drew out a gold watch, glanced at it, and closed it with
a little snap. As if dismissing the whole business from his mind, he
turned and began conversing with the commander in inaudible
undertones. Finally, he drew forth the watch again and turned
towards the cadets.
"You have fifteen seconds..." he said, paused, and closed the watch
for the last time. Turning towards the commander, he nodded.
"Dismiss the cadets."
On the desk in front of each cadet was a litter of foolscap covered
with ladders of bewildering calculations whereby seamen, incredibly
enough, ascertained the position of their ships at noon.
It was a laborious task, exacting and uninteresting during legitimate
school hours; as an occupation for a half-holiday in June, with the
warm air blowing through the open ports the scent of hay and Devon
moorland, it was loathsome. One of the toilers, having finally
placed his ship securely in the centre of Radnorshire, laid down his
pen, thrust his thumbs into his "beckets" and gave himself up to
vengeful brooding. The breeze brought visions of the playing fields
and practice at the nets, with a lemon-squash to follow ... and a
strawberry ice.... Oh, curse Day! Why couldn't he own up and take
his hiding like a man? What was the use of his declaring that the
lanyard really broke of its own accord? That he never touched it!
As if anybody believed him after all he said the evening before it
happened.
He glanced across the study with furtive dislike at the author of all
this misery. It was hard to believe that he had really done it to
look at him now. Day had finished his task (he was extraordinarily
quick at figures) and was leaning back in his seat with his lips
pursed up in a soundless whistle, staring at the flies on the ceiling
with a sort of far-away smile in his eyes. Of course he had done it!
Didn't the captain as good as say he'd done it? He was doubtless
planning some fresh devilment.
His dislike of Day crystallised to hatred. He had rather admired him
before all this took place; admired his cool impudence, his quick
tongue, his superlative cleverness at games. Now he hated him, and
wanted to do something that would proclaim his feelings to the
Universe.... Perpetuate---- An idea smote him and his face
brightened.
With the aid of a book of logarithmic tables and an instrument box he
built up a not too obvious barricade screening him from casual
observation. Then, drawing a knife from his pocket, he cleared a
little space on his desk and set to work, whittling unobtrusively.
In a quarter of an hour it was done, and with ink and spittle the
newly-cut wood anointed to a semblance of age. Feeling better, he
resumed his navigation.
* * * * * *
The daylight had gone from the outside world and there was only
firelight in the room. The little desk I had bought earlier in the
day still stood in the corner where I had deposited it, and as I lay
half-dozing in the saddlebag chair, the mocking flames played strange
tricks. It seemed as if another figure were in the room--a restless,
uneasy shadow among the shadows, and ever and again it seemed to
hover round the desk. I lay with my eyes half closed, identifying
one by one the familiar objects of the room, and gradually the
presence of this shadow puzzled me to wakefulness. The poker, left
carelessly between the bars of the grate, dropped a few inches, and
the handle struck the fender with a little rattle. The fire
spluttered and flared brightly, so that I saw the figure by the desk
distinctly. It was a tall, gaunt man in a uniform I didn't recognise
for the moment--a ragged, mud-stained jacket and baggy trousers.
Then I remembered seeing a regiment of them on the march once near
Algiers. It was the uniform of the Foreign Legion.
The figure was bending over the desk tracing something on it with a
lean forefinger.
I sat upright, and as I moved the tall man turned his face towards
me. There was a grimy stained bandage round his head, and it was
twenty years since I had seen him, but I recognised the queer pale
eyes and thin lips.
"Day!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," he said. It gave me an inexplicable shiver down the back to
hear him speak. "But I didn't do it. I didn't cut Windsails down."
He fingered the surface of the desk like a lost soul feeling for the
latch of Heaven's gate.
"I meant to do it," he went on, "and I had my razor ready. I was
going to keep you all in suspense for a bit. And then, suddenly,
before I touched it, the lanyard broke. I think Windsails cut off
the frayed ends afterwards. He hated us all."
There was a dark stain on the left breast of Day's jacket that seemed
to be spreading slowly.
"I came back to tell you," he said, his voice sounding faint and far
away. "I don't care what the others think. But this----" Again he
fingered the desk.
Within reach of my hand was an electric desk lamp, one of those
portable things with a switch at the base. I reached out and turned
it on, flooding the room with light.
The desk was there all right, but I was alone.