Meantime (it was on the hour of evening drinks) one of the boats was
still unaccounted for. No one talked of her. They rather discussed
motor-cars and Admiralty constructors, but--it felt like that queer
twilight watch at the front when the homing aeroplanes drop in.
Presently a signaller entered. "V 42 outside, sir; wants to know which
channel she shall use." "Oh, thank you. Tell her to take so-and-so."
... Mine, remember, was vermouth and bitters, and later on V 42
himself found a soft chair and joined the committee of instruction.
Those next for duty, as well as those in training, wished to hear what
was going on, and who had shifted what to where, and how certain
arrangements had worked. They were told in language not to be found in
any printable book. Questions and answers were alike Hebrew to one
listener, but he gathered that every boat carried a second in
command--a strong, persevering youth, who seemed responsible for
everything that went wrong, from a motor cylinder to a torpedo. Then
somebody touched on the mercantile marine and its habits.
Said one philosopher: "They can't be expected to take any more risks
than they do. _I_ wouldn't, if I was a skipper. I'd loose off at any
blessed periscope I saw."
"That's all very fine. You wait till you've had a patriotic tramp
trying to strafe you at your own back-door," said another.
Some one told a tale of a man with a voice, notable even in a Service
where men are not trained to whisper. He was coming back,
empty-handed, dirty, tired, and best left alone. From the peace of the
German side he had entered our hectic home-waters, where the usual
tramp shelled, and by miraculous luck, crumpled his periscope. Another
man might have dived, but Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic and
wrathful he rose personally through his main hatch, and at 2000 yards
(have I said it was a still day?) addressed the tramp. Even at that
distance she gathered it was a Naval officer with a grievance, and by
the time he ran alongside she was in a state of coma, but managed to
stammer: "Well, sir, at least you'll admit that our shooting was
pretty good."
"And that," said my informant, "put the lid on!" Boanerges went down
lest he should be tempted to murder; and the tramp affirms she heard
him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunder-storm, for fifteen
minutes.
"All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and _we_ ought to have all
their guns," said a voice out of a corner.
"What? Still worrying over your 'mug'?" some one replied.
"He _was_ a mug!" went on the man of one idea. "If I'd had a couple of
twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I don't know whether I
shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it."
"Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. _I_ could build a
better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than ----," the
speaker named her by letter and number.
"That's pure jealousy," her commander explained to the company. "Ever
since I installed--ahem!--my patent electric washbasin he's been
intriguin' to get her. Why? We know he doesn't wash. He'd only use
the basin to keep beer in."