E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
"Bartimeus" is the pseudonym of Captain Lewis Anselm da Costa
Ritchie, R.N.
THE LONG TRICK
by
"BARTIMEUS"
Author of "A Tall Ship," "Naval Occasions," etc.
"Much of what you have done, as far as the public eye
is concerned, may almost be said to have been done in
the twilight."--_Extract from address delivered by the Prime
Minister on board the Fleet Flagship, Aug._, 1915.
Cassell and Company, Ltd
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
First Published. October 1917.
Reprinted (Twice) October 1917, November 1917.
TO
one
CHUNKS
Who, in moments of frenzy, is called
HUNKS
and answers readily to
TUNKS, TINKS or TONKS,
This Book
is
INSCRIBED
FOREWORD
DEAR N AND M,
This is the first opportunity I have had of answering your letter,
although I am hardly to blame since you chose to write anonymously and
leave me with no better clue to your address than the Tunbridge Wells
postmark.
Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! I am sorry about Torps, though. I admit his
death was a mistake, and I fancy my Publisher thought so too: but we
cannot very well bring him to life again, like Sherlock Holmes. So
please cheer up, and remember that there are just as many fine fellows
in the ink-pot as ever came out of it.
I have borne in mind the final paragraph of your letter, which said,
"We do beseech you not to kill the India-rubber Man." In fact, I
originally meant him to be the hero of this book. But as the book
progressed I found the melancholy conviction growing on me that the
India-rubber Man had become infernally dull. A pair of cynical
bachelors like you will, I know, attribute this to marriage and poor
Betty. For my part I am inclined to put it down to advancing years.
I have just finished the book, and, turning over the pages, found
myself wondering how you will like it. It has been written in so many
different moods and places and noises and temperatures that the general
effect is rather patchwork. But, after all, it was written chiefly for
the amusement of two people, and (as I believe all story-books ought to
be written) out of some curiosity on the Author's part to know "what
happened next."
Thus, you see, I strive to disarm all critics at the outset by the
assumption of an ingenuous indifference to anything they can say. But
there is one portion of the book on which I have expended so much
thought and care that I am willing to defy criticism on the subject. I
refer to the Dedication.
You probably skip Dedications, but they interest me, and I have studied
them a good deal. They are generally arranged in columns like untidy
addition sums, and no two lines are the same length. This is very
important. At the end you arrive, as it were by a series of
stepping-stones, at the climax. And there you are.
No. Let the critics say what they will about the book: but I hold that
the Dedication is It.
Yours sincerely,
"Bartimeus"
_October_, 1917.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER
1. BACK FROM THE LAND
2. THE "NAVY SPECIAL"
3. ULTIMA THULE
4. WAR BABIES
5. UNCLE BILL
6. WET BOBS
7. CARRYING ON
8. "ARMA VIRUMQUE..."
9. "SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES"
10. THE BATTLE OF THE MIST
11. THE AFTERMATH
12. "GOOD HUNTING"
13. SPELL-O!
14. INTO THE WAY OF PEACE
NOTE
The Chapters headed "Wet Bobs" and
"Carrying On" appeared originally in
Blackwood's Magazine and are included in
the book by kind permission of the Editor.
THE LONG TRICK
CHAPTER I
BACK FROM THE LAND
Towards eight o'clock the fog that had hung threateningly over the City
all the afternoon descended like a pall.
It was a mild evening in February, and inside the huge echoing vault of
King's Cross station the shaded arc lamps threw little pools of light
along the departure platform where the Highland Express stood. The
blinds of the carriage windows were already drawn, but here and there a
circle of subdued light strayed out and was engulfed almost at once by
the murky darkness. Sounds out of the unseen reached the ear muffled and
confused: a motor horn hooted near the entrance, and quite close at hand
a horse's hoofs clattered and rang on the cobbled paving-stones. The
persistent hiss of escaping steam at the far end of the station seemed to
fill the air until it was presently drowned by the ear-piercing screech
of an engine: high up in the darkness ahead one of a bright cluster of
red lights holding their own against the fog, changed to green. The
whistle stopped abruptly, and the voice of a boy, passing along the
crowded platform, claimed all Sound for its own.
"_Chor-or-or-clicks!_" he cried in a not unmusical jodelling treble,
"_Chorclicks!--Cigarettes!_"
The platform was thronged by bluejackets and marines, for on this
particular evening the period of leave, granted by some battleship in the
North, had expired. They streamed out of refreshment rooms and entrance
halls, their faces lit for a moment as they passed under successive arc
lights, crowding round the carriage doors where their friends and
relations gathered in leave-taking. Most of them carried little bundles
tied up in black silk handkerchiefs and paper parcels whose elusive
contents usually appeared to take a leguminous form, and something of the
traditional romance of their calling came with them out of the blackness
of that February night. It was reflected in the upturned admiring faces
of their women-folk, and acknowledged by some of the younger men
themselves, with the adoption of an air of studied recklessness.
Some wore the head-gear of enraptured civilian acquaintances and sang in
undertones of unrequited love. Others stopped in one of the friendly
circles of light to pass round bottled beer, until an elderly female,
bearing tracts, scattered them into the shadows. They left her standing,
slightly bewildered, with the empty bottle in her hands. She had the
air, for all the world, of a member of the audience suddenly abandoned on
a conjurer's stage.
In the shelter of one of the great pillars that rose up into the darkness
a bearded light o' love stopped and emptied his pockets of their silver
and coppers into the hands of the human derelict that had been his
companion through the past week. "'Ere you are, Sally," he said, "take
what's left. You ain't 'arf been a bad ole sort, mate," and kissed her
and turned away as she slipped back into the night where she belonged.
Farther along in the crowd an Ordinary Seaman, tall and debonair and
sleek of hair, bade osculatory farewell to a mother, an aunt, a fiancée
and two sisters.
"'Ere," finally interrupted his chum, "'ere, Alf, where do I come in?"
"You carry on an' kiss Auntie," replied his friend, and applied himself
to his fiancée's pretty upturned mouth. This the chum promptly did,
following up the coup, amid hysterical laughter and face-slapping, by
swiftly embracing the mother and sisters.
"You sailors!" said the friend's mother delightedly, straightening her
hat.
"Don Jewans, all of 'em," confirmed the aunt, recovering the power of
speech of which a temporary displacement of false teeth had robbed her.
"Glad there wasn't no sailors down our way when I was a girl, or I
shouldn't be 'ere now." A sally greeted by renewed merriment.
Indifferent to the laughter and horse-play near them a grave-faced Petty
Officer stood by the door of his carriage saying good-bye to his wife and
children before returning to another nine months' exile. A little boy in
a sailor-suit clung to the woman's skirt and gazed admiringly into the
face of the man he had been taught to call "Daddie"--the jovial visitor
who came to stay with them for a week once a year or so, after whose
departure his mother always cried so bitterly, writer of the letters she
pressed against her cheek and locked away in the yellow tin box under the
bed....
She held another child in her arms--a wide-eyed mite that stared up into
the murk overhead with preternatural solemnity. Their talk, of an
inarticulate simplicity, is no concern of ours. The little group has
been recorded because of the woman. Mechanically rocking the child in
her arms, with her neat clothes and brave little bits of finery, with,
above all, her anxious, pathetic smile as she looked up into the face of
her man, she stood there for a symbol of all that the warring Navy
demands of its women-folk.
Beyond them, where the first-class carriages and sleeping saloons began,
the platform became quieter and less crowded. Several Naval and one or
two Military officers walked to and fro, or stood at the doors of their
compartments superintending the stowage of their luggage; a little way
back from the light thrown from the carriage windows, two figures, a man
and a girl, stood talking in low voices.
Presently the man stepped under one of the overhanging lamps and
consulted his wristwatch. The light of the arc-lamp, falling on the
shoulder-straps of his uniform great-coat, indicated his rank, which was
that of Lieutenant-Commander.
"We've got five minutes more," he said.
The girl nodded.
"I know. I've been ticking off the minutes for the last week--in my
head, I mean." She smiled, a rather wan little smile. Her companion
slipped his arm inside hers, and together they walked towards the train.
"Come and look at my cabin, Betty, and--let's see everything's there."
He helped her into the corridor, and, following, encountered the
uniformed attendant. The man held a notebook in his hand.
"Are you Mr. Standish, sir?" he inquired, consulting his notebook.
"That's my name as a rule," was the reply. "At the moment though, it's
Mud--spelt M-U-D. Which is my abode?"
"This way, sir." The attendant led the way along the corridor and pushed
open the door of the narrow sleeping compartment. "Here you are, sir."
He eyed the officer's companion with a professionally reassuring air, as
much as to say, "He'll be all right in there, don't you worry." It
certainly looked very snug and comfortable with the shaded light above
the neat bunk and dark upholstery.
"Ah," said the traveller, "we just wanted to--er--see everything was all
right."
"Quite so, sir. Plenty of time--lady not travelling, I presume? I'll
come along when we're due to start and let you know." He closed the door
with unobtrusive tact.
The lady in question surveyed the apartment with the tender scrutiny of a
mother about to relinquish her offspring to the rough usage of an
unfamiliar world.
"Bunje, darling," she said, and bent and brushed the pillow with her
lips. "That's so that you'll sleep tight and not let the bogies bite."
She smiled into her husband's eyes rather tremulously. "And take care of
yourself as hard as ever you can. Remember your leg and your poor old
head." His cap lay on the bunk, and she raised a slender forefinger to
trace the outline of the shiny scar above his temple. "I've mended you
so nicely."
"I'll take care of myself all right, and you won't cry, will you, Betty,
when I've gone? Promise--say: 'Sure-as-I'm-standing-here-I-won't-cry,'
or I'll call the guard!"
"I--I can't promise not to cry a tiny bit," faltered Betty, "but I
promise to try not to cry much. And you will write and let me know when
I can come North and be near you, won't you?" A sudden thought struck
her. "Bunje, will they censor your letters? How awful! And mine too?
Because I don't think I could bear it if anybody but you read my letters."
"No, they won't read 'em," reassured her husband. "At least, not yours.
And if mine have to be read, the fellow who reads 'em just skims through
'em and doesn't really take in anything. I've had to do it, an' I know."
"Still, I'll hate it," said Betty woefully, and started at a light tap at
the door. "Passengers are taking their seats, sir," said the warning
voice outside.
Doors were banging and farewells sounding down the length of the train
when Betty stepped out on to the platform. A curly-headed subaltern of a
Highland regiment who had been in possession of the door surrendered it,
and, catching a glimpse of Betty's face, returned to his compartment
thanking all his Gods that he was a bachelor. A whistle sounded out of
the gloom at the far end of the long train, and a green light waved above
the heads of the leave-takers. A faltering cheer broke out, gathered
volume, and, as the couplings tautened with a jerk, came an answering
roar from the closely packed carriages.
Standish bent down. "Good-bye, Bet----" and for a moment lips and
fingers met and clung. The train was moving slowly.
"God bless you!" she said with a queer little gasp, and stepped back into
one of the circles of subdued light.
For a few seconds he saw her thus, a slim, girlish, fur-clad figure
standing with her hands at her side like a schoolgirl in class, her face
rather white and her lips compressed: then a bend hid her and the tumult
of cheering and farewell died.
"Good on you, little girl," he muttered, and withdrew his head and
shoulders to fumble fiercely for his pipe. Courage in the woman he loves
will move a man as never will her tears. There is also gratitude in his
heart.
He retraced his steps to his sleeping-compartment and was aware of the
faint fragrance of violets still lingering in the air. She had been
wearing some that he had bought her late that afternoon....
He sat down on the bunk and fervently pressed the tobacco into the bowl
of his pipe with his thumb. "Oh, damn-a-horse!" he said. For a moment
he sat thus sucking his unlit pipe and staring hard at the carpet, and
not until it sounded a second time did a knock at the door of the
compartment cause him to raise his head and say, "Come in!"
The door opened, and a clean-shaven, smiling countenance, followed by a
pair of broad shoulders, appeared cautiously in the opening. Standish
stared at the apparition, and then rose with a grin of welcome.
"Why!" he said, "Podgie, of all people! Come in, you old blighter!"
The visitor entered. "How goes it, Bunje?" he said. "I saw you with
your missus just now, so I hid--I'm in the next cabin." He indicated the
adjoining compartment with a nod.
"Sit down, old lad. What are you doing here? I thought----" The
speaker broke off abruptly, and his glance strayed involuntarily to the
ground. The new-comer nodded, and, sitting down on the bunk, pushed his
cap back from his forehead.
"That's right." He extended his left leg. "Cork foot. What d'you go on
it, Bunje, eh?" They contemplated the acquisition in silence for a
moment. "I was in a destroyer, you know," pursued the speaker, "and one
of Fritz's shore batteries on the Belgian coast got our range by mistake
one day at dawn. Dusted us down properly." He extended his leg again.
"Hence the milk in the coco-nut, as you might say. However, we had a
makee-learn doctor on board--Surgeon-Probationer, straight out of the
egg, and no end of a smart lad: he dished me up in fine style. I went to
hospital for a bit, and they gave me six months' full-pay sick leave--not
a bad old firm, the Admiralty."
"What then," asked the other, "invalided?"
The visitor nodded. "But about a month ago I fell-in and said I couldn't
kick my heels any longer. Hadn't two to kick, in point of fact!" He
laughed softly at the grim jest. "So they lushed me up to this outfit,
and gave me a job as King's Messenger. I'm carrying despatches between
the Admiralty and the Fleet Flagship. Better'n doing nothing," he added
half-apologetically.
"Quite," agreed Standish gravely: none knew better than he how beloved
had been the career thus abruptly terminated. He wondered, as he met the
speaker's smiling eyes with a sympathetic grin, whether he himself could
have carried it off like this. "But it was rotten luck--I'm----"
The King's Messenger rose. "I've got a drop of whisky somewhere in my
bag," he interrupted. "Come along in there: I can't leave my
despatches--we'll have a yarn."
He limped through the doorway, steadying himself with his hands against
the rocking of the train. Standish followed. Never again, he reflected,
would he follow those broad shoulders in a U.S. "Forward rush" to the
familiar slogan of "_Feet--forwards--feet!_"
"You were wounded, too, last spring, weren't you?" queried the King's
Messenger, burrowing in his suit case for his flask. "Squat down at the
end there--got your glass?" He measured out two portions of whisky and
from the rack produced a bottle of soda. "Say when..."
Standish nodded. "Thanks--whoa! Yes, I got a couple of 'cushy' wounds
and three months' leave."
The other turned, helping himself to soda-water. "Lor', yes, and you got
spliced, too, Bunje!" He contemplated the Benedict over the rim of his
tumbler with the whimsical faint curiosity with which the bachelor Naval
Officer regards one of his brethren who has passed beyond the Veil.
"Yes." For a moment Standish assumed a thoughtful expression. Then he
looked up, smiling. "What about you, Podgie? Isn't it about time you
toed the line?"
The King's Messenger shook his head. "No. It doesn't come my way." His
eyes rested contemplatively on his outstretched leg. "Not very likely to
either.... How d'you like the idea of joining up with the 'Great Silent'
again after the flesh-pots and whatnot?"
For the second time he had changed the conversation almost abruptly.
Standish lit his pipe. "What's it like up there now?" He jerked his
head in the direction in which they were travelling. "How are they
sticking it? Have you been up lately? I haven't been in the Grand Fleet
yet."
"Yes, I was up--let's see, last week. Oh, they're all right. A bit
bored, of course, but full of ginger. They go out and try to coax Fritz
to come out and play from time to time. Fritz says 'Not in these
trousers, I don't think,' and then they go home again, dodging 'tin
fish'[1] and raking up Fritz's 'warts'[2] out of the Swept Channels.
Talking of 'warts' reminds me of a yarn going round last time I was
up--it's a chestnut now, but you may not have heard it. One of the
mine-layers nipped down in a fog and laid a mine-field off the mouth of
the Ems. It was a tricky bit of work, and it seems to have touched up
the Padre's nerves a bit, because on the way back next morning, when he
was reading prayers--you know the bit about 'encompassed the waters with
bounds'?--he said, 'Encompassed the bounders with warts,' which was just
what they had done, pretty effectively!"
The door to the corridor was half-open, and a tall figure in Naval
uniform who was passing at that moment glanced in, hesitated, and filled
the doorway with his bulk. A slow smile spread over his face and showed
his white, even teeth. It was a very infectious grin.
"How goes it, Podgie?" he said quietly.
The King's Messenger looked up. "Hallo!" he retorted. Then came
recognition. "Thorogood, surely! Come in, old lad. What are you doing
aboard the lugger-- D'you know Standish?"
The new-comer nodded a greeting, acknowledging the introduction.
"Station-mates in the East Indies, weren't we?" said Standish.
"That's right," replied the other. "I remember you: we were both in camp
together--way back in the 'Naughty Naughts.' We used to call you the
India-rubber Man--Bunje for short."
Standish laughed. "They do still," he said, "mine own familiar friends."
"Have a drop of whisky," interrupted the King's Messenger. "'Fraid I
haven't got a glass----"
The visitor hesitated. "Well, I've got old Mouldy Jakes in my
compartment. Can I bring him along: the old thing may get lonely. He
was in your term in the _Britannia_, wasn't he?"
"He was. Fetch him along," said the King's Messenger. "Standish wants
to know all about life in the Grand Fleet. You two ought to be able to
enlighten him a bit between you."
Thorogood contemplated the India-rubber Man thoughtfully.
"Just joining up? Mouldy and I have been there since January, '15--I'll
fetch him."
The speaker vanished and returned a moment later with a companion who
wore a Lieutenant's uniform, and carried a tooth-glass in his hand. His
lean, rather sallow face relaxed for an instant into a smile during the
process of introduction, and then resumed a mask-like gravity. He
up-ended a suit-case, sat down and silently eyed the others in turn.
"What have you two been doing?" asked the King's Messenger. "Been on
leave?"
"Yes," replied Thorogood. "I met Mouldy this morning, and we had a day
in town together."
"Brave man! I should be sorry to have had such a responsibility. What
did you do?"
"Well, we lunched with my Uncle Bill at his club----"
"That was nice for Uncle Bill--what then?"
"Uncle Bill had to go to the Admiralty, so I took Mouldy for a walk in
St. James's Park"--the speaker contemplated his friend sorrowfully--"and
I lost him."
The King's Messenger laughed. "What happened to you, Mouldy?"
The officer addressed put his empty glass between his knees and proceeded
to fill a cherrywood pipe of villainous aspect from a Korean oiled-silk
tobacco pouch.
"Took a flapper to the movies," was the grave and somewhat unexpected
reply.
Thorogood, lounging in any easy attitude against the door, took up the
tale of gallantry. "Apparently the star film of the afternoon was
'Britain's Sea-Dogs, or Jack-Tars at War,' and that appears to have been
too much for our little Lord Fauntleroy. He slipped out unbeknownst to
the fairy, and I found him at the club an hour later playing billiards
with the marker."
The cavalier relaxed not a muscle of his sphinx-like gravity. "Never
know what to do with myself on leave," he observed in sepulchral tones.
"Always glad to get back. Like the fellow in the Bastille--what?" He
raised his empty tumbler and scanned the light through it with sombre
interest. "Long ship, this, James."
The phrase is an old Navy one, and signifies much the same thing as the
Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina.
"Sorry," apologised the host. "There isn't any more soda, I'm afraid,
but----"
"Don't mind water," said his guest, diluting his tot from the
water-bottle. He turned to the India-rubber Man.
"What ship're you going to?" he asked.
Standish named the ship to which he had been appointed. The other took a
sip of his whisky and water and nodded with the air of one whose worst
misgivings had been confirmed.
"I remember now: I saw your appointment. James and I belong to her.
We're going to be shipmates, then." He blew a cloud of smoke
ceilingwards. "It's all right in one of those new ships: no scuttles:
tinned air and electric light between decks: wake up every morning
feeling's if you'd been gassed. An' the turrets----" He plunged
gloomily into technicalities that conveyed the impression that the
interior of a turret of the latest design was the short cut to a lunatic
asylum. "I'm the Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant in our hooker, and I tell
you it's a dirty business."
"What d'you do for exercise?" queried the India-rubber Man when the
Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant lapsed again into gloomy silence.
"Plenty of that," said Thorogood. "Deck-hockey and medicine-ball--you
mark out a tennis-court on the quarter deck, you know, and heave a 9-lb.
ball over a 5 ft. net--foursomes. Fine exercise." He spoke with the
grave enthusiasm of the athlete, to whom the attainment of bodily fitness
is very near to godliness indeed. "You can get a game of rugger when the
weather is good enough to allow landing, and there's quite a decent
little 9-hole golf course. Oh, you can keep fit enough."
"How about the sailors--are they keeping cheery?"
Thorogood laughed. "They're amazing. Of course, we've got a real white
man for a Skipper--and the Commander, too: that goes a long way. And
they're away from drink and--other things that ain't good for 'em.
Everybody has more leisure to devote to them than in peace-time: their
amusements and recreations generally. Cinema shows and regattas, boxing
championships, and all the rest of it. There's fifty per cent. less
sickness and fewer punishments than we ever had in peacetime. Of course,
it's an exile for the married men--it's rough on them, but on the whole
there's jolly little grumbling."
"Yes," said the India-rubber Man. "It must be rough on the married men."
He felt suddenly as if an immense period of time had passed since he said
good-bye to Betty: and the next moment he felt that he had had enough of
the others. He wanted to get along to his own compartment where the
scent of violets had lingered.
He rose, stretching himself, and slipped his pipe into his pocket.
"Well," he said, "'Sufficient unto the day.' I'm turning in now."
There was a little pause after his departure, and Thorogood prodded the
bowl of his pipe reflectively.
"I wonder what's happened to the India-rubber Man?" he said. "It's some
time since I saw him last, but he's altered somehow. Not mouldy exactly,
either...."
"He's married," said the King's Messenger, staring at the shaded electric
light overhead, as he sprawled with one elbow on the pillow.
Mouldy Jakes gave a little grunt. "Thought as much. They get like
that." He spoke as if referring to the victims of an incomprehensible
and ravaging disease. "An' it's always the good ones that get nabbed."
He eyed the King's Messenger with an expression of melancholy
omniscience. "Not so suspicious, you know."
"Well," said Thorogood, "that is as may be: but I'm off to bed. Come
along, Mouldy."
The misogamist suffered himself to be led to the double-berthed
compartment he shared with Thorogood.
The King's Messenger locked the door after their departure and got into
pyjamas. For a long time he sat cross-legged on his bunk, nursing his
maimed limb and staring into vacancy as the express roared on through the
night. Finally, as if he had arrived at some conclusion, he shook his
head rather sadly, turned in, and switched out the light.
"Good lad, Podgie," observed Thorogood reflectively to his companion, as
he proceeded to undress.
Mouldy Jakes, energetically brushing his teeth over the tiny
washing-basin, grunted assent.
"Ever met my cousin Cecily?" pursued Thorogood. "No, I don't think you
did: she was at school when we stayed with Uncle Bill before the war."
"Shouldn't remember her if I had," mumbled the gallant.
"She's Uncle Bill's ward, and by way of being rather fond of Podgie, I
fancy--at least, she used to be, I know. But the silly old ass won't go
near her since he lost his foot."
Mouldy Jakes dried his tooth-brush, and, fumbling in his trouser pocket,
produced a penny.
"Heads or tails?" he queried.
"Tails--why?"
"It's a head. Bags I the lower berth."
The India-rubber Man, in his compartment, had got into pyjamas and was
sitting up in his bunk writing with a pencil and pad on his knees. When
he had finished he stamped and addressed an envelope, rang for the
attendant, and gave it to him to be posted at the next stopping-place.
It bore an address in Queen's Gate, London, where at the moment the
addressee, curled up in the centre of a very large bed, was doing her
best in the darkness to keep a promise.
[1] Torpedoes.
[2] Mines.