ULTIMA THULE
Across the stormy North Sea came the first faint streak of dawn. It
overtook a long line of Destroyers rolling landward with battered
bridge-screens and salt-crusted funnels; it met a flotilla of
mine-sweeping Sloops, labouring patiently out to their unending task. It
lit the frowning cliffs, round which wind-tossed gulls wailed and
breakers had thundered the beat of an ocean's pulse throughout the ages.
The Destroyers were not sorry to see the dawn. The night was their
task-master: in darkness they worked and in the Shadow of Death. They
passed within hailing distance of the Sloops, and on board the reeling
Destroyers here and there a figure in streaming oilskins raised his arm
and waved a salutation to the squat grey craft setting forth in the
comfortless dawn to holystone Death's doorstep.
The Mine-sweepers refrained from any such amenity. Anon the darkness
would come again, when no man may sweep for mines. Then would be their
turn for grins and the waving of arms. In the meanwhile, they preferred
to remain grim and restless as their work.
Presently the Destroyers, obedient to a knotted tangle of flags at the
yardarm of their leader, altered course a little; they were making for an
opening in the wall of rock, on either side of which gaunt promontories
thrust their naked shoulders into the surf. The long black, viperish
hulls passed through under the ever-watchful eyes of the shore batteries,
and the hooded figures on the Destroyer bridges threw back their duffle
cowls and wiped the night's accumulation of dried spray and cinders out
of the puckers round their tired eyes.
The Commanding Officer of the leading Destroyer leaned across the
bridge-rails and stared round at the ring of barren islands encircling
the great expanse of water into which they had passed, the naked,
snow-powdered hills in the background: at the greyness and desolation of
earth and sky and sea.
"Home again!" he said in an undertone to the Lieutenant beside him. "It
ain't much of a place to look at, but I'm never sorry to see it again
after a dusting like we got last night."
The Lieutenant raised the glasses slung round his neck by a strap and
levelled them at a semi-globular object that had appeared on the surface
some distance away. "There's old Tirpitz waiting to say good morning as
usual."
The Commander laughed. "Rum old devil he is. That's where the Hun has
the pull over us. He's got something better than a seal to welcome him
back to harbour--when he _does_ get back!"
"When he does, yes." The other chuckled. "Gretchens an' iron crosses
an' joy bells. Lord, I'd love to see 'em, wouldn't you? Just for five
minutes!"
The Commander moved across to the tiny binnacle. "I'd rather see my own
wife for five minutes," he replied. Then, raising his voice, "Starboard
ten!"
"Starboard ten, sir," repeated the voice of the helmsman.
The Commander stood with watchful eye on the swinging compass card.
"Midships ... steady!"
"Steady, sir!" sang the echo at the wheel. The Commander glanced aft
through the trail of smoke at the next astern swinging round in the
smother of his wake. "Well, we shan't be long now before we tie up to
the buoy--curse these fellows! Here come all the drifters with mails and
ratings for the Fleet.... Port five!"
"Port five, sir!" The flotilla altered course disdainfully to avoid a
steam drifter which wallowed through the wake of the Destroyers in the
direction of the distant fleet, still shrouded by the morning mist.
"That's the King's Messenger going off to the Fleet Flagship. There come
the others, strung out in a procession, making for the different
squadrons. Wake up, you son of Ham!" The speaker stepped to the lanyard
of the syren and jerked it savagely. Obedient to the warning wail
another drifter altered course in reluctant compliance with the Rule of
the Road. "I'd rather take the flotilla through Piccadilly Circus than
manoeuvre among these Fleet Messengers! They're bad enough on the high
seas in peace-time with their nets out, but booming about inside a
harbour they're enough to turn one's hair grey."
If the truth be told, the past had known no great love lost between the
Destroyers and the fishing fleet. Herring-nets round a propeller are not
calculated to bind hearts together in brotherly affection. Perhaps dim
recollections of bygone mishaps of this nature had soured the Destroyer
Commander's heart towards the steam-drifter.
On the outbreak of war, however, the steam fishing fleets became an arm
of the great Navy itself, far-reaching as its own squadrons. They
exchanged their nets for guns and mine-sweeping paraphernalia: they
became submarine-hunters, mine-sweepers, fleet-messengers and patrollers
of the great commerce sea-ways in the South. They became a little Navy
within the Navy, in fact, already boasting their own peculiar traditions,
and probably as large a proportion of D.S.C.'s as any other branch of the
mother Service.
They are a slow, crab-gaited community that clings to gold earrings and
fights in jerseys and thigh boots from which the fish-scales have not
altogether departed. Ashore, on the other hand (where their women rule),
they consent to the peaked cap and brass buttons of His Majesty's
uniform, and wear it, moreover, with the coy self-consciousness of a
bulldog in a monogrammed coat.
Link by link they have built up a chain of associations with the parent
Navy that will not be easily broken when the time comes for these little
auxiliaries to return to their peaceful calling. They have worked side
by side with the dripping Submarine; they have sheltered through storms
in the lee of anchored Battleships; they have piloted proud Cruisers
through the newly-swept channels of a mine-field, and brought a
Battle-cruiser Squadron its Christmas mail in the teeth of a Northern
blizzard. In token of these things, babies born in fishing villages from
the Orkneys to the Nore have been christened after famous Admirals and
men-of-war, that the new generation shall remember.
The drifter that had altered course slowly came round again when the last
of the Destroyers swept past, and the three figures in the bows ducked as
she shipped a bucket of spray and flung it aft over the tiny wheel-house.
One of the figures turned and stared after the retreating hulls.
"Confound 'em," he said. "Just like the blooming Destroyers, chucking
their weight about as if they owned creation, and making us take their
beastly wash." He took off his cap and shook the salt water from it.
One of the other two chuckled. "Never 'mind, Mouldy, it will be your
turn to laugh next time we go to sea, when you're perched on the
forebridge sixty feet above the waterline, and watching our
Destroyer-screen shipping it green over their funnels."
Mouldy Jakes shook his head gloomily. "Laugh!" he echoed. "Then I'd get
shoved under arrest by the skipper under suspicion of being drunk."
The drifter rounded an outlying promontory of one of the islands, and
Thorogood raised his hand. "There you are," he said, "there's our little
lot!" He indicated with a nod the Battle-fleet of Britain.
"And very nice too," said the India-rubber Man, staring in the direction
of the other's gaze. "Puts me in mind, as they say, of a picture I saw
once. 'National Insurance,' I think it was called."
A shaft of sunlight had struggled through a rift in the clouds and fell
athwart the dark waters of the harbour. In the far distance, outlined
against the sombre hills and lit by the pale sunshine, a thicket of
tripod masts rose towering above the grey hulls of the anchored
Battle-fleet.
As the drifter drew near the different classes of ships became
distinguishable. A squadron of Light Cruisers were anchored between them
and the main Fleet, with a thin haze of smoke hovering above their raking
funnels. Beyond them, line upon line, in a kind of sullen majesty, lay
the Battleships. Seen thus in peace-time, a thousand glistening points
of burnished metal, the white of the awnings, smooth surfaces of enamel,
varnish and gold-leaf would have caught the liquid sunlight and concealed
the menace of that stern array.
Now, however, stripped of awnings, with bare decks, stark as gladiators,
sombre and terrible, they conveyed a relentless significance heightened
by the desolation of their surroundings.
From the offing came the rumble of heavy gunfire.
"Don't be alarmed," said Thorogood to the India-rubber Man, who had
turned in the direction of the sound; "we haven't missed the bus!" He
looked along the lines with a swift, practised eye. "It's only some of
the Battle-cruisers out doing target practice. That's our squadron,
there." He pointed ahead. "We're the second ship in that line."
The drifter passed up a broad lane, on either side of which towered grey
steel walls, unbroken by scuttles or embrasures; above them the muzzles
of guns hooded by casemates and turrets, the mighty funnels, piled up
bridges and superstructures, frowned down like the battlements of
fortresses. Men, dwarfed by the magnitude of their environment to the
size of ants, and clad in jerseys and white working-rig, swarmed about
the decks and batteries.
"There's the Fleet Flagship," continued Thorogood, pointing. "That ship
with the drifters round her, flying the Commander-in-Chief's flag.
That's where Podgie was bound for. Rummy to think he'll be back in
London again in a couple of days' time!"
A seaplane that had been riding on the surface near the Fleet Flagship's
quarter, rose like a flying gull, circled in wide spirals over the Fleet
and sped seawards. Across the lanes of water, armed picket-boats, with
preternaturally grave-faced Midshipmen at their wheels, picked their way
amongst the traffic of drifters, cutters under sail, hooting store
carriers and puffers from the distant base.
Mouldy Jakes contemplated the busy scene without undue enthusiasm.
"Everything seems to be much the same as usual," was his dry comment.
"They seem to have got on all right without me for the last seven days.
We've had a coat of paint, too. Wonder what's up. P'raps the King's
coming to pay us a visit. Or else the Commander reckons it's about time
to beat up for his promotion."
The skipper of the drifter jerked the miniature telegraph to "Slow," and
a hoary-headed deck-hand stumped into the bows with a heaving line coiled
over his arm. The drifter crept up under the quarter of a Battleship
that towered above them into the grey sky.
A tall, thin Lieutenant with a telescope under his arm looked down from
the quarterdeck and made a gesture of greeting.
"Hullo, Tweedledum," said Thorogood; and added, "Bless me, Tweedledum's
shaved his beard off!"
"Must be the King, then," said Mouldy gloomily. "Means I shall have to
order another monkey-jacket." A bull terrier thrust a python-like head
between the rails and wagged his tail. The drifter grated her fenders
alongside and made fast.
The three officers climbed the swaying ladder to the upper deck, and were
greeted in turn by the tall Lieutenant with the telescope. "You're
Standish, aren't you?" he asked, turning to the India-rubber Man. "The
Commander wants to see you--you're an old shipmate of his, it seems?" He
led the way as he spoke towards a door in the after superstructure.
"Yes," was the reply. "He was the First Lieutenant in my last ship--with
this Skipper."
"Ah," said the other, "she must have been a good ship then."
They skirted a hatchway in the interior of the superstructure that yawned
into the electric-lit interior of the ship, past cabins opening on to the
foremost side of them, and stopped at a curtained doorway. A square of
polished mahogany was screwed into the bulkhead beside it, with the
following inscription in brass letters:
DON'T KNOCK.
COME IN.
The Officer of the Watch drew back the curtain and motioned to his
companion to enter. "Lieutenant Commander Standish, sir," he said.
The Commander, who was writing at a knee-hole table, turned and rose with
his grave, slow smile.
"Come in, Bunje," he said, holding out his hand. "Very glad you've got
here at last." He laid his left hand for an instant on the India-rubber
Man's shoulder and searched his face with kindly grey eyes. "How're the
wounds and the wife and all the other things you've collected since I saw
you last?"
The India-rubber Man laughed.
"They're all right, sir, thanks." He glanced at the cap, with its gold
oak leaves adorning the brim, lying on the desk. "I haven't
congratulated you on your promotion yet," he added. "I was awfully glad
to hear you had got your 'brass hat'!"
The Commander laughed. "I still turn round when anyone sings out 'Number
One,'" he replied. "I was beginning to feel as if I'd been a First
Lieutenant all my life! Seems quite funny not to be chivvying round
after the flat-sweepers." He resumed his seat. "Well, you'll find a few
of the old lot here: there's the Skipper of course, and Double-O
Gerrard--d'you remember the A.P.? And little Pills: he's Staff Surgeon
now, and no end of a nut... Let's see--oh, yes, and young Bowses: he
used to be one of our snotties, if you remember. 'Kedgeree,' the others
called him. He's Sub of the Gunroom. That's about all of the old lot in
the Channel Fleet. But I think you'll like all the rest. It's a very
happy mess."
The India-rubber Man was roving round the cabin examining photographs.
"Hullo!" he said. "You've got poor old Torps's photo here."
"Yes," was the reply. "I--I met a woman when I was on leave, of whom he
was very fond. She had two of his photographs and gave me that one."
The Commander had risen to his feet and was staring out of the scuttle
with absent eyes. "But, come along. The Skipper wants to see you, and
then I'll take you along to the mess. It's getting on for lunch time.
What sort of a journey did you have?"
Still chatting they left the superstructure and passed aft along the
spacious quarterdeck, where, round the flanks of the great superimposed
turrets, a part of the watch were sweeping down the deck and squaring off
ropes. The Commander led the way down a hatchway aft to an electric-lit
lobby, where a marine sentry clicked to attention as they passed, and
opened a door in the after bulkhead. They crossed the fore cabin
extending the whole beam of the ship, and entered the after cabin.
Unlike other cabins on the main deck, this was lit by scuttles in the
ship's side, and right aft, big armoured doors opened on to the stern
walk. It lacked conspicuously the adornments usually associated with the
Captain's apartment. Bare corticene covered the deck; the walls of white
enamelled steel were unadorned save for a big scale chart of the North
Sea and a coloured map of the Western Front. A few framed photographs
stood on the big roll-topped desk in one corner, and a bowl of purple
heather occupied the flat mahogany top to the tiled stove where an
electric radiator glowed. A bundle of singlesticks and a pair of foils
stood in the corner near an open bookcase; a padded "chesterfield" and a
few chairs completed the austere furnishing of the cabin.
The Captain was standing before a deal table supported by trestles, which
occupied the deck space beneath the open skylight. On the table, amid
the litter of glue-pots, cardboard, thread and varnish, stood a model of
a Super-Dreadnought. He turned at the entry of the Commander and his
companion, laying down a pair of scissors.
"Good morning, Standish," he said. "Glad to see you again. I won't
offer to shake hands--mine are covered with glue." He smiled in the
whimsical humorous way that always went straight to another man's heart.
"We're all returning to our second childhood up here, you see!" He
indicated the model. "This is my device for keeping out of mischief.
When finished I hope it will fill a similar role for the benefit of my
son, Cornelius James."
Standish examined the model with interest and delight.
"What a ripping bit of work, sir," he said. It was, indeed, a triumph of
patient ingenuity and craftmanship.
"It's an improvement on wood-carving," was the reply. "All working
parts, you see." The Captain set in motion some internal mechanism, and
the turret guns trained slowly on to the beam. He pressed a button.
"Electric bow and steaming lights!" His voice had a ring of almost
boyish enthusiasm, and he picked up a tangle of threads from the table.
"But this fore-derrick purchase is the devil, though. All last evening I
was on the sheaves of one of the double blocks--maddening work. Hornby's
designing a hydraulic lift to the engine-room; column of water concealed
in the foremast, d'you see? When's that going to be finished, Hornby?"
The Commander laughed. "We'll have it done in time for Corney's
birthday, sir."
The Captain turned from the model. "Well, Standish," he said, "all
this"--he nodded at the work of his patient hands--"all this looks rather
as if we never had anything better to do! As a matter of fact, it's only
during the winter that one finds time for anything. We're pretty busy,
one way and another, you'll find. It'll take you some time to learn your
way round your turret, I expect. Jakes appears to find his an object of
some interest--do you know him, by the way?" The Captain's humorous blue
eyes twinkled.
"Yes, I travelled up with him, sir. He mentioned the turret."
"He probably did. He spends most of his life in his. Well, I'm glad
you've turned up in time for the Regatta. Our Wardroom crew wants a bit
of weight. I told the Admiral we were going to win the cock--the
Squadron trophy--this year, so you must see what you can do about it.
Also, I want you to look after the Midshipmen. They're a good lot, and
there's one in particular--Harcourt, isn't it, Commander?--who ought to
pull off the Midshipmen's Lightweights if he can keep down to the weight.
One or two want shaking up--Lettigne's too fat---- However, you probably
want to sling your hammock; hope you'll be comfortable." The Captain
nodded dismissal. As they reached the door the Captain spoke again. "By
the way," he said, "the children send their love...."
"Now," said the Commander as they emerged, "it's nearly lunch time. Come
along to the smoking-room."
They ascended again to the upper deck and forward of the superstructure,
descended a hatchway to the main deck. An open door in the armoured
bulkhead gave a glimpse forward of a gun battery and a teeming mess-deck
intent on its mid-day meal, where men jostled each other so thickly round
the crowded mess tables that it seemed incredible that anyone could live
for years in such surroundings and retain an individuality.
They turned away and passed aft down an electric-lit alley-way. A door
on the right opened for a moment as they passed, and emitted the strains
of a gramophone and a boy's laughter.
"That's the Gunroom," said the Commander. He led the way round a corner
and past the bloated trunk of an air-shaft to the other side of the ship.
"Here we are," he said, and opened a mahogany door in the white bulkhead,
stepping aside to allow the other to enter a smallish square apartment
lit by a skylight overhead and hazy with tobacco smoke. A few padded
settees and arm-chairs and a piano of venerable aspect, together with a
table covered by magazines and papers, comprised the furniture;
half-a-dozen coloured prints and a baize-covered notice board completed
the adornment of the walls. Through a doorway beyond came the hum of
conversation and clatter of knives and forks, where, in the Wardroom,
lunch had already commenced. About half-a-dozen members of the Mess,
however, still occupied the smoking-room; the nearest to the door, a
short, slightly built Staff Surgeon, in the act of shaking angostura
bitters into a glass which a steward proffered on a tray, turned his head
as the newcomers entered.
"Bunje!" he cried, and put the bitters down. "Bunje! my son, Bunje! Oh,
frabjous day, Calloo, Callay! My arms enfold ye...." He enveloped the
India-rubber Man in a bear-like embrace. "Behold the prodigal returning!
Steward, bring hither a fatted calf and the swizzle-stick. Put a cherry
in it and a slice of lemon and eke crushed ice. My dear life!" He held
the India-rubber Man at an arm's length. "Bunje, these are moments when
strong men sob like little children. But let me introduce you."
The occupants of the smoking-room, grinning, came forward to greet the
new messmate. The Staff Surgeon named them in turn.
"This is the P.M.O. He's plus two at golf. I mention that in case he
offers to take you ashore and play you for half-a-crown. P.M.O., this is
Standish, a wounded hero and a friend of my care-free youth." The
speaker rolled his r's, thrust his hand into the bosom of his
monkey-jacket and struck a histrionic attitude.
"Seated on the settee," he resumed, "caressing an overfed bull terrier,
we have Tweedledee, likewise overfed. Get up and say how d'you do to the
gentleman, Tweedledee."
A short, chubby-faced Lieutenant rose and shook hands rather shyly.
"Now," pursued the Doctor, "casting our eyes round the room at random we
see the Pilot--otherwise known as the 'Merry Wrecker.' The portly
gentleman in clerical garb helping himself to a cigarette out of someone
else's tin--His Eminence the Padre. The Captain of Marines you see
consuming gin and bitters: title of picture, 'Celebrities and their
Hobbies.' This is the Engineer Commander. He is considerably senior to
me and I therefore refrain from being witty at his expense. Taking
advantage of the general confusion caused by your arrival, the First
Lieutenant selects this moment to peep into the turgid pages of an
illustrated Parisian journal I regret to say this mess contributes to."
The lecturer paused for breath. A tall, florid-faced Lieutenant
Commander with a broken nose, who had been leaning over the paper table,
pipe in mouth, straightened up with a chuckle and ostentatiously
fluttered the pages of the _Times_. He eyed the Staff Surgeon
reflectively for a moment and turned to the Captain of Marines.
"Have we had enough, do you think, Soldier?" he asked in a voice of
ominous quiet.
"I almost think so," replied the Captain of Marines. He finished his
_apéritif_ and stared absently at the skylight overhead.
"Pills, dear," said the First Lieutenant in honeyed accents, "we're
afraid you are showing off before a stranger. There is only one penalty
for that."
"The Glory-hole," said the Captain of Marines, and hurled himself on the
Staff Surgeon. The First Lieutenant followed suit, and between them they
dragged their struggling victim to the door.
The bull terrier leaped around them with hysterical yelps of excitement.
"Open the door, Padre," gasped the Captain of Marines as the struggle
swayed to and fro. "Garm, you fool, shut up!"
The Chaplain complied with the request with alacrity, and the three
interlocked figures and the ecstatic dog floundered through out into the
flat.
Just outside, in an angle formed by the armour of the turret and the
Wardroom bulkhead, was a small cupboard. It was used by the flat-sweeper
and messengers for the stowage of brooms, polishing paste, caustic soda
and other appliances of their craft, and was just large enough to hold a
small man upright.
Into this dungeon, with the assistance of the Navigator, they succeeded
in stowing the Staff Surgeon, and despite his protests and frantic
struggles, shut and fastened the door.
"Now," said the First Lieutenant, "let's go and have some lunch."
"But you aren't going to leave him there, are you?" protested the
India-rubber Man.
"Oh, no," was the reply. "The Padre is taking the time. Three minutes
we give him." They passed through into the long Wardroom where a score
or more of officers were seated at lunch round the table that occupied
practically the whole length of the apartment. "Come and sit here next
to Thorogood--you travelled up with him, didn't you?"
The officer in question, who was ladling stewed prunes out of a dish on
to his plate, grinned at the new-comer.
"Here you are," he said gaily. "Pea soup and boiled pork, my lad," and
passed the menu. "Mouldy's vanished since we got onboard. He's probably
lunching in his blessed old turret. I had some difficulty in restraining
him from trying to put his arms round it when he saw it again. Hullo!
Here's Pills. Pills, you look rather warm and your hair wants brushing."
"So would yours if you had been set upon by Thugs," retorted the Doctor
as he took his seat. "Pea soup, please. Ha! There you are, Bunje.
Sorry I had to slip it across Number One and the Soldier just now.
However, boys will be boys and the least said soonest mended. All is not
gold that glitters and a faint heart never won fair lady--pass the salt,
please."
"'Fraid we're rather a noisy mess," said the Commander. "You don't get
much chance to sit and think beautiful thoughts when Pills is about.
Hope you'll get used to it."
The India-rubber Man laughed. "I expect so," he said.