WAR BABIES
"Properly at ease.... Class, 'Shun! Left turn! Dismiss!"
The dozen or so of flannel-dad Midshipmen composing the class sprang
stiffly to attention, turned forward, and made off briskly in the
direction of the hatchway. The India-rubber Man thrust his hands into
the pockets of his flannel trousers and strolled across the quarterdeck
to where the Officer of the Watch was standing.
"Tweedledum," he said, elevating his nose and sniffing the keen morning
air, "I can smell bacon frying somewhere. So could my class: I could
see their mouths watering. You might send for the cook and tell him
not to do it."
"You're a dirty bully, Bunje, you know," said the Officer of
the Watch reprovingly. "Fancy dragging those unhappy children
out of their innocent hammocks at this unearthly hour of the
morning to flap their legs and arms about and do 'Knees up!' and
'Double-arm-bend-and-stretch!'" He raised a gloved hand and rubbed his
blue nose. Ashore a powdering of snow lay on the distant hills; in the
East the sky was flushing with bars of orange and gold athwart the
tumbled clouds. An armed drifter, coming in from the open sea, stood
out against the light in strong relief. "Here's Mouldy Jakes coming
back from Night Patrol--I bet even he isn't as cold as I am."
"Rot!" retorted the Physical Trainer. "Do _you_ good, Tweedledum, to
hop round a bit on a lovely morning like this!"
"Hop round!" echoed the other. "Hop round!" He looked about him as if
searching for a weapon. The dew, which everywhere had frozen during
the night, was slowly thawing on the canvas covers of guns and
searchlights, dripping from shrouds and yards and aerials.
"Lord alive!" continued the Watchkeeper. "Haven't I been hopping round
this perishing quarterdeck since four a.m. keeping the Morning Watch?
If Tweedledee doesn't come and relieve me soon I shall die of frostbite
and boredom." The India-rubber Man was moving towards the hatchway.
"And if you're going along to the bathroom, for pity's sake see there's
some hot water left that I can sit and thaw in."
In the meanwhile the Midshipmen had descended to the cabin-flat where
their chests occupied most of the available deck space. Flushed and
breathless with exercise, the majority proceeded to divest themselves
of their flannels and, girt with towels, made off for the bathroom.
One, however, flung himself panting on to his chest, and sprawled
partly across his own and partly on his neighbour's.
"I swear this is a bit thick!" he gasped. "I'm not used to this sort
of frightfulness." He waved his legs in the air. "I shall get heart
disease. Anguis pec--pec---- What's it called?"
"Peccavi," prompted his neighbour, slipping out of his clothes and
donning a great-coat in lieu of a dressing-gown. "Otherwise 'The ruddy
'eart-burn.' Just move your greasy head off my till. I want to get at
my razor."
"That's the worst of these 'new brooms'"--the victim of heart trouble
surveyed his legs anxiously--"I know I've lost a couple of stone since
this physical training fiend joined. I don't suppose my people will
know me when I go home."
"Well, you aren't likely to be going home for some time to come," said
another, a seraphic-faced nudity contemplating his biceps in the small
looking-glass that adorned the inside of his chest, "so I shouldn't
worry. I say, I'm sweating up a deuce of an arm on me. Shouldn't
wonder if I pulled off the Grand Fleet Light-weights next month," he
added modestly, "if this sort of thing goes on. I just mention it in
case any of you are thinking of putting your names in." He turned from
the glass, laughing. "Hullo, Mally, going to have a shave, old thing?"
"Yes, if I can get at my razor---- Oh, Bosh, get off my
chest--sprawling all over my gear!"
"I'm in a state of acute physical exhaustion. I feel tender and giddy.
I _know_ all this foul exercise is bad for me early in the morning."
The speaker sat up and juggled dexterously with a cake of soap, a
sponge and a tooth-brush. "I'm getting rather good at this---- My
word, look at Mally's shaving outfit. One would think he was a sort of
Esau--'stead of only having to shave once a blooming week!"
"Are you going to shave, Mally?" queried a voice across the flat.
"Because I'm not sure I shouldn't be better for a bit of a scrape
myself. Can I have a rub at your razor after you?"
"You can have it after me if you swear not to skylark with it," replied
the owner. "Only, last time I lent it to you, you shaved your beastly
leg----"
"Only for practice," admitted the petitioner, advancing with a finger
and thumb caressing his chin.
"Well it blunted it, anyhow. Come on, I'm going to the bathroom now."
The Gunroom bathroom was situated in another flat, reached via the
aft-deck. Here about this hour an intermittent stream of figures in
quaint _négligé_ passed and repassed to their toilets. Inside the
bathroom itself song and the splashing of water drowned all other
sounds. The owner of the enlarged biceps was seated, fakir-wise,
cross-legged in one of the shallow, circular baths in a corner, bailing
water over himself from an empty cigarette tin.
"Harcourt, old thing," said the shaving enthusiast, who had filled a
bath and dragged it alongside his friend, "did you mean what you said
just now about the boxing show--are you going to put your name down for
the Light-weights?"
The fakir stopped crooning a little song to himself and nodded. "Yes,
I'm rather keen on it as a matter of fact. Standish saw me scrapping
with Green the other night and sent for me afterwards and told me to
get fit. I'm going to have a shot at it, I think. Wouldn't you?"
His friend tested the temperature of the water in his bath with his
toe, and got in. "Yes, rather," he replied, and hesitated. "I'm going
in for it too," he added.
Harcourt rose and reached for his towel. "_Are_ you, Billy?" For a
moment his eyes travelled over the other's slim form. "What a rag! We
may draw each other--anyhow we shall have to scrap if we get into the
semi-finals. Billy, I believe you'd bash me!" He towelled himself
vigorously.
The other shook his head. "You beat me at Dartmouth. But I'm going to
have a jolly good shot at it, cully!" He looked up with his face
covered with soap-suds and they laughed into each others' eyes.
* * * * *
Breakfast in the Gunroom was, to employ a transatlantic colloquialism,
_some_ breakfast.
There was porridge to start with and then a bloater, followed by hashed
mutton and cold ham ("for them as likes it," the Messman would
say--which meant he pressed it on nobody) and marmalade: perhaps an
apple or two to wind up with to the everlasting honour of the Vegetable
Products Committee who supplied them gratis to the Fleet. Then pipes
and cigarettes appeared from lockers, and the temporarily-closed
flood-gates of conversation reopened. The Wireless Press Message was
discussed and two experts in military strategy proceeded to demonstrate
with the aid of two cruet-stands, a tea-spoon, and the Worcester Sauce,
the precise condition of affairs on the Western Front. "Mark you,"
said one generously, "I'm not criticising either Haig or Joffre. But
it seems to me that we should have pushed _here_"--and upset the
Worcester Sauce.
This mishap to the Loos salient was in process of being righted when
the door opened and a short, square-shouldered figure, with a
wind-reddened face and eyes of a dark, dangerous blue, entered the
mess. He came in stamping his feet and blowing on his hands, calling
loudly for breakfast the while. "My, there's a good fug in here," he
observed appreciatively, and proceeded to divest himself of a duffle
coat, and a pair of night glasses which were slung round his neck in a
leather case. He stumped across to the table, dragging his legs in
heavy leather sea-boots rather wearily.
"Am I hungry?" he demanded, insinuating himself with some difficulty
between the long form and the table, and sitting down. "Oh, no!
Nothing to speak of. Cold? Not a bit: only frozen stiff. Any sleep
last night? Rather! Nearly ten minutes. Porridge, please, and pass
the brown sugar." The remainder of his messmates appeared disposed to
return to strategical discussion. "Did we have any fun last night?"
continued the speaker, raising his voice slightly. "Well, nothing to
speak of. Only downed a Fritz."
"_Downed_ one?" roared the Mess, galvanised suddenly into rapt interest
in the new-comer and all his works.
"Yep. We were Outer Night Patrol last night. Me and Mouldy Jakes. He
does make me smile, that official." A plateful of porridge proceeded
to pass rapidly to its last resting place.
"He _might_ have taken me," said one of the others wistfully. "You
don't belong to his Division or his turret or anything."
"It was my turn. You went last time. But you missed something, I can
tell you!"
"What d'you mean," said the Sub over the top of his paper. "Just cough
up the details and let your beastly breakfast wait."
The Night Patroller extracted the backbone from a bloater with swift
dexterity. "Well," he continued, "it was very dark last night and
foggy in patches: rum night. Very little wind and no sea. We were
right outside and the Engineer sent up to say he thought there was
something foul of the propeller. So we stopped and investigated with a
boathook. There was a lot of weed and stuff fouling us. We were
playing about with it _mit_ boathook for nearly a quarter-of-an-hour,
and suddenly old Mouldy Jakes put up his head and sniffed about a bit
and muttered 'Baccy.'"
"He's got a nose like a hawk," said the Midshipman of that officer's
Division with a tinge of pride in his voice.
The Mess perforce had to possess its soul in patience while the
raconteur swiftly disposed of the bloater.
"So I sniffed too, and I could smell it quite plain. We were lying
stern to the wind; 'sides it wasn't decent baccy like ours, but sort of
Scorp stuff, so we knew it wasn't one of our fellows smoking. Hashed
mutton, please; and another cup of coffee. It was pitch dark and for a
moment we couldn't see a thing. Then, suddenly, right on top of us
came a submarine! She was on the surface and there was a fellow on the
conning tower and a couple of figures aft. She must have been smelling
about on the surface having a smoke and recharging her batteries."
The remainder of the Gunroom had crowded round the speaker, some
kneeling on the form with their elbows among the débris of breakfast,
others sat on the edge of the table hugging their knees.
"My word, Matt," said one, his eyes dancing, "I bet you got cold feet."
"Cold feet!" snorted the hero of the moment. "There wasn't time for
cold feet. It was too sudden. They just grazed past us, going very
slow, and there was a devil of a bobbery. I fancy they thought they
were properly in the _consommé_. A trap or something. Anyhow the two
braves aft lost their heads and jumped overboard, and the bird in the
conning tower disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box--properly rattled."
"What price old Mouldy?" asked the listeners. "Utterly unmoved, I
suppose! Lord, I'd love to have seen him!"
"Oh, bored stiff by the whole performance, of course. Still he did
make one wild leap for the gun and got off a round at point-blank
range. Hit her just below the conning tower. She must have been in
diving trim, because she went down like a stone, bubbling like an empty
soda-water bottle."
"What about the Huns in the water?" demanded the enthralled Clerk.
"We could only find one. The other must have got mixed up with the
submarine's propeller. The one we picked up was nearly done and
awfully surprised because we gave him dry clothes and hot drinks and a
smoke, and didn't spit in his eye or anything of that sort. Said their
officers always told them we illtreated our prisoners. Aren't they
Nature's little Nobs?"
There was a little silence, each one busy with his own thoughts.
Finally one broke the silence, voicing the opinion of the rest:
"Well," he ejaculated, "some people have all the blinking luck. I've
done about twenty night patrols since I've been up here and never seen
anything 'cept a porpoise."
The Night Patroller lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke with the
air of a man who had earned it. "You were at Suvla Bay and the landing
from the _River Clyde_," he retorted. "You can't have _every_ ruddy
thing in life."
* * * * *
A fine day in Ultima Thule--they were rare--was an occasion for
thankfulness and rejoicing. Directly after luncheon the members of
Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and
smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after
superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow
waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were
solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy
enjoyment peculiar to such exercise.
"It's make-and-mend this afternoon," said the Senior Midshipman,
tilting his cap over his eyes and lazily watching the antics of a gull
volplaning against the light wind. He sat on the deck with his back
against the superstructure and his hands clasped round his knees.
"It's a topping day, too," added Malison from his vantage astride the
coir-hawser reel. "Too good to waste onboard. The footer ground's
bagged--let's have a picnic in one of the cutters. Have tea ashore,
an' fry bangers over a fire."
The project found favour generally. "We might ask one or two of the
Wardroom," suggested Harcourt. "Some of the cheery ones; Standish and
Thorogood and the Doc, say."
"_And_ old Jakes," supplemented the Midshipman of that officer's
Division jealously. "I'd like to ask him. He loves picnics."
Mouldy Jakes was included in the invitation list by general consent.
His half-humorous, resigned air of chronic boredom had a peculiar
attraction for all the Midshipmen; in the case of the Midshipman of his
turret it amounted to idolatry.
"Go an' ask 'em, Harcourt," said the Senior Midshipman. "You're the
Blue-eyed Boy with the Wardroom. I'll go and tackle the Commander for
the cutter."
"Then Bosh and I will go and ginger-up the Messman," said another, "and
get a basket packed. What shall we have for tea?"
"Sloe-gin," promptly responded a tall, pale Midshipman with a slightly
freckled nose and sandy hair. "Sloe-gin and bangers.[1] And get
strawberry jam: see the Messman doesn't try and palm off any of his
beastly gooseberry stuff like he did last time. What about bacon and
eggs, and some tins of cocoa and milk, and a cake and some sardines----"
"Wonk," interrupted the caterer, "we're only going to have tea ashore.
We aren't going to camp out for the week-end."
"I tell you what," said Mouldy Jake's patron, "I'll bring my line and
we'll catch pollack and fry _them_ for tea too."
"Well, I'm going to shift," said Malison, and the Committee of Supply
broke up and passed down below.
Half an hour later the cutter, manned and provisioned, with the skiff
in tow, hoisted her foresail and sheered off from the after gangway.
The India-rubber Man, as Senior Officer of the expedition, took the
helm and banished the Young Doctor into the bows, where, to judge by
the ecstatic shouts of merriment that floated aft, his peculiar form of
wit was much appreciated. Thorogood, at the main sheet, with an old
deerstalker on his head and a pipe in his mouth, led the chorus in the
sternsheets. Mouldy Jakes had usurped the skiff, and having satisfied
himself that he was required to take no further part in the navigation
of the expedition, made himself comfortable in the bottom of the boat
and blinked at the sky through puffs of smoke from his pipe.
He was followed into this voluntary exile by the Midshipman of his
Division, one Morton, who sat in the bows contemplating him
affectionately.
Precisely what it was that inspired this apparently one-sided
attachment was never very apparent. The almost passionate loyalty and
affections of youth are hardy plants, thriving abundantly on the
scantiest soil.
For a while only the drowsy swish of the water past the bottom of the
boat, and snatches of merriment or song drifting aft from the cutter,
broke the silence in the skiff. Then Mouldy Jakes's companion
apparently tired of this silent communion.
"Sir," he said, "would you like to fish?"
"No," said Mouldy Jakes.
His host proceeded to unwind his line. "Do you mind if I do?" he
enquired.
"No," was the reply.
The Midshipman watched his line in silence for a little while. "Do you
think you sank that submarine last night?" he asked presently.
Mouldy Jakes closed his eyes and gave a grunt with an affirmative
intonation.
"It must have been a topping show. Weren't you awfully bucked, sir?"
Another grunt.
"I suppose you didn't get a wink of sleep all night?"
A vague confirmatory noise.
"You must be jolly tired, sir. Wouldn't you like to sleep a bit now,
sir?"
"Yes."
"Right ho, sir. You can carry on and have a jolly good caulk. I'm
going to fish, and I'll call you when we get to the island where we're
going to land.... Is your head quite comfortable?"
Silence reigned in the skiff.
The cutter had passed beyond the outskirts of the Fleet, and the
decorum required of the occupants of a Service boat in such
surroundings no longer ruled their behaviour. They sang and shouted
for sheer joy of bellowing, full-lunged, across the untrammelled water.
No one whose life is not spent in the narrow confines of a man-of-war,
walking paths sternly ruled by Naval Discipline, can realise the
intoxicating effect of such an emancipation. The mysterious workings
of the Midshipman-mind found full play on these occasions, as they
tumbled about in the bottom of the boat in the unfettered enjoyment of
a whole-hearted "scrap." If you have ever seen young foxes at play,
buffeting each other, yelping with simulated anguish, nuzzling
endearments half savage and half in play, you have an idea of the
bottom of a cutter full of Midshipmen proceeding on a picnic. It was
an embodiment of youth triumphant, shouting with laughter at the Jest
of Life.
"Where shall we go?" asked Standish, smiling, during a lull when the
crew sat panting and flushed with exertion, grinning at each other over
the tops of the thwarts.
"Any blooming where," shouted Thorogood. "As long as it is out of
sight of the Fleet. I feel I've seen enough of the Silent Navy for an
hour or two." Then raising his voice he chanted:
"_Put me upon an island where the girls are few..._"
"Right," retorted the Indian-rubber Man. "We'll go round this little
headland. Ready about! Check the fore sheet! Come aft out of the
bows, Pills, you clown, unless you want us to miss stays."
"I don't want to go to an island," cried the Surgeon plaintively,
"where the girls are few." He surveyed the heather-crowned islets
surrounding them on all sides, the lonely haunts of cormorants and
black-backed gulls. "I'm all for houris and sirens and whatnots----"
The foresail swung across and knocked him into the bottom of the boat.
"You frail Ulysses!" exclaimed Thorogood, as they set sail on the new
course. "You aren't to be trusted in these populous parts. We must
lash you to the mast!"
"And stop his ears with cotton-wool," said a Midshipman whose
acquaintance with the classics was still a recent, if sketchy
acquisition.
A party set off into the bows to put the proposal into immediate
execution, but the imminence of land and a shout from the helmsman
arrested them in their purpose:
"Down foresail. Top up mainsail!" The cutter, with the skiff towing
peacefully astern, glided into a little bay where miniature cliffs,
some twenty feet in height, rose from a narrow shale-strewn beach. The
anchor plashed overboard.
"_Here we are, here we are, here we are again!_" carolled the Surgeon
lustily. "Come alongside, skiff! The landing of the Lancashire
Fusiliers is about to commence under a withering fire!"
A letter received that morning from a soldier brother who had taken
part in that epic of human gallantry had apparently inspired the Young
Doctor. He pointed ahead with a dramatic gesture at the cliffs.
"Yonder are the Turks! See, they fly, they fly!" A pair of agitated
cormorants, sunning themselves on the rocks, flew seaward with
outstretched necks. "Lead on, brave lads, and I will follow!"
The skiff came bumping alongside, and Mouldy Jakes, galvanised into
wakefulness by the confusion and laughter, found himself inextricably
entangled in the fishing-line, holding a kettle that someone had thrust
upon him in one hand and a frying-pan in the other. Half a dozen
partly clad forms, followed by the Doctor, flung themselves headlong
into the skiff and made for the shore. The bows grated on the shingle
and they sprang out.
"For drill purposes only," explained the Surgeon breathlessly, "we are
Turks!"
Under his direction they proceeded to collect pebbles. "A withering
volley will accordingly be opened on the Lancashire Fusiliers."
Despite a heavy fire of pebbles, the landing was ultimately effected;
the invaders abandoned their trousers and floundered gallantly through
the bullet-torn shallows. Ensued a complete rout of the Turks, who
were pursued inland across the heather with triumphant shouts and the
corpse of a seagull, found on the beach, hurled after them from the
point of a piece of driftwood.
The evicted snipers eventually returned with their caps full of
plovers' eggs, to find a fire of bleached twigs blazing and sausages
frizzling in the frying-pan. They were handed mugs of hot tea.
In the phraseology of chroniclers of Sunday-school treats, "ample
justice was done to the varied repast." Then it was discovered that
the tide was falling, and a hasty re-embarkation followed.
Sails were hoisted, the anchor weighed, and the cutter, with the empty
skiff in tow, headed for the West, where the sun was already setting in
a great glory of gold.
The brief warmth of a Northern spring day had passed, and, as they
rounded the promontory and the Fleet hove in sight once more, duffle
coats and mufflers were donned and a bottle of sloe-gin uncorked.
"Mug-up!" cried the Sub. "Mug-up, and let's get 'appy and chatty."
They crowded together in the stern-sheets for warmth, and presently
Thorogood started "John Brown's Body Lies A-mouldering in the Grave,"
without which no properly conducted picnic can come to a fitting
conclusion. The purple shadows deepened in the far-off valleys ashore,
and anon stole out across the water, enfolding the anchored Fleet into
the bosom of another night of a thousand vigils.
It was dusk when they reached the outlying Cruisers, and nearly dark
when the first ship in the Battle Fleet hailed them. Then hail
answered hail as one Battleship after another rose towering above them
into the darkling sky, and one by one passed into silence astern.
Silence also had fallen on the singers. Seen thus from an open
boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something
awe-inspiring--even to these who lived onboard them--in the stupendous
fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. Complete
darkness reigned on board, but once a dog barked, and the strains of an
accordion drifted across the water as reminders that each of these
menacing mysteries was the habitation of their fellow-men. A tiny
pin-point of light winked from a yard-arm near by to another pin-point
in the Cruiser line: Somebody was answering an invitation to dinner at
7.45 p.m., with many thanks; then, reminder of sterner things, a
searchlight leaped out spluttering over their heads, and swept to and
fro across the sky like the paint-brush of a giant.
A half-drowsy Midshipman in the bows of the cutter watched the message
of hospitality blinking through space; he consulted the luminous dial
on his wrist. "H'm," he observed to his companion, "I thought it was
getting on for dinner-time. Funny how quickly one gets hungry again."
A hail challenged them from the darkness, and a towering outline loomed
familiarly ahead.
"Aye, aye!" shouted the voice of the India-rubber Man from the stern,
adding in lower tones, "Boathook up forward. Fore halliards in
hand...."
"Home again!" said another voice in the darkness. "And so the long day
wears on..."
* * * * *
Dinner in the Gunroom was over. One by one the occupants became
engrossed in their wonted evening occupations and amusements.
"Mordaunt," said the sandy-haired Midshipman, rising and opening the
gramophone, "would you like to hear George Robey?"
The officer addressed, who was sitting at the table apparently in the
throes of literary composition, raised his head. "No," he replied, "I
wouldn't; I'm writing a letter. 'Sides I've heard that record at least
seven hundred and eighty-one times already."
"Can't help it," retorted the musical enthusiast, winding the handle of
the instrument. "_I_ think he's perfectly priceless!" He set the
needle, stepped back a pace and stood beaming appreciatively into the
vociferous trumpet while the song blared forth.
"Reminds me," said Harcourt, laying down a novel and rising from the
corner of the settee where he had curled himself, "I must write to my
young sister for her birthday. Lend me a bit of your notepaper, Billy."
His friend complied with the request without raising his eyes. "How
d'you spell 'afford'?" he enquired.
"Two f's," replied Harcourt. "'Least I think so. Can I have a dip at
your ink?"
"I thought it was two, but it doesn't look right, somehow." The two
pens scratched in unison.
Matthews, the Midshipman of the previous Night Patrol, had stretched
himself on an adjacent settee and fallen asleep immediately after
dinner.
Lettigne, otherwise known as "Bosh," amused himself by juggling with a
banana, two oranges and a walnut, relics of his dessert. His
performance was being lazily watched by the Sub from the depths of the
arm-chair which he had drawn as near to the glowing stove as the heat
would allow. It presently attracted the notice of two other Midshipmen
who had finished a game of picquet and were casting about them for a
fresh distraction. This conversion of edible objects into juggling
paraphernalia presently moved one to protest.
"Why don't you eat that banana, Bosh, instead of chucking it about?" he
enquired.
"'Cause I can't," said the exponent of legerdemain.
"Why not?" queried the other.
"Too full already," was the graceful response. "I'm just
waiting--waiting till the clouds roll by, so to speak."
The two interlocutors eyed each other speculatively.
"Did you have any dessert?" asked one.
"No," was the sorrowful reply. "My extra-bill's up."
Thereupon they rose together and fell straightway upon the juggler. An
equal division of the spoil was made while they sat upon his prostrate
form, and eaten to the accompaniment of searching prods into their
victim's anatomy.
"Bosh, you ought to be jolly grateful to us, really. You'd probably
have appendicitis if we let you eat all this--phew! Mally, just feel
here.... Isn't he a hog! ..."
"Just like a blooming drum," replied the other, prodding judicially.
Over their heads the tireless voice of the gramophone trumpeted forth
its song. The Sub who had kept the Middle Watch the night before,
slept the sleep of the tired just. The door opened and a Junior
Midshipman entered hot-foot. "Letters," he shouted. "Any letters to
be censored? The mail's closing tomorrow morning."
"Yes," replied the two correspondents at the table, simultaneously
bringing their letters to a close.
"Hurry up, then," said the messenger. "The Padre's waiting to censor
them. He sent me along to see if there were any more."
Mordaunt folded his letter and placed it in an envelope. "Got a stamp,
Harcourt? I've run out." He extended a penny.
Harcourt looked up, pen in mouth, thumping his wet sheet with the
blotting paper. "In my locker--I'll get you one in a second."
"Oh, do buck up," wailed the messenger. "I want to turn in, an' the
Padre's waiting."
"All right," retorted Harcourt. He rose to his feet. "I forgot:
little boys lose their roses if they don't get to bed early. Billy,
shove that letter in an envelope for me, to save time, while I get the
stamp." His friend complied with the request and picked up his pen to
address his own epistle. As he did so the prostrate juggler, with a
sudden, spasmodic recrudescence of energy, flung his two assailants off
him and struggled to a sitting position. They were on him again like
wolves, but as they bore him prostrate to the deck he clutched wildly
at a corner of the table-cloth.
The next moment the conflict was inextricably involved with the
table-cloth, letters, note-paper, envelopes and ink descending upon the
combatants in a cascade.
"You clumsy owls," roared Harcourt, returning from his locker. "Now,
where's my letter...." He searched among the débris.
"I say, do buck up," wailed the sleepy voice on the threshold.
"Buck up?" echoed Harcourt. "Buck up! How the devil can I buck
up--ah, here we are." He picked up an envelope, glanced carelessly
under the still open flap and sat down to address it. "Got yours,
Billy? Here's the stamp."
"Yes," replied the other, grovelling in the darkness under the table.
"This is it." He reappeared with a letter in his hand.
"The Padre----" again began the impatient envoy.
"All right--all right!" Mordaunt hurriedly affixed the stamp and
addressed the envelope without looking at the contents. "Here you
are," he said, holding it out. The messenger departed hastily.
The bang of the door awoke the Sub.
"Now, then," he said. "Enough of this. Switch off that cursed
gramophone. Get up off the deck. Mop that ink up and square off the
table-cloth. Knock off scrapping, you three hooligans."
The hooligans obeyed reluctantly, and sat panting and dishevelled on
the settee. By degrees the Mess resumed its tranquillity.
Harcourt stretched his slim form and yawned sleepily. "I'm going to
turn in now. And to-morrow know all men that I start training."
"That's right," said Lettigne, still panting and adjusting his
disordered garments. "Nothing like being really fit--ready to go
anywhere an' do anything--that's my motto." He rang the bell and
ordered a bottle of ginger beer.
[1] Tinned sausages. A delicacy peculiar to Gunrooms of the Fleet.