Even the least of life's tragedies would be sufficient to unnerve us
completely and throw us off our mental balance for the rest of our
days if we could visualise it thoroughly in all its details.
Fortunately, our powers of imagination are strictly limited, and the
proverb "What the eye does not see the heart does not feel" has a
very true application to those great sufferings we hear or read
about. The only impression we get is just a dim blurred idea of
horror and sadness and pain; we are mercifully spared the realisation
of each throb of agony, each bitter pang of mental torment.
Even such impressions as we do succeed in getting of the disasters
which happen to other people would be unendurable if we allowed
ourselves to brood upon them; we should probably go mad, or if we
escaped this we should at all events become so utterly distracted
that our usefulness in life would be gone, and there would be no
pleasure in our days.
The common sense of humanity has therefore decided that a limit must
be placed to grief, and that the natural impulse to feel for others'
sufferings must not be permitted to interfere unduly with the
ordinary affairs of life. Though one half the world should perish,
the other half must still go on. Though the breadwinner of the
family is brought home by his mates at the mine or the factory
crushed to death in some fearful accident, there is still the
children's dinner to be cooked.
And the constant succession of disasters which comes as the evil
harvest of a war makes people gradually fall into the habit of
accustoming themselves to hear of fresh disasters without exhibiting
any great display of feeling. The thing is too big, and we are too
small, too limited. It is not that we are unsympathetic--we are full
of sympathy, indeed--but, well, we just become used to these awful
happenings. The noise of a gun going off somewhere close at hand is
rather a severe shock to the nerves when it is heard for the first
time, but when the guns are heard all day long and every day, it is
not long before they cease to be noticed at all.
So, if a ship were lost in the days before the war, the whole country
used to be overshadowed with deep gloom which lasted for many a sad
long day; but when the evil fortunes of war brought one fine ship
after another to an untimely end with all her crew--well, there was
sympathy enough, especially amongst those who were very closely
affected by the disaster, but even for these it became possible to
smile, nevertheless, and even to crack a joke.
This was not callousness; it was merely human nature asserting
itself. And a fortunate thing for ourselves and for the world in
general that the tendency to cheer up and make the best of a bad job
is more powerful than the opposite tendency to brood unceasingly over
what cannot be helped.
Admiral Darlington, therefore, must not be accused of being lacking
in the finer feelings if he has a placid look of contentment and the
makings of a well-pleased smile upon his jolly face, even though he
is presently to bring his mind to bear upon the tragedy of the loss
of the _Marathon_, with so many of her officers and men. What is the
good of pulling a long face over the matter? If he can help in any
way to mitigate the sorrows caused by the disaster, depend upon it he
will do so; before long, you may be sure, he will be putting his hand
into his pocket on behalf of the widows and orphans. Meanwhile, he
has just got outside an uncommonly good breakfast, and is enjoying
the first pipe of the day, which, as all smokers will agree, is the
best pipe of all. Moreover, the sun is shining in a cloudless sky,
and the mail has just brought him news that his youngest boy has
successfully passed into Osborne as a naval cadet, thereby getting
his foot, neatly encased in the uniform boot which gives him immense
pride, upon the first rung of the ladder his father has climbed
before him.
So no wonder the admiral is inclined to look upon the bright side of
things, and to greet Dimsdale with a cheery Good Morning when the
secretary comes into his room with a bundle of letters and official
papers in his hand.
The admiral begins his working-day early. Already, before
breakfasting, he has been up for a couple of hours, spending one of
them in certain violent physical exercises which he explains are
necessary to keep him in health and vigour, though other people are
apt to say unkindly that his real aim in the vain one--vain in both
senses of the word--of preserving his youthful contour-line
amidships, the second hour he devotes to what he calls clewing up any
business left over from the day before. He insists upon doing this
unaided, and it is not until breakfast is over that he calls for the
assistance of his secretary.
It is a pleasant little morning room where the admiral is seated,
enjoying his pipe in a comfortable arm-chair. The wide french
windows look out upon one of the many indentations of the harbour,
and provide a view of a little hamlet clustered in the sheltering
nook of a glen that widens out at the water's edge. Over the wide
heather-clad slopes on either side are scattered here and there the
tiny cottages of outlying crofters, and where the land is brought
under cultivation the old men and the women--the young men have all
gone to the war--are working busily to win from the rough, poor soil
such scanty return as Nature grudgingly gives in these high and
far-off edges of the world. The hardy little oxen too, are called in
to assist in the work of the fields and altogether it is a very
delightful picture of a primitive honest life pursuing its daily way
in spite of the horrid noise and clash of distant war, in a land
bleak and barren enough to the casual eye of a stranger, but dear as
life itself to those born and bred on it, and never losing its place
in their heart even though they wander to the world's end.
"Well, Dimsdale, and what have we got this morning? Nothing very
much, I hope; anyhow, let's get through with it. We shan't have too
much time, with this other business coming along presently. What's
the first?"
Dimsdale picks out a letter from his pile and hands it to the
admiral. A faint trace of a smile flickers at the corners of his
lips as he does so.
"Eh? What's this?" ejaculates the admiral as he reads. "No--I will
not become a patron of the society for supplying bedsocks to
Conscientious Objectors! Tell 'em so, and be damned to 'em!"
"Very good, sir," quietly answers the secretary. "I'll tell them
exactly what you say."
"You can put it a lot stronger than that if you like," says the
other, with an indignant snort. "Conscien----" the danger of too
violent an explosion checks him, and happily he sees the humorous
side of things just in time. "What a nerve some people have!" is his
very unofficial comment. "Here, let's have the next one. You can
answer that any time."
"This is a private letter to you, sir," says Dimsdale, proffering a
large envelope of an expensive brand marked with a crest on the flap,
"but it was not marked private, and so got put in amongst my lot; but
it is evidently meant for you personally."
The admiral pulls the letter out, and reads:
"DEAR ADMIRAL DARLINGTON--
"_My son Ethelred is, as you are doubtless aware, a midshipman on
your boat. And now that the inclement season is approaching, I shall
be so grateful if you will kindly see that he always changes his
undervest if he should happen to get wet, as I am told one is quite
apt to do when at sea._
"_Of course, I quite understand that your other duties may sometimes
render it impossible for you to see to this matter yourself, but in
that case I am sure you would not mind telling the commander or the
coxswain or somebody to do it, and reminding them from time to time._
"_Ethelred has been very carefully brought up, and I am sure you must
find him a great help to you. Please do not let him go out in one of
those little steamboats if the weather is at all rough, as I think
they are very dangerous._
"_I hope my boy does not suffer from sea-sickness, but I know, from
sad experience gained in crossing the Channel a few years ago, how
extremely suddenly this dire malady can attack even those who are
least suspecting its onslaughts; and I am in possession of a remedy
which proved very beneficial to me on that occasion, which I shall be
only too pleased to send you for the use not only of Ethelred, but of
any other of the men on your boat who may chance to succumb to this
distressing complaint. In sending you the prescription, I shall have
the satisfaction of feeling that I am doing my bit for our brave
sailors and helping to mitigate at least one of the horrors of this
great war._
"_With kind regards,
"Yours sincerely,_
"AMY TWITTENHAM-TWITTENHAM."
"Hm! You can answer that one for me, Dimsdale," says the admiral.
"Perhaps you had better say that I tuck him up in bed every night
with my own hands and sing him to sleep; something of that sort! By
the way, how is the young monkey getting on? Have you seen anything
of him lately?"
"The last time I saw him," the secretary answers, "was about eleven
o'clock three or four nights back. He was with several other
snotties tobogganing down the foremost gangway inside the chaplain's
suit-case and landing in the ditch. I enquired what might be the
meaning and reason of this occupation, and young Twittenham informed
me that they were Gadarene swine. Apparently the idea was to try and
remember the padre's last Sunday's sermon by putting it into actual
practice; so Twittenham explained it, at least. He also added that
another little drink wouldn't do him any harm. In fact, he appeared
on the whole to be doing very nicely."
The admiral chuckles merrily, remembering his own midshipman's days.
"Better drop a hint to the padre to choose some less violent subject
for his next discourse," he suggests, "something at any rate less
wetting!"
"I shouldn't like to discourage him; his sermons might get _too_ dry
altogether," says Dimsdale, laughing.
"Then," he continues bringing out another paper from his sheaf,
"there's this one:
I--A return is to be made immediately of all H.M. ships or vessels
fitted with soap-dishes pattern number four (noted on list as Dishes,
Soap, number four pattern) and pierced with eighteen holes, circular,
of one-eight of an inch in diameter.
This return to be made in triplicate, stating,
(a) How many of such articles are on charge.
(b) How many are in actual use on board.
(c) Whether it is found in practice that the residuum of soap or soap
and water, occasioned by taking the piece or cake of soap from the
water in which it has been used and placing it in the soap-dish, is
able to escape with sufficient freedom into the receptacle provided
for the same.
II--If it is found that this escape or discharge does not take place
with reasonable speed and effectiveness, thereby causing a sediment
of saponaceous matter with aqueous base and occasioning wastage of
soap, the soap-dishes are to be returned at once to H.M. Dockyard
where the holes will be enlarged from a diameter of one-eight of an
inch to a diameter of three-sixteenths of an inch.
"And yet," groans the admiral, "there is a war on! Well the rest can
wait. Nothing of any importance, is there? I suppose not, if that's
a sample. We're due to start this court of enquiry in half an hour.
But what's this yarn you were telling me about the man Sheridan?"