A bunting-draped paddle-steamer, listed over with a dense crowd of
trippers, thrashed her leisurely way down the lines. On the quarterdeck
of one of the Battleships the Midshipman of the Afternoon Watch rubbed
the lense of his telescope with his jacket cuff, adjusted the focus
against a stanchion, and prepared to make the most of this heaven-sent
diversion. Over the water came a hoarse roar of cheering, and, as she
drew near, handkerchiefs and flags fluttered along the steamer's rail.
The Lieutenant of the Watch, in frock-coat and sword-belt, paused beside
the Midshipman and raised his glass, a dry smile creasing the corners of
his eyes.
"What's up with them all, sir?" murmured the boy delightedly. "My Aunt!
What a Banzai!"
"Ever seen kids cheer a passing train? Same sort of thing."
"But look at the girl in white; she's half off her chump--look at her
waving her arms.... Friend of yours, sir?"
"No--only hysterical. The man with her is trying to make her stop."
The sailor laughed. "He's given it up ... now he's waving too--what
at?" He closed his glass. "Curious, isn't it?"
The steamer passed on, and a confused burr of cheering announced that
she had reached the next silent warship. "It's all-same 'Maffick,'" he
continued presently, "Entente--Banzai--anything you like to call it.
An' when we've gone they'll come to their senses and feel hot all
over--like a fellow who wakes up and finds his hat on the gas-bracket
and his boots in the water-jug!"
The Midshipman nodded: "I saw some kids dancing round a policeman once.
Made the bobby look rather an ass--though as a matter of fact I believe
he rather liked it. Bad for discipline, though," he added with the
austere judgment of eighteen summers.
A launch bumped alongside, and a stout man in the stern-sheets shouted
for permission to come on board.
"Do," said the Lieutenant gravely. The stout man took a valedictory
pull at a black bottle in the stern-locker, pocketed a handful of
shrimps for future consumption, and, accompanied by three feminine
acquaintances, laboriously ascended the ladder. They gazed stolidly and
all uncomprehending at the sleek barbette guns, the snowy planking
underfoot, over which flickered the shadow of the White Ensign, and
finally wandered forward through the screen-doors, where they were lost
to view among the throngs of sightseers.
The afternoon wore on; every few minutes a launch or steamer swirled
past, gay with bunting and parasols. Many carried bands, and in the
lulls of cheering the light breeze bore the notes of martial, if not
strictly appropriate, music across the line. An Able Seaman paused in
his occupation of burnishing the top of the after-capstan, and passed
the back of his hand across his forehead.
"Proper dizzy, ain't they?" he remarked in an undertone to a companion.
"Wot's the toon?"
"Sons of the Muvverland," replied the other. He sucked his teeth
appreciatively, after the manner of sailor-men, and added, "Gawd! Look
at them women!..."
A launch with a crimson banner, bearing the name of a widely-circulated
halfpenny paper, fussed under the stern. A man in a dingy white
waistcoat hailed the quarter-deck in the vernacular through a megaphone.
"No, thank you," came the clear-cut reply; "we have to-day's papers."
The Lieutenant hitched his glass under his arm and resumed his measured
walk. "I'm no snob, Lord knows," he confided to the other, "but it
bores me stiff to be patted on the head by the halfpenny press--
Sideboy! pick up those shrimps' heads that gentleman dropped."
By degrees the more adventurous spirits found their way down between
decks, where, in a short time, the doorway of each officer's cabin
framed a cluster of inquisitive heads. In one or two cases daring
sightseers had invaded the interiors, and were examining with naive
interest the photographs, Rugby caps, dented cups, and all the _lares
atque penates_ of a Naval Officer.
"'Ere, Florrie!" called a flushed maiden of Hebraic mien, obtruding her
head into the flat, "come an' look!" She extended a silver photograph
frame,--"Phyllis Dare--signed an' all!"
The other sighed rapturously and examined it with round-eyed interest.
Then she gazed round the tiny apartment. "_Ain't_ 'e a one! Look at 'is
barf 'anging on the roof!..."
The harassed sentry evicted them with difficulty.
"Better'n Earl's Court, this is," opined a stout lady, who, accompanied
by a meek-looking husband and three children, had subsided on to a
Midshipman's sea-chest. She opened the mouth of a string-bag. "Come on,
'Orace--you just set down this minute, an' you shall 'ave 'arf a
banana."
A very small Midshipman approached the chest. "I hate disturbing you,
and Horace," he ventured, "but I want to go ashore, and all my things
are in that box you're sitting on--would you mind...?"
"Ma!" shrilled a small boy, indicating the modest brass plate on the lid
of the chest they had vacated. "Look--" he extended a small, grubby
forefinger, "'e's a Viscount!"
"Garn," snapped his father, "that's swank, that is. Viscounts don' go
sailorin'--they stops ashore an' grinds the faces of the poor, an' don'
forget what I'm tellin' of you."
The Marine Sentry overheard. "Pity they don' wash 'em as well," he
observed witheringly. His duties included that of servant to the
Midshipman in question, and he resented the scepticism of a stranger who
sat on the lid of his master's chest eating cold currant pudding out of
a string-bag.
* * * * *
On the pier-head a dense perspiring crowd surged through gates and
barriers, swarmed outward into all the available space, and slowly
congested into a packed throng of over-heated, over-tired humanity.
Those nearest the rails levelled cheap opera-glasses at the distant line
of men-of-war stretching away into the haze, each ship with her
attendant steamer circling round her. An excursion steamer alongside
hooted deafeningly, and a man in a peaked cap on her bridge raised his
voice above the babel, bellowing hoarse incoherencies. A gaitered
Lieutenant clanked through the crowd, four patrol-men at his heels,
moving as men do who are accustomed to cramped surroundings.
At the landing-stages, where the crowd surged thickest, the picket-boats
from the Fleet swung hooting alongside, rocking in the swell. As each
went astern and checked her way, the front of the excited throng of
sightseers bellied outward, broke, and poured across the boats in a wild
stampede for seats. They swayed on the edge of the gunwales, floundered
hobnailed over enamelled casings, were clutched and steadied on the
heaving decks by barefooted, half-contemptuous men. The Midshipmen
raised their voices in indignant protest: drunk and riotous liberty-men
they understood: one "swung-off" at them in unfettered language of the
sea, or employed the butt-end of a tiller to back an ignored command on
which their safety depended. But here was a people that had never known
discipline--had scorned the necessity for it in their own unordered
lives. The Midshipman of the inside pinnace jerked the lanyard of the
syren savagely. "Look at my priceless paintwork! look at--_That's_
enough--no more in this boat--it's not safe! Please stand back,
it's--oh, d----!"
A man, in utter disregard of the request, had picked up a child in his
arms and jumped on board, steadying himself by the funnel guys. "Orl
right, my son, don't bust yerself," he replied pleasantly.
* * * * *
An old woman forced her way through the crush towards the Lieutenant of
the Patrol, who with knotted brows was trying to grasp the gist of a
signal handed to him by a coastguard.
"I want to see my 'usband's nephew," she explained breathlessly; "'e's
in 39 Mess." The Lieutenant smiled gravely. "What ship?" She named
the ship, and stood expectant, a look of confidence on her heated
features, as if awaiting some sleight-of-hand trick. There was
something dimly prophetic in the simple faith with which she voiced her
need.
"I see. Will you excuse me a minute while I answer this signal, and
I'll send some one to help you find the right boat."
A Petty Officer guided her eventually to the landing-place and saw her
safely embarked; he returned to find his Lieutenant comforting with
clumsy tenderness a small and lacrymose boy who had lost his parents,
turning from him to receive the reproaches of a lady whose purse had
been stolen. The two men exchanged a little smile, and the Petty
Officer edged a little nearer--
"'Arf an hour on the parade-ground at Whale Island,[#] sir, I'd like to
'ave with some of 'em," he confided behind a horny palm. The jostling
throng surged round him, calling high heaven to witness the might of its
possessions.
[#] The hotbed of Naval Discipline.
"_I'd_ make 'em 'op..." he murmured dreamily.
*XVI.*
*"WATCH THERE, WATCH!"*
Dinner in the long, antler-hung mess-room of the Naval Barracks had come
to an end. Here and there along the table, where the shaded lights
glinted on silver loving-cups and trophies, a few officers lingered in
pairs over their coffee. Presently the band moved down from the gallery
that overlooked one end of the Mess, and began playing in the hall.
This was the signal for a general move to the smoking-room, where a
score of figures in mess undress uniform were grouped round the fire,
lighting pipes and cigars and exchanging mild, after-dinner chaff.
A few couples of dancing enthusiasts were solemnly revolving in the
hall. Others made their way up the broad staircase to the
billiard-room, or settled down at the bridge tables.
"Come on," shouted a tall Commander seated on the "club" fender in the
smoking-room, "what about a game of skill or chance? Come up to the
billiard-room, and bring your pennies!" He stirred a form recumbent in
an arm-chair with the toe of his boot. "What about you, young feller?
Are you going to play pool?"
The young Lieutenant shook his head. "Not to-night, sir, thanks. I'm
going to bed early: I've got the Night Guard trip."
Gradually the room emptied. The figure in the arm-chair finished the
paper he was reading, glanced at the clock and rose, knocking the ashes
out of his pipe. "Call me at 1.15," he said to the hall porter as he
passed him on his way to his room.
An officer, immaculate in evening dress, who was putting his overcoat in
the hall, overheard the speaker, and laughed. "That's the spirit!
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise!"
"More'n you'll ever be, my sprig o' fashion," grumbled the Lieutenant,
and passed on.
* * * * *
The Lieutenant of the Night Guard went cautiously down the wooden steps
of the Barracks' Pier that led to the landing-place. Cautiously, because
the tide was low, and experience had taught him that the steps would be
slippery with weed. Also the night was very dark, and the lights of the
steamboat alongside showed but indistinctly through the surrounding fog.
At the bottom of the steps one of the boat's crew was waiting with a
lantern. Its rays lit for a minute the faces of the two men, and
gleamed on the steel guard of the cutlass at the bearer's hip.
"Infernal night!" said the Lieutenant from the depths of his overcoat
collar. He had just turned out, and there was an exceeding bitterness
in his voice. The lantern-bearer also had views on the night--possibly
stronger views--but refrained from any reply. Perhaps he realised that
none was expected. The other swung himself down into the sternsheets of
the boat, and, as he did so, the Coxswain came aft, blowing on his
hands.
"Carry on, sir?"
"Please. Usual rounds: go alongside a Destroyer and any ship that
doesn't hail. Fog's very thick: got a compass?"
"There's a compass in the boat, sir." The Coxswain moved forward again
to the wheel, wearing a slightly ruffled expression which, owing to the
darkness and the fact that there was no one to see it, was rather
wasted. For thirty years he'd known that harbour, man and boy, fair or
foul, and his father a waterman before him.... He jerked the telegraph
bell twice, gave a half-contemptuous turn to the wheel, and spat
overside.
"Compass!" he observed to the night.
The boat slid away on its mission, and the shore lights glimmered wan
and vanished in the fog astern. A clock ashore struck the hour, and
from all sides came the answering ships' bells--some near, some far, all
muffled by the moisture in the heavy atmosphere.
Ding-ding! Ding! Half-past one.
He who had borne the lantern deposited it in the tiny cabin aft, and
with a thoughtful expression removed a frayed halfpenny paper from the
inside of the breast of his jumper. To carry simultaneously a cutlass
and a comic paper did not apparently accord with his views on the
fitness of things, for he carefully refolded the latter and placed it
under the cushions of the locker. Then he unhooked a small megaphone
from the bulkhead, and came out, closing the sliding-door behind him.
Finally he passed forward into the bows of the boat, where he remained
visible in the glare of the steaming light, his arms crossed on his
chest, hands tucked for warmth one under each arm-pit, peering stolidly
into the blackness ahead.
Once in mid-stream the fog lessened. Sickly patches of light waxed out
of indistinctness and gleamed yellow. Anon as they brightened, a human
voice, thin and lonely as a wraith's, came abruptly out of the night.
"Boat ahoy!" The voice from nowhere sounded like an alarm. It was as
if the darkness were suddenly suspicious of this swiftly-moving,
palpitating thing from across the water. The figure in the bows removed
his hands from his arm-pits, picked up the megaphone, and sent a
reassuring bellow in the direction of the hail.
"Guard Boat!" he answered, and as he did so a vast towering shape had
loomed up over them. "Answer's, 'Guard Boat!' sir," said the faint
voice somewhere above their heads, addressing an unseen third person. A
dark wall appeared, surmounted by a shadowy superstructure and a giant
tripod mast that was swallowed, long before the eye could reach its
apex, in vapour and darkness. The sleek flanks of guns at rest showed
for an instant.... A sleeping "Super-Dreadnought." It faded into the
darkness astern; then nothing but the mist again, and the throb of the
boat's engines.
Another, and another, and yet another watchful Presence loomed up out of
the night, hailed suspiciously, and, at the megaphone's answering
bellow, merged again into the silent darkness. A figure stepped aft in
the Guard Boat and adjusted the tarpaulin that covered the rifles lying
on top of the cabin: moisture had collected among the folds in little
pools. Then the engine-room gong rang, and a voice quite near hailed
them. A long black shadow appeared abreast, and the Guard Boat slid
alongside a Destroyer at anchor. The dark water between the two hulls
churned into foam as the boat reversed her engines. A tall figure
holding a lantern leaned over the Destroyer's rail.
"Night Guard," said the Lieutenant curtly. As he came forward, three men
climbed silently up from below and stood awaiting orders at his side.
The lantern shone unsteadily on their impassive faces.
"Are you the Quartermaster?"
"Yessir." The tall man in oilskins leaning over the Destroyer's rail
lowered his lantern.
"All right, I won't come inboard. All correct?"
"All correct, sir."
"Right. Put it in the log that I've visited you. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir."
The gong clanged, and the Guard Boat slid away into the mist again. The
figure in the bows was relieved by a comrade, and together with the
remaining two vanished down the foremost hatch. The faint reek of Navy
tobacco drifted aft to the stern-sheets, where the Lieutenant of the
Night Guard had resumed his position, leaning against an angle of the
cabin with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. He was
reflecting on the strangeness of a profession that dragged a man from
his bed at one o'clock in the morning, to steam round a foggy harbour in
the company of armed men, these times of piping peace.
Once a night throughout the year, in every Dockyard Port in the kingdom,
a launch slid away from the Depot jetty, slipped in and out among the
anchored ships, and returned to her moorings when the patrol was
completed. Why? Some grim significance surely lay in the duty, in the
abrupt hails that stabbed the stillness, greeting the throb of her
engines: in the figure of the armed man in the bows with the megaphone,
ready to fling back the reassuring answer....
He shifted his position and glanced forward. The bowman was chewing
tobacco, and every now and again turned his head to spit overside. Each
time he did so the port bow-light lit his features with a ruddy glare.
It was a stolid countenance, slightly bored.
The Lieutenant smiled gravely. Did the figure wonder why he wore a
cutlass in peace time? Did he realise the warning it embodied--the
message they conveyed night by night to the anchored ships? His
thoughts took a more sombre turn. Would the night ever come--just such
a night as this--and under the fog a Menace glide in among the blindfold
Fleet? To the first hail of alarm answer with a lever released, a
silvery shadow that left a trail of bubbles on the surface.... And
then--the fog and silence riven to the dark vault of heaven.
He raised his head. "All right, Coxswain, enough for to-night. Carry
on back." Over went the helm: the boat swung round on a new course,
heading whence she had come an hour before.
Carry on back! It was so easy to say.
His thoughts reverted to the grim picture his imagination had created.
How would that shadowy Terror, her mission fulfilled, "carry on back"?
Wheel wrenched over, funnels spouting flame, desperate men clinging to
the rail as she reeled under the concussion, racing blindly through the
outraged night for safety.
Thus had a warring Nation written a lesson across the map of Manchuria
for all the world to read--and, if they might, remember.
Where did he come in, then--this figure leaning thoughtfully against the
angle of the steamboat's cabin? What was his mission, and that of the
steamboat with its armed crew, night after night, in fog and by
starlight, winter and summer...?
A chord of memory vibrated faintly in his mind. There was a phrase that
summed it up, learned long ago.... He was a cadet again on the
seamanship-deck of the old _Britannia_, at instruction in a now obsolete
method of sounding with the Deep-Sea Lead and Line. They were shown
how, in order to obtain a sounding, a number of men were stationed along
the ship's side, each holding a coil of the long line. As the heavy
lead sank and the line tautened from hand to hand, each man flung his
coil overboard. As he did so he called to warn the next--
"Watch there, watch!"
The steamboat, slowed as she passed close under the stern of a
battleship. The fog had lifted, and the Officer of the Middle Watch was
leaning over the quarter-deck rail. The Lieutenant of the Night Guard
raised his head, and in the gleam of the ship's stern light the two
officers recognised each other. They had been in the _Britannia_,
together. The former laughed a greeting.
"Go back to bed, you noisy blighter!"
The cloaked figure in the boat chuckled. "That's where I am going," he
called back.
*XVII.*
*"FAREWELL AND ADIEU!"*
The Junior Watch-keeper paused at the corner of the street and smote the
pavement with the ferrule of his stick.
"Lord!" he ejaculated, "to think this is the last night! Look at it
all...." Dusk had fallen, and with it a wet mist closed down on the
town. The lights from the shop windows threw out a warm orange glow
that was reflected off the wet pavements and puddles in the street. The
shrill voice of a paper-boy, hawking the evening paper, dominated all
other sounds for a moment. "Eve ... nin' Er-r-rald!" he called. Then,
seeing the two figures standing irresolute on the kerb, ran towards
them.
"Evenin' 'Erald! sir? Naval 'Pointments, sir ... To-night's Naval
'Point----"
The Lieutenant shook his head half impatiently, then added as if
speaking to himself, "No--not yet." It was such a familiar evening
feature of life ashore in a Dockyard Port, that hoarse, "jodelling" cry.
One bought the paper and glanced through the columns over a
gin-and-bitters at the Club. But this was the last night: every
familiar sensation and experience should be flavoured in their turn--ere
they two went hence and were no more seen!
The Young Doctor at his elbow gave a curt laugh: "We shan't be very
interested in the Appointments to-morrow night, Jerry!" An itinerant
seller of violets drifted down the pavement and thrust his fragrant
merchandise upon them.
"What shall we do first?" asked the Junior Watch-keeper. "Let's go and
have our hair cut and a shampoo."
"I hate having my hair cut," pleaded the Surgeon.
"Never mind: it's all part of the show. You won't get another chance of
talking football to a barber for years.... And that awful green stuff
that he rubs in with a bit of sponge--oh, come on!"
Together they drifted up the familiar street, pausing to stare into shop
windows with a sudden renewal of interest that was half pathetic. A
jeweller's shop, throwing a glittering white arc of light across the
pavement arrested their progress.
"I never realised before," mused the Surgeon, "how these fellows cater
for the love-lorn Naval Officer. Look at those brooches: naval crowns;
hat-pins made of uniform buttons, bracelets with flags done in
enamel--D-E-A-R-E-S--" he spelt out, and broke off abruptly, "Pouf!
What tosh!"
The other was fumbling with the door-latch. "Half a minute, Peter,
there's something I've just remembered..." and vanished inside
muttering. The Young Doctor caught the words "some little thing," and
waited outside. The traffic of the street, a fashionable shopping street
in a Dockyard town at 6 P.M., streamed past him as he stood there
waiting. Girls in furs, with trim ankles, carrying parcels or Badminton
raquets, hurried along, pausing every now and again to glance into an
attractive shop window. Several tweed-clad figures, shouldering golf
clubs, passed in the direction of the railway station; one or two nodded
a salutation as they recognised him. Little pigtailed girls with tight
skirts enclosing immature figures, of a class known technically as the
"Flapper," drifted by with lingering, precocious stares. The horns of
the motors that whizzed along the muddy street sounded far and near.
They, together with the clang and rumble of tram-cars a few streets
away, and the voices of the paper-boys, dominated in turn all other
sounds in the mirky night air. The man with the basket of violets
shuffled past again, and left a faint trail of fragrance lingering. Long
after that night, in the uttermost parts of the earth he remembered it,
and the half-caught scent of violets, drifting from a perfume shop in
Saigon, was destined to conjure up for the Surgeon a vision of that
glittering street, with its greasy pavement and hurrying passers-by, and
of a pair of grey eyes that glanced back for an instant over their
owner's furs....
The Junior Watch-keeper reappeared, buttoning up his coat. "Sorry to
have kept you waiting, Peter," and fell into step beside his companion.
Half an hour later they emerged from the hairdresser's establishment,
clipped and anointed as to the head.
"Now," breathed the Lieutenant, "where to?"
"Sawdust Club!" said the Surgeon. They crossed the road and turned up a
narrow passage-way. As they quitted the street, a diminutive boy, with
an old, wizened face and an unnaturally husky voice, wormed his way in
under the Young Doctor's elbow, "'Erald, sir? Latest, sir! Naval--"
The Surgeon slipped a sixpenny bit into his hand and took the proffered
paper, still damp from the press. They entered a long vault-like
apartment, its floor strewn with sawdust and long counters and a row of
wooden stools extending down each side. Behind the counters rose tiers
of barrels, and in one corner was a sandwich buffet, with innumerable
neat piles of sandwiches in a glass case. The place was crowded with
customers: a bull-dog sauntered about the floor, nosing among the
sawdust for pieces of biscuit. As the new-comers entered several of the
inmates, perched on their wooden stools, looked round and smiled a
greeting.
"Ah-ha! Last night in England, eh?"
"Yes," replied the Junior Watch-keeper, "the last night." He sniffed
the mingled aroma of sawdust, tobacco-smoke, and the faint pungent smell
of alcohol. "Good old pot-house! Good old Sawdust Club! Dear, dear,
curried egg sandwiches! ... _And_ a drop of sherry white-wine 'what the
orficers drinks'--yes, in a dock-glass, and may the Lord ha' mercy on
us!"
* * * * *
"And now," said the Young Doctor, "a 'chop-and-chips,' I think."
"A mixed-grill," substituted the other. "Kidney and sausage and tomato
and all the rest of it. Oh yes, a 'mixed-grill.'"
They entered swing-doors, past a massive Commissionaire, who saluted
with a broad smile. "They're askin' for you inside, sir," he whispered
jocularly to the Junior Watch-keeper. "Wonderin' when you was comin'
along.... Sailin' to-morrow, ain't you, sir?"
Together the "last-nighters" descended a flight of carpeted stairs and
entered a subterranean, electric-lit lounge bar. A dozen or more of
Naval men were standing about the fireplace and sitting in more or less
graceful attitudes in big saddle-bag arm-chairs. The majority were
conducting a lively badinage with a pretty, fair-haired girl who leaned
over the bar at one end of the room. She smiled a greeting as the
new-comers entered, and emerged from her retreat. The Junior
Watch-keeper doffed his hat with a low bow and hung it on the stand.
Then he bent down, swung her into his arms, and handed her like a doll
to the Young Doctor, who in turn deposited her on the lap of a seated
Officer reading the evening paper. "Look what I've found."
With a squeal she twisted herself to her feet and retreated behind the
bar again, her hands busy with the mysteries of hair-pins.
"Hullo! hullo!" Greetings sounded on all sides. A tall
broad-shouldered figure with a brown beard elbowed his way through the
crush and smote the Junior Watch-keeper on the breast-bone.
"Dear sakes! Where have you sprung from? I just come from the Persian
Gulf, and it's a treat to see a familiar face!"
"We're off to China again to-morrow," said the other, a half-suppressed
note of exultation in his voice--"China-side again! Do you
remember...?"
The bearded one nodded wistfully. "Do I not! ... You lucky devils....
Oh, you lucky devils! Here, Molly----"
* * * * *
The waiter sought them presently with the time-honoured formula: "Your
grill's spoilin', gentlemen, please," and they took their places in the
mirror-walled grill-room, where the violins were whimpering some
pizzicato melody. A girl with dark eyes set a shade obliquely in a pale
face, seated at the grand piano, looked across as they entered and
smiled a faint greeting to the Young Doctor.
"I think we're entitled to a voluntary from the pianist to-night," said
the other presently, his mouth full of mixed-grill. "What shall we ask
for?"
The other thought for a moment. "There's a thing ... I don't know what
it's called ... it's like wind in the leaves--_she_ knows." He beckoned
a waiter and whispered. The girl with the pale face looked across the
room and for an instant met the eyes of the Young Doctor; then she ran
her fingers lightly over the keys and drifted into Sinding's
_Fruehlingsrauschen_.
The Surgeon nodded delightedly. "That's the thing.... Good girl. I
don't know what it's called, but it reminds me of things." He munched
cheerfully, pausing anon to bury his face in a tankard of beer, and they
fell to discussing prospects of sport up the Yangtse. Once or twice as
she played, the girl behind the piano allowed her dark eyes to travel
across the crowded grill-room over the heads of the diners, and her
glance lingered a moment at the table where the two "last-nighters" were
seated. The first violin, who was also a musician, sat with a rapt
expression, holding his fiddle across his knees. When the piece was over
he started abruptly--so abruptly it was evident that for him a spell had
broken. He looked up at the pianist with a queer, puzzled expression,
as if half-resentful of something.
The Young Doctor was arranging forks and a cruet-stand in a diagram on
the table-cloth. "There was a joss-house here, if you remember, and the
guns were here ... the pigeon came over that clump of bamboo...." The
other, leaning across the table, nodded with absorbed interest.
/TB
The Lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Come along; we must be moving if
we're going to the 'Palace.'" They paid their bill, tipped the waiter
in a manner that appeared to threaten him with instant dislocation of
the spine, and walked up the tiled passage that led past the open door
of the lounge. From her vantage behind the bar inside, the girl some one
had addressed as "Molly" caught a glimpse of their retreating figures.
She slipped out through the throng of customers, most of whom had dined,
and were talking to each other over their port and liqueurs, into the
quiet of the corridor.
"Jerry!" she called; "Mr----"
"Lord!" ejaculated the Junior Watch-keeper, "I'd forgotten--" He turned
quickly on his heel. "Hullo, Molly! We're coming back presently. But
that reminds me..." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and the Surgeon
strolled slowly on up the steps, round a bend, and was lost to view.
The girl gave a little breathless laugh. "That's what you all say, you
boys. And you never do come back.... _You_ weren't going without
saying good-bye to me, were you?"
"No, no, Molly, of course I wasn't: and look here, old lady, here's a
gadget I got for you--" he fumbled with the tissue paper enclosing a
little leather case.
The girl stood with one hand on the lapel of his coat, twisted a button
backwards, and forwards. "Jerry, I--I wanted to thank you ... you were
a real brick to me, that time. It saved my life, goin' to the
Sanatorium, an' I couldn't never have afforded it...." Her careful
grammar became a shade confused.
The man gave a little, deep laugh of embarrassment. "Rot! Molly,
that's all over and forgotten. No more nasty coughs now, eh?" He
patted her shoulder clumsily.
"An' mind you drop me a line when that fathom of trouble of yours comes
up to the scratch, and send me a bit of wedding-cake--here, hang on to
this thing.... No, it's nothing; only a little brooch.... Good-bye,
old lady--good-bye. Good luck to you, and don't forget to----"
The girl raised her pretty, flushed face and gave a quick glance up and
down the deserted corridor. "Ain't you--aren't you going to--say
good-bye ... properly--Jerry?"
The Junior Watch-keeper bent down. "'Course ... and another for luck...!
Good-bye, dear; good-bye...!"
The Young Doctor was waiting with his nose flattened against the
darkened window of a gunsmith's opposite when the Lieutenant joined him.
His silence held a vague hint of disapproval as they fell into step.
"That girl," he ventured presently, "isn't she a bit fond of you, old
thing?"
The Junior Watch-keeper paused to light a pipe. "I--I don't think so,
Peter. Not more than she is of a dozen others." He glanced at his
companion: "You don't think I've been up to any rotten games, do you?"
The other shook his head with quick protest. "But I like her awfully,
and she's a jolly good little sport. They all are, taking them all
round, in a Naval Port. It's a rotten life when you think of it ...
cooped up there in that beastly atmosphere, year in, year out, listening
to everlasting Service shop, or being made love to by half-tight fools.
Their only refuge from it is in marriage--if they care to take advantage
of some young ass. Who else do they meet...? The marvel of it is not
that a few come to grief, but that so many are so jolly straight. That
girl to-night--Molly--I suppose she has refused half a dozen N.O.'s.
Prefers to wait till some scallywag in her own class can afford to take
her away out of it. And I've heard her talking like a Mother to a rorty
Midshipman--a silly young ass who was drinking like a fish and wasting
his money and health pub-crawling. She shook him to the core. Lord
knows, I don't want to idealise barmaids--p'raps I'd be a better man if
I'd seen less of them myself--but----"
The Surgeon gripped his elbow soothingly. "I know--_I_ know, old son.
Don't get in a stew! And as for seeing less of them ... it's hard to
say. Unless a man knows people ashore, and is prepared to put on his
'superfine suitings' and pay asinine calls when he might be playing golf
or cricket, where else is he to speak to a woman all the days of his
life? Dances...? I can't dance."
They had turned into the main thoroughfare, and the traffic that
thronged the pavements and roadway made conversation difficult. The
liberty men from scores of ships in the port streamed to and fro: some
arm-in-arm with quietly-dressed servant girls and shop girls; others
uproarious in the company of befeathered women. At short intervals
along the street a flaring gin-palace or cinema-theatre flung smudges of
apricot-coloured light on to the greasy pavements and the faces of
passers-by. Trams clanged past, and every now and again a blue-jacket
or military foot-patrol, belted and gaitered, moved with watchful eyes
and measured gait along the kerb.
As they neared the music-hall the throng grew denser. On all sides the
West Country burr filled the night, softening even the half-caught oath
with its broad, kindly inflection. Men from the garrison regiments
mingled with the stream of blue-clad sailors. A woman hawking oranges
from the kerb raised her shrill voice, thrusting the cheap fruit under
the noses of passers-by. A group of young Stokers, lounging round a
vendor of hot chestnuts, were skylarking with two brazen-voiced girls.
At the doorway of the music-hall, a few yards away, a huge man in livery
began to bawl into the night, hoarsely incoherent.
The two officers mounted the steps together, and, as one obtained
tickets from the booking-office, the other turned with a little smile to
look down the mile-long vista of lights and roaring humanity. The
scintillant tram-cars came swaying up the street from the direction of
the Dockyard: on either side the gleaming windows of the shops that
still remained open--the tattooists, the barbers, tobacconists, the
fried-fish and faggot shops, and the host of humbler tradesmen who plied
most of their trade at this hour--grew fainter and duller, until they
dwindled away to a point under the dark converging house-tops. A girl,
shouting some shameless jest, broke away from the horse-play round the
chestnut-oven, and thrust herself, reeling with laughter, through the
passing crowd. A burly Marine caught her by the waist as she wriggled
past, and kissed her dexterously without stopping in his stride. His
companion smirked appreciation of the feat, and glanced back over his
shoulder....
The watcher on the steps turned and followed the other up the broad
stairway.
* * * * *
A man with a red nose and baggy trousers was singing a song about his
mother-in-law and a lodger. His accents were harshly North Country, and
out of the paint-streaked countenance, his eyes--pathetic, brown
monkey-eyes--roamed anxiously over the audience, as if even he had
little enough confidence in the humour of his song.
The Lieutenant leaned back in his seat and refilled his pipe. "Isn't it
wonderful to think that when we come home again in three years' time
that chap with the baggy trousers and red nose--or his twin-brother,
anyhow--will still be singing about the same old mother-in-law!"
Presently a stout, under-clad woman skipped before the footlights and
commenced some broadly suggestive patter. The audience, composed for
the most part of blue-jackets and Tommies, roared delight at each
doubtful sally. She ended with a song that had a catchy, popular
refrain, and the house took it up with a great burst of song.
"Hark at 'em!" whispered the Surgeon. "Don't they love it all! Yet her
voice is nothing short of awful, her song means nothing on earth, and
her anatomy--every line of it--ought to be in the museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons.... Let's go and have a drink."
They ascended the stairway to the promenade, and passed under a
curtain-hung archway into a long bar. The atmosphere was clouded with
tobacco smoke, and reeked of spirits and cheap, clinging scent. From a
recess in one corner a gramophone blared forth a modern rag-time, and a
few women, clasped by very callow-looking youths, were swaying to a
"One-step" in the middle of the carpeted space. Behind the bar two
tired-looking girls scurried to and fro, jerking beer handles as if for
a wager, and mechanically repeating orders. Settees ran the length of
the walls under rows of sporting prints, and here more women, with
painted lips and over-bright, watchful eyes, were seated at little
tables. Most of them were accompanied by young men in lounge or tweed
suits.
"Phew," grunted the Junior Watch-keeper, "what an atmosphere! Look at
those young asses.... Kuemmel at this time of night.... And we did it
once, Peter! Lord! it makes me feel a hundred."
A panting woman disengaged herself from her youthful partner, and linked
her arm within that of the Young Doctor. "Ouf!" she gasped, "I'm that
'ot, dearie. Stand us a drop of wot killed auntie!"
With a gallant bow the Young Doctor led her to the bar. "My dear
madam," he murmured--"a privilege! And if you will allow me to
prescribe for you--as a Medical Man--I suggest----"
"Port an' lemon," prompted the lady. She fanned herself with a
sickly-scented and not over-clean scrap of lace. "Ain't it 'ot, Doctor!
... Glad I lef me furs at 'ome. Ain't you goin' to have nothin'...?"
* * * * *
The Junior Watch-keeper drew a deep breath as they reached the open
street.
"Thank God for fresh air again!" He filled and refilled his lungs.
"'And so to bed,'" quoted the other. The taverns and places of
amusement were emptying their patrons into the murky street. Raucous
laughter and farewells filled the night.
"Yes." The Junior Watch-keeper yawned, and they walked on in silence,
each busy with his own long thoughts. By degrees the traffic lessened,
until, nearing the Dockyard, the two were alone in deserted
thoroughfares with no sound but the echo of their steps. They were
threading the maze of dimly-lit, cobbled streets that still lay before
them, when a draggle-skirted girl, standing in the shelter of a doorway,
plucked at their sleeves. They walked on almost unheeding, when suddenly
the Young Doctor hesitated and stopped. The woman paused irresolute for
a moment, and then came towards them, with the light from a gas-lamp
playing round her tawdry garments. She murmured something in a
mechanical tone, and smiled terribly. The Young Doctor emptied his
pockets of the loose silver and coppers they contained, and thrust the
coins into her palm: with his disengaged hand he tilted her face up to
the light. It was a pathetically young, pathetically painted face.
"Wish me good luck," he said, and turned abruptly to overtake his
companion.
The woman stood staring after them, her hand clenched upon her suddenly
acquired riches. An itinerant fried-fish and potato merchant, homeward
bound, trundled his barrow suddenly round a distant corner. The girl
wheeled in the direction of the sound.
"'Ere!" she called imperiously, "_'ere!_..."
The echo of her voice died away, and the Young Doctor linked his arm
within the other's.
"There is a poem by some one[#] I read the other day--d'you know it?--
"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the
sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"
[#] John Masefield.
He mused for a moment in silence as they strode along. "I forget how it
goes on: something about a 'vagrant gypsy life,' and the wind 'like a
whetted knife'--
"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'
"That's how it ends, I know."
The Junior Watch-keeper nodded soberly. "Yes.... But it's the star we
need the most, Peter--you and I."
* * * * *
It was early in the morning, and thin columns of smoke were rising from
the funnels of a cruiser lying alongside one of the Dockyard jetties.
On her decks there was a bustle of preparation: steaming covers were
being laced to yards and topmasts: the Boatswain, "full of strange
oaths" and of apoplectic countenance, moved forward in the wake of a
depressed part of the watch. On the booms the Carpenter was
superintending the stowage of some baulks of timber. Packing-cases were
coming in at the gangway; barefooted messengers darted to and fro.
There was a frequent shrilling of pipes, and the hoarse voice of the
Boatswain's Mate bellowing orders.
Presently there came a lull, and the ship's company were mustered aft as
a bell began to toll. Then over the bared heads the familiar words of
the Navy Prayer drifted outward into space.
"... That we may return to enjoy ... the fruits of our labours." In the
course of the next three years, the words, by reason of their frequent
repetition, would come to mean to them no more than the droning of the
Chaplain's voice; yet that morning their significance was plain enough
to the ranks of silent men. A minute later, with the notes of a bugle,
the ship boiled into activity again.
Out on the straw-littered jetty a gradually-increasing crowd had
gathered. It was composed for the most part of women, poorly clad, with
pinched, anxious faces. Some had babies in their arms; others carried
little newspaper parcels tucked under their shawls: parting gifts for
some one. A thin drizzle swept in from the sea, as a recovered
deserter, slightly intoxicated, was brought down between an escort and
vanished over the gangway amid sympathetic murmurs from the onlookers.
A telegram boy pushed his way through the crowd, delivered his message
of God-speed in its orange-coloured envelope, and departed again,
whistling jauntily.
The men drifted out into the jetty to bid farewell, with forced
nonchalance and frequent expectoration. Each man was the centre of a
little group of relatives, discussing trivialities with laughter that
did not ring quite true. Here and there a woman had broken down, crying
quietly; but for the most part they stood dry-eyed and smiling, as
befitted the women of a Nation that must be ever bidding "Vale" to its
sons.
"All aboard!" The voices of the Ship's Police rose above the murmur of
the crowd. Farewells were over.
A hoist of flags crept to the masthead, and an answering speck of colour
appeared at the signal halliards over Admiralty House.
"Askin' permission to proceed," said some one. The gang-planks rattled
on to the jetty, and a knot of workmen began casting off wires from the
bollards.
"Stand clear!" shouted a warning voice. The ropes slid across the tarred
planking and fell with a sullen splash. Beneath the stern the water
began to churn and boil. The ship was under way at last, gliding farther
every minute from the watching crowd. The jetty was a sea of faces and
waving handkerchiefs: the band on board struck up a popular tune.
In a few minutes she was too far off to distinguish faces. On the fore
bridge the Captain raised his cap by the peak and waved it. Somewhere
near the turf-scarped fort ashore an answering gleam of white appeared
and fluttered for a moment. The lines of men along the upper deck, the
guard paraded aft, the cluster of officers on the bridge, slowly faded
into an indistinct blur as the mist closed round them. For a while
longer the band was still audible, very far off and faint.
After a while the watchers turned and straggled slowly towards the
Dockyard Gates.
*XVIII.*
*THE SEVENTH DAY.*
The Sub-Lieutenant clanked into the Gunroom and surveyed the apartment
critically. The Junior Midshipmen stationed at each scuttle fell to
burnishing the brass butterfly nuts with sudden and anxious renewal of
energy.
"Stinks of beer a bit," observed the Sub., "but otherwise it's all
right. Hide that 'Pink 'Un' under the table-cloth, one of you." As he
spoke the notes of a bugle drifted down the hatchway. "There you are!
Officers' Call! Clear out of it, sharp!" Hastily they tucked away the
possible cause of offence to their Captain, bundled their cleaning-rags
into a cupboard, snatched their dirks off the rack, and hurried on deck.
On the quarter-deck the remainder of the Officers were assembling in
answer to the summons of the bugle. Frock-coated figures clanked to and
fro, struggling with refractory white gloves. Under the supervision of
a bearded Petty Officer the Quarter-deck men were hurriedly putting the
finishing touches to neatly coiled boats' falls and already gleaming
metal-work. It was 9 A.M. on a Sunday forenoon, and the ship was
without stain or blemish from her gilded truck to her freshly painted
water-line. All the working hours of the previous day--what time the
citizen ashore donned "pearlies" or broadcloth and shut up shop--the
blue-jacket had been burnishing and scrubbing,--a lick of paint here,
there a scrap of gold-leaf or a pound of elbow-grease. And pervading
the ship was the comfortless atmosphere of an organisation, normally in
a high state of adjustment, strained yet a point higher.
The Commander came suddenly out of the Captain's cabin and nodded to the
Officer of the Watch.
"Sound off with the bell."
The buglers, drawn up in line at the entrance to the battery, moistened
their lips in anticipation and raised their bugles. The Corporal of the
Watch stepped to the bell and jerked the clapper.
Ding-ding!
Simultaneously the four bugles blared out, and the hundreds of men
forward in the waist of the ship and on the forecastle formed up into
their different divisions and stood easy. The divisions were ranged
along both sides of the ship--Forecastle, Foretop, Maintop, Quarter-deck
men on one side, Stokers, Day-men, and Marines on the other.
The "Rig of the Day" was "Number Ones," which was attended by certain
obligations in the matter of polished boots, carefully brushed hair, and
shaven faces. To any one unversed in the mysteries of the sailors'
garb, the men appeared to be dressed merely in loose,
comfortably-fitting blue clothes. But a hundred subtleties in that
apparently simple dress received the wearer's attention before he
submitted himself to the lynx-eyed inspection of his Divisional
Lieutenant that morning. The sit of the blue-jean collar, the spotless
flannel, the easy play of the jumper round the hips, the immaculate
lines of the bell-bottomed trousers (harder to fit properly than any
tail-coat or riding-breeches) all came in for a more critical overhaul
than did ever a young girl before her first ball. And the result, in
all its pleasing simplicity, was the sailor's unconscious tribute to
that one day of the seven wherein his luckier brethren ashore do no
manner of work.
The Captain stepped out of his cabin, and the waiting group of officers
saluted. The Heads of Departments made their reports, and then, with an
attendant retinue of Midshipmen, Aides-de-Camp, messengers, and buglers,
followed the Captain down the hatchway for the Rounds.
Along the mess-decks, deserted save for an occasional sweeper or Ship's
Corporal standing at attention, swept the procession; halting at a
galley or casemate as the Captain paused to ask a question or pass a
white-gloved hand along a beam in search of dust. Then aft again, past
Gunroom and Wardroom--with a stoppage outside the former. The Captain
elevated his nose.
"I think the beer-barrel must be leaking, sir," said the Sub-Lieutenant,
"standing the rounds" in the doorway.
"See to it," was the reply, and the cortege swept on, with swords
clanking and lanterns throwing arcs of light into dark corners suspected
of harbouring a hastily concealed deck-cloth or of being the pet _cache_
for somebody's coaling-suit.
Up in the sunlight of the outer world the band was softly playing
selections from "The Pirates of Penzance." The ship's goat, having
discovered a white kid glove dropped by the Midshipman of the Maintop,
retired with it to the shelter of the boat-hoist engine for a hurried
cannibalistic feast. The Officers of Divisions had concluded the
preliminary inspection, and were pacing thoughtfully to and fro in front
of their men. Suddenly the Captain's head appeared above the after
hatchway.
The Lieutenant of the Quarter-deck Division, in the midst of receiving a
whispered account of an overnight dance from his Midshipman, wheeled
abruptly and called his Division to attention. Then--
"Off hats!"
As if actuated by a single lever each man raised his left hand, whipped
off his hat and brought it to his side. The Captain acknowledged the
Lieutenant's salute and passed quickly down the ranks, his keen eyes
travelling rapidly from each man's face to his boots. Once or twice he
paused to ask a question and then passed on to the next waiting
Division.
Presently the bugler sounded the "Disperse"; the Divisions turned
forward, stepped outward, and broke up. Here and there the Midshipman
of a Division remained standing, scribbling hurriedly in his note-book
such criticisms as it had pleased his Captain to make. One man's hair
had wanted cutting; it was time another had passed for Leading
Seaman.... A third had elected to attend Divisions--on this the Sabbath
of the Lord his God--without the knife attached to his lanyard.
* * * * *
Half an hour later the normal aspect of the Quarter-deck had changed.
Rows of plank benches, resting on capstan bars supported by buckets,
filled the available space on each side of the barbette. Chairs for the
Officers had been placed further aft, facing the men who were to occupy
the benches. In front of the burnished muzzles of the two great 12-inch
guns a lectern had been draped with a white flag, and between the guns a
'cello, flute, and violin prepared to augment the strains of a rather
wheezy harmonium. Then the bell began to toll, and a flag crept to the
peak to inform the rest of the Fleet that the ship was about to commence
Divine Service.
The men hurried aft, seamen and marines pouring in a continuous stream
through the open doors from the batteries. No sooner had the last man
squeezed hurriedly into his place with the slightly hang-dog air seamen
assume in the full glare of the public eye, than the Master-at-Arms
appeared at the battery door and reported every one aft to the
Commander. The Captain took his chair, facing the Ship's Company, and a
little in advance of the remainder of the Officers; the Chaplain walked
up the hatchway, stepped briskly to the lectern and gave out a hymn.
The orchestra played the opening bars, five hundred men swung themselves
to their feet, and the service began.
Presently the Captain crossed to the lectern and read the lesson for the
day. It dealt with warfare and bloodshed, and there was a suddenly
awakened interest in the rows of intent faces opposite--for this was the
consummation each man present believed would ultimately come to some
day's work, although it might not be amid the welter and crash of
shattered chariot and struggling horses, nor the twang of released
bow-strings.... And the stern, level voice went on to tell of the
establishment of laws, wise and austere as those which regulated the
reader's paths and those of his listeners; while under the stern-walk a
flock of gulls screeched and quarrelled, and the water lapped with a
drowsy, soothing sound against the side of the ship.
After a while the Chaplain gave out the number of another hymn. The
Bluejacket's most enthusiastic admirer would hesitate to describe him as
a devout man; but when the words and tune are familiar--it may be
reminiscent of happier surroundings--the sailor-man will sing a hymn
with the fervour of inspiration. And if only for the sake of the
half-effaced memories it recalled, the volume of bass harmony that
rolled across the sunlit harbour doubtless travelled as far as the
thunder of organ and chant from many a cathedral choir.
Then, standing very upright, his fingers linked behind his back, the
Chaplain commenced his sermon. He spoke very simply, adorning his
periods with no flowery phrase or ornate quotation, suiting the manner
of his delivery to the least intelligent of his hearers. There was no
fierce denunciation, no sudden gestures nor change in the grave, even
voice. He touched on matters not commonly spoken of in pulpits, and his
speech was wondrous plain, as indeed was meet for a congregation such as
his. And they were no clay under the potter's thumb. Composed for the
most part of men indifferent to religion, almost fiercely resentful of
interference with their affairs; living on crowded mess-decks afloat,
fair game for every crimp and land-shark ashore. But there was that in
the sane, temperate discourse that passed beyond creed or dogma, and a
tatooed fist suddenly clenched on its owner's hat-brim, or the restless
shifting of a foot, told where a shaft passed home.
Here and there, screened by his fellows, a tired man's head nodded
drowsily. But the "Padre" had learned twenty years before that it took
more than a sermon to keep awake a seated man who had perhaps kept the
middle watch, and turned out for the day at 6.15 A.M.; in the five
hundred odd pairs of eyes that remained fixed on his face he doubtless
read a measure of compensation.
* * * * *
The short-cropped heads bowed as in clear tones the Benediction was
pronounced--
"... and remain with you ... always." An instant's pause, and then,
Officers and men standing upright and rigid, they sang the National
Anthem.
The Captain turned and nodded to the Commander, who was putting on his
cap.
"Pipe down."
*XIX.*
*THE PARRICIDE.*
"'Ark!" said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his
lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard
some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out
of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over
the downs--a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees.
"One of them motor-bikes----" murmured the man and paused. Away in the
west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like
the framework of a box suspended in mid-air. It drew near, rising and
falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound
grew louder. "Aeri-o-plane," continued the hedger, again speaking
aloud, after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.
As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed
overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden
from them by the shoulder of the downs.
The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty
road before him. "Lawks!" he ejaculated, "'ere's goin's-on!" A ripple
from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of
his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.
A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little
harbour. Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay
at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for
their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric
power station lifted a slender head.
In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored
alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms,
and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the
sound of their voices, the muffled clink of a hammer, and, from an
unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical
by distance.
The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it
volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a
Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane
pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and
lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned
over the rail with a smile of greeting.
"Any news?"
The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth: "Enemy's
Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen miles to the Sou'-East," he
shouted. "Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got
troops or Marines on board in marching order.... No, nothing,
thanks--I'm going north to warn them. So-long..."
Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland
where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed
cottages showed up white against the turf.
The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior
Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian
clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had
communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer
nodded and put down his clubs.
"Guessed as much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for
a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll
have a Council of War--Wow, wow!"
* * * * *
The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey,
like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky.
It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers
across the smooth sea.
A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded
suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.
Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater.
They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course
abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake,
leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased
to trouble the surface--before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished
into the fog--the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the
breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like
a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and
another.
* * * * *
A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain
deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam
from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling
whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on
each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient
to the tangle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth
of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the
harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North
and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship
anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly,
and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were
lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were
disembarking troops for a raid.
There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen,
a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept
along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating
debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.
A minute passed; a cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to
join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like
a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into
the water! From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional
curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.
Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling
hoarsely.
A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost
simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank
of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to
the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the
periscope from her 12-pounders.
"Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"
The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of
the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway
shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.
"They've bagged us, sir."
A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent
smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.
"Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down
at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision
heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.
The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the
hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed
on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.
The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass,
made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.
"Claim-to-have-put-you-out-of-action," spelt the handflags. The Captain
smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of
greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sunburnt face of the
Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander. "But
he needn't have torpedoed his own father," he said, as if in
continuation of his last remark. "The penalty for marrying young, I
suppose."
The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her
Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved
in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses
clinked, and there was a gurgling silence.
"Not bad work," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "bagging your Old Man's ship."
"Not so dusty," replied the Lieutenant in command of the Submarine,
modestly.
She was a brand-new Battleship, and had cost a million and
three-quarters. It was his twenty-fourth birthday.
*XX.*
*THE NIGHT-WATCHES.*
"Out pipes! Clear up the upper deck!" The Boatswain Mate moved forward
along the lee side of the battery repeating the hoarse call. Slowly the
knots of tired men broke up, knocking the ashes out of their pipes, or
pinching their cigarette-ends with horny fingers before economically
tucking the remnants into their caps. A part of the Watch came aft,
sweeping down the deck, coiling down ropes for the night. Then, as the
bell struck, the shrill wail of the pipe rose again above the sound of
the wind and waves. It grew louder and shriller, and died away: then,
rising again, changed to another key and ended abruptly. It was the
sailor's Curfew--"Pipe down."
On the crowded mess-decks, where scrubbed canvas hammocks swung with the
roll of the ship above the mess-tables, the ship's company was turning
in. A struggle with a tight-fitting jumper, which, rolled up in company
with a pair of trousers, was tucked under the tiny horse-hair pillow; a
pat to the mysterious pockets lining the "cholera-belt," to reassure a
man that his last month's pay was still intact, and then, with a
steadying hand on the steel beam overhead, one after another they swung
themselves into their hammocks and fell a-snoring.
Aft in the Gunroom an extra half-hour's lights had been granted in
honour of somebody's birthday, and the inmates of the Mess were still
gathered round the piano. It was a war-scarred instrument: but it
served its purpose, albeit the hero of the evening--in celebration of
his advance into the sere and yellow leaf--had emptied a whisky-and-soda
into its long-suffering interior. The musician, his features ornamented
by a burnt-cork moustache, thumped valiantly at the keys.
"And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"
roared the young voices. It was an old, old song, familiar to men who
were no longer even memories with the singers and their generation. But
its unnumbered verses and quaint, old-world jingle had survived
unchanged the passing of "Masts and Yards," and were even then being
handed on into the era of the hydroplane and submarine.
"Ten o'clock, gentlemen!" said the voice of the Ship's Corporal at the
door. The Sub. eyed him sternly. "You may get yourself a glass of
beer, Corporal," and thereby won a five-minutes' respite. Then----
"Out lights, please, gentlemen," again broke in upon the revels.
"Corporal, will you----"
The man shook his head with a grim smile. "Come along, please,
gentlemen, or you'll get me 'ung."
Reluctantly the singers withdrew, drifting by twos and threes to the
steerage flat where their hammocks swung. The Ship's Corporal switched
off the lights and locked the gun-room door. "I likes to see 'igh
sperits meself," he admitted to the yawning Steward who accompanied him
out of the Mess. The Gunroom Steward's reply was to the effect that you
could have too much even of a good thing, and he retired gloomily to the
pantry, where, in company with a vast ham and the gunroom crockery, he
spent most of his waking hours.
In the nearly deserted Wardroom a rubber of bridge was still in
lingering progress; a sea raced frothing past the thick glass of a
scuttle, and one of the players raised his eyes from his hand. "Blowing
up for a dirty night," he observed. A Lieutenant deep in an arm-chair
by the fire lifted his head. "It's sure to--my middle watch." He
closed the book he was reading and stood up, stretching himself. Then
with a glance at the clock he moved towards the door. As he opened it
the Senior Engineer came into the Mess. His face was drawn with
tiredness, and there were traces of dust round his eyes. He pulled off a
pair of engine-room gloves, and, ordering a drink, thoughtfully rolled a
cigarette. At the sound of his voice the Engineer Commander looked up
from the game and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question to his
subordinate. The Senior Engineer nodded. "Yes, sir, she's all right
now; I don't think she'll give any more trouble to-night." He finished
his drink and sought his cabin. He had had three hours' sleep in the
last forty-eight hours, and hoped, as he undressed, that the infernal
scrap-heap would hold together till he'd had a bit more.
The night wore on, and one by one the inmates of the Wardroom drifted to
their respective cabins. Outside the Captain's cabin the sentry
beguiled the tedium of the vigil by polishing the buckle of his belt.
Every now and again he glanced at the clock.
At last the hands pointed to a quarter to twelve. In fifteen minutes
his watch would be over. He buckled on his belt and resumed his
noiseless beat. Occasionally from some cabin or hammock the snore of a
tired sleeper reached his ears. The rifles, stowed upright round the
aft-deck, moved in their racks to the measured roll of the ship, with a
long-drawn, monotonous rattle, like a boy's stick drawn lightly across
area railings.
A tread sounded overhead, and a figure carrying a lantern came lightly
down the hatchway. It was the Midshipman of the First Watch, calling
the reliefs. He descended to the steerage flat, and bending down under
the hammocks of his sleeping brethren, knocked at the door of one of the
cabins. There was a lull in the stertorous breathing, in the warm, dim
interior.
"Ten minutes to twelve, sir!" The inmate grunted and switched on his
light. "All right," he growled.
The boy moved off till he came to a hammock slung by the armoured door.
He ranged up beside it and blew lightly into the face of the sleeper.
"Jimmy! Ten to twelve!"
The occupant of the hammock opened one eye.
"'Ll right," he murmured sleepily, and closed it again.
The Midshipman of the First Watch eyed him suspiciously.
"No you don't!" He shook the hammock. "Wake up, you fat-headed
blighter, or I'll slip you." Then, changing his tone to a wheedling
one: "Come on, Jimmy, it's a lovely night--much more healthy on the
bridge than fugging in your beastly hammock."
His relief said something under his breath, and emerged shivering from
the blankets, blinking in the light of the lantern. Once his feet were
fairly on the deck, the other turned and scampered up the ladder again.
The bell struck eight times as the Lieutenant and Midshipman of the
Middle Watch climbed the ladder to the fore bridge. The Fleet was
steaming in two divisions, with a flotilla of destroyers stationed on
the beam. Beyond them the silhouette of an island was just visible in
the pale moonlight.
At the last stroke of the bell the pipe of the Boatswain's Mate shrilled
out, calling the Middle Watch. "A-a-all the starboard watch! Seaboats,
crews, and reliefs fall in!" Fore and aft the ship the mantle of
responsibility changed wearers. Sentries, seamen, stokers, signalmen,
their tale of bricks complete for a few hours, turned over to their
reliefs and hurried to their hammocks.
On the bridge the two Lieutenants walked up and down for a few minutes,
while the newcomer received details of the course and speed of the Fleet
and the Captain's orders for the night. Then the Officer of the Watch
that was ended unslung his binoculars and turned towards the ladder.
"I think that's all.... She's keeping station very well now, but they
had a bit of trouble in the Engine-room earlier in the Watch. Captain
wants to be called at daybreak. Good-night."
"Good-night."
The Midshipman of the Watch was already in position on the upper bridge,
settling down to his four hours' vigil with a sextant on the lights of
the next ship ahead. From the battery below came the voice of the
Corporal of the Watch mustering the hands. Overhead the wind thrummed
in the shrouds and halliards: the steady throb of the engines beat out
an accompaniment--a deep _pizzicato_ accompaniment as if from some
mighty bass-viol floating up through the open casings--and, somehow
dominating all other sounds, the ceaseless swish and murmur of the waves
breaking along the ship's side.
The Officer of the Watch crossed over to the Midshipman's side. "Are we
in station all right?"