Demobilisation in the Navy, whatever it may be in the Army, is a
simple affair. You are first sent for by the Master-at-Arms, who
glares, thrusts papers into your trembling hand and ejects you
violently in the direction of the Demobilising Office. Here they
regard you curiously, stifle a yawn, languidly inspect your papers and
send you to the Paymaster, who, after wandering disconsolately round
the Pay Office, exclaiming pathetically, "I say, hasn't _anyone_ seen
that Mixed Muster book? It must be _somewhere_, you know," returns you
without thanks to the D.O., where they tell you to call again in three
days' time. On returning you are provided with a P.I.O. and numerous
necessary papers, requested to sign a few dozen forms, overwhelmed
with an unexpected _largesse_ of pay and sent forth on that
twenty-eight days' leave from which no traveller returns. There's
nothing in it at all; the whole thing only lasts four days. They do it
by a system, I believe.
As we assembled on board for the last time, awaiting our railway
warrants, there were some moving spectacles. The Mate and the
Second-Engineer were bidding each other affectionate and tearful
farewells behind the winch. "You won't quite forget me, Bill, will
yer?" I heard the Second exclaim brokenly, but the only reply was a
strangled sob. The Steward, seated on his kit-bag, was murmuring a
snatch of song that asserted the rather personal fact that "our gel's
a big plump lass." He is an oyster-dredger in civil life and is
eagerly looking forward to experiencing once more the delicate thrills
and excitement of this hazardous sport. Jones, our Signaller, who
recently wrote a poem which opened with the lines,
"I for one will be surprised
When we are demobilised,"
was struggling painfully to insert a pair of boots into a recalcitrant
kit-bag, and exhibited an expression of dogged determination rather
than the astonishment he had predicted. The Trimmer was heard
complaining mournfully that when he left the Patrol Office for the
last time they never said good-bye. He seemed to feel this keenly.
All of us were more or less excited, all as it were on tip-toe with
expectancy, like school-boys on breaking-up morning. All, did I say?
No, there was one member of the crew who sat supremely indifferent to
the prevailing atmosphere of emotion, gazing calmly before him with
his solitary lacklustre eye. The Silent Menace, the ship's dog,
betrayed none of our childlike sentiment. Demobilisation was nothing
to him--he was too old a campaigner to let a little matter like that
agitate his habitual reserve. To us the recent period of hostilities
had been "The War," the only war in which we had ever been privileged
to fight; but to him it was just one of the numberless affrays of an
adventurous life, and, judging by the worn condition of his ears and
the veteran scars that tattooed his tail, some of the previous ones
had had their share of frightfulness. And to-morrow, no doubt, he will
try the game again.
It was the Third Hand who suddenly propounded the unsolvable question:
"Who's goin' to keep that there Menace?"
There was an almost universal chorus of "Me!" I say "almost universal"
because Jones, who is R.N.V.R. and educated, probably said, "I," and
the Chief Engineer was lighting his pipe and merely succeeded in
blowing the match out.
"You can't all have him," said the Third Hand, "so I think I'll take
him along with me. I knows a bit about dawgs."
There was instant and clamant disapproval, each one of us urging an
unquestionable claim to the guardianship of the orphan Menace. The
Steward said he was the only one with the ghost of a right to the dog;
had it not always been the Menace's custom to help him wash up the
plates and dishes? A Deck Hand, however, protested that as he had
eaten one of his mittens the Silent Menace was already in part his
property. The Mate and the Second-Engineer nearly came to blows about
it.
The question was still unsettled when the warrants arrived. As time
was short it was finally decided that whomsoever he should follow was
to be adjudged his future owner. We climbed ashore and spread out
fanwise, looking back and uttering those noises best calculated to
incline the unyielding heart of the Menace towards us. He himself rose
from the deck and strolled on to the wharf, where he stood coolly
regarding us. Without emotion his Cyclopean orb directed its gaze
from one to another till, midway between the Third Hand and
the Second-Engineer, it was observed to irradiate a sudden and
unaccustomed luminosity.
"Come along then, Menace," wheedled the Second.
"Yoicks, old dawg!" exclaimed the Third Hand, patting his knee
encouragingly.
But they had misinterpreted their Menace, for in the middle distance,
on a pile of timber directly behind the expectant twain, had appeared
the sleek person of a sandy cat which proved to be the attraction. For
an instant the Menace stood motionless, his spine bristling and his
tail growing stiff; then with a short sharp bark he sprang forward
like an arrow from a bow in the direction of the feline objective. We
saw a streak of yellow as she fled for safety and life; a cloud of
dust, and the Menace and his quarry disappeared from view. Faintly
from afar floated an eager yelp, telling that the chase was still in
full cry.
"Well, sink me," said the Second-Engineer, "that settles it."
There were trains to be caught, and so, slowly and sadly, we turned
away.
Thus did the Silent Menace, with the rest of his shipmates, bid
good-bye to the Auxiliary Patrol.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A HOME FROM HOME.
PRESIDENT WILSON (_quitting America in his Fourteen-League-of-Nations
Boots_). "IT'S TIME I WAS GETTING BACK TO A HEMISPHERE WHERE I REALLY
_AM_ APPRECIATED."]
* * * * *