A Tall Ship
On Other Naval Occasions

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Title: A Tall Ship On Other Naval Occasions


Author: Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie



Release Date: June 10, 2008 [eBook #25749]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALL SHIP***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



Transcriber's note:

"Bartimeus" is the pseudonym of Captain Lewis Ritchie, R.N.





A TALL SHIP

On Other Naval Occasions

by

"BARTIMEUS"

Author of "Naval Occasions"







. . . "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
* * *
And a laughing yarn from a merry fellow rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."
JOHN MASEFIELD




Cassell and Company, Ltd
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published September 1915.
Reprinted September and October 1915.




To

H. M. S.




PREFACE

It is almost superfluous to observe that the following sketches contain
no attempt at the portrait of an individual. The majority are etched
in with the ink of pure imagination. A few are "composite" sketches of
a large number of originals with whom the Author has been shipmates in
the past and whose friendship he is grateful to remember.

Of these, some, alas! have finished "the long trick." To them, at no
risk of breaking their quiet sleep--_Ave atque vale_.

"Crab-Pots," "The Day," and "Chummy-Ships" appeared originally in
_Blackwood's Magazine_, and are reproduced here by kind permission of
the Editor.




CONTENTS


1. CRAB-POTS
2. THE DRUM
3. A CAPTAIN'S FORENOON
4. THE SEVEN-BELL BOAT
5. THE KING'S PARDON
6. AN OFF-SHORE WIND
7. THE DAY
8. THE MUMMERS
9. CHUMMY-SHIPS
10. THE HIGHER CLAIM




A TALL SHIP


I

CRAB-POTS

1

In moments of crisis the disciplined human mind works as a thing
detached, refusing to be hurried or flustered by outward circumstance.
Time and its artificial divisions it does not acknowledge. It is
concerned with preposterous details and with the ludicrous, and it is
acutely solicitous of other people's welfare, whilst working at a speed
mere electricity could never attain.

Thus with James Thorogood, Lieutenant, Royal Navy, when he--together
with his bath, bedding, clothes, and scanty cabin furniture, revolver,
first-aid outfit, and all the things that were his--was precipitated
through his cabin door across the aft-deck. The ship heeled violently,
and the stunning sound of the explosion died away amid the uproar of
men's voices along the mess-deck and the tinkle and clatter of broken
crockery in the wardroom pantry.

"Torpedoed!" said James, and was in his conjecture entirely correct.
He emerged from beneath the debris of his possessions, shaken and
bruised, and was aware that the aft-deck (that spacious vestibule
giving admittance on either side to officers' cabins, and normally
occupied by a solitary Marine sentry) was filled with figures rushing
past him towards the hatchway.

It was half-past seven in the morning. The Morning-watch had been
relieved and were dressing. The Middle-watch, of which James had been
one, were turning out after a brief three-hours' spell of sleep.
Officers from the bathroom, girt in towels, wardroom servants who had
been laying the table for breakfast, one or two Warrant-officers in sea
boots and monkey jackets--the Watch-below, in short--appeared and
vanished from his field of vision like figures on a screen. In no
sense of the word, however, did the rush resemble a panic. The
aft-deck had seen greater haste on all sides in a scramble on deck to
cheer a troopship passing the cruiser's escort. But the variety of
dress and undress, the expressions of grim anticipation in each man's
face as he stumbled over the uneven deck, set Thorogood's reeling mind,
as it were, upon its feet.

The Surgeon, pyjama clad, a crimson streak running diagonally across
the lather on his cheek, suddenly appeared crawling on all-fours
through the doorway of his shattered cabin. "I always said those
safety-razors were rotten things," he observed ruefully. "I've just
carved my initials on my face. And my ankle's broken. Have we been
torpedoed, or what, at all? An' what game is it you're playing under
that bath, James? Are you pretending to be an oyster?"

Thorogood pulled himself together and stood up. "I think one of their
submarines must have bagged us." He nodded across the flat to where,
beyond the wrecked debris of three cabins, the cruiser's side gaped
open to a clear sky and a line of splashing waves. Overhead on deck
the twelve-pounders were barking out a series of ear-splitting
reports--much as a terrier might yap defiance at a cobra over the
stricken body of its master.

"I think our number's up, old thing." Thorogood bent and slipped his
arms under the surgeon's body. "Shove your arms round my neck. . . .
Steady!--hurt you? Heave! Up we go!" A Midshipman, ascending the
hatchway, paused and turned back. Then he ran towards them, spattering
through the water that had already invaded the flat.

"Still!" sang a bugle on deck. There was an instant's lull in the
stampede of feet overhead. The voices of the officers calling orders
were silent. The only sounds were the lapping of the waves along the
riven hull and the intermittent reports of the quick-firers. Then came
the shrill squeal of the pipes.

"Fall in!" roared a voice down the hatchway. "Clear lower deck! Every
soul on deck!" The bugle rang out again.

Thorogood staggered with his burden across the buckled plating of the
flat, and reached the hatchway. The Midshipman who had turned back
passed him, his face white and set. "Here!" called the Lieutenant from
the bottom of the ladder. "This way, my son! Fall in's the order!"
For a moment the boy glanced back irresolute across the flat, now ankle
deep in water. The electric light had been extinguished, and in the
greenish gloom between decks he looked a small and very forlorn figure.
He pointed towards the wreckage of the after-cabin, called something
inaudible, and, turning, was lost to view aft.

"That's the 'Pay's' cabin," said the Doctor between his teeth. "He was
a good friend to that little lad. I suppose the boy's gone to look for
him, and the 'Pay' as dead as a haddock, likely as not."

Thorogood deposited the Surgeon on the upper deck, fetched a lifebuoy,
and rammed it over the injured man's shoulders. "God forgive me for
taking it," said the latter gratefully, "but my fibula's cracked to
blazes, an' I love my wife . . ."

All round them men were working furiously with knives and crowbars,
casting off lashings from boats and baulks of timber on the booms,
wrenching doors and woodwork from their fastenings--anything capable of
floating and supporting a swimmer. The officers were encouraging the
men with words and example, steadying them with cheery catch-words of
their Service, ever with an eye on the forebridge, at the extreme end
of which the Captain was standing.

On the after shelter-deck the Gunner, bare-headed and clad only in a
shirt and trousers, was, single-handed, loading and firing a
twelve-pounder as fast as he could snap the breech to and lay the gun.
His face was distorted with rage, and his black brows met across his
nose in a scowl that at any other time would have suggested acute
melodrama. Half a mile away the shots were striking the water with
little pillars of white spray.

The figure on the forebridge made a gesture with his arm. "Fall in!"
shouted the Commander. "Fall in, facing outboard, and strip! Stand by
to swim for it!" Seven hundred men--bluejackets, stokers, and
marines--hurriedly formed up and began to divest themselves of their
clothes. They were drawn up regardless of class or rating, and a burly
Marine Artilleryman, wriggling out of his cholera belt, laughed in the
blackened face of a stoker fresh from the furnace door.

"Cheer up, mate!" he said encouragingly. "You'll soon 'ave a chance to
wash your bloomin' face!"

The ship gave a sudden lurch, settled deeper in the water, and began to
heel slowly over. The Captain, clinging to the bridge rail to maintain
his balance, raised the megaphone to his mouth:

"Carry on!" he shouted. "Every man for himself!"--he lowered the
megaphone and added between his teeth--"and God for us all!"

The ship was lying over at an angle of sixty degrees, and the men were
clustered along the bulwarks and nettings as if loath to leave their
stricken home even at the eleventh hour. A muscular Leading Seaman was
the first to go--a nude, pink figure, wading reluctantly down the
sloping side of the cruiser, for all the world like a child paddling.
He stopped when waist deep and looked back. "'Ere!" he shouted, "'ow
far is it to Yarmouth? No more'n a 'undred an' fifty miles, is it? I
gotter aunt livin' there. . . ."

Then came the rush, together with a roar of voices, shouts and cheers,
cries for help, valiant, quickly stifled snatches of "Tipperary," and,
over all, the hiss of escaping steam.

"She wouldn't be 'arf pleased to see yer, Nobby!" shouted a voice above
the hubbub. "Not 'arf she wouldn't! Nah then, 'oo's for compulsory
bathin'. . . . Gawd! ain't it cold! . . ."

* * * * *

How he found himself in the water, Thorogood had no very clear
recollection; but by instinct he struck out through the welter of
gasping, bobbing heads till he was clear of the clutching menace of the
drowning. The Commander, clad simply in his wrist-watch and uniform
cap, was standing on the balsa raft, with scores of men hanging to its
support. "Get away from the ship!" he was bawling at the full strength
of his lungs. "Get clear before she goes----!"

The stern of the cruiser rose high in the air, and she dived with
sickening suddenness into the grey vortex of waters. Pitiful cries for
help sounded on all sides. Two cutters and a few hastily constructed
rafts were piled with survivors; others swam to and fro, looking for
floating debris, or floated, reserving their strength.

The cries and shouts grew fewer.

Thorogood had long parted with his support--the broken loom of an
oar--and was floating on his back, when he found himself in close
proximity to two figures clinging to an empty breaker. One he
recognised as a Midshipman, the other was a bearded Chief Stoker. The
boy's teeth were chattering and his face was blue with cold.

"W-w-what were you g-g-g-oing to have for b-b-b-breakfast in your
m-m-mess?" he was asking his companion in misfortune.

Hang it all, a fellow of fifteen had to show somehow he wasn't afraid
of dying.

"Kippers," replied the Chief Stoker, recognising his part and playing
up to it manfully. "I'm partial to a kipper, meself--an' fat
'am. . . ."

The Midshipman caught sight of Thorogood, and raised an arm in
greeting. As he did so a sudden spasm of cramp twisted his face like a
mask. He relaxed his grasp of the breaker and sank instantly.

The two men reappeared half a minute later empty handed, and clung to
the barrel exhausted.

"It's all chalked up somewhere, I suppose," spluttered James, gasping
for his breath.

"Child murder, sir, I reckon that is," was the tense reply. "That's on
their slop ticket all right. . . . 'Kippers,' I sez, skylarkin'
like . . . an' 'e sinks like a stone. . . ."

Among the wavetops six hundred yards away a slender, upright object
turned in a wide circle and moved slowly northward. To the south a
cluster of smoke spirals appeared above the horizon, growing gradually
more distinct. The party in one of the cutters raised a wavering cheer.

"Cheer up for Chatham!" shouted a clear voice across the grey waste of
water. "Here come the destroyers! . . . Stick it, my hearties!"

* * * * *

After a month's leave James consulted a specialist. He was a very wise
man, and his jerky discourse concerned shocked nerve-centres and reflex
actions. "That's all right," interrupted the thoroughly startled James
(sometime wing three-quarter for the United Services XV.), "but what
defeats me is not being able to cross a London street without 'coming
over all of a tremble'! An' when I try to light a cigarette"--he
extended an unsteady hand--"look! . . . I'm as fit as a fiddle,
really. Only the Medical Department won't pass me for service afloat.
An' I want to get back, d'you see? There's a super-Dreadnought
commissioning soon----"

The specialist wrote cabalistic signs on a piece of paper. "Bracing
climate--East Coast for preference. . . . Plenty of exercise. Walk.
Fresh air. Early hours. Come and see me again in a fortnight, and get
this made up. That's all right"--he waved aside James's proffered
guineas. "Don't accept fees from naval or military. . . . Least we
can do is to mend you quickly. 'Morning. . . ."

James descended the staircase, and passed a tall, lean figure in soiled
khaki ascending, whom the public (together with his wife and family)
had every reason to suppose was at that moment in the neighbourhood of
Ypres.

"If it weren't for those fellows I couldn't be here," was his greeting
to the specialist. He jerked his grey, close-cropped head towards the
door through which Thorogood had just passed.



2

A ramshackle covered cart laden with an assortment of tinware had
stopped on the outskirts of the village. The owner, a bent scarecrow
of a fellow, was effecting repairs to his nag's harness with a piece of
string. Evening was setting in, and the south-east wind swept a grey
haze across the coast road and sombre marshes. The tinker completed
first-aid to the harness, and stood at the front of the cart to light
his lamps. The first match blew out, and he came closer to the body of
the vehicle for shelter from the wind.

At that moment a pedestrian passed, humming a little tune to himself,
striding along through the November murk with swinging gait. It may
have been that his voice, coming suddenly within range of the mare's
ears, conveyed a sound of encouragement. Perhaps the lights of the
village, twinkling out one by one along the street, suggested stables
and a nosebag. Anyhow, the tinker's nag threw her weight suddenly into
the collar, the wheel of the cart passed over the tinker's toe, and the
tinker uttered a sudden exclamation.

In the circumstances it was a pardonable enough ebullition of feeling
and ought not to have caused the passing pedestrian to spin round on
his heel, astonishment on every line of his face. The next moment,
however, he recovered himself. "Did you call out to me?" he shouted.

The tinker was nursing his toe, apparently unconscious of having given
anyone more food for thought than usual. "No," he replied gruffly. "I
'urt myself."

The passer-by turned and pursued his way to the village. The tinker
lit his lamps and followed. He was a retiring sort of tinker, and
employed no flamboyant methods to advertise his wares. He jingled
through the village without attracting any customers--or apparently
desiring to attract any--and followed the sandy coast road for some
miles.

At length he pulled up, and from his seat on the off-shaft sat
motionless for a minute, listening. The horse, as if realising that
its dreams of a warm stable were dreams indeed, hung its head
dejectedly, and in the faint gleam, of the lamp its breath rose in thin
vapour. The man descended from his perch on the shaft and, going to
his nag's head, turned the cart off the road.

For some minutes the man and horse stumbled through the darkness; the
cart jolted, and the tin merchandise rattled dolefully. The tinker,
true to the traditions of his calling, swore again. Then he found what
he had been looking for, an uneven track that wound among the
sand-dunes towards the shore. The murmur of the sea became suddenly
loud and distinct.

With a jerk the horse and cart came to a standstill. In a leisurely
fashion the tinker unharnessed his mare, tied a nosebag on her, and
tethered her to the tail of the cart. In the same deliberate manner he
rummaged about among his wares till he produced a bundle of sticks and
some pieces of turf. With these under his arm, he scrambled off across
the sand-hills to the sea.

The incoming tide sobbed and gurgled along miniature headlands of rock
that stretched out on either side of a little bay. The sand-hills
straggled down almost to high-water mark, where the winter storms had
piled a barrier of kelp and debris. At one place a rough track down to
the shingle had been worn in the sand by the feet of fishermen using
the cove in fine weather during the summer.

The tinker selected a site for his fire in a hollow that opened to the
sea. He built a hearth with flat stones, fetched a kettle from the
cart, kindled the fire, and busied himself with preparations for his
evening meal. This concluded, he laid a fresh turf of peat upon the
embers, banked the sand up all round till the faint glow was invisible
a few yards distant, and lit a pipe.

The night wore on. Every now and again the man rose, climbed a
sand-hill, and stood listening, returning each time to his vigil by the
fire. At length he leaned forward and held the face of his watch near
the fire-glow. Apparently the time had come for action of some sort,
for he rose and made off into the darkness. When he reappeared he
carried a tin pannikin in his hand, and stood motionless by the fire,
staring out to sea.

Ten minutes he waited; then, suddenly, he made an inaudible
observation. A light appeared out of the darkness beyond the headland,
winked twice, and vanished. The tinker approached his fire and swilled
something from his pannikin on to the glowing embers. A flame shot up
about three feet, and died down, flickering. The tin contained
paraffin, and three times the tinker repeated the strange rite. Then
he sat down and waited.

A quarter of an hour passed before something grated on the shingle of
the beach, scarcely perceptible above the lap of the waves. The tinker
rose to his feet, shovelled the sand over the embers of his fire, and
descended the little path to the beach. The night was inky dark, and
for a moment he paused irresolute. Then a dark form appeared against
the faintly luminous foam, wading knee deep and dragging the bows of a
small skiff towards the shore. The tinker gave a low whistle, and the
wader paused.

"_Fritz!_" he said guardedly.

"_Ja! Hier!_" replied the tinker, advancing.

"_Gott sei dank!_" said the other. He left the boat and waded ashore.
The two men shook hands. "Where's the cart?" asked the low voice in
German.

"Among the sand-hills. You will want assistance. Have you more than
one with you in the boat?"

"Yes." The new-comer turned and gave a brusque order. Another figure
waded ashore and joined the two men, a tall, bearded fellow in duffel
overalls. As his feet reached the sand he spat ostentatiously. The
tinker led the way to the cart.

"It is dark," said the first man from the sea. "How many cans have you
got?"

"Forty-eight. I could get no more without exciting suspicion. They
have requisitioned one of my cars as it is."

The other gave a low laugh. "What irony! Well, that will last till
Friday. But you must try and get more then. I will be here at the
same time; no, the tide will not suit--at 8 a.m. We can come inside
then. Did you remember the cigarettes?"

"Yes." The tinker climbed into the cart and handed a petrol tin down
to the speaker. "_Ein!_" he said. "Count them," and lifted out
another. "_Zwei!_" The third man, who had not hitherto spoken,
received them with a grunt, and set off down to the boat with his
burden.

Eight times the trio made the journey to and from the beach. Three
times they waited while the tiny collapsible boat ferried its cargo out
to where, in the darkness, a long, black shadow lay, with the water
lapping round it, like a partly submerged whale. The last time the
tinker remained alone on the beach.

He stood awhile staring out into the darkness, and at length turned to
retrace his steps. As he reached the shelter of the sand-dunes a tall
shadow rose out of the ground at his feet, and the next instant he was
writhing on his face in the grip of an exceedingly effective
neck-and-arm lock.

"If you try to kick, my pippin," said the excited voice of James
Thorogood, "I shall simply break your arm--so!"

The face in the sand emitted a muffled squark.

"Keep still, then."

The two men breathed heavily for a minute.

"Don't swear, either. That's what got you into this trouble, that
deplorable habit of swearing aloud in German. But I will say, for a
tinker, you put a very neat West Country whipping on that bit of broken
harness. I've been admiring it. Didn't know they taught you that in
the German navy--_don't_ wriggle."



3

James Thorogood, retaining a firm hold on his companion's arm, bent
down and gathered a handful of loose earth from a flower-bed at his
feet. The moonlight, shining fitfully through flying clouds, illumined
the face of the old house and the two road-stained figures standing
under its walls. It was a lonely, rambling building, partly sheltered
from the prevailing wind by a clump of poplars, and looking out down an
avenue bordered by untidy rhododendrons.

"Won't Uncle Bill be pleased!" said James, and flung his handful of
earth with relish against one of the window-panes on the first floor.
He and his captive waited in silence for some minutes; then he repeated
the assault. Soon a light wavered behind the curtains, the sash
lifted, and a head and shoulders appeared.

"Hallo!" said a man's voice.

"Uncle Bill!" called James. There was a moment's silence.

"Well?" said the voice again, patiently.

"Uncle Bill! It's me--Jim. Will you come down and open the door? And
don't wake Janet, whatever you do." Janet was the housekeeper, stone
deaf these fifteen years.

The head and shoulders disappeared. Again the light flickered, grew
dim, and vanished. "This way," said James, and led his companion round
an angle of the house into the shadow of the square Georgian porch.
The bolts were being withdrawn as they reached the steps, and a tall,
grey-haired man in a dressing-gown opened the door. He held a candle
above his head and surveyed the wayfarers through a rimless monocle.

"Didn't expect you till to-morrow," was his laconic greeting. "Brought
a friend?"

"He's not a friend exactly," said James, pushing his companion in
through the door, and examining him curiously by the light of the
candle. "But I'll tell you all about him later on. His name's Fritz.
D'you mind if I lock him in the cellar?"

"Do," replied Uncle Bill dryly. He produced a bunch of keys from the
pocket of his dressing-gown. "It's the thin brass key. There's some
quite decent brandy in the farthest bin on the right-hand side, if
you're thinking of making a night of it down there. Take the candle;
I'm going back to bed."

"Don't go to bed," called James from the head of the stairs. "I want
to have a yarn with you in a minute. Light the gas in the dining-room."

Five minutes later he reappeared carrying a tray with cold beef, bread,
and a jug of beer upon it. Uncle Bill stood in front of the dead ashes
of his hearth considering his nephew through his eyeglass. "I hope you
made--er--Fritz comfortable? You look as if you had been doing a
forced march. Nerves better?"

James set down his empty glass with a sigh and wiped his mouth. "As
comfortable as he deserves to be. He's a spy, Uncle Bill. I caught
him supplying petrol to a German submarine."

"Really?" said Uncle Bill, without enthusiasm. "That brandy cost me
180s. a dozen. Wouldn't he be better in a police station? Have you
informed the Admiralty?"

"I venerate the police," replied James flippantly, "and the Admiralty
are as a father and mother to me; but I want to keep this absolutely
quiet for a few days--anyhow, till after Friday. I couldn't turn Fritz
over to a policeman without attracting a certain amount of attention.
Anyhow, it would leak out if I did. I've walked eighteen miles already
since midnight, and it's another fifty-nine to the Admiralty from here.
Besides, unless I disguise Fritz as a performing bear, people would
want to know why I was leading him about on a rope's end----"

"Start at the beginning," interrupted Uncle Bill wearily, "and explain,
avoiding all unnecessary detail."

So James, between mouthfuls, gave a brief resume of the night's
adventure, while Sir William Thorogood, Professor of Chemistry and
Adviser to the Admiralty on Submarine Explosives, stood and shivered on
the hearthrug.

"And it just shows," concluded his nephew, "what a three-hours' swim in
the North Sea does for a chap's morals." He eyed his Uncle Bill
solemnly. "I even chucked the fellow's seamanship in his teeth!"

Sir William polished his eyeglass with a silk handkerchief and replaced
it with care.

"_Did_ you!" he said.



4

A squat tub of a boat, her stern piled high with wicker crab-pots, came
round the northern headland and entered the little bay. The elderly
fisherman who was rowing rested on his oars and sat contemplating the
crab-pots in the stem. A younger man, clad in a jersey and sea boots,
was busy coiling down something in the bows. "How about this spot," he
said presently, looking up over his shoulder, "for the first one?" The
rower fumbled about inside his tattered jacket, produced something that
glistened in the sunlight, and screwed it into his eye.

"Uncle Bill!" protested the younger fisherman, "do unship that thing.
If there _is_ anyone watching us, it will give the whole show away."

Sir William Thorogood surveyed the harbour with an expressionless
countenance. "I consider that having donned these unsavoury
garments--did Janet bake them thoroughly, by the way?--I have already
forfeited my self-respect quite sufficiently. How much of the circuit
have you got off the drum?"

"Six fathoms."

"That's enough for the first, then." The speaker rose, lifted a
crab-pot with an effort, and tipped it over the side of the boat. The
cable whizzed out over the gunwale for a few seconds and stopped.
Uncle Bill resumed paddling for a little distance, and repeated the
manoeuvre eight times in a semi-circle round the inside of the bay,
across the entrance. "That's enough," he observed at length, as the
last crab-pot sank with a splash. "Don't want to break all their
windows ashore. These will do all they're intended to." He propelled
the boat towards the shore, while James paid out the weighted cable.
The bows of the boat grated on the shingle, and the elder man climbed
out. "Hand me the battery and the firing key--in that box under the
thwart there. Now bring the end of the cable along."

As they toiled up the shifting flank of a sand-dune, James indicated a
charred spot in the sand. "That's where he showed the flare, Uncle
Bill."

Uncle Bill nodded disinterestedly. Side by side they topped the tufted
crest of the dune and vanished among the sand-hills.

* * * * *

Somewhere across the marshes a church clock was striking midnight when
a big covered car pulled up at the roadside in the spot where, a few
nights before, the tinker's cart had turned off among the sand-hills.
The driver switched the engine off and extinguished the lights. Two
men emerged from the body of the car; one, a short, thick-set figure
muffled in a Naval overcoat, stamped up and down to restore his
circulation. "Is this the place?" he asked.

"Part of it," replied the voice of Uncle Bill from the driving seat.
"My nephew will show you the rest. I shall stay here, if Jim doesn't
mind handing me the Thermos flask and my cigar-case--thanks."

James walked round the rear of the car and began groping about in the
dry ditch at the roadside.

"Don't say you can't find it, Jim," said Sir William. He bent forward
to light his cigar, and the flare of the match shone on his dress
shirt-front and immaculate white tie. He refastened his motoring coat,
and leaned back puffing serenely.

"Got it!" said a voice from the ditch, and James reappeared, carrying a
small box and trailing something behind him. He held it out to the
short man with gold oak leaves round his cap-peak. His hand trembled
slightly.

"Here's the firing key, sir!"

"Oh, thanks. Let's put it in the sternsheets of the car till I come
back. I'd like to have a look at the spot."

"You'll get your boots full of sand," said Uncle Bill's voice under the
hood.

James lifted a small sack and an oil-can out of the motor, and the two
figures vanished side by side into the night.

Half an hour later the elder man reappeared. "He's going to blow a
whistle," he observed, and climbed into the body of the car, where Sir
William was now sitting under a pile of rugs. He made room for the
new-comer.

"Have some rug . . . and here's the foot-warmer. . . . I see. And
then you--er--do the rest? The box is on the seat beside you."

The other settled down into his seat and tucked the rug round himself.
"Thanks," was the grim reply. "Yes, I'll do the rest!" He lit a pipe,
and smoked in silence, as if following a train of thought. "My boy
would have been sixteen to-morrow. . . ."

"Ah!" said Uncle Bill.

An hour passed. The Naval man refilled and lit another pipe. By the
light of the match he examined his watch. "I suppose you tested the
contacts?" he asked at length in a low voice.

"Yes," was the reply, and they lapsed into silence again. The other
shifted his position slightly and raised his head, staring into the
darkness beyond the road whence came the faint, continuous murmur of
the sea.

Seaward a faint gleam of light threw into relief for an instant the
dark outline of a sand-dune, and sank into obscurity again.

Uncle Bill's eyeglass dropped against the buttons of his coat with a
tinkle. The grim, silent man beside him lifted something on to his
knees, and there was a faint click like the safety-catch of a gun being
released.

A frog in the ditch near by set up a low, meditative croaking. Uncle
Bill raised his head abruptly. Their straining ears caught the sound
of someone running, stumbling along the uneven track that wound in from
the shore. A whistle cut the stillness like a knife.

There was a hoarse rumble seaward that broke into a deafening roar, and
was succeeded by a sound like the bursting of a dam. The car rocked
with the concussion, and the fragments of the shattered wind-screen
tinkled down over the bonnet and footboard.

Then utter, absolute silence.




II

THE DRUM

1

Ole Jarge put down the baler and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. A few fish scales transferred themselves from the back of
his oakum-coloured hand to his venerable brow.

"'Tain't no use," he murmured. "'Er's nigh twenty year' ole--come nex'
month. Tar ain't no use neither. 'Tis new strakes 'ers wantin'." He
thumbed the seams of the old boat that lay on the shingle, with the
outgoing tide still lapping round her stern. "An' new strakes do cost
tarrible lot." He sat puffing his clay pipe, and transferred his gaze
from the bottom of the boat to the whitewashed cottages huddled under
the lee of the cliffs. A tall figure was moving about the nets that
festooned the low wall in front of the cottages.

Ole Jarge removed his pipe from his mouth, substituted two fingers of
his right hand, and gave a long, shrill whistle. It was a
disconcerting performance. For one thing, you associated the trick
with irrepressible boyhood, and, for another, the old man squinted
slightly as he did it. As a matter of fact, he had learned it on the
Dogger Bank fifty years before; fog-bound in a dory, it was a useful
accomplishment.

Young Jarge straightened up, raised one hand in acknowledgment of the
summons, and came crunching slowly across the shingle towards the boat.
Ole Jarge sat smoking in philosophical silence till his son was beside
him. Then he removed his pipe and spat over the listed gunwale.

"'Er's daid," he observed laconically.

Young Jarge bent stiffly and tapped the seams, inside and out, much as
a veterinary surgeon runs his hand over a horse's legs.

"Ya-a-is," he confirmed, and sat down on the stem of the old boat.
"'Er's very nigh's ole 's what us be," he added, after a pause, and
began shredding some tobacco into the palm of his hand.

Ole Jarge nodded. Then he lifted his head quickly. "'Er's bound to
last 'nother year." For the first time there was concern in his voice.
Adversity does not grip the mind of the Cornish fisherfolk suddenly.
It filters slowly through the chinks of the armour God has given them.
Cornish men (and surely Cornish maids) were kind to the survivors of
the wrecked Armada. It may be that they, in their turn, bequeathed a
strain of Southern fatalism to many of their benefactors.

"'Er's bound to," repeated Ole Jarge. He got ponderously out of the
boat and removed a tattered sou'wester to scratch his head with his
thumbnail--another trick that had survived the adventurous days of the
Dogger Bank.

The unfamiliar note of anxiety in his father's voice stirred Young
Jarge. He rose to his feet with perplexity in his dark eyes,
mechanically pulling up the bleached leather thigh-boots he wore afloat
and ashore, "rainy-come-fine."

Inspiration had come, as it does to men of the West once the need is
realised to the full.

"Du 'ee mind that there li'l' ole copper boiler--what come out o'
granfer's house when 'er blawed down--back tu '98?" asked Young Jarge
slowly.

Ole Jarge nodded.

"S'pose us was to hammer 'n out flat like an' nail un down to bottom,
'long wi' oakum an' drop o' white lead--what du 'ee say?"

Ole Jarge silently measured the area of the sprunk strakes with the
stumpy thumb and little finger of an outstretched hand. Then he
puckered his forehead and stared out to sea, apparently making mental
calculations connected with the "li'l' ole copper boiler."

"Ya-a-ais." He replaced the piece of perished tarpaulin that had once
been a sou'-wester on his head, and set off slowly across the shingle
towards the village. Young Jarge followed, staring at his boots as he
walked.

"Us 'll hammer 'n out after tea," said Ole Jarge over his shoulder.
His great, great, very great grandfather would have said "_Manana!_"

* * * * *

The setting sun had tipped the dancing wavelets with fire and was
glowing red in each pool left by the receding tide when Ole Jarge
emerged from his cottage door. In one hand he carried a hammer, and in
the other a tin of white lead. Young Jarge joined him with a small,
square copper boiler in his arms.

"Where'll us put un tu, feyther?"

Ole Jarge set off across the beach in the direction of the boat.
"Bring un along!" he commanded in a manner dimly suggestive of a lord
high executioner.

Young Jarge followed, and dumped his burden down alongside the boat.

"Now!" said Ole Jarge grimly. He spat on his hands and prepared to
enjoy himself. Bang! bang! bang-a-bang! bang! went the hammer. Young
Jarge sat down on the gunwale of the boat and contemplated his parent's
exertions.

"It du put Oi in mind of a drum," he said appreciatively.



2

"Now we can talk!" Margaret settled her back comfortably against a
ridge of turf and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Isn't it heavenly up here? The wind smells of seaweed, and there must
be some shrub or flower----" She opened her eyes and looked along the
cliffs, "There's something smelling divinely. Wild broom, is it?"

Her gaze travelled along the succession of ragged headlands and
crescents of sand formed by each little bay of the indented coast. The
coastguard track, a brown thread winding adventurously among the clumps
of gorse at the very edge of the cliffs, drew her eyes farther and
farther to the west. In the far distance the track dipped sharply over
a headland where the whitewashed coastguard station stood, and was lost
to view. She turned and smiled at her companion. "Now we can talk,"
she repeated.

Torps, sitting beside her, met her eyes with his grave, gentle smile.
"I'm so glad to see you again," he said, "that I can't think of
anything else to say. It was nice of you to write and tell me you were
here."

As if by common consent, they had discussed nothing but generalities
during the half-hour's walk that brought them to this sheltered hollow
in the cliffs. The woman was, of the two, the more reluctant to bridge
the years that lay between to-day and their last meeting. Yet,
womanlike, it was she that spoke first.

"I knew your ship was quite close. I wanted to see you again, Trevor,
after all these years. Tell me about yourself. Your letters--yes, I
know; but you never talked much about yourself in your letters."

He shook his head quietly. "No, you tell first."

"There isn't much to tell." She interlaced her fingers round her
updrawn knees. Her grey eyes were turned to the sea, and Torps watched
her profile against the sky wistfully, studying the pure brow, the
threads of silver appearing here and there in her soft brown hair, the
strong, almost boyish lines of mouth and chin. _En profile_, thus, she
looked very like a handsome boy.

"I've been teaching at one of those training institutes for girls on
the East Coast. The principal, Miss Dacre is her name"--Margaret
paused as if expecting some comment from her companion: none
came--"Pauline Dacre; she was at school with mother: they were great
friends; and when mother died she offered me a home. . . . I had a
little money--enough to go through a course of training. I learned
things----"

"What sort of things?"

"Oh, cooking and laundry, and hygiene--domestic science it's called."
Torps nodded. "And then, when I knew enough to teach others, I went
to--to this place; I've been there ever since. And that's all. Now
it's your turn."

Torps studied the traces of overwork and strain which showed in the
faintly accentuated cheekbones and which painted little tired shadows
about her eyelids.

"No, it's not all. Why have you come down here?"

"I--I----" She coloured as if accused. "I got a little run down . . .
that was all. But I've saved some money; I can afford a rest. I'm
what is called 'an independent gentlewoman of leisure' for a while."
She laughed, a gay little laugh.

"Do you mean you are going back there again?"

She looked at him with frank surprise. "Of course I am, silly!"

"Don't go back . . . not to that life again. How can you? Shut up in
a sort of convent. . . . You can't be a school-marm all your life; you
were meant for other things. . . . I suppose you have to sleep on a
hard bed, and get up in the dark when a bell rings. There aren't any
carpets, and they don't give you enough to eat, as likely as not.
Margaret, why should you? It's the sort of work anyone can do-teaching
kids to mangle."

"But . . . what do you think I am going to do with the remainder of my
days--crochet? embroider slippers for the curate? Trevor, you wouldn't
like me to come to that in my old age, would you?" She spoke with
gentle banter, as if to fend off something she feared. Had Torps known
it, she was fencing for the happiness of them both.

He shook his head gravely.

"I hoped--because you had written to me--that you weren't going
back. . . ." His thin, strong hand closed over hers, resting on the
turf between them. He bent his head as if considering their fingers.
"Margaret, dear----"

"Ah, Trevor, don't--please don't. . . . Not again. I thought all that
was dead and buried years ago. And do you really think"--she smiled a
little sadly--"if I--if things were different--that I should have
written to ask you to meet me to-day? Have you learned so little of
women in all these years?" There was something besides sadness in her
eyes now: a wistful, half-maternal tenderness. He raised his head.

"I've learned nothing about women, Margaret, but what I learned from
you."

She gently withdrew her hand. "Trevor, we're not children any longer.
We're older and wiser. We----"

"We're older--yes. But I don't see what that has to do with it, except
that my need is greater. . . . I'm a little lonelier. There's never
been anyone but you. I've never looked across the road at a woman in
my life--except you. I know we're not children, and for that reason we
ought to know our own minds. Do you know yours, Margaret?"

Margaret bowed her head, collecting her thoughts and setting them in
order, before she answered:

"It isn't easy to say what I have to say. You must be
patient--generous, as you can be, Trevor, of all the men I know." She
hesitated and coloured again a little. "You say you want me. If there
were no one else who I thought had a greater claim, you should--no,
hush! listen, dear--I would give you--what you want . . . gladly--oh,
gladly! But the children need me--my influence. . . . Miss Dacre said
it is doing the highest service one could for the Empire . . . theirs
is the higher claim. Can you understand? Oh, can you?"

Torps made no reply, staring out to sea with sombre eyes.

Gaining confidence with his silence, she continued the shy unfolding of
her ideals. "Nothing is too good for boys; no training is high enough,
because they are to be the builders and upholders of our Empire. Don't
you think that little girls, who are destined some day to be the mates
of these boys, should be prepared in a way that will make them worthy
of their share of the inheritance? They have to be taught ideals of
honour and courage and intelligent patriotism, so that they can help
and encourage their men in years to come. They must learn to cook and
sew, learn the laws of Nature and hygiene, so that they can make the
home not 'an habitation enforced'--as it is for so many women--but a
place where they may with all honour bring into the world other little
girls and boys. . . ." She drew her breath quickly. "Ah, that is not
a thing anyone can do, teaching all that! It must be someone who gives
all--and who gives herself gladly . . . as I have."

Torps turned his head as if to speak, but checked himself.

"Don't think I am setting myself upon a pedestal. Don't think my heart
is too anaemic to--to care for you, and that I am trying to shelter
myself behind talk of a life's mission. Oh!" she cried, "be generous.
Don't try to make it harder."

She leaned towards him a little as he sat with lowered eyes. "This is
a time of grave anxiety, isn't it?" she continued gently, as if
explaining something to an impatient child. "You naval men ought to
know. There is talk of war everywhere--of war with Germany. They say
we are on the brink of it to-day." Torps nodded. "Supposing it came
now . . . and you were recalled. How do they recall you? Sound a
bugle--beat a drum?"

Torps smiled faintly. "Something of the sort--no, not a drum; a bugle,
perhaps."

"Well, we'll suppose it is a drum. One somehow associates it with war
and alarms. Would you hesitate to obey?" Torps refrained from the
obvious answer and plucked a grass-stem to put between his teeth. "You
would obey, wouldn't you, because it is your duty--however much you'd
like to sit here with me? Will you try to realise that I shall be only
answering the drum, too, when--I go back."

The breeze that strayed about the floor of the Channel fanned their
faces and set the bright sea-poppies nodding all along the edge of the
cliffs. The sun was low in the west, and a snake-like flotilla of
destroyers crept out across the quiet sea from the harbour hidden by a
fold in the hills. Torps watched them with absent eyes, and there was
a long silence. The wind had loosened a strand of his companion's
hair, and she was busy replacing it with deft fingers.

"Margaret," he replied at last, "you said just now that I understood
very little about women. I think you are right. Perhaps if I
understood more I might know how to muffle the drum so that you
wouldn't hear it. I might have learned to pipe a tune that would make
you not want to hear it. . . . I don't know. . . . But I accept all
you say--although deep down in my heart I know you are wrong. There
will come a day when you, too, will know you are wrong. I shall come
back then. And till then, since I must"--he smiled in a whimsical, sad
way that somehow relaxed the tension--"I lend you to the children."

She returned his smile quite naturally, with relief in her eyes. "Dear
Trevor, yes . . . because they need me so. . . . Believe me, I am not
wrong: and we keep our friendship still, sweet and sane----" She broke
off suddenly and raised a slim forefinger, holding her head sideways to
listen, the way women and birds and children seem to hear better.
"Hark! Did you hear? How odd! Listen, Trevor!"

Torps brought himself back with an effort. "Hear what?"

"Listen!"

He listened.

"I can hear the waves along the shingle."

"No, no. . . . There--now!"

"Oh! . . . Yes, I can hear. . . . It sounds like a drum."

"Trevor, it _is_ a drum, somewhere out at sea! How odd when we were
just talking about drums--hush! Oh, do listen. . . ."

The sound, borne to them on the light wind, seemed to grow nearer; then
it waned till they could scarcely catch the beats. Anon it swelled
louder: the unmistakable "Dub! dub! rub-a-dub! dub! . . . Dub! dub!
dub!" of a far-off drum.

Margaret shook his sleeve. "Of course it's a drum. It can't be
anything else, can it?"

"It's Drake's Drum!" he replied, with mock solemnity. "There's a
legend in the West Country, you know----"

"I know!" She nodded, bright eyed with interest, and rose to a
kneeling position to gaze beneath her palms out towards the west. The
sun had set, and a thin grey haze slowly veiled the horizon. Already
the warm afterglow was dying out of the sky.

"He has 'quit the Port of Heaven,'" she quoted half-seriously, playing
with superstition as only women can, "and he's 'drumming up the
Channel'! They say it foretells war . . . that noise. . . ." Margaret
gave a little shiver and rose to her graceful height, extending both
her ringless hands to him. "It's getting chilly--come!"

Torps rose to his feet, too, and for a moment faced her, with his
grave, patient eyes on hers. For the first time she noticed that his
hair was going grey about the temples, and, had he known it, Margaret
came very near to wavering in that moment. Perhaps he did realise, and
with quick, characteristic generosity helped her.

"I think I understand," he said, "something of their need--the need of
the children for such as you. It--it----" He turned abruptly towards
the sea. The noise that resembled a distant drum had ceased, and there
was only the faint surge of the waves on the beaches far below.

It was the only sound in all the land and sea.

* * * * *

In the whitewashed coastguard station a mile away the bearded occupant
on duty was finishing his tea. The skeleton of a herring lay on the
side of his plate, the centre of which the boatman was scouring with a
piece of bread (preparatory to occupying it with damson jam), when the
telephone bell rang. A man of economical habits, he put the bread in
his mouth, and, rising from the table, picked up the receiver.

"_. . . Portree Signal Station--Yes._"

"_. . . 'Oo? Yes._"

He stood motionless with the receiver to his ear, his jaws moving
mechanically about the last of the piece of bread. Outside the little
room the wind thrummed in the halliards of the signal-mast. The clock
over the desk ticked out the deliberate seconds. A cat, curled up by
the window, rose, stretching itself, and yawned.

"_. . . Prepare to mobilise. All officers and men are recalled from
leave. Detailed orders will follow. Right. Good-bye._"

He replaced the receiver and rang off. Then, still masticating, he
executed a species of solemn war-dance in the middle of the floor.

"Crikey!" he said aloud. "That means war, that do! Bloody war!"

He snatched up a telescope and ran outside, still talking aloud to
himself after the manner of men who live much alone. "I see a bloke
an' 'is young woman along there this afternoon. I'd ha' said he was a
naval orficer if anyone was to ask me." He scanned the hills through
his glass for a moment, and then set off along the track that skirted
the edge of the cliffs.

Margaret saw him first, a broad, blue-clad figure, threading his way
among the furze bushes. "And you won't be unhappy, will you, Trevor?"
she was saying. "You will understand, you----" She broke off to watch
the coastguard hurrying towards them. "Does that sailor want to speak
to us, do you think? He seems in a great hurry."

Torps stood at her side staring.

The coastguard drew near, wiping his face with a vast blue and white
spotted handkerchief, for he had been running. "Beg pardon, sir," he
called as he came within earshot, "but would you be a naval officer?"

"I am," replied Torps. "Why?"

The man saluted. "There's a telephone message just come through, sir,
'Prepare to mobilise. All officers and men are recalled from leave.'"

Torps stared at him. "Where did it come from--the message?"

"From the port, sir. I was to warn anyone I saw out this way . . ."

"Right; thank you. I'm going back now." He turned towards Margaret.
"Did you hear that?" There was a queer note of relief in his voice.

"Yes," she replied quietly. "The Drum."




III

A CAPTAIN'S FORENOON

The Captain came out of his sleeping-cabin as the last chord of the
National Anthem died away on the quarter-deck overhead with the roll of
kettledrums.

"Carry on!" sang the bugle; and the ship's company, their animation
suspended while the colours crept up the jackstaff, proceeded to
"breakfast and clean." The signalman whose duty it was to hoist the
Ensign at 8 a.m. turned up the halliards to his satisfaction, and
departed forward in the wake of the band.

The Captain had "cleaned" already, and his breakfast was on the table
in his fore-cabin. He sat down, glanced at the pile of letters beside
his plate, propped the morning paper against the teapot, and commenced
his meal. He ate with the deliberate slowness of a man accustomed to
having meals in solitude, who has schooled himself not to abuse his
digestion.

As he ate his quick eye travelled over the headlines of the paper,
occasionally concentrating on a paragraph here and there. Ten minutes
sufficed to give him a complete grasp of the day's affairs. The naval
appointments he read carefully. His memory for names and individuals
was unfailing; he never forgot anyone who had served under his command,
and followed the careers of most with interest. His daily private
correspondence, which was large, testified to the fact that not many
forgot him.

Breakfast over, he laid aside the paper, lit a cigarette, and turned
over the little pile of letters, identifying the writers with a glance
at the handwriting on each envelope. Only one was unknown to him: that
he placed last, and carried them into the after-cabin to read, leaning
his shoulder against the mantel of the tiled and brass-bound fireplace.

The first letter he opened was from his wife, and, in consequence, its
contents were nobody's affair but his own. He read it twice, and
smiled as he returned it to the envelope.

The next, written on thick notepaper stamped with the Admiralty crest,
he also read twice, and mused awhile. Apparently this also was
nobody's concern but his, for, still deep in thought, he tore it up and
put the pieces in the fire before taking up the third. This was an
appeal for assistance from a former watch-keeper who aspired to the
Flying Corps. The next was also a request for assistance from a young
officer, who, having recently taken a wife to his bosom, apparently
considered the achievement a qualification for the command of one of
H.M. torpedo-boat destroyers.

The Captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I sent him a silver
photograph frame. . . . He'll want me to be godfather next." He
occasionally spoke aloud when alone.

An appeal for funds for a memorial to someone or another followed.
Then two advertisements from wine merchants and a statement of his
account with his outfitter were consigned in turns into the fire. The
last envelope, in the unknown hand, he scrutinised for a moment before
opening. The postmark was local, the caligraphy illiterate. He opened
the letter and read it with an inscrutable face. Then, with a quick
movement as of disgust, he crumpled it up and threw it into the flames.
It was anonymous, and was a threat, couched in lurid and ensanguined
terms, to murder him.

Judges, and post-captains of the Royal Navy, perhaps as a reminder of
their great responsibilities, occasionally receive communications of
this nature. Their life insurance policies, however, appear to remain
much the same as those of other people.

* * * * *

The after-cabin, where the Captain perused his correspondence, was an
airy, chintz-upholstered apartment leading aft through two heavy steel
doors on to the stern-walk. The doors were open on that particular
morning, and the high, thin cries of seagulls quarrelling under the
stern drifted through almost unceasingly.

Forward, the white-enamelled bulkhead was pierced by two entrances.
One led from a diminutive sleeping-cabin and bathroom, the other from
the fore-cabin, which the Captain had just quitted, and which in turn
communicated with a lobby where a marine sentry paced day and night.

The after-cabin was lit by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the
ship's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones,
winked on the butterfly clamps of burnished brass and small rods from
which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a
corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, affixed to white
enamelled battens, hung water-colour paintings of his ships. A sloop
of war under full sail; a brig, close-hauled, beating out of Plymouth
Sound; a tiny gunboat at anchor in a backwater of the Upper Yangtse.
There were spick-and-span cruisers; a quaint, top-heavy looking
battleship that in her day had been considered the last word in naval
construction, and whose name to-day provokes reminiscences from the
older generation and from the younger half-dubious smiles; then, near
the door, came modern men-of-war of familiar aspect. They represented
the milestones of a long career.

A chart lay folded on a table in the centre of the cabin, with a pair
of dividers and a parallel ruler lying on it. Another table stood in a
corner near the door--a small, glass-topped table such as collectors of
curios gather their treasures in. The contents of this table, however,
were not curios in the strict sense of the word. A number of them were
very commonplace objects, but each one held its particular associations.

You will find just such a collection of insignificant mysteries in a
boy's pocket or a jackdaw's nest. Bits of string, a marble polished by
friction, a piece of coloured glass, an old nail--in themselves
rubbish, but doubtless linking the possessor to some amiable memory,
and cherished for no better reason.

Some men retain this instinct of boyhood. But whereas the boy is
secretive and reticent about the particular associations his pocket
holds, the man will talk about his hoard.

In the glass-topped table in that corner of the after-cabin were ties
with all the seven seas and the shores they wash. Mementoes of folly
or friendship, sport or achievement; fragments of the mosaic that is
life.

A bit of brick from the Great Wall of China recalled a bag of geese in
the clear cold dusk of Northern Asia. Memories, too, of the whaler's
beat back to the fleet in the teeth of a rising gale that swept in from
the Pacific, when the bravest unlaced his boots and they baled with the
empty guncase.

There was a piece of the sacred pavement of Mecca, brought back in the
days when few Europeans had brought anything back from there--even
their lives. A gold medal in a morocco-leather case, won by an essay
that had called for months of unrelaxed study. A copper bangle from
the wrist of a Korean dancing-girl (it was somebody else's story,
though). A wooden ju-ju from Benin, dark-stained and repulsive; a tiny
clay godling that had guarded the mummied heart of an Egyptian queen.
A flint arrow-head picked up on Dartmoor during a long summer tramp
after the speckled trout. A jewelled cigarette-case, gift of an
empress who could give no more than that, however much she may have
wanted to.

Rubbish, all rubbish. Yet occasionally, when two or three
post-captains, contemporaries and fleet-mates, gathered here to smoke
after-dinner cigars, the host would unlock the glass-topped table,
select some object from his miscellany, and hold it up with a "D'you
remember----?" And one or other of his guests--sometimes all of
them--would laugh and nod and blow great clouds of smoke and slide into
eager reminiscence. Yesterday is the playground of all men's hearts,
but more especially those of sailor men. These odds and ends were only
keys that unlocked the gate.

A few photographs stood on the shelf above the hearth. Some books
occupied a revolving bookcase within reach of anyone sitting at the
desk; not very interesting books: old Navy Lists, a "King's
Regulations," a "Manual of Court Martial Procedure," one or two volumes
on International Law, and a treatise on so-called 'modern'
seamanship--which, by the way, is a misnomer, seamanship, like love,
being of all time.

The revolving bookcase supported a bowl of flowers. The Captain's
Coxswain had personally arranged them that morning; had, in fact, had a
slight difference of opinion with the Captain's valet (conducted _sotto
voce_) over the method of their arrangement. The Coxswain won on the
claim of being a married man and understanding mysteries beyond the ken
of bachelors. The result in either case would have brought tears to
the eyes of any woman.

* * * * *

The Captain finished his cigarette and opened the roll-topped desk,
slipped his letters into a pigeon-hole, and closed the desk again. As
he did so the Commander entered the cabin, tucking his cap under his
arm.

"Nine o'clock, sir; all ready for divisions. The Chaplain is
sick--will you read prayers?"

"Sick, is he? What's the matter?"

"He twisted his knee yesterday playing football. The Fleet Surgeon has
made him lie up."

The Captain nodded. "All right; I'll read them." As the Commander
turned to go he spoke again: "By the way, that fellow I gave ninety
days to yesterday--was there a woman in the case, d'you happen to know?
There was nothing in the evidence, of course, but I wondered----"

The Commander paused while the busy brain searched among its dockets.
The man whose business it is as Executive Officer to control the
affairs of close on a thousand of his fellow men must of necessity
sometimes learn curiously intimate details of their lives.

"Yes; the Master-at-Arms mentioned to me that a woman was at the bottom
of it. She's a wrong 'un, I understand."

"Thank you."

The Commander went out, and a moment later the bugle overhead blazed
forth "Divisions."

"I thought it was a woman's writing," added the Captain musingly.

"Divisions correct, sir!" The Commander saluted and made his report.

The Captain returned the salute briskly. "Sound the 'Close.'"

The bugle sounded again, the bell began to toll for prayers, and the
band on the after shelter-deck struck up a lively march as the men came
aft.

Anyone interested in the study called physiognomy might with advantage
have taken his stand at this moment on the after part of the
quarter-deck, where the shadow of the White Ensign curved and flickered
across the planking. Perhaps the Captain, who stood there, was himself
a student of the art. At any rate, as the men marched aft through the
screen doors his level eyes passed from face to face, reflective,
observant, intensely alert.

The last division reached its allotted position on the quarter-deck,
turned inboard, and stood easy. The band stopped abruptly. The bell
ceased tolling. In the brief ensuing silence the Commander's voice was
clearly audible as he made his report.

"Everybody aft, sir."

The Captain slipped a small prayer-book out of a side pocket. The
Commander gave a curt order, and five hundred heads bared to the
sunlight.

"Stand easy!"

There is much beauty in the sonorous periods of the English Rubric.
Read in the strong, clear voice of a man who for thirty years had known
calm and tempest, sunset and dawn at sea, the familiar words--of appeal
and praise alike--assumed somehow an unwonted significance; and when he
closed the book, slipped it back into his pocket, and looked up, the
face he raised was the face of one who, whatever else his creed had
taught him, found in all success the answer to some prayer, in every
disaster a call to courage and high endeavour.

* * * * *

Down in the after-cabin, five minutes later, the Fleet Surgeon handed
the sick-list to the Captain, who read it with care. For the first
time that day his brow clouded. The two men looked at one another.

"It is heavy," said the Fleet Surgeon; "but----" He made an
imperceptible upward movement of the shoulders, for his mother had been
French.

For some moments after he had gone the Captain stood staring out
through the after doorway. A barge, heavily freighted, was passing
slowly down-stream. His eyes followed the brown sail absently as long
as it was within his field of vision. The anger had gone from his brow
and left a shadow of sadness.

"'_Si j'etais Dieu_,'" he murmured, following some train of thought and
musing aloud as was his habit. Then, still in a brown study, he opened
the roll-topped desk and pressed a bell.

"Tell Mr. Gerrard I'll sign papers," he said to the marine sentry who
appeared in the doorway.

"Double-O" Gerrard (so called because he wore glasses with circular
lenses and his name made you think of telephones) answered the summons,
carrying a sheaf of papers. He was the Captain's Clerk: that is to
say, the junior accountant officer, detailed by the Captain to conduct
his official correspondence and perform secretarial work generally.
The position is not one commonly sought after, but Double-O Gerrard
appeared to enjoy his duties, and as a badge of office carried a
perpetual inkstain on the forefinger-tip of his right hand.

The Captain sat down at his desk with a little sigh. If the truth be
known, he had small relish for this business of "papers." He picked up
his pen and examined the nib.

"Do you ever use your pen to clean a pipe out?" he asked his Clerk.

"Oh no, sir."

"I suppose it depends on the nib one uses whether it suffers much."
With a piece of blotting paper the Captain removed fragments of tobacco
ash and nicotine from the nib, and dipped it in the ink. "It doesn't
seem to hurt mine. Now then, what have we got here?"

A quarter of an hour later he pushed aside the last of the pile of
documents and lit a cigarette with the air of a man who had earned a
smoke.

"Any defaulters?"

"No, sir, none for you to-day."

"Humph! Tell the Commander I'll buy him a pair of white kid gloves
when I go ashore. Request-men?"

His Clerk placed a book upon the desk open at a list of names. The
Captain ran down them with a pencil.

"Badges, all entitled? . . . Stop allotment--who does he allot to?
Mother? . . . Restoration to first class for leave. . . . To be rated
Leading Seaman--Jones. Jones? Oh, yes, I know: youngster in the
quarter-deck division with a broken nose. The Commander spoke to me
about him." The pencil slowly descended to the bottom of the page,
ticking off each man's request as it was gone into and explained. He
stopped at the last one. "'To see Captain about private affairs.'
What's his trouble?"

"I don't know, sir. He put in his request to see you through the
Master-at-Arms. He didn't say what it was about."

The Captain closed the book. "All seamen, eh? No Marine request-men?"

"No, sir."

"Right. I'll see 'em at eleven." The Clerk gathered the papers
together and departed. As he went out there was a tap at the door.
The Captain frowned. The tap was repeated.

"Don't knock," he called out. "If you've got anything to report, come
in and report it."

The Chief Yeoman of Signals entered with an embarrassed air. He was
new to the ship, and, as everyone knows, all captains have their little
peculiarities. Here he was up against one right away. He'd never had
much luck.

"I don't want anyone to knock when they come into my cabin on duty.
I'm not a young woman in her boudoir."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the Chief Yeoman. "Signal log, sir."

* * * * *

"Don't forget now," counselled the Master-at-Arms to the request-men
fallen in on the starboard side of the quarter-deck. "When your names
is called out, step smartly up to the table, an' keep your caps on.
You salutes when you steps up to the table an' when you leaves it."

The request-men, who had heard all this a good many times before,
sucked their teeth in acquiescence.

The Captain was walking up and down the other side of the deck talking
to the Commander. They turned together and came towards the table.
The Captain's Clerk opened the request-book and laid it before the
Captain.

"'Erbert Reynolds," intoned the Master-at-Arms in a stentorian voice.
"Able seaman. Requests award of first Good Conduct Badge."

The Captain put his finger on the first name at the top of the page,
glanced keenly at the applicant, and nodded. "Granted."

"Granted," echoed the Chief of Police, and Able Seaman Reynolds
departed with authority to wear on his left arm the triangular red
badge that vouched to his exemplary behaviour for the last three years.

Five others followed in quick succession with similar requests, and
trotted forward again at a dignified and amiable gait through the
screen door.

"To stop allotment." The Captain raised his head.

"Who do you allot to?"

"Me mother, sir."

"Doesn't she want it?"

The request-man was a young stoker, little more than a boy, and his
eyes were troubled.

"She don't deserve it," he replied; "she drinks, sir. I got letters
from fr'en's----" He thrust his hand inside the breast of his jumper
and produced his sad evidence--a letter from a clergyman, one or two
from lay-workers in some north-country slum, and one from his mother
herself, an incoherent, abusive scrawl, with liquor stains still upon
the creased paper.

"I send 'er my 'arf-pay reg'lar ever since I were in the Navy, sir.
But she ain't goin' ter 'ave no more." He made the statement without
heat or sorrow.

"Stopped," said the Captain, with a nod.

"Allotment stopped," repeated the Master-at-Arms, and the allotter
passed forward out of sight to whatever destiny awaited him.

"To be rated Leading Seaman, sir."

A tall, young Able Seaman stepped forward and fixed eyes of a clear
blue on the Captain's face.

The Captain met his gaze, and for a moment threw all the weight of
thirty years' experience of men into the scales of judgment. "There is
a vacancy for a Leading Seaman's rate in the ship," he said. "The
Commander has recommended you for it. You're young. Keep it."

"Rated Leading Seaman. 'Bout turn."

The newly created Leading Seaman, whose nose was a reminder of the
vagaries of the main sheet block of a cutter when going about, flushed
with pleasure and turned smartly on his heel. The vacant rate was due
to a lapse from rectitude on the part of one Biggers, leading hand of
the quarter-deck, who had returned from leave with a small flat flask
tucked inside his cholera belt. The flask contained whisky, and had
been thrust there by a friend ashore in an access of maudlin
good-fellowship on parting. The night had been a convivial one, and
Leading Seaman Biggers overlooked the gift until, coming on board, the
keen-eyed officer of the watch drew his attention to it. He paid for
the misplaced generosity of his well-wisher with his "Killick."[1]

He happened, moreover, to be employed in coiling down a rope--in the
capacity he had reverted to--while his supplanter received the rating;
but he eyed the ceremony stoically and without resentment. He had
failed, and, of his less frail brethren, another was raised up in his
stead. It was the immutable law.

"To be restored to the first class for leave."

A stout Able Seaman stepped forward, and, from force of a habit
engendered by long familiarity with the etiquette of the defaulters'
table, removed his cap.

"_Put_ yer cap on," added the Master-at-Arms in a fierce undertone.

The suppliant deftly replaced his cap. As he did so a packet of
cigarettes, a skein of darning worsted and a picture postcard
(depicting a stout lady in a pink costume surf bathing) fell out on to
the deck in the manner of an unexpected conjuring trick. An attendant
ship's corporal retrieved them, while the conjurer affected an air of
complete detachment.

The Captain glanced at the conduct book. "Clean sheet?
Right--restored to the first class. And see if you can't stop in it
this time."

The stout one made guttural noises in his throat intended to convey
assurances of future piety, and departed with an expression that
suggested a halo had not only descended upon his head, but had been
crammed inextricably over his ears.

The last request-man--the man with "private affairs"--was a small
leading stoker with a face seamed by innumerable tiny wrinkles. His
skin resembled a piece of parchment that somebody had crumpled in a fit
of petulance and made a half-hearted attempt to smooth out again; even
his ears were crumpled. His brown eyes, big and sad, were like the
eyes of a suffering monkey.

The Commander interposed with an explanation: "This man wishes to see
you about a private matter, sir."

The Captain made a little gesture with his hand, and the small group of
officers and ship's police near the table stepped back a few paces out
of earshot. The Commander, perhaps the busiest man on board, snatched
the moment's respite to confer with the Carpenter, who had been
hovering round waiting for his opportunity. The Master-at-Arms was
standing by the bollards alternately sucking a stump of pencil and
making cryptic notations in his request-book. The two ship's corporals
had removed themselves with great delicacy of feeling to the screen
door, where in an undertone they settled an argument as to whose turn
it was to make out the leave tickets. The Captain's Clerk became
interested in the progress of work in an ammunition lighter alongside.

The Captain, with knitted brows, was reading a letter that had been
handed to him across the table. He folded it up when read, and handed
it back to the recipient; then, holding his chin in his fist and
supporting the elbow with the other hand, he listened to the tale the
small man with the crumpled ears had to unfold. It was an old
tale--old when Helen first met the eyes of Paris. But there was no
veil of romance to soften the outline of its crude tragedy. It was
just sordid and pitiful.

For five minutes, perhaps, the two men faced each other. At the end of
that time the Captain was leaning forward resting both hands on the
table, talking in grave, kindly tones. He talked, not as Captains
commonly talk to Leading Stokers, but as one man might talk to another
who turned to him for advice in the bitter hour of need, drawing on the
deep well of his experience, education, and kindly judgment.

"Troubles shared are troubles halved." The Captain had said so, and
the tot of rum served out at one-bell to the little man with the
crumpled ears went some way to complete the conviction.

* * * * *

Jeremiah Casey, Petty Officer and Captain's Coxswain, hauled himself
nimbly up the Jacob's ladder to the quarter-boom and came inboard. The
Captain was walking up and down, deep in thought, with his hands linked
behind his back. Casey pattered up and saluted.

"I've bent on that noo mainsail, sir. . . . There's a nice li'l
sailin' breeze, sir." Casey, hinting at a spin in the galley, somehow
reminded one of a spaniel when he sees the gun-case opened. Had he
been blessed with a tail, he would most certainly have wagged it.

The Captain walked slowly aft and looked down into the galley lying at
the quarter-boom. Few men could have resisted the appeal of that long
slim boat with the water lapping invitingly against her clinker-built
sides. The brasswork in her gleamed in the sun like jewels set in
ivory, for the woodwork was as near the whiteness of ivory as holystone
and sharkskin could make it. She had little white mats with blue
borders on the thwarts and in the sternsheets, and her yoke, of curious
Chinese design, had a history as mysterious and legendary as the
diamonds of Marie Antoinette.

"Get her alongside," said the Captain. "I want to try that mainsail."

Five minutes later the galley was spinning across the sparkling waters
of the harbour.

Once the Captain spoke, and the bowman moved his weight six inches
forward. Then she sailed to his light touch on the helm as a violin
gives out sound under the bow of a master.

Casey, sitting motionless on the bottom boards with the mainsheet in
his hands, gazed rapturously at the new mainsail, and thence into the
stolid countenance of the second stroke.

"Ain't she a _witch_?" he whispered.

For half an hour the galley skimmed to and fro among the anchored
fleet, now running free like a white-winged gull, anon close-hauled,
the razor bows cleaving a path through the dancing water in a little
sickle of creaming foam.

The Captain brought her alongside the gangway with faultless judgment
and stood up. Like Saul, he had taken the cares of high command to a
witch, and lo! his brow was clear and his eyes twinkled.

"Yes," he said in even tones as he stepped out of the boat, "that
mainsail sets all right," and ran briskly up the ladder two steps at a
time.

Casey thumbed the lacing on the yard. "Perfection is finality, and
finality is death."

"I don't know but what I wouldn't shift the strop '_arf_ an inch
aft--mebbe a quarter . . ."

Inboard the ship's bell struck eight times, and the boatswain's mate
began shrilly piping the hands to dinner.



[1] Anchor. The distinctive badge of a leading rating.




IV

THE SEVEN-BELL BOAT

The last answering pendant from the Fleet shot up above the bridge
rails, and the impatient semaphore on the Flagship's bridge commenced
waving its arms.

The Yeoman of the Watch in the second ship of the line steadied his
glass against an angle of the chart house. "'Ere y'are! Write down,
one 'and." A Signal-boy stepped to his elbow with a pad and pencil in
readiness.

"Flag--general: Leave may be granted to officers from 8.30 to 7 p.m.
Officers are not to leave the vicinity of the town, and are to be
prepared for immediate recall." He lowered the glass sharply.
"Finish. Down Answer!"

Obedient to the order, a Signal-man brought the long tail of bunting
down hand over hand. He hitched the slack of the halliard to the
bridge rail and puckered his eyes, staring across the waters of the
harbour to where the roofs of houses showed among the trees. "'Ow I
pities orficers!" he observed under his breath, and walked to the end
of the bridge.

The advertisement of a cinema theatre occupied a hoarding near the
landing place; away to the left the sloping roof of what was
unmistakably a brewery bore in huge block letters the exhortation:

DRINK PALE ALE

"Not 'arf," murmured the cynic at the end of the battleship's bridge.
He mused darkly and added, "I don't think."

The Yeoman of the Watch took the pad from the boy's hand, scribbled a
notation on it, and handed it back: "Commander an' Officer of the
Watch, Wardroom, Gunroom, an' Warrant Officers' Mess. Smart!"

The boy flung himself down the ladder, sped aft along the fore-and-aft
bridge, turned at the shelter-deck, descended another ladder, and
brought up in the battery. Here the Commander came in view, conferring
mysteriously with the Boatswain over a length of six-inch wire hawser
that lay along the upper deck. The Boatswain, with gloom in his
countenance, was indicating a section where the strands were flattened
and the hemp "heart" protruded in a manner indicating that all was not
well with the six-inch wire hawser. In fact, it rather resembled a
snake that had been run over. The Commander was rubbing his chin
thoughtfully.

The Signal-boy hovered on the outskirts of the conference. Bitter
experience in the past had taught him not to obtrude when deep called
thus to deep.

"We must cut it where it's nipped, and put a splice in it, Mr.
Cassidy," the Commander was saying, and turned his head.

The boy seized the opportunity to thrust the pad within range of the
Commander's vision, one eye cocked on his face to note the effect of
this momentous communication. He half expected that the Commander
would throw his cap in the air and shout "Hurrah!"

The Commander read it unmoved. "Show it to the Officer of the Watch,"
he said, and turned again to the wire hawser. Truly a man of iron,
reflected the Signal-boy as he saluted and ran aft in search of the
Officer of the Watch.

The Officer of the Watch received the intelligence with almost equal
unconcern, but when the boy had departed out of earshot he said
something in an undertone and added: "Just my blooming luck." Then,
raising his voice, he shouted: "Quartermaster! Picket-boat alongside
at three-thirty for officers."

A head emerged from the hood of the after turret. The Gunnery
Lieutenant, wearing over-alls, a streak of dirt running diagonally down
one cheek, emerged and drew off a greasy glove to wipe his face.

"Did I hear you say anything about a seven-bell boat?"

The Officer of the Watch nodded. "There's leave from three-thirty to
seven p.m. It's three o'clock now, so I advise you to smack it about
and clean if you're going ashore."

The Gunnery Lieutenant slid gracefully down the sloping shield of the
turret. Fortunately, the consideration of paint-work vanished with the
red dawn of August 5th, 1914.

"My word!" he said, staring towards the distant town. "My missus----"
and vanished down the hatchway.

In the meanwhile the Signal-boy had descended to the wardroom, where he
swiftly pinned the signal on to the notice board. The occupants of the
arm-chairs and settee followed his movements with drowsy interest.

The Young Doctor rose and walked to the notice board.

"Snooks!" he ejaculated. "Leave!" And, with a glance at the clock,
hurried out of the mess.

The remainder of his messmates sat up with excitement.

"What time?"

"When till?"

"What about a boat?"

The head of the Officer of the Watch appeared through the open skylight
overhead. "Wake up, you Weary Willies. There's a boat to the beach at
seven-bells."

"Come along, chaps," snorted the Major of Marines. "_Allons nous
shifter_--let us shift." And he, too, made tracks for his cabin,
followed by everybody who could be spared by "the exigencies of the
service" to experience for three blessed hours the joys of the land.

The shrill voices of the Midshipmen at their toilet in the after flat
proclaimed that the precious moments were flying. Three were
simultaneously performing their ablutions in one basin, the supply of
water to the bathroom having failed with a suddenness that could only
be attributed to the malignant agency of the Captain of the Hold.

Another burrowed feverishly in the depths of his sea-chest, presenting
to the flat much the same appearance as a terrier does when busy at a
rabbit-hole. He emerged flushed but triumphant with a limp garment in
his grasp. "I knew I had a clean shirt," he confided to his neighbour.
"I told my servant so a fortnight ago. He swore that every one I
possessed had been left behind in the wash at Malta."

His neighbour made no reply, being in the throes of buttoning a collar
which fitted him admirably at Osborne College, but which somehow had
lately exhibited an obstinate determination to meet no more round his
neck. However, physical strength achieved the miracle, and he breathed
deeply. "I shouldn't sweat to shift your shirt," he consoled. "It
looks all right. Turn the cuffs up."

"I've turned them up three times already," replied the excavator,
donning his find. "There are limits."

Another Midshipman came across the crowded flat and calmly rummaged in
the open till of the speaker's sea-chest. "Where's your hair juice?
All right, I've got it." He anointed himself generously with a
mysterious green fluid out of a bottle. "My people are staying at a
pub ashore here. Will you come and have tea, Jaggers? Kedgeree's
coming, too."

The owner of the green unguent, who was feverishly dusting his boots
with a pyjama jacket, signified his pleasure in accepting the
invitation.

The sentry on the aft-deck stepped to the head of the ladder with a
bellows, on the mouth of which a small fog-horn was fitted, and gave a
loud blast. It was the customary warning that the officers' boat would
be alongside in five minutes.

The Assistant Clerk ran distractedly for the ladder.

"There's one 'G'! Have I got time to borrow five bob from the messman
before the boat shoves off?"

"You might borrow five bob for me while you're about it," shouted a
belated Engineroom Watchkeeper, struggling into his clothes.

"And me, too," called another. "Buck up, for the Lord's sake, and
we'll have poached eggs for tea."

"And cherry jam," supplemented another visionary voluptuously, "and
radishes."

Here a figure, who had been sitting on the lid of his chest swinging
his legs, tilted his cap on to the back of his head with a snort that
suggested outlawry and defiance to the world at large.

"Hallo!" exclaimed a neighbour, wielding a clothes-brush with energy.
"What's up? Aren't you coming ashore? It isn't your First Dog, is it?"

The outlaw shook his head. "No; my leave's jambed. You know that
beastly six-inch wire hawser? We were bringing it to the after capstan
yesterday, and the Commander----"

The aft-deck sentry gave two blasts on his fog-horn. Chest lids
banged, keys rattled.

"Jolly rough luck!" commiserated his friend, and joined the stampede
for the quarterdeck.

In thirty seconds the flat was deserted save for the disconsolate
figure swinging his legs. Presently he climbed down from his chest and
wended his way by devious and stealthy routes to the after
conning-tower, where he smoked a surreptitious cigarette in defiance of
the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions (his age being
sixteen) and felt better.

In the meanwhile the picket-boat was driving her way shoreward with the
emancipated members of Wardroom and Gunroom clustered on top of the
cabin and in the stern sheets.

"Bunje," said the First Lieutenant, "come to the club and have tea and
play 'pills' afterwards?"

The Indiarubber Man shook his head. "No, thanks; I'm afraid I--I've
got something else to do."

The Paymaster contemplated him thoughtfully. "Bunje, my lad, the
darkest suspicions fill my breast. Wherefore these carefully creased
trousers, this liberal display of fine linen and flashing cuff-links
withal? Our Sunday monkey-jacket, too. Can it be----? No." He
appealed to the occupants of the stern sheets: "Don't tell me the lad
is going poodle-faking!"[1]

"His hands are warm and moist," confirmed one of the Watchkeepers. "He
wipes them furtively on the slack of his trousers in frightened
anticipation."

The Indiarubber Man reddened. "You silly asses!"

The Junior Watchkeeper squirmed with delight. "He is--he _is_! He's
going poodle-faking. And in war time, too! You dog, Bunje!"

"Can't a fellow know people ashore without a lot of untutored clowns
trying to be funny about it?" demanded the victim.

"It's the spring," said the Young Doctor. "Bunje's young fancy is
lightly turning--yes, it is." The Surgeon sniffed the air judicially.
"The bay rum upon your hair proclaims it. Ah, me! The heyday of
youth!" He sighed. "'Time was when love and I were well acquainted.'"

"That's a fact," retorted the Indiarubber Man bitterly. "But you
needn't brag about it. I haven't been shipmates with you for four
years for nothing. There's nothing you can tell me about your hideous
past that I don't know already."

The picket-boat slid alongside the landing place and went astern.

The Engineer Commander made his way towards the little cabin. As the
senior officer of the party, his was the privilege of embarking last
and disembarking first. "Don't wait for me," he said. "Unstow! I've
got to get my golf-clubs."

The Indiarubber Man took him at his word. "Right. I'll carry on, if I
may." He leaped ashore, and set off with long strides in the direction
of the town.

The First Lieutenant gazed after him. There was a general feeling that
the Indiarubber Man had suddenly assumed an unfamiliar and inexplicable
role. "Now, what the devil is he up to, I wonder?"

The others, mystified, shook their heads.



2

The mothers of Midshipmen have a means of scenting the whereabouts of a
fleet that mere censorship of letters cannot balk. There were at least
half a dozen mothers in the _foyer_ of the big, garish hotel on the
sea-front. Some were tete-a-tete with their sons in snug, upholstered
corners, learning aspects of naval warfare that no historian will ever
record. Others presided over heavily laden tea-tables at which their
sons and their sons' more intimate friends were dealing with eggs and
buttered toast, marmalade, watercress, plum-cake, and toasted scones in
a manner which convinced their half-alarmed relatives that famine must
have stalked the British Navy ever since the War started.

"We shall never have time," said one mother, "to hear all you have to
tell, dear."

"There's really nothing very much to tell you about, mother. Can I
order some more jam? And Jaggers could scoff some more eggs, couldn't
you, Jag? Waiter, two more poached eggs and some more strawberry jam.
You see, dear, we haven't done anything exciting yet. That's all been
the luck of the battle-cruisers and destroyers. They've had a topping
rag--three of our term have been wounded already. But we aren't
allowed to gas about what we're going to do--why, that waiter might be
a German spy, for all we know."

"Didn't know the Admiral confided his plans for the future to
Midshipmen," commented an amused father, who had run down from the War
Office for the day.

"He doesn't _confide_ them," admitted another, "but my chest is in the
flat outside his steward's cabin, and, of course, _he_ hears an awful
lot."

"But, Georgie, tell us about your life. Do you get enough sleep?"
queried his mother.

"Rather," replied her son, whose horizon three months before had been
bounded by the playing fields of Dartmouth College, where the
dormitories are maintained at an even temperature by costly and
hygienic methods. "We're in four watches, you know--we get one night
in in four. At sea we sleep at our guns. I've got one of the
six-inch, and we get up quite a good fug in our casemate at night.
Jaggers dosses in the after-control. It's a bit breezy up there, isn't
it, Old Bird?"

The Old Bird signified that the rigours of Arctic exploration were as
nothing to what he had undergone.

"And your swimming-jacket--the one Aunt Jessie sent you? The outfitter
said it was quite comfortable to wear. I hope you always do wear it at
sea, in case--in case you should ever need it."

Her son chuckled. "The pneumatic one? Well, we liked it awfully when
it came, and we blew it up; and then we thought we'd have a bit of
scrum practice one night after dinner, and we rolled it up for a ball,
and--and the half wasn't nippy enough in getting it away to the
three-quarters, and somehow or another it got punctured. But I wear it
all right, mother. It's jolly warm at nights."

"And do you like your officers--is the Captain kind to you all?"

The boy stirred his tea thoughtfully.

"They're a topping lot. One has got the Humane Society's gold medal
for jumping on top of a shark at Perim when it was just going to collar
a fellow bathing--you'd never think it to look at him. There's another
we call the Indiarubber Man, who takes us at physical drill every
morning. He's frightfully strong, and they say he licked the Japanese
ju-jitsu man they had at the School of Physical Training. And, of
course, there's old Beggs. You know, he was captain of
England--Rugger--some years ago. He's broken his nose three
times. . . ."

"We all skylark together in the dog-watches," added another. "We put a
seining-net round the quarter-deck, and play cricket or deck hockey
every evening after tea to keep fit."

"And they come into the gun-room when we have a sing-song on guest
nights, and kick up a frightful shine. Oh, they're an awful fine lot."

"The Captain is a topper, too. He has us to breakfast in turns."

A third took up the epic. If you have ever heard schoolboys vie with
each other to laud and honour the glory of their own particular House
among strangers in a strange land, you can imagine much that cannot be
conveyed with the pen. There were similar tea parties in various
corners of the hotel and in lodgings along the sea-front, but the
conversation at all of them ran on much the same lines, and this may be
considered a fair sample of the majority.

"He gives a lecture every few days showing what is going on at the
front. His brother's a General, and, of course, he gets any amount of
tips from him. The brother of one of our Snotties--Karrard--was killed
at Mons, and the Captain sent for Karrard (who's rather a kid and felt
it awfully) and showed him a letter from the General about Karrard's
brother--he had seen him killed--which bucked Karrard up tremendously.
In fact, he rather puts on side now, because he's the only one in the
gun-room who has lost a brother."

"And you don't wish you were back at Dartmouth again?"

"Dartmouth!" The speaker's voice was almost scornful. "Why, mother.
Kedgeree here would have got his First Eleven cap this term if we'd
stayed, and even he----"

A small midshipman with remarkable steel-grey eyes, who had not
hitherto spoken much, shook his head emphatically and flushed at
hearing his nickname pronounced in open conversation ashore. "We were
treated like kids there," he explained. "But now----" He jerked his
head towards the north with that unfailing sense of the cardinal points
of the compass which a seaman acquires in earliest youth, or not at
all. Somewhere in that direction the German fleet was presumed to be
skulking. "It's different," he ended a little lamely.

Suddenly the son leaned forward and pressed his mother's knee under the
table. A tall, sinewy Engineer Commander was walking across the
_foyer_ on his way to the billiard room.

"There, mother, that's old Beggs. He had our term at Osborne. Did you
see his nose? . . . Captain of England!" . . . The speaker broke off
and lifted his head, listening.

Through the doorway opening on to the sea-front there drifted a faint
sound, the silvery note of a distant bugle.

"Hush!" said one of the others, raising a warning hand. "Listen!"



3

At the window of one of the detached houses in the residential part of
the town a small Naval Cadet stood with his nose flattened against the
window-pane.

"I say, Betty," he ejaculated presently, "they're giving leave to the
Fleet. I can see crowds of officers coming ashore."

His sister continued to knit industriously. "Well, I don't suppose any
of them are coming here. You needn't get so excited."

Her brother watched the uniformed figures filing along the distant road
from the landing place. "I hope this war goes on for another couple of
years," he sighed.

"Joe! You mustn't say such dreadful things. You don't know what
you're talking about."

"That's all jolly fine, but you haven't got to do another year at
Osborne---- I say, Betty, one of them _is_ coming here! How jolly
exciting! He's coming up the avenue now. He's got red hair. . . . I
believe--yes, it's--what was the name of that Lieutenant at Jack's
wedding, d'you remember? The funny man. He made you giggle all the
time."

For a moment the knitting appeared to demand his sister's undivided
attention; she bent her head over it. "That was a long time
ago--before I put my hair up. I'm sure I didn't giggle either. Oh,
yes, I think I remember who you mean. Is he coming here? I
wonder--come away from the window, Joe!"

The front door bell rang in a distant part of the house; she dropped
her knitting on a small side table and walked quietly out of the room.
"I'll tell mother," she said as she went out.

"You needn't trouble to do that," said Joe. "She's out--I thought you
knew." But the door had closed.

A moment later the Indiarubber Man was ushered in. The two
representatives of His Majesty's Navy shook hands. "I recognised you
from your photograph," said the host. "D'you remember the wedding
group? You were a groomsman when Jack and Milly were married, weren't
you?"

"I was," replied the Indiarubber Man. "I performed a number of menial
offices that day. But were you there? I don't seem to remember you."

Joe shook his head. "No, I had mumps. Wasn't it rot? It must have
been an awful good rag. But I remember about you because Betty told me
afterwards--she's my sister, you know. She said you were--oh, here she
is."

Betty entered. She cast one swift glance at her brother that might
have been intended to convey interrogation or admonition, or both, and
then greeted the Indiarubber Man with friendly composure. "How nice of
you to come and see us! Mother is out, I'm afraid, but she will
probably be in presently. Do sit down. Yes, of course I remember
you--Joe, ring the bell, and we'll have tea."

"We were 'opposite numbers' at your brother's wedding," said the
Indiarubber Man, taking a seat, and nervously hitching up the legs of
his trousers to an unnecessary extent.