CHAPTER XVA Peaceful MonthThe day after theTriumphhad been torpedoed, and two days before theMajesticmet the same fate, theAchatesleft Mudros for the island of Mytilene, zigzagging all the way, because Mytilene lay at the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, and Smyrna harboured several submarines which might possibly be in wait for her.A grand day it was, the sun shining out of an almost cloudless sky, the sea bluer than the sky, and ruffled pleasantly by a gentle breeze. In the evening she passed through a narrow channel between tree-clad heights, and anchored in the land-locked harbour.For the last month it had not been possible to go on deck without seeing a gun fired or a shell burst. Down below, in cabin, ward-room, or gun-room, you did escape the sight of them—and the sight of those high explosives bursting among men and horses on the beaches can never be forgotten—but you could not escape the sound of them. Each time the air, coming through scuttle, doorway, skylight, or hatchway, thudded against your ears, the shock, big or little, from far or near, made you wince, and made your mind stop momentarily to picture the actual explosion; your ears tingled, alert and braced, to receive the next shock, until the constant, expectant waiting and wincing became a strain which affected many people, even those who were not then exposed to personal danger. It made them irritable or taciturn, or brought about little alterations of character and disposition, not sufficiently definite, perhaps, to state in words, but real enough to notice at the time. In addition, the constant sight of trawlers and boats full of wounded, passing theAchateson their way to hospital ships, had a constant depressing effect, not perhaps fully realized at the moment.Later, when there came the more imminent personal danger from submarine attack, culminating in the capsizing of two battleships, torpedoed in broad daylight and in full view of thousands, in circumstances which showed how impossible it was, under those conditions of service, to meet submarine attack successfully, the effect of the strain became more pronounced.Above all, there lacked the success of the expedition, which alone could act as an antidote to the strain.When, therefore, theAchateswound her way through the tortuous channel into Ieros harbour, her yards almost touching the thick brushwood which clothed the cliffs, and these cliffs, shutting out all sight of the sea, opened out to give a view of an inland lake surrounded by olive-clad hills fading away in the distance, and glowing at the warm touch of the evening sun, their many-tinted green slopes reflected in its placid waters; of villages, quiet little peaceful villages, with the peasants clustering along the water's edge as the ship floated past, or white-sailed boats crowded with smiling, gaily-welcoming Greek men and women, it seemed as though a magician's wand had suddenly guided and wafted her into some fairy harbour, where war and the brutalities of bloodshed could never have been known and would never dare to intrude.Officers and men stood, drinking in, in their various ways, the beauty, the peace, and the overwhelming quietness of it all."Old 'Gallipoli Bill' will drop one among those people in a moment; they're exposing themselves terribly," the Hun grinned."They've got 'dug-outs' all handy, somewhere close by; you bet they have!" Rawlins said."I wonder how our three chaps are getting on at 'W' beach;" said the Sub, smacking the open-mouthed and staring China Doll on his back, so that his doll's eyes nearly fell out. "My jumping Jimmy, what a place! My blessed stars! What a bathe we'll have when we've dropped the 'killick'. I'll ask the Commander," and stalked away to find him, banging every member of the Honourable Mess he met with his fist, with shouts of "My jumping Jupiter, what a place!" The Pimple pointed out to the China Doll one of the boats they passed. Half full of oranges and bananas it was; and their mouths watered and their eyes brightened as they thought of the feast they would have if it came alongside and the ward-room messman did not buy them all.The ship slowly turned round another bluff, and a collier with two English submarines lying alongside her came into view."They rather spoil the picture," Uncle Podger said, "but we needn't look at 'em."Then theAchateslet go her anchor, the cable rattled noisily, stopped, and the ship lay still.A quarter of an hour later, "hands to bathe" was "piped", and in less than ten minutes, at least five hundred officers and men were bobbing in the water alongside, and the air was alive with their cheery shouts. The men dived off the booms, the nettings, out of the gangways, or climbed down her sides; the water for'ard was so thick with black heads and white shoulders, that when another man and yet another, a constant stream of them, dived in, one could not help wondering if there was a clear space for them to dive into, though the others always did manage to "open out" and let the newcomer in without accident.Aft, some of the Honourable Mess were diving off the top of the accommodation ladder; others, the more cautious ones, preferred to drop off the foot of it. The Hun went off the top, so did Rawlins. Uncle Podger walked sedately down the ladder, turned a back somersault, and bobbed up again, in time to see the Pimple make a show of diving off the top, decide that it was too high, and walk down it. The China Doll, trying to attract attention, wouldn't even dive from the foot of the ladder. "You'll promise not to duck me, won't you?" he squeaked, and lowered himself down, holding on to a rope. The Sub, with his gnarled muscles showing under his bathing dress, and disdaining the twenty-foot dive from the ladder top, climbed to the edge of the after bridge with a water polo ball under his arm, threw it far out from the ship, climbed the rails, balanced himself for a moment, roared out "Look out, you jumping shrimps!" and dived forty feet into the water, cutting it like a knife, and coming to the surface some thirty yards farther away. The more sedate ward-room officers, disrobing in their cabins, heard his stentorian, roaring shouts of, "My jumping Jimmies! What a place!" Presently they too appeared on deck, twisting their towels round the quarter-deck rails before they joined the merry splashing throng; the little Padre had his swimming-belt round his chest, and his everlasting pipe in his mouth. The Hun and Uncle Podger, seeing him come down the ladder, winked at each other, and waited to see what would happen when he jumped into the water; but were disappointed, for he lowered himself carefully; the swimming-belt kept his head well above water, and he paddled about, still smoking.Around and among all these swimmers paddled the Greeks in their quaint, picturesque boats, watching them and smiling with amusement.The Hun and Rawlins, slightly out of breath, after having disappeared for a few brief moments below the surface of the water in their efforts to decide which had ducked the other, caught hold of the stern of a boat which happened to be near, and drawing themselves half out of the water, grinned happily at a bevy of plump young damsels sitting there. The girls, laughing merrily, gave them each an orange; whereupon they slipped back into the water and proceeded to eat them. But the sight of these two lying placidly on their backs and devouring their oranges was too much for the others. Uncle Podger with his trudgeon stroke reached the unsuspecting Rawlins first, seized his orange, ducked him, and dived, only to come up among the enemy—the Pimple, the Sub, and the outraged Rawlins. The War Baby threw himself into the mêlée; the Hun, swallowing the rest of his orange, joined in too; and the life of Uncle Podger was only saved by a shower of oranges, and peals of girlish laughter from the boat.Securing their prizes they shouted, "Thanks, awfully! Merci beaucoup!" hoping that they might understand French; and the War Baby, who knew a few words of Spanish, called out, "Gratia! Señoritas!" hoping they could understand that. But language did not matter; they knew what was meant to be expressed, and shrieked with laughter.The Fleet-Paymaster, puffing along by the side of Dr. Gordon, who looked exactly like a walrus in the water, grunted out: "We're too old, I suppose, for 'em to chuck oranges at us? Let's try!"And they did; and each got his orange, and his shriek of laughter when he tried to eat it without spoiling the taste with sea water.All this time the China Doll, who could only swim a few strokes, did not venture far from the foot of the ladder, very miserable that everybody seemed to have forgotten him, and knowing that if he did venture out among the others he would certainly be ducked—which he hated—and very probably drowned.Up on deck, Captain Macfarlane, grimly looking on, met the Gunnery-Lieutenant coming up from performing his trick of tossing a hoop off the top of the ladder, and then diving through it as it lay on the surface of the water—he had done this about ten times already, as if he were carrying out some drill or religious exercise."Mr. Gunnery-Lieutenant," Captain Macfarlane said, tugging thoughtfully at his beard; "the Great War is still on, is it not?" and the startled Gunnery-Lieutenant, the hoop in one hand, the other raised to his dripping hair in wild salute, replied: "Oh! Yes, sir! As far as I know, sir!" and, later on, gave it as his opinion that "the Skipper must be going off his head".Presently the bugle sounded the "retire", and everyone splashed back to the ship, the members of the Honourable Mess going down to the half-deck, chattering like magpies round the Pink Rat's cot whilst they rubbed themselves down and dressed."I never got an orange. I do think you chaps might have brought me one," the China Doll squeaked, a little upset because no one had taken any notice of him; so they chased him round the half-deck with their wet towels, till he shrieked for mercy and was happy again.Then they rushed up on deck, because the Hun and Bubbles meant to ask those girls on board to show them the holes made by the Smyrna shells, as some little "return" for the oranges.The others had "dared" them to do this; and they would have asked them, but were too late—their boat had paddled back to the village.What a dinner they had that night!The miserable little messman, for once, had risen to the occasion, and bought potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, and onions, and fruit—oranges and bananas—which of course were "extras"."I'm jolly sorry that the other three aren't here," Uncle Podger remarked, as he skinned his fourth orange. "Wouldn't old Bubbles have loved them? Wouldn't he have been pretty to watch?"On these occasions, when "extras" had been provided, a comic scene always followed in the pantry. In order that the messman could know who devoured his precious "extras", and could put the names down in his book, he had to keep a very smart "look-out" through the sliding doors in the pantry bulkhead; and Barnes, who hated him like poison, would block one and then the other with his huge head and shoulders, so that he should not see which of the "young gen'l'men" had taken an orange or banana. As Uncle Podger always said on such occasions: "It was pretty to watch him and Barnes dodging each other backwards and forwards, from side to side."Barnes would slide across one of the trap-doors, then block up the other; across would dart the little messman, slide back the one which had just been closed, and peep through it. Bang would go the other, and Barnes would be seen pushing the messman aside, muttering "'Ere you; you're getting in the way, you are", reaching through, and making pretence of drawing back any dirty plates or dishes which stood on the sideboard. And so this game went on; whilst the Pimple and the China Doll, keeping their eyes about them, would seize fruit at the most favourable moment, drop the skins on someone else's plate if possible, and if not, throw them far under the table.Barnes, afterwards, when he cleared the table and swept up the deck, would do it to a muttered accompaniment of: "That nawsty little beggar, a-countin' up and a-puttin' down everythink of 'is beastly hextras. 'Umph!" (bang would go the broom against a leg of the table). "And who eats 'em? 'Umph! the nawsty, slimy toad. I'll learn 'im, me as what 'as a pub of 'is own at 'ome—or 'ad, afore this 'ere war a-started."The days which followed were days of real delight, never to be forgotten by the Honourable Mess, who revelled in them and in the noiseless, peaceful nights when they slept on the quarter-deck, and woke to slip off their pyjamas and plunge over the side into the transparent water.In a week's time, very early one morning, up the harbour came the grey picket-boat with the Orphan; behind her followed Trawler No. 370 with Bubbles, the Lamp-post, and all that was left of their beach party."Come along, you chaps!" called Uncle Podger, waving his towel, when at last they came aboard. "My! but you do look scarecrows! Off with your grubby clothes and flop in. It's simply splendid!" They did flop in; and that morning's bathe, when the Honourable Mess was once more united, was a memorable one, especially to the "War Baby"—the officer of the watch—who could not make them come out of the water until long after the regulation time, and until the Commander had twice sent for him to know why he didn't stop that confounded noise round the foot of the ladder.They arranged a grand picnic next day, and hired two of the little Greek sailing-boats which ferried people across from one side of the harbour to the other. They bought a basketful of oranges from the Greek boats alongside—it was cheaper to do this than to get them through the messman—they took a kettle of water, tins of jam, milk, and butter, loaves of bread; and away they went, with a merry breeze, the whole crowd of them, the Sub, Uncle Podger, the Orphan, Rawlins, and Bubbles in one, the Lamp-post and the remainder in the other. They raced the two boats to a tiny island at the mouth of the entrance of the harbour, beached them without rubbing off much paint, stripped, and larked in the water and out of it, on the grass under some trees.Then the China Doll and the Pimple were appointed "cooks of the mess", and wandered off to collect driftwood to make a fire on the beach, whilst the others stretched themselves on the grass to dry themselves until they were too hot, then plunged in again till they were cool. By the time the fire had begun to crackle famously the Sub, Uncle Podger, and two of the snotties—the Lamp-post and Bubbles, who were over eighteen years old—had found their pipes, lighted them, and were puffing away luxuriously. The Sub, whose heart warmed benevolently within him, called out: "Carry on smoking, my bouncing beauties—every mother's son of you—so long as you aren't sick!" So off dashed the others to their clothes, and produced the well-worn pipes which they had brought with them, hoping that the Sub would be in a good temper. Even the China Doll produced a cigarette case, and made a great fuss of lighting a "Virginian", puffing at it like a girl, then holding it in his fingers because the smoke made his eyes water. "No 'stinkers'! No 'gaspers' here! Phew. What a horrible smell!" the others shouted. The Orphan pretended to faint, Bubbles threw himself down in the grass and groaned."I haven't any 'Gyppies'," pleaded the Assistant Clerk. "You smoke 'stinkers' yourselves sometimes."Only on board, China Doll, to drown the smell of the gun-room, when you're in it," Bubbles gurgled. "Get to leeward, you little stink-pot!" The Pimple and Rawlins made a rush for him; he dodged them, and waded into the water."Come back!" they shouted as they followed him. "We're getting wet; we can't swim a stroke," and drove him out until only his head and neck were above the water. They made him smoke it there, throwing clods of earth at him whenever he attempted to take it out of his mouth to prevent his eyes watering."Nice, quiet, gentlemanly lads," said Uncle Podger from the grass. "Very pretty to watch, aren't they?"But the Pimple—earnestly occupied in keeping the China Doll and the "overpowering" smell of his tiny cigarette from destroying the aroma from nine fairly foul pipes loaded with "ship's" tobacco—and the China Doll thus engaged, with only his head above water, were neglecting their duty as cooks to the Honourable Mess. The kettle was trying to lift off its lid, and threatened to fall over.It was saved just in time, and the Pimple, violently seized by the Hun and Rawlins, escorted back to his duties, whilst the China Doll waded out with his cigarette damped and "dead".The Sub, Uncle Podger, and the Lamp-post lay and smoked, and watched the others carrying all the paraphernalia of tea from the two boats to a little place under a shady tree, cutting slices of bread, and opening the tins of milk, butter, and jam."Isn't this an extraordinary change from ten days ago?" said Uncle Podger presently, with a great sigh of enjoyment. "The whole place looks as if it had never even heard of such a thing as war.""It may look like it, Uncle, but you'd be nearer the mark if you said that it had never really known peace," the Lamp-post said. "Why, Mytilene, and the other islands round about here, have seen fighting all through history—history was made in these parts—right away from the year one—five hundred years before it, too, and they haven't known peace—not for any length of time—ever since. The Phoenicians, Athenians, Carthaginians, Romans, Persians, Syrians, Turks, and Greeks—they've all had a "go" at it—landed and killed the men, garrisoned the place for a few years, till they were "booted" out or killed by the next little lot to come along."I was only asking the Interpreter[#] this morning, and he told me that there are villages up there" (and the Lamp-post pointed across the harbour to the slopes of the hills) "which are full of Turks, and they daren't come down to the Greek villages except in numbers and in the daylight—nor dare the Greeks go up to them—for fear of being killed. He told me that the Greeks and Turks are always fighting on these islands, and on the mainland right along the coast to Smyrna. The Greek chaps get on their nerves; they work hard, are smarter business men, lend money, which makes them very unpopular; and there are so many of them in the coast towns that the Turks are really frightened of them, so they kill them whenever they get a comfortable opportunity and can raise the energy. Hereditary enemies they are, and vendettas go on just as they have done for centuries; but the Turk has generally got an old rifle, of sorts, so it's the Greek who gets killed in the long run.[#] TheAchateshad a Syrian interpreter on board."You see," went on the Lamp-post, "all the Turkish soldiers who used to keep the peace—sometimes—in the villages and small towns have been withdrawn to Smyrna or the Dardanelles, and now they are away the Turks and Greeks are at each other's throats hammer and tongs. The Interpreter told me that there are more than thirty thousand refugees from the coast in Mytilene alone, and thousands more are trying to escape before they are killed.""That's why the Greeks here are giving the Turks in the hills such a rotten time, I suppose?" the Sub asked."It rather spoils the picture," Uncle Podger said; "I wish you hadn't told us.""Let us go, some day, and see the castle at Mytilene," the Lamp-post suggested. "The Interpreter says that it was started five hundred years B.C.—by the Phoenicians or someone like them, and has been added on to by everybody else ever since. He says you can see some parts which are Roman and some which the Persians built. I'm frightfully keen on things like that," he added apologetically:"Come along, you chaps! Everything's ready!" the others shouted, carrying up the kettle of boiling water.A grand tea they had, although the Orphan upset a good deal of the only tin of milk over himself. That did not matter much, for they managed to save most of it with spoons."Pass the Orphan, please," one or other would say, "I want some more milk;" and whoever was sitting next to him, Bubbles or Rawlins, would sing "He's too heavy," and pretend to scrape more milk off his bathing-suit.The China Doll and the Pimple, however, felt that there were two things lacking to make the picnic a complete success—sardines and some tinned sausages to cook over the fire; but, of course—and they sighed heavily—the gun-room store was empty.The China Doll, presently, blinked and blushed, and suggested that they should ask the War Baby to the next picnic. There was a shout of "He's all right, but he doesn't belong to the gun-room—this is a gun-room picnic.""But, if he came, he might bring some sardines and 'bangers'. I know they have some in the ward-room—I asked their messman.""You're a perfect marvel, China Doll; fancy thinking all that out in your noddle!" the Pimple said admiringly. "I votes we do ask him."Then the Orphan, catching sight of the wet remains of that "Virginian" cigarette lying in the grass, pretended to faint; and when he'd been revived by a convenient twig twirled round inside his nose, groaned: "I'm awfully sorry, you chaps, but didn't you notice that awful smell again," and pointed to that unhappy cigarette end."Don't be silly," the China Doll kept on saying, blushing and trying to hide it; but they sent him twenty yards along the beach, made him scrape with his hands a hole, a foot deep, in the muddy sand, and bury it there. "You've eaten all the oranges," he almost "blubbed" when he returned. "My back's all sunburnt, and my feet are tingling. I've been treading on something which hurts."They threw some oranges at him and made him happy, but he kept on looking at the soles of his feet."Well, if you will tread on sea-urchins' eggs you can't expect anything else," the Lamp-post said, having a look at them himself."Lend us a knife, somebody; he's got thirty or forty of the spikes in his feet." But the pain of having them extracted with a pocket-knife was too much for the Assistant Clerk; he said he'd get Dr. Gordon to take them out when they went back to the ship. He ate his oranges, and looked rather miserable whilst he dressed, slowly.The others played the newly invented "submarine game", standing in a ring with the water up to their chins, their legs wide apart, and stones in their hands; whilst the Orphan, who took the part of a submarine, started in the middle, dived, and had not to come to the surface before he had torpedoed somebody by swimming between his legs. If any part of him showed up above the surface, or he came up to breathe, the others threw stones at him; and if he was hit he had lost, and started again. The torpedoed one had to change places with the "submarine"; and when the fat Bubbles was at last torpedoed and had to take this leading part, you can imagine that parts of him showed very often, and he laughed so much that he couldn't keep his head under for ten seconds at a time."Very pretty to watch," remarked Uncle Podger. Then they all scrambled out, dried themselves in the sun, dressed; stowed away all the tea "gear" in the boats—the kettle, teacups, knives, spoons, and plates; carried the China Doll down to the boat to the tune of "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave"; had a search for a missing spoon; found it; shoved off, and raced back to the ship, the losing boat's crew to pay for the oranges."Off you go to Dr. Gordon," the Sub told the China Doll, "and just pretend those feet of yours don't hurt you. If you go limping about looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, you won't get the kind of sympathy you want—not from me!""That youth behaves like a little girl. He always wants people to take notice of him and pet him. Whatever will he be like when he grows up?" the Sub said afterwards to Uncle Podger."A good beating twice a week would make a man of him," advised the Clerk. "He is a good enough little chap, but he does want beating.""I'll see what can be done," answered the Sub thoughtfully.At that time the Greek population was extremely polite, and glad to see British Naval uniforms. Everyone who passed took off his hat, the girls were all smiles, and the children flocked round, holding out flowers, though their homage was slightly diminished by insistent demands for "one pen-ny". In fact, they became a beastly nuisance after a while.Now you must understand that theAchateshad not been sent to Ieros for the purpose of providing entertainment for the gun-room officers, but to superintend the blockade of Smyrna. To make this blockade effective, she had under her orders two mine-layers, some destroyers, and some submarines. These were always going out or coming in through the picturesque entrance, and the submarine off duty used to make fast alongside theAchates. Naturally she proved a great attraction to the gun-room officers, who used to bother the lives out of the sub-lieutenants—seconds in command—to show them round.One of these, a cheery sportsman, burst out with: "Oh, hang it all! Come along, every one of you; four at a time, and I'll work through the whole blooming Mess and get it over and done with."He did get it 'over', though the last four, the China Doll among them, were rather a trial."But if," bleated the Assistant Clerk, standing on the plates below the open conning-tower, "if you did happen to dive when the lid was open, wouldn't the water come in?"There was a roar of laughter from the others (which he wanted); but the second in command, whose patience had not yet quite vanished, said: "Oh, that's nothing! that often happens. We just stand down here, puff out our cheeks, and blow up through the conning-tower—blow very hard until someone climbs up and puts the lid on again.""Is that really true?" gasped the China Doll, not quite certain whether he was being made a fool.Much as the officers appreciated the change of scene at Ieros, the men appreciated it still more. All except the beach party and the boats' crews (a very small proportion) had been cooped up in the noisy, crowded mess-decks ever since leaving Port Said. They to could now go ashore occasionally; twice a day they could jump overboard and swim in the glorious, buoyant water alongside, and once a week route marches took place early in the morning, before the sun became too hot. These route marches, however, were not very popular.You may be certain that the first time Fletcher the stoker went ashore, he took "Kaiser Bill" with him."You should have seen him nipping off the bits of grass," he told the Orphan later on; "he did enjoy himself, sir!"Whilst here, the wireless press news came each morning, and was not reassuring, for the Germans had commenced their advance through Galicia and into Poland, and nothing seemed able to stop them. News, too, from the Peninsula was bad—nearly a thousand men had been lost when the transportRoyal Edwardwas sunk by a submarine, and another desperate attempt to capture Krithia had failed with heavy losses.As a set-off against all these dismal tales there were rumours of mysterious monitors on their way out with heavy guns, of reinforcements pouring eastwards, and of the brilliant exploits of our own submarines above the Dardanelles, in the Sea of Marmora.CHAPTER XVIA Glorious PicnicAmong the many queer characters they met at Ieros, none was more quaint than a Mr. M'Andrew, who appeared on the scene in a very smart, rakish little motor yacht with two masts and a gay awning, very reminiscent of the River Thames. Sometimes he appeared flying the Greek flag, and bringing the rubicund military governor of Mytilene to "protest" against the British having done "this" or "that"; with a cheery "Au revoir, Messieurs; à Constantinople!" when he left the ship. At other times he flew the red ensign, and took Captain Macfarlane and the Commander for—as far as the gun-room knew—pleasant little sea trips. Generally he flew no flag at all, and had a most motley crew of picturesque brigands with him.Occasionally the yacht used to lie alongside theAchates, and once or twice the Sub tempted Mr. M'Andrew down into the gun-room to take a glass of iced soda-water, of which he seemed excessively fond. He never touched alcohol.He looked like a retired bank-manager who possibly devoted his leisure to teaching in a Sunday or "ragged" school; he was broad and plump, and perhaps fifty years of age—a most placid-looking individual who always wore an old, but not shabby, blue suit, across the ample waistcoat of which stretched a very thick gold watch and chain. He talked very simply—as if talking was mere waste of breath—and his conversation was chiefly about soda-water and the places he remembered where you could buy it cheapest. He always carried a bunch of raisins in one of his side-pockets, and ate them deliberately, one at a time, whenever he was not smoking a very old briar pipe. The Sub used to ask him to dinner or lunch, but he would refuse. "No, thank you; I never have meals; I just go on munching raisins, and have some bread occasionally."Rumour had told the Honourable Mess that he was really a daring pirate, and led forays against the Turks in the little bays on the mainland—over against Mytilene—though never a word could they get from him about his adventures—about anything, in fact, except soda-water, the merits of dried raisins, and the unfortunate family troubles of his crew.There was one old man who used to sit on the top of the deck-house all day long without saying a word to a soul—a shrunken old Greek with very sharp features and black eyes which seemed to blaze from their deep sockets in the most startling way. When you first saw him he looked a poor, withered, feeble old "dodderer", in spite of the Winchester rifle he always gripped across his knees, and the two filled bandoliers of cartridges round his waist and shoulders; but when he turned to look at you the fierceness of his eyes gave him a most extraordinary appearance. Mr. M'Andrew used to take him down a loaf of bread—provided by the gun-room—pat him on the shoulder, and say a few words to him. "Poor old man!" Mr. M'Andrew told them, "poor old man; he's rather miserable. You see, he and his three sons kept a flock of sheep on some little island near the coast, and the Turks came along, killed his sons and the sheep, and tried to kill him, but he managed to escape. He knew of a crack in a rock, where he hid by day—for three days—crawling out at night to suck the grass and eat berries and leaves, until the Turks gave up looking for him and went away—thought he must be dead. I just happened to be going past there yesterday, saw him wave, and brought him along. He won't be really happy again until he's killed a Turk for each of his sons; he thinks I'll give him the chance soon, so won't leave me.""But shall you?" the Honourable Mess cried with one accord."This really is not at all bad soda-water," Mr. M'Andrew went on in his slow, deliberate way. "I remember when I was in Mexico—no, it reminds me of some I got at Haiti during the revolution, the one of 1901. As I was saying, most of my crew have had a good deal of family trouble one way or the other. There's that little lad who cleans the brasswork. He's the only one left of a family of twelve—father, mother, brothers, and sisters. He hid in the roof when the Turks cut the throats of the others one night. He came along here—no, I don't know how—and wants me to let him have a rifle. Oh, those other chaps; nice, gentle-looking fellows, aren't they? They can't bear the Turks—more or less for the same reason! Some of their relatives have been killed by them, or they've been driven away from the mainland and have nothing left of farms, or shops, or flocks, wives or children. They just come along to me, and I lend them some old rifles I just happen to have.""Have they had a chance of using them?" the snotties asked. "Most of them say they have killed a Turk or two; tell me so when they come first. And I expect they have," went on Mr. M'Andrew in his placid voice, feeling in his pocket for another raisin, and fumbling with the fob of his gold watch-chain.The China Doll, in fact all the gun-room officers, spent a good deal of time watching him moving about among the fierce, black-eyed ruffians, who sat about the deck of the smart little motor-yacht with their bandoliers across their shoulders, their rifles (which Mr. M'Andrew just happened to have lent them) gripped firmly in their hands. They cleaned these interminably, and Mr. M'Andrew walked about and spoke a few words to each, just as you could picture him walking about the boys in his Ragged School in Glasgow, distributing raisins and bread to them just as he might have done to his boys.One day the motor-yacht towed in a clumsy, old, local trading schooner, and anchored her abreast theAchates. She turned out to be a Turkish trading ship which had been becalmed off some Greek village. The Greeks captured her, and had killed at least one of her crew, for his body still lay on the deck, just at the break of the poop."Oh, no!" said Mr. M'Andrew, in genuine surprise, "I had nothing to do with it. I simply found her a derelict and towed her in here. The rest of the crew were probably killed as well, but thrown overboard. Oh, no! that's nothing unusual."The dead Turk was handed over to the authorities, and this lumbering old derelict—she looked at least fifty years old, and was probably a hundred—swung at anchor, close to theAchates, for some days.The Sub had a brilliant "brain wave", and suggested that the gun-room should commission her, one day, for a picnic. Captain Macfarlane gave permission, and then came the question of asking the War Baby. Finally it was unanimously decided to do so; and—"Well", as Bubbles said when he gave the invitation, "if you can bring some sardines and sausages along with you, so much the better." They asked Mr. Meredith, the R.N.R. Lieutenant, and Dr. Gordon, the R.N.V.R. Surgeon, and they asked the Padre too; and, wonderful to relate, that pale-faced little man jumped at the offer—"so long as he could smoke his pipe all the time". The other two of course accepted.After dinner, and after considerable deliberation and more noise, the following notice appeared on the board in the gun-room, under the alarum-clock and the five broken-down wrist-watches:—NOTICETo-morrow, Thursday, 17th June, H.M. Schooner *What's HerName* will be commissioned, at 1.30 p.m.The following appointments have been made to her:—Captain ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Sub.First-class Passenger ... ... ... ... Mr. Meredith.First Lieutenant and Boatswain ... ... The Pink Rat.Officer of Marines and Master-at-Arms The War Baby.Surgeon and Captain of the Main-top ... Dr. Gordon.Chaplain and Official Photographer ... The Rev. Horace Gibbons.Paymaster and Man-of-all-Work ... ... Uncle Podger.Captain of the Fore-top ... ... ... ... The Lamp-post.Foretopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Hun, The Orphan,RawlinsMaintopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Bubbles, The Pimple.Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The China Doll.Second Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... Barnes.The Ancient Mariner ... ... ... ... ... Fletcher the Stoker.The Albatross ... ... ... ... ... ... "Kaiser Bill".*Uniform of the day—Pirate Rig.*Coloured shirt, vest, or jersey.Trousers or shorts.Head-dress—any old thing, as long as it's hideous.Fletcher they asked because they thought the old man would enjoy "a bit of an outing", and "Kaiser Bill" was asked because Fletcher wouldn't enjoy it without him.Barnes, on reading the notice and seeing his own appointment, growled to the messman: "What did them young gen'l'men a-think they was a-doin' of; no, 'e wasn't a-goin' a-sailorisin' in that 'ere craft what murder 'ad been done in, an' the blood-stain on 'er deck an' all—not 'e;" but he changed his mind and went aboard with the Pirate Crew, grinning like a huge schoolboy, with his big basket of food (including the War Baby's sardines and sausages), a bucket of coal and wood to make a fire, a kettle, frying-pan, and a barricoe of water. They climbed aboard, handed up all the "gear" and their towels, and the Sub ran a boat's ensign, which he had borrowed, up to the main masthead."Hello, Doc! brought your Harley Street bag with you, I see." Dr. Gordon laughed. "Yes," he twinkled, "it might be useful." The little Padre, beaming, passed aboard his camera, and climbed up after it.To give you an idea of what this piratical crew looked like, the Orphan wore a red tam-o'-shanter, a yellow-and-black sweater, running "shorts", and gymnasium shoes; and Bubbles had an old kicked-in bowler hat on the back of his head, a green football shirt stuffed into striped bathing drawers, and a pair of sea-boots. He made a picturesque villain, especially when he gripped a captured Turkish bayonet between his teeth and gurgled at the China Doll. Most of them started with naked Turkish bayonets tucked into their belts; but, on Uncle Podger's advice, the Sub sent these back in the boat which had taken them all to theWhat's Her Name. What a funny old-fashioned tub she was, and what stories she could have told of all the years she had been toiling round the coast, among the islands! Her high poop had rails round it, some of the wooden posts beautifully carved, but most of them of rough wood, which showed that she had "come down in the world" in her old age. Between the poop and the still higher fo'c'sle was a "well" deck, with its dark blood-stain, the foremast right amidships, and two big open hatchways, one for'ard and one abaft the mast. Round her fo'c'sle were more rails, some handsomely carved, and on it was an antediluvian windlass for hoisting the anchor. The cable was so rusted and worn that it seemed hardly possible that she could trust to it to ride out even the lightest of gales.Her masts—the lower masts at any rate—and the wide-spreading foreyard were good, sound bits of timber, but the top-masts and fore-tops'l yards looked anything but sound, and her "standing" rigging was so chafed and so badly "set up" that her murdered crew must have been "past masters" in the art of sailing her gently to prevent her masts carrying away."Well, what about it?" the Sub asked Mr. Meredith, with a note of anxiety in his voice. "The breeze is blowing straight out of the harbour; if we run to lee'ard, 'twill be too narrow there to beat back, won't it? We'd best start beating to wind'ard, hadn't we? Look here," he said, "this is rather out of my line; you'd best run the show. You'd better start a mutiny right away."As Mr. Meredith had been in sailing-ships for years, and had been Captain of a full-rigged ship before he was thirty, what he didn't know about sailing wasn't worth knowing. "All right," he smiled, "I'm game;" and seizing the unresisting Sub by the neck of his coloured jersey, hurled him to the deck with fierce yells, and planting one foot on his chest, roared: "Clear lower deck! I'm now the Captain of theWhat's Her Name. Now, you dog," he hissed, as the pirate crew "fell in", "get up and 'fall in' among those rascals; another word and you'll walk the plank, and your bones shall bleach on the coral islands of the Spanish Main. Ha! ha!"The crew, overawed by his daring, and the ferocity of his appearance in a Turkish fez, a red shirt, Sam Browne belt, and khaki riding-breeches, gave three cheers for the new Captain; old Fletcher, who had put "Kaiser Bill" in a safe place where he could not fall down the hatchways, smiled indulgently; and Barnes, trying to enter into the spirit of the game, grumbled in an undertone: "This 'ere 'clear lower deck' and 'fall in' sounds too much like the real thing," and "'e didn't see quite where the fun came in."Then the Lamp-post and his foretopmen, the Hun, the Orphan, and Rawlins, were sent off to clear the jibs and slack away the tops'l gaskets up aloft, and to learn where their proper halyards "ran"; Dr. Gordon, the Pimple, and Bubbles went aft to get the big spanker ready for setting; Barnes and the China Doll were ordered to explore the little cook-house, just under the fo'c'sle; Fletcher had strict orders to keep alight the cigar which the Sub had brought him, and enjoy himself at all costs, and all the others followed Mr. Meredith up on the fo'c'sle to heave up the cable.In five minutes after getting on board, the Orphan and Rawlins were climbing out along the bowsprit and jib-boom, and the Lamp-post and the Hun were up aloft, out along the tops'l-yard, unlashing the gaskets and having a grand time; whilst the crowd on the fo'c'sle began levering round the old horizontal windlass ("wild cat", Mr. Meredith told them, was its proper name) with two long levers, like crowbars, stuck in the holes at each end of it."Let's have a 'chanty'," they called, and the Sub started "We'll rant and we'll roar"; but that did not "fit in", so Mr. Meredith gave them a very old one:"For the times are hard, and the wages low;Leave her, Johnny, leave her.Last night I heard the Old Man say,'Tis time for us to leave her."Whilst he sung the first line to a mournful dirge, they shifted the crowbars into fresh holes, and then, hauling aft on them, joined in the chorus: "Leave her, Johnny, leave her"; shifted them again whilst he chanted the third line, and pulled to "'Tis time for us to leave her"; and each time they pulled the "wild cat" round, the links of the old rusty cable came creaking in through the hawse-pipe, and the metal pawls of the "wild cat" fell, "clink-clank", into the ratchet notches.In a minute everybody had joined in the chanty, the Orphan and Rawlins out beyond the fo'c'sle on the bowsprit, the Lamp-post and the Hun busy aloft, Dr. Gordon and his "hands" aft. The China Doll, dashing up to have one pull at the levers, chipped in too; whilst Barnes bellowed "Leave her, Johnny, leave her" (thinking it was something about a girl) from inside the cook-house; and old Fletcher, busy with his cigar, beamed at everyone through his gold spectacles.Presently Mr. Meredith, leaning over the bows, sang out: "She's 'up and down'. Heave away, my hearties! 'Leave her, Johnny, leave her'," and ran aft to take the wheel; the Orphan and Rawlins, scrambling back on the fo'c'sle, hoisted the jib, and in a few more turns of the "wild cat" the clumsy old "tub" began to pay off before the breeze.Dr. Gordon, the Pink Rat, and the Pimple set the spanker, hauled taut the clumsy "sheet", and the poor oldWhat's Her Nameslowly pushed her way through the water."Stand by aloft!" Mr. Meredith hailed the fore-top. "Let go gaskets! Overhaul buntlines! Come down from aloft! You on deck, there! Sheet home! Sheet home! Haul taut lee braces! Right you are!" as, somewhat confused and muddled, the foretopmen managed at last to set that tops'l. "Belay all!"Mr. Meredith made a wry face. "She won't reach to wind'ard much, Doc, with that old fore-tops'l drawing."Haul taut your lee braces, lads! Hoist your fore stays'l! Ease off jib sheets!"The foretopmen were having all the sport, so the maintopmen dashed for'ard to help them; and by the time the anchor had been catted and secured, theWhat's Her Namewas, as Mr. Meredith said, "moving as fast as a snail and as sideways as a crab". "We shan't get far to-day, Doc."Nor did they; though what mattered that? They were as happy as kings; the "going about" was such fun; everybody had something to do, especially when the Padre, the China Doll, or the War Baby slacked off a wrong rope at the right time or a right rope at the wrong time. It was grand fun, and old Fletcher, sitting on the poop yarning with Uncle Podger, thoroughly enjoyed himself; whilst from for'ard a little column of grey smoke, and an occasional bellow of "Leave her, Johnny, leave her", showed that Barnes, getting tea ready, was also quite happy.The China Doll stole aft and called up to the Pimple, standing on the main "cross-trees", above the spanker "jaws": "Pimple, I say, Pimple, there are five tins of sausages. Isn't that grand?"Suddenly, from for'ard, there came shrieks and agonized yells for Fletcher."Fletcher! Hurry! Come quickly! Help! Help!"The Orphan and the Hun flew up the rigging, yelling "that 'Kaiser Bill' had broken loose, and was attacking them"; Bubbles, bursting with laughter, climbed the dangerously weak ratlines after them; the Lamp-post and Rawlins swarmed up the rigging on the other side, and even the little Padre, catching the infection, sprang up as well."We won't come down till he's chained up. Look at him! Careering round and snapping at everything. Save us, Fletcher! Save us!"Old Fletcher, smiling kindly, came along from the poop, asking: "Where is he?""There; there—near the water-butt! Do be careful! Get at him from behind. Wave a lettuce leaf in front of him. We've brought a lettuce in case he attacked us. Barnes! Barnes! Bring the lettuce! 'Kaiser Bill' has broken out!"The old stoker, peering about for the tortoise, found him just where he had left him—his legs and head well tucked "inside"—-picked him up, placed him inside his "jumper"; got a lettuce from Barnes, who grunted "they young gen'l'men will be a-breaking their blooming necks afore long, I reckon"; and went aft again, to try and tempt the tortoise to put his head out, and show some interest in the picnic.Then the Padre and some of the snotties ventured on deck, again, though most of them preferred to lie out on the tops'l-yard, which was so frail, and its "lifts" so badly "set up", that it bent ominously, as did the fore-topmast itself."Come down off that yard!" Mr. Meredith shouted. "Only two of you are to be there at a time."They begged him to let them set the upper tops'l, but that yard was more like a broom-handle than anything else."The Hun can do it; no one else. The mast is rotten, and the yard too," Mr. Meredith shouted. (The Hun was the lightest of all the midshipmen.) So the others gathered in the "top" and watched the Hun swarm up the topmast, and so out on that tiny yard, casting off the gaskets of the tiny sail.Then they dashed down on deck, before Mr. Meredith's voice bellowed out: "Let fall upper tops'l gaskets; overhaul your buntlines; sheet home, sheet home. Belay all!"Then came the "pipe": "Clear lower deck! All hands 'bout ship'!"When once the ship had tacked away from the shore, most of them made some excuse or other to find their way aloft again or out on the bowsprit; and though it may have looked curious to see theWhat's Her Nameslowly beating to wind'ard, backwards and forwards, across the harbour, with most of her crew up aloft or clinging to the bowsprit all the time, what did anything matter? They all enjoyed themselves hugely; those up aloft sniffing as the fragrant odour of cooking sausages floated up to them from the cook-house.Tea-time came before they knew it."Seven bells, Bos'n," Mr. Meredith called out. The Pink Rat found an old tin and beat it. Everybody sang out for Barnes, came down from the mast, the bowsprit, or the poop, and rushed to help bring aft all the luxuries.Old Fletcher fidgeted and looked at the Sub."Right you are, Fletcher!" he said, knowing that the old stoker would enjoy his tea more with Barnes than with them; so whilst they all sat round the poop and had a gorgeous tea—what a tea!—Barnes and Fletcher and "Kaiser Bill" had tea by themselves at the break of the fo'c'sle, and Bubbles, good-natured Bubbles, steered. However, there was so little breeze that it did not much matter whether anybody steered or not; and Dr. Gordon, finishing his meal quickly, relieved him."Where are we going to have our bathe?" Bubbles asked."Nowhere, my jumping Jimmy! I'm not going to weigh that anchor again, it is too much like work; we'll just sail about," the Sub said.When nothing but empty plates, empty tins, and an empty teapot remained, and they were just going to fill their pipes, Dr. Gordon at the wheel called out: "Fetch my surgical bag, someone. I knew it would be wanted."The Hun fetched it, opened it, and inside were three tins of pine-apple."Youaresplendid, sir," they shouted, as they opened the tins and cut the pine-apples into fat slices. "Won't these fill up odd corners?"What a grand feast that was!Then it was time to go back. The breeze had fallen still more, so the helm was put up, sheets were eased, the foretops'l and its little upper tops'l squared away, and theWhat's Her Namewafted slowly back to her anchorage, whilst everybody lay back, contentedly smoking and thoroughly happy.They came abreast theAchates; sail was taken off her; the anchor let go; the "wild cat" whirled round (they knew then why it was called a "wild cat"); and there was nothing to do except pack up and stow away everything "shipshape", and wait until the Officer of the Watch sent the cutter across for them.She came. They were taken back to theAchates, and the poor oldWhat's Her Nameleft desolate. Never could she have made a more happy voyage or borne a merrier crew than she did that afternoon—not in all her long life.
CHAPTER XV
A Peaceful Month
The day after theTriumphhad been torpedoed, and two days before theMajesticmet the same fate, theAchatesleft Mudros for the island of Mytilene, zigzagging all the way, because Mytilene lay at the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, and Smyrna harboured several submarines which might possibly be in wait for her.
A grand day it was, the sun shining out of an almost cloudless sky, the sea bluer than the sky, and ruffled pleasantly by a gentle breeze. In the evening she passed through a narrow channel between tree-clad heights, and anchored in the land-locked harbour.
For the last month it had not been possible to go on deck without seeing a gun fired or a shell burst. Down below, in cabin, ward-room, or gun-room, you did escape the sight of them—and the sight of those high explosives bursting among men and horses on the beaches can never be forgotten—but you could not escape the sound of them. Each time the air, coming through scuttle, doorway, skylight, or hatchway, thudded against your ears, the shock, big or little, from far or near, made you wince, and made your mind stop momentarily to picture the actual explosion; your ears tingled, alert and braced, to receive the next shock, until the constant, expectant waiting and wincing became a strain which affected many people, even those who were not then exposed to personal danger. It made them irritable or taciturn, or brought about little alterations of character and disposition, not sufficiently definite, perhaps, to state in words, but real enough to notice at the time. In addition, the constant sight of trawlers and boats full of wounded, passing theAchateson their way to hospital ships, had a constant depressing effect, not perhaps fully realized at the moment.
Later, when there came the more imminent personal danger from submarine attack, culminating in the capsizing of two battleships, torpedoed in broad daylight and in full view of thousands, in circumstances which showed how impossible it was, under those conditions of service, to meet submarine attack successfully, the effect of the strain became more pronounced.
Above all, there lacked the success of the expedition, which alone could act as an antidote to the strain.
When, therefore, theAchateswound her way through the tortuous channel into Ieros harbour, her yards almost touching the thick brushwood which clothed the cliffs, and these cliffs, shutting out all sight of the sea, opened out to give a view of an inland lake surrounded by olive-clad hills fading away in the distance, and glowing at the warm touch of the evening sun, their many-tinted green slopes reflected in its placid waters; of villages, quiet little peaceful villages, with the peasants clustering along the water's edge as the ship floated past, or white-sailed boats crowded with smiling, gaily-welcoming Greek men and women, it seemed as though a magician's wand had suddenly guided and wafted her into some fairy harbour, where war and the brutalities of bloodshed could never have been known and would never dare to intrude.
Officers and men stood, drinking in, in their various ways, the beauty, the peace, and the overwhelming quietness of it all.
"Old 'Gallipoli Bill' will drop one among those people in a moment; they're exposing themselves terribly," the Hun grinned.
"They've got 'dug-outs' all handy, somewhere close by; you bet they have!" Rawlins said.
"I wonder how our three chaps are getting on at 'W' beach;" said the Sub, smacking the open-mouthed and staring China Doll on his back, so that his doll's eyes nearly fell out. "My jumping Jimmy, what a place! My blessed stars! What a bathe we'll have when we've dropped the 'killick'. I'll ask the Commander," and stalked away to find him, banging every member of the Honourable Mess he met with his fist, with shouts of "My jumping Jupiter, what a place!" The Pimple pointed out to the China Doll one of the boats they passed. Half full of oranges and bananas it was; and their mouths watered and their eyes brightened as they thought of the feast they would have if it came alongside and the ward-room messman did not buy them all.
The ship slowly turned round another bluff, and a collier with two English submarines lying alongside her came into view.
"They rather spoil the picture," Uncle Podger said, "but we needn't look at 'em."
Then theAchateslet go her anchor, the cable rattled noisily, stopped, and the ship lay still.
A quarter of an hour later, "hands to bathe" was "piped", and in less than ten minutes, at least five hundred officers and men were bobbing in the water alongside, and the air was alive with their cheery shouts. The men dived off the booms, the nettings, out of the gangways, or climbed down her sides; the water for'ard was so thick with black heads and white shoulders, that when another man and yet another, a constant stream of them, dived in, one could not help wondering if there was a clear space for them to dive into, though the others always did manage to "open out" and let the newcomer in without accident.
Aft, some of the Honourable Mess were diving off the top of the accommodation ladder; others, the more cautious ones, preferred to drop off the foot of it. The Hun went off the top, so did Rawlins. Uncle Podger walked sedately down the ladder, turned a back somersault, and bobbed up again, in time to see the Pimple make a show of diving off the top, decide that it was too high, and walk down it. The China Doll, trying to attract attention, wouldn't even dive from the foot of the ladder. "You'll promise not to duck me, won't you?" he squeaked, and lowered himself down, holding on to a rope. The Sub, with his gnarled muscles showing under his bathing dress, and disdaining the twenty-foot dive from the ladder top, climbed to the edge of the after bridge with a water polo ball under his arm, threw it far out from the ship, climbed the rails, balanced himself for a moment, roared out "Look out, you jumping shrimps!" and dived forty feet into the water, cutting it like a knife, and coming to the surface some thirty yards farther away. The more sedate ward-room officers, disrobing in their cabins, heard his stentorian, roaring shouts of, "My jumping Jimmies! What a place!" Presently they too appeared on deck, twisting their towels round the quarter-deck rails before they joined the merry splashing throng; the little Padre had his swimming-belt round his chest, and his everlasting pipe in his mouth. The Hun and Uncle Podger, seeing him come down the ladder, winked at each other, and waited to see what would happen when he jumped into the water; but were disappointed, for he lowered himself carefully; the swimming-belt kept his head well above water, and he paddled about, still smoking.
Around and among all these swimmers paddled the Greeks in their quaint, picturesque boats, watching them and smiling with amusement.
The Hun and Rawlins, slightly out of breath, after having disappeared for a few brief moments below the surface of the water in their efforts to decide which had ducked the other, caught hold of the stern of a boat which happened to be near, and drawing themselves half out of the water, grinned happily at a bevy of plump young damsels sitting there. The girls, laughing merrily, gave them each an orange; whereupon they slipped back into the water and proceeded to eat them. But the sight of these two lying placidly on their backs and devouring their oranges was too much for the others. Uncle Podger with his trudgeon stroke reached the unsuspecting Rawlins first, seized his orange, ducked him, and dived, only to come up among the enemy—the Pimple, the Sub, and the outraged Rawlins. The War Baby threw himself into the mêlée; the Hun, swallowing the rest of his orange, joined in too; and the life of Uncle Podger was only saved by a shower of oranges, and peals of girlish laughter from the boat.
Securing their prizes they shouted, "Thanks, awfully! Merci beaucoup!" hoping that they might understand French; and the War Baby, who knew a few words of Spanish, called out, "Gratia! Señoritas!" hoping they could understand that. But language did not matter; they knew what was meant to be expressed, and shrieked with laughter.
The Fleet-Paymaster, puffing along by the side of Dr. Gordon, who looked exactly like a walrus in the water, grunted out: "We're too old, I suppose, for 'em to chuck oranges at us? Let's try!"
And they did; and each got his orange, and his shriek of laughter when he tried to eat it without spoiling the taste with sea water.
All this time the China Doll, who could only swim a few strokes, did not venture far from the foot of the ladder, very miserable that everybody seemed to have forgotten him, and knowing that if he did venture out among the others he would certainly be ducked—which he hated—and very probably drowned.
Up on deck, Captain Macfarlane, grimly looking on, met the Gunnery-Lieutenant coming up from performing his trick of tossing a hoop off the top of the ladder, and then diving through it as it lay on the surface of the water—he had done this about ten times already, as if he were carrying out some drill or religious exercise.
"Mr. Gunnery-Lieutenant," Captain Macfarlane said, tugging thoughtfully at his beard; "the Great War is still on, is it not?" and the startled Gunnery-Lieutenant, the hoop in one hand, the other raised to his dripping hair in wild salute, replied: "Oh! Yes, sir! As far as I know, sir!" and, later on, gave it as his opinion that "the Skipper must be going off his head".
Presently the bugle sounded the "retire", and everyone splashed back to the ship, the members of the Honourable Mess going down to the half-deck, chattering like magpies round the Pink Rat's cot whilst they rubbed themselves down and dressed.
"I never got an orange. I do think you chaps might have brought me one," the China Doll squeaked, a little upset because no one had taken any notice of him; so they chased him round the half-deck with their wet towels, till he shrieked for mercy and was happy again.
Then they rushed up on deck, because the Hun and Bubbles meant to ask those girls on board to show them the holes made by the Smyrna shells, as some little "return" for the oranges.
The others had "dared" them to do this; and they would have asked them, but were too late—their boat had paddled back to the village.
What a dinner they had that night!
The miserable little messman, for once, had risen to the occasion, and bought potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, and onions, and fruit—oranges and bananas—which of course were "extras".
"I'm jolly sorry that the other three aren't here," Uncle Podger remarked, as he skinned his fourth orange. "Wouldn't old Bubbles have loved them? Wouldn't he have been pretty to watch?"
On these occasions, when "extras" had been provided, a comic scene always followed in the pantry. In order that the messman could know who devoured his precious "extras", and could put the names down in his book, he had to keep a very smart "look-out" through the sliding doors in the pantry bulkhead; and Barnes, who hated him like poison, would block one and then the other with his huge head and shoulders, so that he should not see which of the "young gen'l'men" had taken an orange or banana. As Uncle Podger always said on such occasions: "It was pretty to watch him and Barnes dodging each other backwards and forwards, from side to side."
Barnes would slide across one of the trap-doors, then block up the other; across would dart the little messman, slide back the one which had just been closed, and peep through it. Bang would go the other, and Barnes would be seen pushing the messman aside, muttering "'Ere you; you're getting in the way, you are", reaching through, and making pretence of drawing back any dirty plates or dishes which stood on the sideboard. And so this game went on; whilst the Pimple and the China Doll, keeping their eyes about them, would seize fruit at the most favourable moment, drop the skins on someone else's plate if possible, and if not, throw them far under the table.
Barnes, afterwards, when he cleared the table and swept up the deck, would do it to a muttered accompaniment of: "That nawsty little beggar, a-countin' up and a-puttin' down everythink of 'is beastly hextras. 'Umph!" (bang would go the broom against a leg of the table). "And who eats 'em? 'Umph! the nawsty, slimy toad. I'll learn 'im, me as what 'as a pub of 'is own at 'ome—or 'ad, afore this 'ere war a-started."
The days which followed were days of real delight, never to be forgotten by the Honourable Mess, who revelled in them and in the noiseless, peaceful nights when they slept on the quarter-deck, and woke to slip off their pyjamas and plunge over the side into the transparent water.
In a week's time, very early one morning, up the harbour came the grey picket-boat with the Orphan; behind her followed Trawler No. 370 with Bubbles, the Lamp-post, and all that was left of their beach party.
"Come along, you chaps!" called Uncle Podger, waving his towel, when at last they came aboard. "My! but you do look scarecrows! Off with your grubby clothes and flop in. It's simply splendid!" They did flop in; and that morning's bathe, when the Honourable Mess was once more united, was a memorable one, especially to the "War Baby"—the officer of the watch—who could not make them come out of the water until long after the regulation time, and until the Commander had twice sent for him to know why he didn't stop that confounded noise round the foot of the ladder.
They arranged a grand picnic next day, and hired two of the little Greek sailing-boats which ferried people across from one side of the harbour to the other. They bought a basketful of oranges from the Greek boats alongside—it was cheaper to do this than to get them through the messman—they took a kettle of water, tins of jam, milk, and butter, loaves of bread; and away they went, with a merry breeze, the whole crowd of them, the Sub, Uncle Podger, the Orphan, Rawlins, and Bubbles in one, the Lamp-post and the remainder in the other. They raced the two boats to a tiny island at the mouth of the entrance of the harbour, beached them without rubbing off much paint, stripped, and larked in the water and out of it, on the grass under some trees.
Then the China Doll and the Pimple were appointed "cooks of the mess", and wandered off to collect driftwood to make a fire on the beach, whilst the others stretched themselves on the grass to dry themselves until they were too hot, then plunged in again till they were cool. By the time the fire had begun to crackle famously the Sub, Uncle Podger, and two of the snotties—the Lamp-post and Bubbles, who were over eighteen years old—had found their pipes, lighted them, and were puffing away luxuriously. The Sub, whose heart warmed benevolently within him, called out: "Carry on smoking, my bouncing beauties—every mother's son of you—so long as you aren't sick!" So off dashed the others to their clothes, and produced the well-worn pipes which they had brought with them, hoping that the Sub would be in a good temper. Even the China Doll produced a cigarette case, and made a great fuss of lighting a "Virginian", puffing at it like a girl, then holding it in his fingers because the smoke made his eyes water. "No 'stinkers'! No 'gaspers' here! Phew. What a horrible smell!" the others shouted. The Orphan pretended to faint, Bubbles threw himself down in the grass and groaned.
"I haven't any 'Gyppies'," pleaded the Assistant Clerk. "You smoke 'stinkers' yourselves sometimes.
"Only on board, China Doll, to drown the smell of the gun-room, when you're in it," Bubbles gurgled. "Get to leeward, you little stink-pot!" The Pimple and Rawlins made a rush for him; he dodged them, and waded into the water.
"Come back!" they shouted as they followed him. "We're getting wet; we can't swim a stroke," and drove him out until only his head and neck were above the water. They made him smoke it there, throwing clods of earth at him whenever he attempted to take it out of his mouth to prevent his eyes watering.
"Nice, quiet, gentlemanly lads," said Uncle Podger from the grass. "Very pretty to watch, aren't they?"
But the Pimple—earnestly occupied in keeping the China Doll and the "overpowering" smell of his tiny cigarette from destroying the aroma from nine fairly foul pipes loaded with "ship's" tobacco—and the China Doll thus engaged, with only his head above water, were neglecting their duty as cooks to the Honourable Mess. The kettle was trying to lift off its lid, and threatened to fall over.
It was saved just in time, and the Pimple, violently seized by the Hun and Rawlins, escorted back to his duties, whilst the China Doll waded out with his cigarette damped and "dead".
The Sub, Uncle Podger, and the Lamp-post lay and smoked, and watched the others carrying all the paraphernalia of tea from the two boats to a little place under a shady tree, cutting slices of bread, and opening the tins of milk, butter, and jam.
"Isn't this an extraordinary change from ten days ago?" said Uncle Podger presently, with a great sigh of enjoyment. "The whole place looks as if it had never even heard of such a thing as war."
"It may look like it, Uncle, but you'd be nearer the mark if you said that it had never really known peace," the Lamp-post said. "Why, Mytilene, and the other islands round about here, have seen fighting all through history—history was made in these parts—right away from the year one—five hundred years before it, too, and they haven't known peace—not for any length of time—ever since. The Phoenicians, Athenians, Carthaginians, Romans, Persians, Syrians, Turks, and Greeks—they've all had a "go" at it—landed and killed the men, garrisoned the place for a few years, till they were "booted" out or killed by the next little lot to come along.
"I was only asking the Interpreter[#] this morning, and he told me that there are villages up there" (and the Lamp-post pointed across the harbour to the slopes of the hills) "which are full of Turks, and they daren't come down to the Greek villages except in numbers and in the daylight—nor dare the Greeks go up to them—for fear of being killed. He told me that the Greeks and Turks are always fighting on these islands, and on the mainland right along the coast to Smyrna. The Greek chaps get on their nerves; they work hard, are smarter business men, lend money, which makes them very unpopular; and there are so many of them in the coast towns that the Turks are really frightened of them, so they kill them whenever they get a comfortable opportunity and can raise the energy. Hereditary enemies they are, and vendettas go on just as they have done for centuries; but the Turk has generally got an old rifle, of sorts, so it's the Greek who gets killed in the long run.
[#] TheAchateshad a Syrian interpreter on board.
"You see," went on the Lamp-post, "all the Turkish soldiers who used to keep the peace—sometimes—in the villages and small towns have been withdrawn to Smyrna or the Dardanelles, and now they are away the Turks and Greeks are at each other's throats hammer and tongs. The Interpreter told me that there are more than thirty thousand refugees from the coast in Mytilene alone, and thousands more are trying to escape before they are killed."
"That's why the Greeks here are giving the Turks in the hills such a rotten time, I suppose?" the Sub asked.
"It rather spoils the picture," Uncle Podger said; "I wish you hadn't told us."
"Let us go, some day, and see the castle at Mytilene," the Lamp-post suggested. "The Interpreter says that it was started five hundred years B.C.—by the Phoenicians or someone like them, and has been added on to by everybody else ever since. He says you can see some parts which are Roman and some which the Persians built. I'm frightfully keen on things like that," he added apologetically:
"Come along, you chaps! Everything's ready!" the others shouted, carrying up the kettle of boiling water.
A grand tea they had, although the Orphan upset a good deal of the only tin of milk over himself. That did not matter much, for they managed to save most of it with spoons.
"Pass the Orphan, please," one or other would say, "I want some more milk;" and whoever was sitting next to him, Bubbles or Rawlins, would sing "He's too heavy," and pretend to scrape more milk off his bathing-suit.
The China Doll and the Pimple, however, felt that there were two things lacking to make the picnic a complete success—sardines and some tinned sausages to cook over the fire; but, of course—and they sighed heavily—the gun-room store was empty.
The China Doll, presently, blinked and blushed, and suggested that they should ask the War Baby to the next picnic. There was a shout of "He's all right, but he doesn't belong to the gun-room—this is a gun-room picnic."
"But, if he came, he might bring some sardines and 'bangers'. I know they have some in the ward-room—I asked their messman."
"You're a perfect marvel, China Doll; fancy thinking all that out in your noddle!" the Pimple said admiringly. "I votes we do ask him."
Then the Orphan, catching sight of the wet remains of that "Virginian" cigarette lying in the grass, pretended to faint; and when he'd been revived by a convenient twig twirled round inside his nose, groaned: "I'm awfully sorry, you chaps, but didn't you notice that awful smell again," and pointed to that unhappy cigarette end.
"Don't be silly," the China Doll kept on saying, blushing and trying to hide it; but they sent him twenty yards along the beach, made him scrape with his hands a hole, a foot deep, in the muddy sand, and bury it there. "You've eaten all the oranges," he almost "blubbed" when he returned. "My back's all sunburnt, and my feet are tingling. I've been treading on something which hurts."
They threw some oranges at him and made him happy, but he kept on looking at the soles of his feet.
"Well, if you will tread on sea-urchins' eggs you can't expect anything else," the Lamp-post said, having a look at them himself.
"Lend us a knife, somebody; he's got thirty or forty of the spikes in his feet." But the pain of having them extracted with a pocket-knife was too much for the Assistant Clerk; he said he'd get Dr. Gordon to take them out when they went back to the ship. He ate his oranges, and looked rather miserable whilst he dressed, slowly.
The others played the newly invented "submarine game", standing in a ring with the water up to their chins, their legs wide apart, and stones in their hands; whilst the Orphan, who took the part of a submarine, started in the middle, dived, and had not to come to the surface before he had torpedoed somebody by swimming between his legs. If any part of him showed up above the surface, or he came up to breathe, the others threw stones at him; and if he was hit he had lost, and started again. The torpedoed one had to change places with the "submarine"; and when the fat Bubbles was at last torpedoed and had to take this leading part, you can imagine that parts of him showed very often, and he laughed so much that he couldn't keep his head under for ten seconds at a time.
"Very pretty to watch," remarked Uncle Podger. Then they all scrambled out, dried themselves in the sun, dressed; stowed away all the tea "gear" in the boats—the kettle, teacups, knives, spoons, and plates; carried the China Doll down to the boat to the tune of "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave"; had a search for a missing spoon; found it; shoved off, and raced back to the ship, the losing boat's crew to pay for the oranges.
"Off you go to Dr. Gordon," the Sub told the China Doll, "and just pretend those feet of yours don't hurt you. If you go limping about looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, you won't get the kind of sympathy you want—not from me!"
"That youth behaves like a little girl. He always wants people to take notice of him and pet him. Whatever will he be like when he grows up?" the Sub said afterwards to Uncle Podger.
"A good beating twice a week would make a man of him," advised the Clerk. "He is a good enough little chap, but he does want beating."
"I'll see what can be done," answered the Sub thoughtfully.
At that time the Greek population was extremely polite, and glad to see British Naval uniforms. Everyone who passed took off his hat, the girls were all smiles, and the children flocked round, holding out flowers, though their homage was slightly diminished by insistent demands for "one pen-ny". In fact, they became a beastly nuisance after a while.
Now you must understand that theAchateshad not been sent to Ieros for the purpose of providing entertainment for the gun-room officers, but to superintend the blockade of Smyrna. To make this blockade effective, she had under her orders two mine-layers, some destroyers, and some submarines. These were always going out or coming in through the picturesque entrance, and the submarine off duty used to make fast alongside theAchates. Naturally she proved a great attraction to the gun-room officers, who used to bother the lives out of the sub-lieutenants—seconds in command—to show them round.
One of these, a cheery sportsman, burst out with: "Oh, hang it all! Come along, every one of you; four at a time, and I'll work through the whole blooming Mess and get it over and done with."
He did get it 'over', though the last four, the China Doll among them, were rather a trial.
"But if," bleated the Assistant Clerk, standing on the plates below the open conning-tower, "if you did happen to dive when the lid was open, wouldn't the water come in?"
There was a roar of laughter from the others (which he wanted); but the second in command, whose patience had not yet quite vanished, said: "Oh, that's nothing! that often happens. We just stand down here, puff out our cheeks, and blow up through the conning-tower—blow very hard until someone climbs up and puts the lid on again."
"Is that really true?" gasped the China Doll, not quite certain whether he was being made a fool.
Much as the officers appreciated the change of scene at Ieros, the men appreciated it still more. All except the beach party and the boats' crews (a very small proportion) had been cooped up in the noisy, crowded mess-decks ever since leaving Port Said. They to could now go ashore occasionally; twice a day they could jump overboard and swim in the glorious, buoyant water alongside, and once a week route marches took place early in the morning, before the sun became too hot. These route marches, however, were not very popular.
You may be certain that the first time Fletcher the stoker went ashore, he took "Kaiser Bill" with him.
"You should have seen him nipping off the bits of grass," he told the Orphan later on; "he did enjoy himself, sir!"
Whilst here, the wireless press news came each morning, and was not reassuring, for the Germans had commenced their advance through Galicia and into Poland, and nothing seemed able to stop them. News, too, from the Peninsula was bad—nearly a thousand men had been lost when the transportRoyal Edwardwas sunk by a submarine, and another desperate attempt to capture Krithia had failed with heavy losses.
As a set-off against all these dismal tales there were rumours of mysterious monitors on their way out with heavy guns, of reinforcements pouring eastwards, and of the brilliant exploits of our own submarines above the Dardanelles, in the Sea of Marmora.
CHAPTER XVI
A Glorious Picnic
Among the many queer characters they met at Ieros, none was more quaint than a Mr. M'Andrew, who appeared on the scene in a very smart, rakish little motor yacht with two masts and a gay awning, very reminiscent of the River Thames. Sometimes he appeared flying the Greek flag, and bringing the rubicund military governor of Mytilene to "protest" against the British having done "this" or "that"; with a cheery "Au revoir, Messieurs; à Constantinople!" when he left the ship. At other times he flew the red ensign, and took Captain Macfarlane and the Commander for—as far as the gun-room knew—pleasant little sea trips. Generally he flew no flag at all, and had a most motley crew of picturesque brigands with him.
Occasionally the yacht used to lie alongside theAchates, and once or twice the Sub tempted Mr. M'Andrew down into the gun-room to take a glass of iced soda-water, of which he seemed excessively fond. He never touched alcohol.
He looked like a retired bank-manager who possibly devoted his leisure to teaching in a Sunday or "ragged" school; he was broad and plump, and perhaps fifty years of age—a most placid-looking individual who always wore an old, but not shabby, blue suit, across the ample waistcoat of which stretched a very thick gold watch and chain. He talked very simply—as if talking was mere waste of breath—and his conversation was chiefly about soda-water and the places he remembered where you could buy it cheapest. He always carried a bunch of raisins in one of his side-pockets, and ate them deliberately, one at a time, whenever he was not smoking a very old briar pipe. The Sub used to ask him to dinner or lunch, but he would refuse. "No, thank you; I never have meals; I just go on munching raisins, and have some bread occasionally."
Rumour had told the Honourable Mess that he was really a daring pirate, and led forays against the Turks in the little bays on the mainland—over against Mytilene—though never a word could they get from him about his adventures—about anything, in fact, except soda-water, the merits of dried raisins, and the unfortunate family troubles of his crew.
There was one old man who used to sit on the top of the deck-house all day long without saying a word to a soul—a shrunken old Greek with very sharp features and black eyes which seemed to blaze from their deep sockets in the most startling way. When you first saw him he looked a poor, withered, feeble old "dodderer", in spite of the Winchester rifle he always gripped across his knees, and the two filled bandoliers of cartridges round his waist and shoulders; but when he turned to look at you the fierceness of his eyes gave him a most extraordinary appearance. Mr. M'Andrew used to take him down a loaf of bread—provided by the gun-room—pat him on the shoulder, and say a few words to him. "Poor old man!" Mr. M'Andrew told them, "poor old man; he's rather miserable. You see, he and his three sons kept a flock of sheep on some little island near the coast, and the Turks came along, killed his sons and the sheep, and tried to kill him, but he managed to escape. He knew of a crack in a rock, where he hid by day—for three days—crawling out at night to suck the grass and eat berries and leaves, until the Turks gave up looking for him and went away—thought he must be dead. I just happened to be going past there yesterday, saw him wave, and brought him along. He won't be really happy again until he's killed a Turk for each of his sons; he thinks I'll give him the chance soon, so won't leave me."
"But shall you?" the Honourable Mess cried with one accord.
"This really is not at all bad soda-water," Mr. M'Andrew went on in his slow, deliberate way. "I remember when I was in Mexico—no, it reminds me of some I got at Haiti during the revolution, the one of 1901. As I was saying, most of my crew have had a good deal of family trouble one way or the other. There's that little lad who cleans the brasswork. He's the only one left of a family of twelve—father, mother, brothers, and sisters. He hid in the roof when the Turks cut the throats of the others one night. He came along here—no, I don't know how—and wants me to let him have a rifle. Oh, those other chaps; nice, gentle-looking fellows, aren't they? They can't bear the Turks—more or less for the same reason! Some of their relatives have been killed by them, or they've been driven away from the mainland and have nothing left of farms, or shops, or flocks, wives or children. They just come along to me, and I lend them some old rifles I just happen to have."
"Have they had a chance of using them?" the snotties asked. "Most of them say they have killed a Turk or two; tell me so when they come first. And I expect they have," went on Mr. M'Andrew in his placid voice, feeling in his pocket for another raisin, and fumbling with the fob of his gold watch-chain.
The China Doll, in fact all the gun-room officers, spent a good deal of time watching him moving about among the fierce, black-eyed ruffians, who sat about the deck of the smart little motor-yacht with their bandoliers across their shoulders, their rifles (which Mr. M'Andrew just happened to have lent them) gripped firmly in their hands. They cleaned these interminably, and Mr. M'Andrew walked about and spoke a few words to each, just as you could picture him walking about the boys in his Ragged School in Glasgow, distributing raisins and bread to them just as he might have done to his boys.
One day the motor-yacht towed in a clumsy, old, local trading schooner, and anchored her abreast theAchates. She turned out to be a Turkish trading ship which had been becalmed off some Greek village. The Greeks captured her, and had killed at least one of her crew, for his body still lay on the deck, just at the break of the poop.
"Oh, no!" said Mr. M'Andrew, in genuine surprise, "I had nothing to do with it. I simply found her a derelict and towed her in here. The rest of the crew were probably killed as well, but thrown overboard. Oh, no! that's nothing unusual."
The dead Turk was handed over to the authorities, and this lumbering old derelict—she looked at least fifty years old, and was probably a hundred—swung at anchor, close to theAchates, for some days.
The Sub had a brilliant "brain wave", and suggested that the gun-room should commission her, one day, for a picnic. Captain Macfarlane gave permission, and then came the question of asking the War Baby. Finally it was unanimously decided to do so; and—"Well", as Bubbles said when he gave the invitation, "if you can bring some sardines and sausages along with you, so much the better." They asked Mr. Meredith, the R.N.R. Lieutenant, and Dr. Gordon, the R.N.V.R. Surgeon, and they asked the Padre too; and, wonderful to relate, that pale-faced little man jumped at the offer—"so long as he could smoke his pipe all the time". The other two of course accepted.
After dinner, and after considerable deliberation and more noise, the following notice appeared on the board in the gun-room, under the alarum-clock and the five broken-down wrist-watches:—
NOTICETo-morrow, Thursday, 17th June, H.M. Schooner *What's HerName* will be commissioned, at 1.30 p.m.The following appointments have been made to her:—Captain ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Sub.First-class Passenger ... ... ... ... Mr. Meredith.First Lieutenant and Boatswain ... ... The Pink Rat.Officer of Marines and Master-at-Arms The War Baby.Surgeon and Captain of the Main-top ... Dr. Gordon.Chaplain and Official Photographer ... The Rev. Horace Gibbons.Paymaster and Man-of-all-Work ... ... Uncle Podger.Captain of the Fore-top ... ... ... ... The Lamp-post.Foretopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Hun, The Orphan,RawlinsMaintopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Bubbles, The Pimple.Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The China Doll.Second Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... Barnes.The Ancient Mariner ... ... ... ... ... Fletcher the Stoker.The Albatross ... ... ... ... ... ... "Kaiser Bill".*Uniform of the day—Pirate Rig.*Coloured shirt, vest, or jersey.Trousers or shorts.Head-dress—any old thing, as long as it's hideous.
Fletcher they asked because they thought the old man would enjoy "a bit of an outing", and "Kaiser Bill" was asked because Fletcher wouldn't enjoy it without him.
Barnes, on reading the notice and seeing his own appointment, growled to the messman: "What did them young gen'l'men a-think they was a-doin' of; no, 'e wasn't a-goin' a-sailorisin' in that 'ere craft what murder 'ad been done in, an' the blood-stain on 'er deck an' all—not 'e;" but he changed his mind and went aboard with the Pirate Crew, grinning like a huge schoolboy, with his big basket of food (including the War Baby's sardines and sausages), a bucket of coal and wood to make a fire, a kettle, frying-pan, and a barricoe of water. They climbed aboard, handed up all the "gear" and their towels, and the Sub ran a boat's ensign, which he had borrowed, up to the main masthead.
"Hello, Doc! brought your Harley Street bag with you, I see." Dr. Gordon laughed. "Yes," he twinkled, "it might be useful." The little Padre, beaming, passed aboard his camera, and climbed up after it.
To give you an idea of what this piratical crew looked like, the Orphan wore a red tam-o'-shanter, a yellow-and-black sweater, running "shorts", and gymnasium shoes; and Bubbles had an old kicked-in bowler hat on the back of his head, a green football shirt stuffed into striped bathing drawers, and a pair of sea-boots. He made a picturesque villain, especially when he gripped a captured Turkish bayonet between his teeth and gurgled at the China Doll. Most of them started with naked Turkish bayonets tucked into their belts; but, on Uncle Podger's advice, the Sub sent these back in the boat which had taken them all to theWhat's Her Name. What a funny old-fashioned tub she was, and what stories she could have told of all the years she had been toiling round the coast, among the islands! Her high poop had rails round it, some of the wooden posts beautifully carved, but most of them of rough wood, which showed that she had "come down in the world" in her old age. Between the poop and the still higher fo'c'sle was a "well" deck, with its dark blood-stain, the foremast right amidships, and two big open hatchways, one for'ard and one abaft the mast. Round her fo'c'sle were more rails, some handsomely carved, and on it was an antediluvian windlass for hoisting the anchor. The cable was so rusted and worn that it seemed hardly possible that she could trust to it to ride out even the lightest of gales.
Her masts—the lower masts at any rate—and the wide-spreading foreyard were good, sound bits of timber, but the top-masts and fore-tops'l yards looked anything but sound, and her "standing" rigging was so chafed and so badly "set up" that her murdered crew must have been "past masters" in the art of sailing her gently to prevent her masts carrying away.
"Well, what about it?" the Sub asked Mr. Meredith, with a note of anxiety in his voice. "The breeze is blowing straight out of the harbour; if we run to lee'ard, 'twill be too narrow there to beat back, won't it? We'd best start beating to wind'ard, hadn't we? Look here," he said, "this is rather out of my line; you'd best run the show. You'd better start a mutiny right away."
As Mr. Meredith had been in sailing-ships for years, and had been Captain of a full-rigged ship before he was thirty, what he didn't know about sailing wasn't worth knowing. "All right," he smiled, "I'm game;" and seizing the unresisting Sub by the neck of his coloured jersey, hurled him to the deck with fierce yells, and planting one foot on his chest, roared: "Clear lower deck! I'm now the Captain of theWhat's Her Name. Now, you dog," he hissed, as the pirate crew "fell in", "get up and 'fall in' among those rascals; another word and you'll walk the plank, and your bones shall bleach on the coral islands of the Spanish Main. Ha! ha!"
The crew, overawed by his daring, and the ferocity of his appearance in a Turkish fez, a red shirt, Sam Browne belt, and khaki riding-breeches, gave three cheers for the new Captain; old Fletcher, who had put "Kaiser Bill" in a safe place where he could not fall down the hatchways, smiled indulgently; and Barnes, trying to enter into the spirit of the game, grumbled in an undertone: "This 'ere 'clear lower deck' and 'fall in' sounds too much like the real thing," and "'e didn't see quite where the fun came in."
Then the Lamp-post and his foretopmen, the Hun, the Orphan, and Rawlins, were sent off to clear the jibs and slack away the tops'l gaskets up aloft, and to learn where their proper halyards "ran"; Dr. Gordon, the Pimple, and Bubbles went aft to get the big spanker ready for setting; Barnes and the China Doll were ordered to explore the little cook-house, just under the fo'c'sle; Fletcher had strict orders to keep alight the cigar which the Sub had brought him, and enjoy himself at all costs, and all the others followed Mr. Meredith up on the fo'c'sle to heave up the cable.
In five minutes after getting on board, the Orphan and Rawlins were climbing out along the bowsprit and jib-boom, and the Lamp-post and the Hun were up aloft, out along the tops'l-yard, unlashing the gaskets and having a grand time; whilst the crowd on the fo'c'sle began levering round the old horizontal windlass ("wild cat", Mr. Meredith told them, was its proper name) with two long levers, like crowbars, stuck in the holes at each end of it.
"Let's have a 'chanty'," they called, and the Sub started "We'll rant and we'll roar"; but that did not "fit in", so Mr. Meredith gave them a very old one:
"For the times are hard, and the wages low;Leave her, Johnny, leave her.Last night I heard the Old Man say,'Tis time for us to leave her."
"For the times are hard, and the wages low;Leave her, Johnny, leave her.Last night I heard the Old Man say,'Tis time for us to leave her."
"For the times are hard, and the wages low;
Leave her, Johnny, leave her.
Leave her, Johnny, leave her.
Last night I heard the Old Man say,
'Tis time for us to leave her."
'Tis time for us to leave her."
Whilst he sung the first line to a mournful dirge, they shifted the crowbars into fresh holes, and then, hauling aft on them, joined in the chorus: "Leave her, Johnny, leave her"; shifted them again whilst he chanted the third line, and pulled to "'Tis time for us to leave her"; and each time they pulled the "wild cat" round, the links of the old rusty cable came creaking in through the hawse-pipe, and the metal pawls of the "wild cat" fell, "clink-clank", into the ratchet notches.
In a minute everybody had joined in the chanty, the Orphan and Rawlins out beyond the fo'c'sle on the bowsprit, the Lamp-post and the Hun busy aloft, Dr. Gordon and his "hands" aft. The China Doll, dashing up to have one pull at the levers, chipped in too; whilst Barnes bellowed "Leave her, Johnny, leave her" (thinking it was something about a girl) from inside the cook-house; and old Fletcher, busy with his cigar, beamed at everyone through his gold spectacles.
Presently Mr. Meredith, leaning over the bows, sang out: "She's 'up and down'. Heave away, my hearties! 'Leave her, Johnny, leave her'," and ran aft to take the wheel; the Orphan and Rawlins, scrambling back on the fo'c'sle, hoisted the jib, and in a few more turns of the "wild cat" the clumsy old "tub" began to pay off before the breeze.
Dr. Gordon, the Pink Rat, and the Pimple set the spanker, hauled taut the clumsy "sheet", and the poor oldWhat's Her Nameslowly pushed her way through the water.
"Stand by aloft!" Mr. Meredith hailed the fore-top. "Let go gaskets! Overhaul buntlines! Come down from aloft! You on deck, there! Sheet home! Sheet home! Haul taut lee braces! Right you are!" as, somewhat confused and muddled, the foretopmen managed at last to set that tops'l. "Belay all!"
Mr. Meredith made a wry face. "She won't reach to wind'ard much, Doc, with that old fore-tops'l drawing.
"Haul taut your lee braces, lads! Hoist your fore stays'l! Ease off jib sheets!"
The foretopmen were having all the sport, so the maintopmen dashed for'ard to help them; and by the time the anchor had been catted and secured, theWhat's Her Namewas, as Mr. Meredith said, "moving as fast as a snail and as sideways as a crab". "We shan't get far to-day, Doc."
Nor did they; though what mattered that? They were as happy as kings; the "going about" was such fun; everybody had something to do, especially when the Padre, the China Doll, or the War Baby slacked off a wrong rope at the right time or a right rope at the wrong time. It was grand fun, and old Fletcher, sitting on the poop yarning with Uncle Podger, thoroughly enjoyed himself; whilst from for'ard a little column of grey smoke, and an occasional bellow of "Leave her, Johnny, leave her", showed that Barnes, getting tea ready, was also quite happy.
The China Doll stole aft and called up to the Pimple, standing on the main "cross-trees", above the spanker "jaws": "Pimple, I say, Pimple, there are five tins of sausages. Isn't that grand?"
Suddenly, from for'ard, there came shrieks and agonized yells for Fletcher.
"Fletcher! Hurry! Come quickly! Help! Help!"
The Orphan and the Hun flew up the rigging, yelling "that 'Kaiser Bill' had broken loose, and was attacking them"; Bubbles, bursting with laughter, climbed the dangerously weak ratlines after them; the Lamp-post and Rawlins swarmed up the rigging on the other side, and even the little Padre, catching the infection, sprang up as well.
"We won't come down till he's chained up. Look at him! Careering round and snapping at everything. Save us, Fletcher! Save us!"
Old Fletcher, smiling kindly, came along from the poop, asking: "Where is he?"
"There; there—near the water-butt! Do be careful! Get at him from behind. Wave a lettuce leaf in front of him. We've brought a lettuce in case he attacked us. Barnes! Barnes! Bring the lettuce! 'Kaiser Bill' has broken out!"
The old stoker, peering about for the tortoise, found him just where he had left him—his legs and head well tucked "inside"—-picked him up, placed him inside his "jumper"; got a lettuce from Barnes, who grunted "they young gen'l'men will be a-breaking their blooming necks afore long, I reckon"; and went aft again, to try and tempt the tortoise to put his head out, and show some interest in the picnic.
Then the Padre and some of the snotties ventured on deck, again, though most of them preferred to lie out on the tops'l-yard, which was so frail, and its "lifts" so badly "set up", that it bent ominously, as did the fore-topmast itself.
"Come down off that yard!" Mr. Meredith shouted. "Only two of you are to be there at a time."
They begged him to let them set the upper tops'l, but that yard was more like a broom-handle than anything else.
"The Hun can do it; no one else. The mast is rotten, and the yard too," Mr. Meredith shouted. (The Hun was the lightest of all the midshipmen.) So the others gathered in the "top" and watched the Hun swarm up the topmast, and so out on that tiny yard, casting off the gaskets of the tiny sail.
Then they dashed down on deck, before Mr. Meredith's voice bellowed out: "Let fall upper tops'l gaskets; overhaul your buntlines; sheet home, sheet home. Belay all!"
Then came the "pipe": "Clear lower deck! All hands 'bout ship'!"
When once the ship had tacked away from the shore, most of them made some excuse or other to find their way aloft again or out on the bowsprit; and though it may have looked curious to see theWhat's Her Nameslowly beating to wind'ard, backwards and forwards, across the harbour, with most of her crew up aloft or clinging to the bowsprit all the time, what did anything matter? They all enjoyed themselves hugely; those up aloft sniffing as the fragrant odour of cooking sausages floated up to them from the cook-house.
Tea-time came before they knew it.
"Seven bells, Bos'n," Mr. Meredith called out. The Pink Rat found an old tin and beat it. Everybody sang out for Barnes, came down from the mast, the bowsprit, or the poop, and rushed to help bring aft all the luxuries.
Old Fletcher fidgeted and looked at the Sub.
"Right you are, Fletcher!" he said, knowing that the old stoker would enjoy his tea more with Barnes than with them; so whilst they all sat round the poop and had a gorgeous tea—what a tea!—Barnes and Fletcher and "Kaiser Bill" had tea by themselves at the break of the fo'c'sle, and Bubbles, good-natured Bubbles, steered. However, there was so little breeze that it did not much matter whether anybody steered or not; and Dr. Gordon, finishing his meal quickly, relieved him.
"Where are we going to have our bathe?" Bubbles asked.
"Nowhere, my jumping Jimmy! I'm not going to weigh that anchor again, it is too much like work; we'll just sail about," the Sub said.
When nothing but empty plates, empty tins, and an empty teapot remained, and they were just going to fill their pipes, Dr. Gordon at the wheel called out: "Fetch my surgical bag, someone. I knew it would be wanted."
The Hun fetched it, opened it, and inside were three tins of pine-apple.
"Youaresplendid, sir," they shouted, as they opened the tins and cut the pine-apples into fat slices. "Won't these fill up odd corners?"
What a grand feast that was!
Then it was time to go back. The breeze had fallen still more, so the helm was put up, sheets were eased, the foretops'l and its little upper tops'l squared away, and theWhat's Her Namewafted slowly back to her anchorage, whilst everybody lay back, contentedly smoking and thoroughly happy.
They came abreast theAchates; sail was taken off her; the anchor let go; the "wild cat" whirled round (they knew then why it was called a "wild cat"); and there was nothing to do except pack up and stow away everything "shipshape", and wait until the Officer of the Watch sent the cutter across for them.
She came. They were taken back to theAchates, and the poor oldWhat's Her Nameleft desolate. Never could she have made a more happy voyage or borne a merrier crew than she did that afternoon—not in all her long life.