After the clean wind of the moor, the taint of the last meal and over-clad fellow-beings seemed to cling unpleasantly to the low-ceilinged room whither we fled, and I do not think we breathed comfortably again till we had paid our bill and returned to the sunlight. Before leaving we inquired the time, and learned it was nearly four o'clock.
One ought to "know the time," it seems, among men's haunts; but, once out of sight of these, it suffices, surely, to eat when hungry, sleep when tired, roam as long as daylight and legs will let one—in fine, to share with the shaggy ponies and browsing sheep a lofty disregard for all artificial divisions of the earth's journey through space. And our joint watch happened at the time to be undergoing repairs in Plymouth.
To follow the ramifications of a road gives one no lasting impression of the surrounding country, but directly a wanderer has to depend on landmarks as a guide, all his powers of observation quicken. One ragged hill-top guided us to another, across valleys scored with the workings of forgotten tin-mines. A brook, crooning its queer, independent moor-song between banks of peat, rambled beside us for some time. Then, as if wearying of our company, it turned abruptly and was lost to view; in the summer stillness of late afternoon we heard it babbling on long after our ways separated.
If the truth be known, I suspect it deemed us dullish dogs. But we were tiring—not with the jaded weariness begotten of hard roads, when the spine aches and knees stiffen; no, a comfortable lassitude was slackening our joints and bringing thoughts of warm baths and supper. However, our shadows, valiant fellows, swung along before us across the rusty bracken with a cheerful constancy, and, encouraged by their ever-lengthening strides and by the solitude, we even found heart to lift our voices in song. Now and again small birds fled upwards with shrill twitters at our approach, and settled again to resume their interrupted suppers; but after a while they left for their roosts in the rowans and sycamores to the south, and rabbits began to show themselves in the open spaces among the furze. As if reluctantly, the perfect day drew to its close.
We raced up the flank of a long ridge to keep the setting sun in view, reaching the crest as it dipped to meet a ragged tor, and sank in a golden glow. A little wind, like a tired sigh, ruffled the tops of the heather, swayed the grass an instant, and was gone.
"Ah-h-h!" breathed the Indiarubber Man in the stillness.
A thousand feet below us smoke was curling from the thickly wooded valley. It was five miles away, but somewhere amid those trees men brewed and women baked.
"Come on," he added tensely. "Beer!"
As we descended into the lowlands a widening circle of night was stealing up into the sky—the blue-grey and purple of a pigeon's breast. A single star appeared in the western sky, intensifying the peace of the silent moor behind us. Stumbling through twilit woods and across fields of young barley, we met a great dog-foxen routefor someone's poultry-run. He bared his teeth with angry effrontery as he sheered off and gave us a wide berth across the darkening fields. Doubtless he claimed his supremacy of hour and place, as did the sheep-dog that passed us so joyously earlier in the day. And, after all, what were we but interlopers from a lower plane!
The thirty-odd miles of our ramble reeled up like a tape-measure as we reached the lane, splashed with moonlight, that led us to the village. The gateway to every field held a pair of lovers whispering among the shadows: yet inexplicably they seemed an adjunct of their surroundings and the faintly bewildering night-scents. A dog sitting at the gate of a cottage uttered a short bark as we neared his domain; then, with a queer grumbling whimper, he came to us across the dust, and perhaps because—as far as is given to man in his imperfections—we had not wittingly done evil that day, he slobbered at our hands.
In the flagged and wainscotted parlour of the village inn a child brought us bread and cheese and froth-crested mugs of beer. While we ate and drank, she watched us with tranquil interest in violet-coloured eyes that foretold a sleepless night for some bucolic swain in years to come.
The Indiarubber Man finished his last draught and stood up with a mighty sigh to loosen his belt. Then, bending down, he took the child's flower-like face between his hands:
"'Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,'" he said gravely.Beer was ever prone to lend a certain smack of Scripture to his remarks.
"Surt'nly," said the little maid, all uncomprehending, and ran out to fetch our reckoning.
* * * * *
The Thermos flask slid with a clatter on to the steel deck of the top, and the Indiarubber Man opened his eyes. He yawned and stretched himself and rose stiffly to his feet.
The first rays of the sun were rising out of the sea. "Hai-yah!" He yawned. "Another bloomin' day. . . . I was dreaming . . . about . . . blowed if I can remember what I was dreaming about." He adjusted the focus of his glasses and stared out across the North Sea. "I wonder if they're coming out to-day."
It was the two hundred and seventy-third morning we had wondered that.
[1] The River Dart.
Although it all happened in that dim, remote period of time "Before theWar," Torps and the First Lieutenant, the Indiarubber Man (who was theLieutenant for Physical Training Duties), the Junior Watchkeeper, andothers who participated, long afterwards referred to it as "The Day."
Since then they have seen their own gunfire sink an enemy's ship as a well-flung brick disposes of an empty tin on the surface of a pond. The after twelve-inch guns, astride whose muzzles David and Freckles once soared to the giddy stars, have hurled instantaneous and awful death across leagues of the North Sea. The X-ray apparatus, by the agency of which Cornelius James desired to see right through his own "tummy," has enabled the Fleet Surgeon to pick fragments of steel out of tortured bodies, as a conjurer takes things out of a hat. The after-cabin, that had witnessed so many informal tea-and-muffin parties, has been an ether-reeking hospital.
Yet these memories grew blurred in time, as mercifully such memories do. It was another and more fragrant one that sweetened the grim winter vigil in the North, when every smudge of smoke on the horizon might have been the herald of Armageddon. They were yet to see men die by scores in the shambles of a wrecked battery, by hundreds on the shell-torn decks of a ship that sank, fighting gallantly to the last. And the recollection of what I am about to relate doubtless supplied sufficient answer to the question that at such times assails the minds of men.
Two who helped in that unforgettable good-night scene on the aft-deck were destined to add their names to the Roll of Britain's Honour. It is not too much to hope that the echo of children's merriment guided their footsteps through that dark Valley of the Shadow to the peaks of Eternal Laughter which lie beyond.
* * * * *
It all started during one of those informal tea-parties the Skipper's Missus sometimes held in the after-cabin. They were delightful affairs. You needn't accept the Invitation if you didn't want to; there was no necessity to put on your best monkey-jacket if you did. You were just told to "blow in" if you wanted some tea, and then you made your own toast, and there was China tea, in a big blue-and-white pot, that scented the whole cabin.
The Skipper's Missus sat by the fire, with her hands linked round her knees in her habitually graceful and oddly characteristic attitude; Torps and Jess, those gentle philosophers, occupied the chintz-covered settee; the A.P. sat on the hearth-rug, cross-legged like a tailor, so that he could toast and consume the maximum number of muffins with the minimum amount of exertion; the Junior Watchkeeper, who by his own admission "went all the bundle on his tea," and the Indiarubber Man, who was clumsy with a tea-cup, shared the table and a jam-pot, and sat munching, tranquil-eyed, like a pair of oxen in a stall.
The Captain and the First Lieutenant were rummaging through the drawers of the knee-hole table in search of an ancient recipe of the former's for manufacturing varnish of a peculiar excellence wherewith to beautify the corticene on the aft-deck.
"How are the children?" asked the Torpedo Lieutenant, helping himself to milk and Jess to a lump of sugar. "Out of quarantine yet?"
"Yes," replied the youthful mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James. "At last, poor things! Christmas is such a wretched time to have measles. No parties, no Christmas-tree——"
The A.P. looked up from the absorbing task of buttering a muffin to his satisfaction. "D'you remember the Christmas when you all came on board—wasn't it a rag? I broke my glasses because I was a tiger. I was that fierce."
"And I was chased by the dockyard police all the way from the Admiral Superintendent's garden with a young fir-tree under my arm. We had it for a Christmas-tree in the wardroom. Do you remember?"
They were all old friends, you see, and had served two commissions in succession with this Captain.
"Isn't it rather hard on theChee-si's?" asked Torps, "being done out of their parties—no, Jess, three lumps are considered quite enough for little dogs to consume at one sitting."
The Skipper's Missus looked across the cabin at her husband: "Tim, your tea's getting cold. Why shouldn't we have a children's party on board one day next week? It isn't too late, is it?"
"Yes, sir," chimed in the Indiarubber Man. "Apukkachildren's party, with wind-sails for them to slither down and a merry-go-round on the after-capstan?"
The Captain drank his tea thoughtfully; his blue eyes twinkled. "Let us have a definition ofchildren, Standish. I seem to remember a certain bridesmaid at the Gunnery Lieutenant's wedding of what I believe is technically called the 'flapper' age——"
"Quite right, sir," cut in the Torpedo Lieutenant. "Our lives were a misery for weeks afterwards. He burbled about 'shy flowerets' in his sleep, sir——"
The Indiarubber Man blushed hotly. "Not 't'll, sir. They're talking rot. She thought I was ninety, and daft at that. They always do," he added sighing, the sigh of a sore heart that motley traditionally covers.
"I propose that we have no one older than Georgina or younger than Cornelius James," suggested the Junior Watchkeeper. "That limits the ages to between ten and seven, and then I think Standish's susceptible heart would be out of danger."
"How many children do you propose to turn loose all over the ship?" inquired the First Lieutenant dourly. "No one seems to have taken my paint-work into consideration. It's all new this week."
The Skipper's Missus laughed softly. "We were so concerned about Mr.Standish's heart, Mr. Hornby, that we quite forgot your paint-work.Couldn't it be all covered up just for this once? Besides, they aresuch tiny children . . ."
There are many skippers' missuses, but only one mother of Georgina,Jane, and Cornelius James.
The First Lieutenant capitulated.
"I vote we don't have any grown-ups, either," contributed the Junior Watchkeeper, "except ourselves. Mothers and nurses always spoil children's parties."
The mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James wrung her hands in mock dismay. "Oh, but mayn't I come? I promise not to spoil anything—I love parties so!"
The A.P. rushed in where an angel might have been excused for faltering. "Glegg means that you don't count as a grown-up at a children's party," he explained naively, regarding the Skipper's Missus through his glasses with dog-like devotion.
She laughed merrily. "You pay a pretty compliment, Mr. Gerrard!"
"Double-O" Gerrard reddened and lapsed into bashful silence.
"It is agreed, then. We are to have a children's party, and I may come. Won't the children be excited!"
"Torps, what are you going to do with them," asked the First Lieutenant, "besides breaking their necks by pushing them down the windsails?" He spoke without bitterness, but as a man who had in his youth embraced cynicism as a refuge and found the pose easier to retain than to discard.
The Torpedo Lieutenant regarded him severely. "It's no good adopting this tone of lofty detachment, Number One. You're going to do most of the entertaining, besides keeping my grey hairs company."
The First Lieutenant laughed, a sad, hard laugh without any laughter in it. "I don't amuse children, I'm afraid. In fact, I frighten them. They don't like my face. No, no——"
"Mr. Hornby," interposed the Skipper's Missus reproachfully, "that isn't quite true, is it? You know Jane prays for you nightly, and Corney wouldn't for worlds sleep without that wooden semaphore you made him——"
"I think Hornby would make an admirable Father Neptune," said theCaptain, considering him mischievously, "with a tow wig and beard——"
"And my green bath kimono," supplemented the A.P. "I bought it at Nagasaki, in the bazaar. It's got green dragons all over it——" He met the First Lieutenant's eye and lapsed into silence again.
"Yes! Yes! And oyster-shells sewn all over it, and seaweed trailing . . ." The Skipper's Missus clapped her hands. "And distribute presents after tea. Oh, Mr. Hornby,wouldn'tthat be lovely!"
The First Lieutenant took no further part in the discussion. But late that night he was observed to select a volume of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (L-N) from the wardroom library, and retire with it to his cabin. His classical education had been scanty, and left him in some doubt as to what might be expected of the son of Saturn and Rhea at a children's party.
2
"I doubt if any of 'em'll face it," said the First Lieutenant hopefully, when The Day arrived. "There's a nasty lop on, and the glass is tumbling down as if the bottom had dropped out. It's going to blow a hurricane before midnight. Anyhow, they'll all be sick coming off."
The Torpedo Lieutenant was descending the ladder to the picket-boat. "Bunje and I are going in to look after them. It's too late to put it off now." He glanced at the threatening horizon. "They'll be all snug once we get them on board, and this'll all blow over before tea-time."
Off went the steamboats, the Torpedo Lieutenant in the picket-boat and the Indiarubber Man in the steam pinnace, and a tremor of excitement ran through the little cluster of children gathering at the jetty steps ashore.
"It's awfully rough outside the harbour," announced Cornelius James, submitting impatiently to his nurse's inexplicable manipulation of the muffler round his neck. "I'm never sick, though," he confided to a small and rather frightened-looking mite of a girl who clung to her nurse's hand and looked out to the distant ship with some trepidation in her blue eyes. "My daddy's a Captain," continued Cornelius James; "and I'mneversick—are you?"
She nodded her fair head. "Yeth," she lisped sadly.
"P'r'aps your daddy isn't a Captain," conceded Cornelius James magnificently.
The maiden shook her head. "My daddy's an Admiral," was the slightly disconcerting reply.
"I shall steer the boat," asserted Cornelius James presently, by way of restoring his shaken prestige.
"Oh, Corney, you can't," said Jane. "Casey always lets Georgie steer father's galley—you know he does. You're only saying that to show off."
"'M not," retorted Cornelius James. "I'm a boy: girls can't steer boats. 'Sides, Georgie'll be sick."
"Oh, I hope there'll be a band and dancing," said Georgina rapturously.
"That's all you girls think about," snorted a young gentleman of about her own age, with deep scorn. "Ihope there'll be a shooting gallery, an' those ras'berry puffs with cream on top. . . ." His eye followed the pitching steamboats, fast drawing near. "Anyhow, I hope there'll be a shooting gallery. . . . I say, it's rather rough, isn't it?"
The children, cloaked and muffled in their wraps, watched the boats buffet their way shoreward in clouds of spray. The parting injunctions of nurses and governesses fell on deaf ears. How could anyone be expected to listen to prompted rigmaroles about "bread and butter before cake" and "don't forget to say thank you for asking me" with the prospect of this brave adventure drawing so near?
Georgina, standing on tip-toe with excitement, suddenly emitted a shrill squeal of emotion. "Oh! there's Mr. Mainwaring in the first boat!"
"Who's Mr. Mainwaring?" inquired a small girl with a white bow over one ear, secretly impressed by Georgina's obvious familiarity with the inspiring figure in the stern sheets of the picket-boat.
"DearMr. Mainwaring!" repeated Georgina under her breath, gazing rapturously at her idol.
White Bow repeated her query.
"He's—he's Mr. Mainwaring," replied Georgina. "My Mr. Mainwaring." Which is about as much information as any young woman may reasonably be expected to give another who betrays too lively an interest in her beloved.
The Torpedo Lieutenant waved his arm in a gesture of indiscriminate greeting, and the children responded with a fluttering of hands and dancing eyes. The steam pinnace was following hard in the wake of the picket-boat.
Jane, with the far-seeing eye of love, recognised the occupant instantly. "There's Mr. Standish," she said. "MyMr. Standish!"
The nurse of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James turned to theProvidence that brooded over a small boy with a freckled face. "Didyou ever hear such children?" she asked in an aside. "HerMr.Standish! That's the way they goes on all day!"
The other nodded. "Mine's like that, too; only it's our ship's Sergeant of Marines with him." Master Freckles's choice in the matter of an idol had evidently not lacked the wise guidance of his nurse.
The boats swung alongside in the calm waters of the basin. The Torpedo Lieutenant handed his freight of frills and furbelows to the Coxswain's outstretched arms. The small boys to a man disdained the helping hand, but scrambled with fine independence into the stern sheets.
"Sit still a minute." The Indiarubber Man counted. ". . . Eight—twelve! Hallo! Six absentees—— No, Corney, you can't steer, because I'm going to clap you all below hatches the moment we get outside." He raised his voice, hailing the picket-boat. "All right, Torps?" The Torpedo Lieutenant signified that they were all aboard the lugger, and off they went.
The nurses assembled on the end of the jetty waved their handkerchiefs with valedictory gestures; the wind caught their shrill farewells and tossed them contemptuously to where the gulls wheeled far overhead.
"My! Isn't it blowing!" said the small boy in freckles, indifferent to his nurse's lamentations of farewell. "Look at Nannie's skirts, like a balloon. . . ."
"Yes," agreed the Torpedo Lieutenant gravely. "It's what's called a typhoon. I've only seen one worse, and that was the day I sailed in pursuit of Bill Blubbernose, the Bargee Buccaneer."
Georgina cast him a glance of passionate credence.
"Oh!" gasped Freckles, "have you really chased pirates?" The Torpedo Lieutenant nodded. A certain three weeks spent in an open cutter off the coast of Zanzibar as a midshipman still remained a vivid recollection.
"Tell us about it," said the children, and snuggled closer into the shelter of the Torpedo Lieutenant's long arms.
The steamboats drew near the ship, and in the reeling stern-sheets of the steam-pinnace the Indiarubber Man stood holding two small figures by the collars—two small figures whose heads projected far beyond the lee gunwale. They were Cornelius James and the young gentleman whose valiant soul had yearned for shooting galleries and eke raspberry puffs. And, horror of horrors! the little girls were laughing.
The picket-boat had no casualties to report, and as she went plunging alongside, the Junior Watchkeeper (in sea-boots at the bottom of the ladder) heard the Torpedo Lieutenant say:
"We cut their noses off and nailed them to the flying jibboom."
"And what happened then?" gasped the enthralled Freckles as he was picked up and hoisted over the rail on to the spray-splashed ladder.
"And they all lived happily ever afterwards," murmured the Torpedo Lieutenant absently. "Come on, who's next? One, two, three—on the next wave.Hupyou go!"
At the top of the ladder to greet each small guest stood the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James. She had lunched on board with her husband and had spent the early part of the afternoon fashioning a garment for Father Neptune—
"That the feast might be more joyous,That the time might pass more gaily,And the guests be more contented,"
quoted the First Lieutenant with his twisted smile, as he tried it on.
The quarterdeck had been closed in with an awning and side curtains of canvas that made all within as snug as any nursery. The deck had been dusted with French chalk; bright-coloured flags draped the canvas walls; the band was whimpering to start.
Cornelius James and his fellow sufferer were not long in recovering from their indisposition; a glass of milk and biscuits soon restored matters to the normal, and together they sallied forth to sample the joys that had been prepared for them.
There were windsails stretched from the after-bridge to mattresses on the quarter-deck, down which one shot through the dizzy darkness to end in a delicious "wump" at the bottom. The after-capstan was a roundabout, with its squealing passengers suspended from capstan-bars. Each grim twelve-inch gun had a saddle strapped round the muzzle, on which one sat, thrilled and ecstatic, while the great guns rose slowly to extreme elevation and descended again to mundane levels.
There were pennies for the venturesome, to be extracted at great personal risk from an electric dip; in a dark casemate a green light shivered in a little glass tube; you placed your hand in front of it, and on a white screen a skeleton hand appeared in a manner at once ghostly and delightful. Cornelius James returned to the quarter-deck as one who had brushed elbows with the Black Arts. "But I wish I could see right froo my own tummy," he confided, sighing, to the First Lieutenant.
The First Lieutenant, however, was ratherdistrait; he glanced constantly upwards at the bellying awning overhead and then walked to the gangway to look out upon the tumbling grey sea and lowering sky. Once or twice he conferred with a distinguished-looking gentleman who had not joined in the revels, but, carrying a telescope and wearing a sword-belt, remained aloof with a rather worried expression. This was the Officer of the Watch.
"We'll furl it while they're having tea," said the First Lieutenant. "But how the deuce they're going to get ashore the Lord knows. I'll have to hoist in the boats if it gets any worse. Keep an eye on the compass and see we aren't dragging." The Captain came across the deck.
"You must furl the awning, Hornby; we're in for a blow." He looked round regretfully at the laughing throng of youngsters.
"Yes, sir. And I think we ought to send the children ashore while there's still time." As he spoke a wave struck the bottom of the accommodation ladder and broke in a great cloud of spray.
"Too late now, I'm afraid. They'll have to stay till it moderates. The wind has backed suddenly. Get steam on the boat-hoist and hoist in the boats. You'd better top-up the ladders. Pretty kettle of fish, with my wife and all these children on board."
3
Tea had passed into the limbo of things enjoyed, if not forgotten, and the guests had gathered in the after-cabin. "Children!" cried the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James, "a visitor has come on board to see you!" As she spoke, a gaunt apparition appeared in the doorway. He wore a gilt paper crown, and was dressed in a robe of the brightest green. Seaweed hung in festoons from his head and shoulders, oyster-shells clashed as he walked; in one hand he carried a trident, and on his back a heavy pannier. His legs were encased in mighty boots, a shaggy beard hung down over his chest; his eyes, sombre and unsmiling, roved over the assembled children.
There was a sudden silence: then the small girl with the white bow over one ear burst into tears. "Boo-hoo!" she cried. "Don't like nasty man," and ran to bury her face in her hostess's gown. Her fears were infectious, and symptoms of a general panic ensued. "I knew it," mumbled the visitor despairingly into his beard, "Iknewthis would happen."
"Children, children, don't be silly—it's only Father Neptune. He's got presents for you all. Won't you go and say how d'you do to him! He's come all the way from the bottom of the sea."
Cornelius James pulled himself together and advanced with outstretched hand, as befitted the son of a post-captain on board his father's ship. "I know who you are," he asserted stoutly. "You're Father Christmas's brother!"
The First Lieutenant hastily accepted this new mythology. "Quite right," he replied with gratitude, "quite right!" Then, as if realising that something further was required of him, added in a deep bass voice:
"Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!"
White Bow screamed, and even Cornelius James the valiant fell back a pace. Matters were beginning to look serious, when the Torpedo Lieutenant appeared, rather out of breath. "Sorry we had to rush away just now, but we had to furl the awning——" His quick eye took in the situation at a glance.
"Hallo! old chap," he cried, and smote the dejected Father Neptune on the back. "Iamdelighted to see you! How are all the mermaids and flying-fish? Bless my soul! what have you got in this pannier—dolls . . . lead soldiers, air-guns! Isay——"
The children rallied round him as the children of another age must have rallied round Saint George of England.
"Don't like nasty old man," repeated White Bow, considering the First Lieutenant with dewy eyes. "Nasty cross old man." The visitor from the bottom of the sea fumbled irresolutely with his trident.
"Is it really Father Christmas's own brother?" queried a small sceptic, advancing warily.
"Of course it is! Look here, look at all the things he's brought you," and in an undertone to the First Lieutenant, "Buck up, Number One, don't look so frightened!" They unslung the pannier and commenced to unpack the contents; the children gathered round with slowly returning confidence, and by twos and threes the remainder of the hosts returned from the upper-deck.
"Why aren't they all wet if they've come from the bottom of the sea?" demanded Freckles the materialist. "Why isn't Father Christmas's brother wet?"
They looked round in vain. Father Christmas's brother had vanished.
At that moment the Captain entered and sought his wife's eye. For a few moments they conferred in an undertone; then she laughed, that clear confident laugh of hers with which they had shared so many of life's perplexities.
"Children!" she cried, "listen! Here's an adventure! We've all got to sleep on board to-night!"
"Oh, mummie!" gasped Georgina with rapture, "howlovely!" This was a party, and no mistake. "Can I sleep in Mr. Mainwaring's cabin?"
"And can I sleep in Mr. Standish's cabin?" echoed Jane earnestly. "And we needn't go to bed for hours and hours, need we?" chimed in Cornelius James.
"Where are they to sleep?" asked the Captain's wife, turning to the Torpedo Lieutenant with laughter still in her eyes. "I never thought of that. One always has spare rooms in a house, but a battleship is so different. . . ."
"It's all right," he replied. "I've arranged all that. There are a lot of people ashore: the children can use their cabins, and some of us can sling in cots for the night. They'll have to wear our pyjamas. . . . But I don't know about baths——"
"I think they must have plenary absolution from the tub to-night." She glanced at the tiny watch at her wrist. "Now then, children, half an hour before bed time: one good romp. What shall we play?"
"Oranges and lemons," said Georgina promptly, and seized theIndiarubber Man's hand.
"I don't know the words," replied her partner plaintively; "I only 'knows the toon,'" as the leadsman said to the Navigator.
So the children supplied the words to the men's bass accompaniment; the Captain and his wife linked hands. The candle came to light them to bed; the chopper came to chop off a head; and at the end a grand tug-of-war terminated with two squealing heaps of humanity in miniature subsiding on top of the Young Doctor and the A.P.
Then they played "Hunt the slipper," at which Torps, with his long arms, greatly distinguished himself, and "Hide the thimble," at which Double-O Gerrard, blinking through his glasses straight at the quarry without seeing it, was hopelessly disgraced. "General Post" and "Kiss in the Ring" followed, and quite suddenly the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James decreed it was time for bed, and the best game of all began.
The Captain's wife gathered six pairs of vasty pyjamas over her arm. "I'll take the girls all together and look after them in my husband's cabin," she said. "We'll come along when we're ready. Will you all look after the boys?"
Freckles fell to the lot of the Junior Watchkeeper; David, specialist in raspberry puffs, had already attached himself to the Indiarubber Man. The A.P. found himself leading off a young gentleman with an air-gun which he earnestly desired as a bed-fellow. The remaining two, red-headed twins who had spent most of the afternoon locked in combat, were in charge of Torps and the Young Doctor.
"Where's Cornelius James?" asked the First Lieutenant suddenly. "What a day, what a day!" A search party was promptly instituted, and the Captain's son at last discovered forward in the Petty Officers' mess. Here, seated on the knee of Casey, his father's coxswain, he was being regaled with morsels of bloater, levered into his willing mouth on the point of a clasp knife, and washed down by copious draughts of strong tea out of a basin.
"I went to say 'Good night' to Casey," explained the delinquent as he was being led back to civilisation, "and Casey said I ought to be hungry after mustering my bag this afternoon. What does that mean?"
"I shouldn't listen to everything Casey tells you," replied the FirstLieutenant severely.
"That's what daddy says sometimes," observed Cornelius James. "But I like Casey awfully. Better'n Nannie. He taught me how to make a reef-knot, an' I can do semaphore—the whole alphabet . . . nearly."
"Here we are," interrupted his harassed mentor, stopping before the door of his cabin. "This is where you've got to sleep." He lifted his small charge on to the bunk. "Now then, let's get these shoes off. . . ."
The flat echoed with the voices of children and the sounds of expostulation. The Marine sentry (specially selected for the post "on account of 'im 'avin' a way with children," as the Sergeant-Major had previously explained to the First Lieutenant) drifted to and fro on his beat with a smile of ecstatic enjoyment on his faithful R.M.L.I. features. For some moments he hovered outside the Junior Watchkeeper's cabin. There were indications in the conversation drifting out through the curtained doorway that all was not well within. At length Private Phillips could contain himself no longer. "Better let me do it, sir. Bein' a married man, sir, I knows the routine, in a manner o' speakin' . . ." he said, and plunged into the fray.
"Oh, is that you, Phillips?" the relieved voice of the Junior Watchkeeper was heard to say. "I can't get the lead of this infernal rice-string—don't wriggle, Jim—it's rove so taut. . . ."
"What 'normouspyjamas," said Cornelius James, suffering himself to be robed in his night-attire. The operation was conducted with some difficulty because of the sheathed sword which the visitor had found in a corner of his host's cabin and refused thereafter to be parted from. "Have you ever killed anyone with this sword?" A blustering sea broke against the ship's side and splashed the glass of the scuttle with spray. "Hark at the waves outside! Can't I have the window open? Shall I say my prayers to you?"
"No," replied the First Lieutenant, with a little wry smile, as the shadow-fingers of the might-have-been tightened momentarily round his heart. "No, I think you'd better wait till Mummie comes." Shrill voices and peals of laughter sounded outside. "Here she is now."
He stepped outside, and met the mother of Georgina, Jane, and CorneliusJames at the head of her flock.
"Here we are," she exclaimed, laughing. "But, oh, Mr. Hornby, our pyjamas are sohuge!"
"So are ours," said the First Lieutenant, and stooped to gather into his arms a pathetic object whose pyjama coat of many colours almost trailed along the deck. "Cornelius James wants you to go and hear him say his prayers. . . . I will find sleeping quarters for this one."
Ten minutes later the last child had been swung into its unaccustomed sleeping quarters; the twins in adjacent cabins had ceased to hurl shrill defiance at each other; and silence brooded over the flat. By the dim light of the police-lamp Private Phillips paced noiselessly up and down on his beat, and the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James passed softly from cabin to cabin in that gentle meditation mothers play at bedtime.
On her way aft to the after-cabin she met the Torpedo Lieutenant. "The children all want to say 'Good night' to you," she said softly. "Only don't stay long. They are so excited, and they'll never go to sleep." Of all the men on board the Torpedo Lieutenant's heart was perhaps nearest that of a child. He tiptoed into the cabin-flat and drew the curtain of the nearest cabin.
"Who's in here?"
"Me," said a small voice. Torps approached the bunk. "Who's 'me'—Georgina?"
"Yes. Goodnight, Mr. Mainwaring."
"Good night, shrimp," replied her idol, submitting to the valediction of two skinny arms twined tightly round his neck. "Good night, and sweet dreams. . . . No, I can't tell you stories to-night; it's much too late. . . . Lie down and go to sleep."
In the next cabin, the sound of deep breathing showed that the small occupant had passed into dreamland. It was Freckles. Jane remained awake long enough to kiss his left eyebrow and was asleep the next instant. White Bow also was asleep, and nearly all the remainder drowsy. Cornelius James, clasping the First Lieutenant's sword, however, remained wide-eyed. "I'm so firsty," he complained plaintively.
"That's called Nemesis, my son," said Torps, and gave him to drink out of the water-bottle. "Fank you," said Cornelius James, and sighed, as children and dogs do after drinking.
"Good night, Corney. . . . Now you must go to sleep and dream of bloaters. Oh, aren't you really sleepy? Well, if you shut your eyes tight perhaps the dustman won't see you," and switched out the light. As he was leaving a drowsy voice again spoke out of the darkness.
"What did the Buccaneer say when you nailed his nose to the flying jibboom?"
"Please make me a good boy," replied Torps, somewhat at random.
"Oh, same's I do," said Cornelius James.
"More or less; isn't that sword very uncomfortable?"
But no answer came back, for Cornelius James, the hilt of the sword grasped firmly in two small hands, had passed into the Valhalla of Childhood.
The sun had not long set, and its afterglow bathed the bay in pink light. It was a land-locked harbour, and the surface of the water held the reflections of the anchored Battle-fleet mirrored to its smallest detail. So still was the evening that sounds travelled across the water with peculiar acute distinctness.
On the quarter-deck of the end ship of the lee line a thousand men were trying to talk in undertones, lighting and relighting pipes, rallying their friends on distant points of vantage, and humming tunes under their breath. The resultant sound was very much like what you would hear if you placed your ear against a beehive on a summer day, only magnified a million-fold.
The ship's company of a super-Dreadnought, and as many men from other ships as could be accommodated on board, were gathered on the foremost part of the quarter-deck, facing aft. They sat in rows on mess stools, they were perched astride the after-turret guns, on the shields of the turrets, clinging to rails, stanchions and superstructure, tier above tier of men clad in night-clothing—that is to say, in blue jumper and trousers, with the white V of the flannel showing up each seaman's bronzed neck and face. Seamen and marines all wore their caps tilted comfortably on the backs of their heads, as is the custom of men of H.M. Navy enjoying their leisure. Above them all the smoke from a thousand pipes and cigarettes trembled in a blue haze on the still air of a summer evening.
They were there to witness an impromptu sing-song—a scratch affair organised at short notice to provide mirth and recreation for a ship's company badly in need of both. It was a ship's company hungry for laughter after endless months of watching and waiting for an enemy that was biding his time. Their lungs ached for a rousing, full-throated chorus ("Alltogether, lads!"). They were simply spoiling to be the most appreciative audience in the world.
On the after-part of the quarter-deck a stage had been hurriedly constructed—a rude affair of planks and spars that could be disposed of in a very few moments if necessity arose—that supported a piano. A canvas screen, stretched between two stanchions behind the stage, did duty as scenery, and afforded the performers a "green-room"—for, of all the ritual connected with appearing upon a stage, the business of "making-up" lies nearest to the sailor's heart. Provide him with a lavish supply of grease-paint, wigs, and the contents of the chaplain's or the officer of his division's wardrobe, and the success or otherwise of his turn, when it ultimately comes, matters little to the sailor-man. He has had his hour.
In front of the stage, a little in advance of the men, rows of chairs and benches provided sitting accommodation for the officers. They came up from dinner, lighting pipes and cigars, a full muster from Wardroom, Gunroom and Warrant Officers' Mess. The Captain came last, and his appearance was the signal for a great outburst of cheering from the closely packed audience. They had been waiting for this moment. It gave them an opportunity of relieving their pent-up feelings; it also gave them a chance to show the rest of the Fleet their attitude towards this Captain of theirs.
It was something they were rather proud that the rest of the Fleet should see.
Moreover, the rest of the Fleet, leaning over the forecastle rails and smoking its evening pipe, did see, and was none the worse for it.
A man might have been excused if he betrayed some self-consciousness at finding himself thus suddenly the cynosure of a thousand-odd pair of eyes whose owners were doing their best to show him, after their fashion, that they thought him an uncommonly fine fellow. The atmosphere was electrical with this abrupt, boyish ebullition of feeling. Yet the Captain's face, as he took his seat, was as composed as if he were alone in the middle of his own wide moors. He lit a pipe and nodded to the Commander beside him to signify that as far as he was concerned the show could start as soon as they liked.
All happy ships own a sing-song party of some sort or another. It may be that the singers are content to sit pipe in mouth in the lee of a gunshield and croon in harmony as the dusk settles down on a day's work done. Other ships' companies are more ambitious; the canteen provides a property-box, and from a flag-decked stage the chosen performers declaim and clog-dance with all the circumstance of the drama.
In days of piping peace, the Operatic and Dramatic Company of this particular ship had known many vicissitudes. Under the guidance of a musically inclined Ship's Steward, it had faced audiences across impromptu footlights as "The Pale Pink Pierrots," and, as such, had achieved a meteoric distinction. But unhappily the Ship's Steward was partial to oysters, and bought a barrelful at an auction sale ashore. On the face of things, it appeared a bargain; but the Ship's Steward neglected to inquire too closely into the antecedents of its contents, and was duly wafted to other spheres of usefulness.
The Chaplain, an earnest man but tone-deaf, rallied the leaderless troupe of musicians. During the period of his directorship they were known to fame as "The Musical Coons." Musical in that each one wielded a musical instrument with which he made bold to claim acquaintance, Coons because they blacked their faces with burnt cork and had "corner-men." The corner-men were the weak spots in an otherwise well-planned organisation.
A sailor can be trusted with the integrity of a messmate's honour or the resources of the mint, conceivably with the key of a brewery cellar, and justify the confidence reposed in him. But he cannot be trusted to be a corner-man, "gagging" with a black face and a pair of bones. The Musical Coons dissolved after one performance, during which the Captain's brow grew black and the Chaplain turned faint, and an ecstatic ship's company shouted itself hoarse with delirious enjoyment.
Thereafter, for a period, the breath of rebuke and disrepute clung to the songsters; but a ship without a sing-song party is like a dog without a tail. A committee of Petty Officers waited upon the First Lieutenant, as men once proffered Cromwell the Protectorship of England, lest a worse thing befell them. The First Lieutenant, with a reluctance and a full sense of the responsibilities involved, that was also Cromwellian, finally consented to become the titular head of the sing-song party.
He it was, then, who rose from his chair, holding a slip of paper, and faced the great bank of faces with one hand raised to enjoin silence. The cheering redoubled.
For perhaps fifteen seconds he stood with raised hand, then he lowered it and the smile left his eyes. His brows lowered too. The cheering wavered, faltered, died away. They knew what Number One meant when he looked like that.
"The first item on the programme," he said in his clear voice, "is a song by Petty Officer Dawson, entitled, 'The Fireman's Daughter,'" and sat down again amid loud applause.
The A.P. rose, hopped on to the stage, and sat down at the piano that occupied one wing of the stage. Petty Officer Dawson, who was also the ship's painter, emerged from behind the canvas screen, coyly wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. The piano tinkled out the opening bars of the song, and the concert began.
It was a sad song; the very first verse found the fireman's daughter on her death-bed. But the tune was familiar and pleasantly mournful, and, as the piano thumped the opening bars of the refrain for the second time, the hundreds of waiting men took it up readily. The melody swelled and rose, till the sadness of the theme was somehow overwhelmed by the sadness that is in the harmony of men's voices singing in the open air.
Petty Officer Dawson was a stout man addicted in daily life to the inexplicable habit of drying his gold-leaf brush in the few wisps of hair Nature had left him with. His role on the occasion of a concert was usually confined to painting the scenery. The nation being at war, and this particular concert held during the effective blockade of an enemy's empire, scenery was out of the question. So, as one of the recognised members of the sing-song party, he sang—with, be it added, considerable effect.
"The next item," announced the First Lieutenant (who knew his audience better even than they knew him), "is a comic song entitled, 'Hold tight, Emma!' by Stoker Williams."
This was "Taff" Williams, Stoker First-class, comedian tenth-class, and master of patter unintelligible (mercifully so, perhaps) to any but a bluejacket audience. He was a wisp of a man with a pale, beardless face and small features; incidentally, too, the scrum half of the ship's Rugby team and the referee's terror.
But he was more than this: he was the ship's wag, and so was greeted with shouts and whistles of approval as he stepped on to the stage attired in the burlesque counterfeit of an airman's costume.
Perhaps you might not have thought his song so very funny after all. It might even have struck you as vulgar, since it depended for its humour upon gorgonzola cheese, the eldest son of the German Emperor,mal-de-mer, and a number of other things not considered amusing in polite society. But the sailor's susceptibilities are peculiar: they were there to enjoy themselves, and again and again a great gust of laughter swept over the audience as an autumn gale convulses the trees on the outskirts of a forest. The singer's topical allusions, sly incomprehensibilities, he flung about him like bombs that burst in an unfailing roar of delight among his shipmates. No wonder they liked him; and even the padre, who perforce had to knit his brows once or twice, looked regretful when the last encore was over.
Taff Williams's song was succeeded by a duet. The singers were also comedians, but of a different calibre. Some odd freak of Nature had fashioned them both astoundingly alike in face and frame. They were baldish men, short and sturdy, with sandy eyebrows and lashes of so light a colour as to be almost invisible. Their countenances were round and expressionless, and their song, which was called "We are the Brothers Boo-Hoo!" contained little beyond reiterations of the fact, interspersed with "steps" of a solemn and intricate nature.
Ordinarily their avocations and walks in life were separated by a wide gulf. One was a Petty Officer and L.T.O., the other a stoker. But Fame recognises no distinctions of class or calling, and circumstances over which they had little control, the universal decree of the ship's company in short, drove them on to the stage to face successive audiences side by side as The Brothers Boo-Hoo. Neither dreamed of appearing there without the other, although off it, save for a few grave rehearsals, they rarely met. They were not vocalists, but they bowed to popular demand, preserving their stolid, immobile demeanours, and sang in accents sternly and unintelligibly Gaelic.
Their turn over, the First Lieutenant announced a juggling display by Boy Buggins. Boy Buggins appeared, very spick and span in a brand new suit of Number Threes, and proceeded to juggle with canteen eggs, Indian clubs and mess crockery (while the caterer of his mess held his breath to the verge of apoplexy) in a manner quite bewildering.
The Captain took his pipe out of his mouth and leaned towards the Commander. "Where did the lad pick up these antics?" he inquired, smiling.
The Commander shook his head. "I don't know, sir. Probably in a circus."
As a matter of fact, Boy Buggins did start life (as far as his memory carried him) in grubby pink tights and spangles. But he followed in the train of no circus; it was in front of public-houses in a district of London where such pitches recurred with dreary frequency that he cut capers on a strip of carpet. He visited them nightly in the company of a stalwart individual who also wore pink tights. After each performance the stalwart one ordained an interval for refreshment. On good days he used to reach home very much refreshed indeed.
They called it home (it was a cellar) because they slept there; and as often as not a thin woman with tragic eyes was there waiting for them. She used to hold out her hand with a timid, shamed gesture, and there was money in it which the man took. If he had had a good day or she a bad one—it was always one or the other—the stalwart one beat the woman, or, in his own phraseology, "put it acrost" her. But ultimately he had one good day too many, or else he felt unusually stalwart, for the woman lay motionless in the corner of the cellar where she was flung, and wouldn't answer when he had finished kicking her.
The police took the stalwart one away to swing for it, and "the parish" took the thin woman away in a deal box. Boy Buggins passed, via an industrial training ship, into the Royal Navy, and earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal before this particular sing-song had passed out of the minds of those who were present at it.
One must conclude that all these things were, as the Arabs say, on his forehead.
"Private Mason, R.M.L.I.—Concertina Solo!"
A great burst of laughter and cheering broke out from the sailors, and redoubled as a private of Marines, holding a concertina in his gnarled fists, walked on to the stage. Even the officers put their hands up to smile behind them; one or two nearest the First Lieutenant leaned over and patted him on the back as if he had achieved something.
The whole audience, officers and men, were evidently revelling in some tremendous secret reminiscence conjured up by the appearance of this private of Marines. Yet, as he stood there, fingering the keys of his instrument, waiting for the uproar to subside, there was little about him to suggest high humour. He was just a thin, rather delicate-looking man with a grizzled moustache and dreamy eyes fixed on vacancy. His claim to notoriety, alas, lay in more than his incomparable music. Human nature at its best is a frail thing. But human nature, as typified by Private Mason, was very frail. Apart from his failing he was a valuable asset to the sing-song party; but, unhappily, it required all the resources and ingenuity of its promoters to keep Private Mason sober on the night of an entertainment.
When and how he acquired the wherewithal to wreck the high hopes of the reigning stage manager was a mystery known to him alone. His messmates drained their tots at dinner with conscientious thoroughness, and his into the bargain, striving together less in the cause of temperance than from a desire that he should for once do himself and his concertina (of which he was a master) justice.
Yet, his turn announced, on the last occasion of a concert before the war, the curtain rose upon an empty stage. The Carpenter's party happened upon him, as archaeologists might excavate a Sleeping Bacchus or a recumbent Budda, in the process of dismantling the stage. Private Mason was underneath it, breathing stertorously, a smile of beatific contentment on his worn features, his head pillowed on his concertina.
The Fleet Surgeon subsequently missed a large-sized bottle of eau-de-Cologne from his cabin, which he was bringing home from Gibraltar as a present for his wife. The discovery of the loss assisted him in his diagnosis of the case.
Silence fell on the audience at length, and the concertina solo began. As has been indicated, Private Mason could play the concertina. In his rather tremulous hands it was no longer an affair of leather and wood (or of whatever material concertinas are constructed), but a living thing that laughed and sobbed, and shook your soul like the Keening. It became a yearning, passionate, exultant daughter of Music that somehow wasn't quite respectable.
And when he had finished, and passed his hand across his moist forehead preparatory to retiring from the stage, they shouted for more.
"Church bells, Nobby!" cried a hundred voices. "Garn, do the church bells!" So he did the church bells, as the wind brings the sound across the valley on a summer evening at home, wringing his shipmates' sentimental heartstrings to the limit of their enjoyment.
"Strewth!" ejaculated a bearded member of the audience when the turn was over, relighting his pipe with a hand that shook. "I 'ear Nobby play that at the Canteen at Malta, time Comman'er-in-Chief an' 'is Staff was there—Comman'er-in-Chief, so 'elp me, 'e sob' like a woman. . . ."
The reminiscence may not have been in strict accordance with the truth, but, even considered in the light of fiction, it was a pretty testimony to Private Mason's art.
The last turn of the evening came an hour later when the slightly embarrassed Junior Watchkeeper stepped on to the stage. His appearance was the signal for another great outburst of enthusiasm from the men. He was not perhaps more of a favourite with them than any of his brethren seated on the chairs below; but he was an officer, obviously not at ease on a concert stage, only anxious to do his bit towards making the evening a success. They realised it on the instant, with the readiness of seamen to meet their officers half-way when the latter are doing something they evidently dislike to help the common weal. They knew the Junior Watchkeeper didn't want to sing, and they cared little what he sang about, but they cheered him with full-throated affection as he stood gravely facing them, waiting for a lull.
It is just this spirit, of which so much has been imperfectly conveyed to the layman—is, in fact, not comprehended in its entity by outsiders—which is called for want of a better term "sympathy between officers and men." It is a bond of mutual generosity and loyalty, strong as steel, more formidable to an enemy than armaments; strengthened by monotony and a common vigil, it thrives on hardships shared, and endures triumphant, as countless tales shall tell, down to the gates of Death.
The Junior Watchkeeper's song was an old one—one that had stirred the hearts of sailors no longer even memories with his audience. He sang simply and tunefully in the strong voice of one who knew how to pitch an order in the open air. When it was finished, he acknowledged the tumultuous applause by a stiff little bow and retreated, flushing slightly. The sing-song was over.
The officers were rising from their chairs, the A.P. at the piano was looking towards the Commander for permission to crash out the opening bars of the Anthem that would swing the audience as one man to its feet. At that moment a Signalman threaded his way through the chairs and saluted the Captain.
The latter took the signal-pad extended to him, and read the message. Then he turned abruptly to the audience, his hand raised to command silence. The last of the warm glow that lingered long in the northern summer twilight lit his strong, fine face as he faced his men. There was a great hush of expectancy.
"Before we pipe down," he said, "I want to read you a message that has just come from the Commander-in-Chief. 'One of our destroyers engaged and sank by gunfire two of the enemy's destroyers this afternoon.'"
A great roar of cheering greeted the curt message. The listening fleet took it up, and in the stillness of the land-locked harbour the volume of sound reverberated, savagely and triumphantly exultant.
The hills ashore caught the echo and tossed it sleepily to and fro.
Then, flushed with excitement and hoarse with shouting, they sang theNational Anthem to a close.
Altogether, it was a very noisy evening.
The Lieutenant for Physical Training Duties came down into the Wardroom and sank into the one remaining arm-chair.
"I must say," he ejaculated, "the sailor is a cheerful animal. Umpteen days steaming on end without seeing any enemy—just trailing the tail of our coat about the North Sea—we come into harbour and we invite the matelots to lie on their backs on the upper-deck (minus cap and jumper) and wave their legs in the air by way of recreation. They comply with the utmost good humour. They don't believe that it does them the smallest good, but they know I get half-a-crown a day for watching them do it, and they go through with it like a lot of portly gentlemen playing 'bears' to amuse their nephews."
The Indiarubber Man broke off and surveyed his messmates with a whimsical grey eye. The majority were assimilating the contents of illustrated weeklies over a fortnight old; two in opposite corners of the settee were asleep with their caps tilted over their noses, sleeping the sleep of profound exhaustion. One member of the mess was amusing himself with a dice-box at the table, murmuring to himself as he rattled and threw.
The Indiarubber Man, in no wise irritated at the general lack of interest in his conversation, wriggled lower in his arm-chair till he appeared to be resting on the flat of his shoulder-blades, with his chin buried in the lappels of his monkey-jacket. "I maintain," his amiable monologue continued, "that there's something rather touching about the way they flap their arms about and hop backwards and forwards, and 'span-bend' and agonise themselves with such unfailing good humour—don't you think so, Pills?"
The Young Doctor gathered the dice again, knitting his brows. ". . . Seventy-seven, seventy-eight—that's seventy-eight times I've thrown these infernal dice without five aces turning up. And twenty-three times before breakfast. How much is seventy-eight and twenty-three? Three and eight's eleven, put down one and carry one—I beg pardon, I wasn't listening to you. Did you ask me a question?"
"I was telling you about the sailors chucking stunts on the quarter-deck."
"I don't want to hear about the sailors: they make me tired. There isn't a sick man on board except one I've persuaded to malinger to keep me out of mischief. They're the healthiest collection of human beings I've ever met in my life."
"That's me," retorted the Indiarubber Man modestly. "Iam responsible for their glowing health. They haven't been ashore for—how long is it?"
"Ten years it feels like," said someone who was examining the pictorial advertisements of an illustrated paper with absorbed interest.
"Quite. They haven't had a run ashore for ten years—ever since the war started, in fact; and yet, thanks to the beneficial effects of physical training, as laid down in the book of the words, and administered by the underpaid Lieutenant for Physical Training Duties, the Young Doctor is enabled to sit in the mess all day and see how often he can throw five aces. In short, he becomes a world's worker."
"It's justbecausethey haven't been ashore for weeks and months, and in spite of the Lieutenant for Physical Training—och! No, Bunje, don't start scrapping—it's too early in the morning, and we'll wake . . . those . . . poor devils——Eugh! Poof! There! What did I tell you!"
The two swaying figures, after a few preliminary cannons off sideboard, arm-chair and deck stanchion, finally collapsed on to the settee. The sleepers awakened with disgust.
"Confound you, Bunje, you clumsy clown!" roared one. Between them they seized the Young Doctor, who was a small man, and deposited him on the deck. "Couldn't you see I was asleep, Pills?" demanded the other hotly. "You've woken Peter, too. He's had—how many is it, Peter?—eight morning watches running. I've brooded over him like a Providence from the fore-top through each weary dawning, so I ought to know." He yawned drowsily. "Peter saw a horn of the crescent moon sticking out of a cloud this morning, and turned out the anti-aircraft guns' crews. Thought it was the bows of a Zeppelin. Skipper was rather peevish, wasn't he, Peter?"
The Junior Watchkeeper grunted and turned over on to his other side. "Well, you nearly opened fire on a northern diver in that flat calm at dawn the other morning." The speaker cocked a drowsy eye on the mess from under his cap-peak. "Silly ass vowed it was the periscope of an enemy's submarine coming to the surface."
"Truth is," said the Indiarubber Man, "your nerves are shattered. Pills, here's a job for you. Give the lads two-penn'orth of bromide and stop their wine and extras. In the meanwhile," he pulled a small book out of his pocket, "I have here a daintybrochure, entitled, 'Vox Humana—Its Ascendancy over Mere Noise'—otherwise, 'Handbook for Physical Training.' I may say I was partly responsible for its production."
"I believe you, faith!" said the Fleet Surgeon bitterly, over the top of the B.M.J.
The Indiarubber Man wheeled round. "P.M.O.! That's not the tone in which to speak to your Little Ray of Sunshine. It lackedjoie de vivre." The speaker beamed on the mess. "I think we are all getting a little mouldy, if you ask me. In short, we are not the bright boys we were when war broke out. Supposing now—I say supposing—we celebrated our return to harbour, and the fact that we haven't bumped a mine-field, by asking our chummy-ship to dinner to-night, and giving them a bit of a chuck-up! Which is our chummy-ship, by the way? Where's theWhat Ho!lying?" He walked to the scuttle and stuck his head out. "Blessed if I can tell t'other from which now we're all so beautifully disguised."
"We haven't got a chummy-ship," replied the A.P. "We don't want a chummy-ship. Nobody loves us. We hate each other with malignant hatred by reason of hobnailed livers."
"And if we had," interposed another Lieutenant gloomily, "they'd far rather stay on board their own rotten ship. They're probably getting used to their messman by now. The sudden change of diet might be fatal." The speaker turned to the Young Doctor. "Pills, what d'you get when you change your diet sudden-like—scurvy, or something awful, don't you?"
"Hiccoughs." The Surgeon dragged his soul from the depths of a frayedWinning Postand looked up. His face brightened. "Why? Anyone here——"
"No, no, that's all right, my merry leech. Only Bunje wants to ask theWhat Ho'sto dinner."
"Yes," interposed the Gunnery Lieutenant, with a sudden access of enthusiasm. "Let's ask 'em. Where's the Navy List?" He flung a tattered Navy List on the table and pored over it.
"Hear, hear!" chimed in the Engineer Lieutenant-Commander. "Let's be a band of brothers, an' all drinks down to the mess the whole evening."
The mess generally began to consider the project.
"Here's the Commander," said someone. "Casting-vote from him! D'you mind if we ask theWhat Ho'sto dinner, sir? We all feel we should be better, nobler men after a heart-to-heart talk with our chummy-ships."
"Ask anyone you like," replied the Commander, "as long as they don't ask me to dine with them in their ship by way of revenge."
"Carried!" exclaimed the Indiarubber Man. "'Commander, 'e sez, spoke very 'andsome!' I will now indite a brief note of invitation. Bring me pens, ink and paper.Apportez-moi l'encre de mon cousin, aussi du poivre, du moutard et des legumes—point à la ligne! I got a prize for French in theBritannia."
Here the Fleet Surgeon said something in an undertone about a village idiot, and left the mess. As he went out the First Lieutenant entered with an apologetic mien which everyone appeared to recognise instinctively.
The Torpedo Lieutenant looked up from his book. "Oh, no, Number One, spare us for just one morning. I've got a headache already from listening to Bunje."
The A.P. threw himself into an attitude of supplication. "Number One, consider the awful consequences of your act before it's too late. Consider what it means. If you make the wardroom untenable, I shall have to sit in the office all the morning. I might even have to do some work!"
The First Lieutenant shook his head dourly. "The chipping party is going to start in the wardroom this morning. Paint's inches thick on the bulkheads, and a shell in here would start fires all over the place. Bunje, if you want to write letters you'd better go somewhere else and do it."
The Indiarubber Man thumped the blotting-paper on his freshly written sheets and looked up with his penholder between his teeth. "I've finished, Number One. Admit your hired bravoes."
As he spoke an ear-splitting fusillade of hammering commenced outside. The steel bulkheads reverberated with blows that settled down to a persistent rain of sound, deafening, nerve-shattering.
"They've started outside," shouted the First Lieutenant.
A general exodus ensued, and the Indiarubber Man gathered his writing materials preparatory to departure. "I guessed they had," he was heard to say. "I thought I heard a sound as it might have been someone tapping on the bulkhead."
The watchkeepers asleep on the settee stirred in their sleep, frowned, and sank again into fathomless oblivion.
* * * * *
The Indiarubber Man entered the wardroom in company with the Paymaster as the corporal of the ward-room servants was putting the finishing touches to the dinner-table. They surveyed the apartment without enthusiasm.
"Considered as a banquet hall, I confess it does lack something," observed the former.
"There's a good deal of paint lacking from the bulkheads. Number One has had a field day and a half."
The other nodded. "In the words of the song:
'There's no carpet on the floor,And no knocker on the door,Oh, ours is a happy little home . . .'
Phillips, bring me the menu, and let's see the messman has succeeded in being funny without being vulgar."
Corporal Phillips brought the menu with the air of one who connives at a felony. "Messman says, sir, it ain't all 'e'd like it to be, what with guests comin' and that. But I says to 'im, 'war is war,' I says, 'an' we can't expect eggs-on-meatentrées, same's if it was peace time.'"
"To-day's beautiful thought!" remarked the Indiarubber Man when the corporal had withdrawn. "Really, Phillips has a knack of disclosing great truths as if they were the lightest gossip."
The Engineer Commander came in, glancing at the clock. "Five minutes more and theWhat Ho'swill be here. Bunje, my lad, you were responsible for thisentente—have you any idea what we are going to do with them after dinner?"
"None," replied the Indiarubber Man; "none whatever. It will come to me sudden-like. I might dress up as a bogey, and frighten you all—or shall we try table-turning? Or we could dope their liquor and send them all back insensible. Wouldn't that be true Oriental hospitality! They'd wake up to-morrow morning under the impression that they'd had the night of their lives."