* * * * *"And now," said the Young Doctor, "a 'chop-and-chips,' I think.""A mixed-grill," substituted the other. "Kidney and sausage and tomato and all the rest of it. Oh yes, a 'mixed-grill.'"They entered swing-doors, past a massive Commissionaire, who saluted with a broad smile. "They're askin' for you inside, sir," he whispered jocularly to the Junior Watch-keeper. "Wonderin' when you was comin' along.... Sailin' to-morrow, ain't you, sir?"Together the "last-nighters" descended a flight of carpeted stairs and entered a subterranean, electric-lit lounge bar. A dozen or more of Naval men were standing about the fireplace and sitting in more or less graceful attitudes in big saddle-bag arm-chairs. The majority were conducting a lively badinage with a pretty, fair-haired girl who leaned over the bar at one end of the room. She smiled a greeting as the new-comers entered, and emerged from her retreat. The Junior Watch-keeper doffed his hat with a low bow and hung it on the stand. Then he bent down, swung her into his arms, and handed her like a doll to the Young Doctor, who in turn deposited her on the lap of a seated Officer reading the evening paper. "Look what I've found."With a squeal she twisted herself to her feet and retreated behind the bar again, her hands busy with the mysteries of hair-pins."Hullo! hullo!" Greetings sounded on all sides. A tall broad-shouldered figure with a brown beard elbowed his way through the crush and smote the Junior Watch-keeper on the breast-bone."Dear sakes! Where have you sprung from? I just come from the Persian Gulf, and it's a treat to see a familiar face!""We're off to China again to-morrow," said the other, a half-suppressed note of exultation in his voice—"China-side again! Do you remember...?"The bearded one nodded wistfully. "Do I not! ... You lucky devils.... Oh, you lucky devils! Here, Molly——"* * * * *The waiter sought them presently with the time-honoured formula: "Your grill's spoilin', gentlemen, please," and they took their places in the mirror-walled grill-room, where the violins were whimpering some pizzicato melody. A girl with dark eyes set a shade obliquely in a pale face, seated at the grand piano, looked across as they entered and smiled a faint greeting to the Young Doctor."I think we're entitled to a voluntary from the pianist to-night," said the other presently, his mouth full of mixed-grill. "What shall we ask for?"The other thought for a moment. "There's a thing ... I don't know what it's called ... it's like wind in the leaves—sheknows." He beckoned a waiter and whispered. The girl with the pale face looked across the room and for an instant met the eyes of the Young Doctor; then she ran her fingers lightly over the keys and drifted into Sinding'sFrühlingsrauschen.The Surgeon nodded delightedly. "That's the thing.... Good girl. I don't know what it's called, but it reminds me of things." He munched cheerfully, pausing anon to bury his face in a tankard of beer, and they fell to discussing prospects of sport up the Yangtse. Once or twice as she played, the girl behind the piano allowed her dark eyes to travel across the crowded grill-room over the heads of the diners, and her glance lingered a moment at the table where the two "last-nighters" were seated. The first violin, who was also a musician, sat with a rapt expression, holding his fiddle across his knees. When the piece was over he started abruptly—so abruptly it was evident that for him a spell had broken. He looked up at the pianist with a queer, puzzled expression, as if half-resentful of something.The Young Doctor was arranging forks and a cruet-stand in a diagram on the table-cloth. "There was a joss-house here, if you remember, and the guns were here ... the pigeon came over that clump of bamboo...." The other, leaning across the table, nodded with absorbed interest./TBThe Lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Come along; we must be moving if we're going to the 'Palace.'" They paid their bill, tipped the waiter in a manner that appeared to threaten him with instant dislocation of the spine, and walked up the tiled passage that led past the open door of the lounge. From her vantage behind the bar inside, the girl some one had addressed as "Molly" caught a glimpse of their retreating figures. She slipped out through the throng of customers, most of whom had dined, and were talking to each other over their port and liqueurs, into the quiet of the corridor."Jerry!" she called; "Mr——""Lord!" ejaculated the Junior Watch-keeper, "I'd forgotten—" He turned quickly on his heel. "Hullo, Molly! We're coming back presently. But that reminds me..." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and the Surgeon strolled slowly on up the steps, round a bend, and was lost to view.The girl gave a little breathless laugh. "That's what you all say, you boys. And you never do come back....Youweren't going without saying good-bye to me, were you?""No, no, Molly, of course I wasn't: and look here, old lady, here's a gadget I got for you—" he fumbled with the tissue paper enclosing a little leather case.The girl stood with one hand on the lapel of his coat, twisted a button backwards, and forwards. "Jerry, I—I wanted to thank you ... you were a real brick to me, that time. It saved my life, goin' to the Sanatorium, an' I couldn't never have afforded it...." Her careful grammar became a shade confused.The man gave a little, deep laugh of embarrassment. "Rot! Molly, that's all over and forgotten. No more nasty coughs now, eh?" He patted her shoulder clumsily."An' mind you drop me a line when that fathom of trouble of yours comes up to the scratch, and send me a bit of wedding-cake—here, hang on to this thing.... No, it's nothing; only a little brooch.... Good-bye, old lady—good-bye. Good luck to you, and don't forget to——"The girl raised her pretty, flushed face and gave a quick glance up and down the deserted corridor. "Ain't you—aren't you going to—say good-bye ... properly—Jerry?"The Junior Watch-keeper bent down. "'Course ... and another for luck...! Good-bye, dear; good-bye...!"The Young Doctor was waiting with his nose flattened against the darkened window of a gunsmith's opposite when the Lieutenant joined him. His silence held a vague hint of disapproval as they fell into step. "That girl," he ventured presently, "isn't she a bit fond of you, old thing?"The Junior Watch-keeper paused to light a pipe. "I—I don't think so, Peter. Not more than she is of a dozen others." He glanced at his companion: "You don't think I've been up to any rotten games, do you?" The other shook his head with quick protest. "But I like her awfully, and she's a jolly good little sport. They all are, taking them all round, in a Naval Port. It's a rotten life when you think of it ... cooped up there in that beastly atmosphere, year in, year out, listening to everlasting Service shop, or being made love to by half-tight fools. Their only refuge from it is in marriage—if they care to take advantage of some young ass. Who else do they meet...? The marvel of it is not that a few come to grief, but that so many are so jolly straight. That girl to-night—Molly—I suppose she has refused half a dozen N.O.'s. Prefers to wait till some scallywag in her own class can afford to take her away out of it. And I've heard her talking like a Mother to a rorty Midshipman—a silly young ass who was drinking like a fish and wasting his money and health pub-crawling. She shook him to the core. Lord knows, I don't want to idealise barmaids—p'raps I'd be a better man if I'd seen less of them myself—but——"The Surgeon gripped his elbow soothingly. "I know—Iknow, old son. Don't get in a stew! And as for seeing less of them ... it's hard to say. Unless a man knows people ashore, and is prepared to put on his 'superfine suitings' and pay asinine calls when he might be playing golf or cricket, where else is he to speak to a woman all the days of his life? Dances...? I can't dance."They had turned into the main thoroughfare, and the traffic that thronged the pavements and roadway made conversation difficult. The liberty men from scores of ships in the port streamed to and fro: some arm-in-arm with quietly-dressed servant girls and shop girls; others uproarious in the company of befeathered women. At short intervals along the street a flaring gin-palace or cinema-theatre flung smudges of apricot-coloured light on to the greasy pavements and the faces of passers-by. Trams clanged past, and every now and again a blue-jacket or military foot-patrol, belted and gaitered, moved with watchful eyes and measured gait along the kerb.As they neared the music-hall the throng grew denser. On all sides the West Country burr filled the night, softening even the half-caught oath with its broad, kindly inflection. Men from the garrison regiments mingled with the stream of blue-clad sailors. A woman hawking oranges from the kerb raised her shrill voice, thrusting the cheap fruit under the noses of passers-by. A group of young Stokers, lounging round a vendor of hot chestnuts, were skylarking with two brazen-voiced girls. At the doorway of the music-hall, a few yards away, a huge man in livery began to bawl into the night, hoarsely incoherent.The two officers mounted the steps together, and, as one obtained tickets from the booking-office, the other turned with a little smile to look down the mile-long vista of lights and roaring humanity. The scintillant tram-cars came swaying up the street from the direction of the Dockyard: on either side the gleaming windows of the shops that still remained open—the tattooists, the barbers, tobacconists, the fried-fish and faggot shops, and the host of humbler tradesmen who plied most of their trade at this hour—grew fainter and duller, until they dwindled away to a point under the dark converging house-tops. A girl, shouting some shameless jest, broke away from the horse-play round the chestnut-oven, and thrust herself, reeling with laughter, through the passing crowd. A burly Marine caught her by the waist as she wriggled past, and kissed her dexterously without stopping in his stride. His companion smirked appreciation of the feat, and glanced back over his shoulder....The watcher on the steps turned and followed the other up the broad stairway.* * * * *A man with a red nose and baggy trousers was singing a song about his mother-in-law and a lodger. His accents were harshly North Country, and out of the paint-streaked countenance, his eyes—pathetic, brown monkey-eyes—roamed anxiously over the audience, as if even he had little enough confidence in the humour of his song.The Lieutenant leaned back in his seat and refilled his pipe. "Isn't it wonderful to think that when we come home again in three years' time that chap with the baggy trousers and red nose—or his twin-brother, anyhow—will still be singing about the same old mother-in-law!"Presently a stout, under-clad woman skipped before the footlights and commenced some broadly suggestive patter. The audience, composed for the most part of blue-jackets and Tommies, roared delight at each doubtful sally. She ended with a song that had a catchy, popular refrain, and the house took it up with a great burst of song."Hark at 'em!" whispered the Surgeon. "Don't they love it all! Yet her voice is nothing short of awful, her song means nothing on earth, and her anatomy—every line of it—ought to be in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.... Let's go and have a drink."They ascended the stairway to the promenade, and passed under a curtain-hung archway into a long bar. The atmosphere was clouded with tobacco smoke, and reeked of spirits and cheap, clinging scent. From a recess in one corner a gramophone blared forth a modern rag-time, and a few women, clasped by very callow-looking youths, were swaying to a "One-step" in the middle of the carpeted space. Behind the bar two tired-looking girls scurried to and fro, jerking beer handles as if for a wager, and mechanically repeating orders. Settees ran the length of the walls under rows of sporting prints, and here more women, with painted lips and over-bright, watchful eyes, were seated at little tables. Most of them were accompanied by young men in lounge or tweed suits."Phew," grunted the Junior Watch-keeper, "what an atmosphere! Look at those young asses.... Kümmel at this time of night.... And we did it once, Peter! Lord! it makes me feel a hundred."A panting woman disengaged herself from her youthful partner, and linked her arm within that of the Young Doctor. "Ouf!" she gasped, "I'm that 'ot, dearie. Stand us a drop of wot killed auntie!"With a gallant bow the Young Doctor led her to the bar. "My dear madam," he murmured—"a privilege! And if you will allow me to prescribe for you—as a Medical Man—I suggest——""Port an' lemon," prompted the lady. She fanned herself with a sickly-scented and not over-clean scrap of lace. "Ain't it 'ot, Doctor! ... Glad I lef me furs at 'ome. Ain't you goin' to have nothin'...?"* * * * *The Junior Watch-keeper drew a deep breath as they reached the open street."Thank God for fresh air again!" He filled and refilled his lungs."'And so to bed,'" quoted the other. The taverns and places of amusement were emptying their patrons into the murky street. Raucous laughter and farewells filled the night."Yes." The Junior Watch-keeper yawned, and they walked on in silence, each busy with his own long thoughts. By degrees the traffic lessened, until, nearing the Dockyard, the two were alone in deserted thoroughfares with no sound but the echo of their steps. They were threading the maze of dimly-lit, cobbled streets that still lay before them, when a draggle-skirted girl, standing in the shelter of a doorway, plucked at their sleeves. They walked on almost unheeding, when suddenly the Young Doctor hesitated and stopped. The woman paused irresolute for a moment, and then came towards them, with the light from a gas-lamp playing round her tawdry garments. She murmured something in a mechanical tone, and smiled terribly. The Young Doctor emptied his pockets of the loose silver and coppers they contained, and thrust the coins into her palm: with his disengaged hand he tilted her face up to the light. It was a pathetically young, pathetically painted face. "Wish me good luck," he said, and turned abruptly to overtake his companion.The woman stood staring after them, her hand clenched upon her suddenly acquired riches. An itinerant fried-fish and potato merchant, homeward bound, trundled his barrow suddenly round a distant corner. The girl wheeled in the direction of the sound."'Ere!" she called imperiously, "'ere!..."The echo of her voice died away, and the Young Doctor linked his arm within the other's."There is a poem by some one[#] I read the other day—d'you know it?—"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"[#] John Masefield.He mused for a moment in silence as they strode along. "I forget how it goes on: something about a 'vagrant gypsy life,' and the wind 'like a whetted knife'—"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'"That's how it ends, I know."The Junior Watch-keeper nodded soberly. "Yes.... But it's the star we need the most, Peter—you and I."* * * * *It was early in the morning, and thin columns of smoke were rising from the funnels of a cruiser lying alongside one of the Dockyard jetties. On her decks there was a bustle of preparation: steaming covers were being laced to yards and topmasts: the Boatswain, "full of strange oaths" and of apoplectic countenance, moved forward in the wake of a depressed part of the watch. On the booms the Carpenter was superintending the stowage of some baulks of timber. Packing-cases were coming in at the gangway; barefooted messengers darted to and fro. There was a frequent shrilling of pipes, and the hoarse voice of the Boatswain's Mate bellowing orders.Presently there came a lull, and the ship's company were mustered aft as a bell began to toll. Then over the bared heads the familiar words of the Navy Prayer drifted outward into space."... That we may return to enjoy ... the fruits of our labours." In the course of the next three years, the words, by reason of their frequent repetition, would come to mean to them no more than the droning of the Chaplain's voice; yet that morning their significance was plain enough to the ranks of silent men. A minute later, with the notes of a bugle, the ship boiled into activity again.Out on the straw-littered jetty a gradually-increasing crowd had gathered. It was composed for the most part of women, poorly clad, with pinched, anxious faces. Some had babies in their arms; others carried little newspaper parcels tucked under their shawls: parting gifts for some one. A thin drizzle swept in from the sea, as a recovered deserter, slightly intoxicated, was brought down between an escort and vanished over the gangway amid sympathetic murmurs from the onlookers. A telegram boy pushed his way through the crowd, delivered his message of God-speed in its orange-coloured envelope, and departed again, whistling jauntily.The men drifted out into the jetty to bid farewell, with forced nonchalance and frequent expectoration. Each man was the centre of a little group of relatives, discussing trivialities with laughter that did not ring quite true. Here and there a woman had broken down, crying quietly; but for the most part they stood dry-eyed and smiling, as befitted the women of a Nation that must be ever bidding "Vale" to its sons."All aboard!" The voices of the Ship's Police rose above the murmur of the crowd. Farewells were over.A hoist of flags crept to the masthead, and an answering speck of colour appeared at the signal halliards over Admiralty House."Askin' permission to proceed," said some one. The gang-planks rattled on to the jetty, and a knot of workmen began casting off wires from the bollards."Stand clear!" shouted a warning voice. The ropes slid across the tarred planking and fell with a sullen splash. Beneath the stern the water began to churn and boil. The ship was under way at last, gliding farther every minute from the watching crowd. The jetty was a sea of faces and waving handkerchiefs: the band on board struck up a popular tune.In a few minutes she was too far off to distinguish faces. On the fore bridge the Captain raised his cap by the peak and waved it. Somewhere near the turf-scarped fort ashore an answering gleam of white appeared and fluttered for a moment. The lines of men along the upper deck, the guard paraded aft, the cluster of officers on the bridge, slowly faded into an indistinct blur as the mist closed round them. For a while longer the band was still audible, very far off and faint.After a while the watchers turned and straggled slowly towards the Dockyard Gates.XVIII.THE SEVENTH DAY.The Sub-Lieutenant clanked into the Gunroom and surveyed the apartment critically. The Junior Midshipmen stationed at each scuttle fell to burnishing the brass butterfly nuts with sudden and anxious renewal of energy."Stinks of beer a bit," observed the Sub., "but otherwise it's all right. Hide that 'Pink 'Un' under the table-cloth, one of you." As he spoke the notes of a bugle drifted down the hatchway. "There you are! Officers' Call! Clear out of it, sharp!" Hastily they tucked away the possible cause of offence to their Captain, bundled their cleaning-rags into a cupboard, snatched their dirks off the rack, and hurried on deck.On the quarter-deck the remainder of the Officers were assembling in answer to the summons of the bugle. Frock-coated figures clanked to and fro, struggling with refractory white gloves. Under the supervision of a bearded Petty Officer the Quarter-deck men were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to neatly coiled boats' falls and already gleaming metal-work. It was 9 A.M. on a Sunday forenoon, and the ship was without stain or blemish from her gilded truck to her freshly painted water-line. All the working hours of the previous day—what time the citizen ashore donned "pearlies" or broadcloth and shut up shop—the blue-jacket had been burnishing and scrubbing,—a lick of paint here, there a scrap of gold-leaf or a pound of elbow-grease. And pervading the ship was the comfortless atmosphere of an organisation, normally in a high state of adjustment, strained yet a point higher.The Commander came suddenly out of the Captain's cabin and nodded to the Officer of the Watch."Sound off with the bell."The buglers, drawn up in line at the entrance to the battery, moistened their lips in anticipation and raised their bugles. The Corporal of the Watch stepped to the bell and jerked the clapper.Ding-ding!Simultaneously the four bugles blared out, and the hundreds of men forward in the waist of the ship and on the forecastle formed up into their different divisions and stood easy. The divisions were ranged along both sides of the ship—Forecastle, Foretop, Maintop, Quarter-deck men on one side, Stokers, Day-men, and Marines on the other.The "Rig of the Day" was "Number Ones," which was attended by certain obligations in the matter of polished boots, carefully brushed hair, and shaven faces. To any one unversed in the mysteries of the sailors' garb, the men appeared to be dressed merely in loose, comfortably-fitting blue clothes. But a hundred subtleties in that apparently simple dress received the wearer's attention before he submitted himself to the lynx-eyed inspection of his Divisional Lieutenant that morning. The sit of the blue-jean collar, the spotless flannel, the easy play of the jumper round the hips, the immaculate lines of the bell-bottomed trousers (harder to fit properly than any tail-coat or riding-breeches) all came in for a more critical overhaul than did ever a young girl before her first ball. And the result, in all its pleasing simplicity, was the sailor's unconscious tribute to that one day of the seven wherein his luckier brethren ashore do no manner of work.The Captain stepped out of his cabin, and the waiting group of officers saluted. The Heads of Departments made their reports, and then, with an attendant retinue of Midshipmen, Aides-de-Camp, messengers, and buglers, followed the Captain down the hatchway for the Rounds.Along the mess-decks, deserted save for an occasional sweeper or Ship's Corporal standing at attention, swept the procession; halting at a galley or casemate as the Captain paused to ask a question or pass a white-gloved hand along a beam in search of dust. Then aft again, past Gunroom and Wardroom—with a stoppage outside the former. The Captain elevated his nose."I think the beer-barrel must be leaking, sir," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "standing the rounds" in the doorway."See to it," was the reply, and the cortége swept on, with swords clanking and lanterns throwing arcs of light into dark corners suspected of harbouring a hastily concealed deck-cloth or of being the petcachefor somebody's coaling-suit.Up in the sunlight of the outer world the band was softly playing selections from "The Pirates of Penzance." The ship's goat, having discovered a white kid glove dropped by the Midshipman of the Maintop, retired with it to the shelter of the boat-hoist engine for a hurried cannibalistic feast. The Officers of Divisions had concluded the preliminary inspection, and were pacing thoughtfully to and fro in front of their men. Suddenly the Captain's head appeared above the after hatchway.The Lieutenant of the Quarter-deck Division, in the midst of receiving a whispered account of an overnight dance from his Midshipman, wheeled abruptly and called his Division to attention. Then—"Off hats!"As if actuated by a single lever each man raised his left hand, whipped off his hat and brought it to his side. The Captain acknowledged the Lieutenant's salute and passed quickly down the ranks, his keen eyes travelling rapidly from each man's face to his boots. Once or twice he paused to ask a question and then passed on to the next waiting Division.Presently the bugler sounded the "Disperse"; the Divisions turned forward, stepped outward, and broke up. Here and there the Midshipman of a Division remained standing, scribbling hurriedly in his note-book such criticisms as it had pleased his Captain to make. One man's hair had wanted cutting; it was time another had passed for Leading Seaman.... A third had elected to attend Divisions—on this the Sabbath of the Lord his God—without the knife attached to his lanyard.* * * * *Half an hour later the normal aspect of the Quarter-deck had changed. Rows of plank benches, resting on capstan bars supported by buckets, filled the available space on each side of the barbette. Chairs for the Officers had been placed further aft, facing the men who were to occupy the benches. In front of the burnished muzzles of the two great 12-inch guns a lectern had been draped with a white flag, and between the guns a 'cello, flute, and violin prepared to augment the strains of a rather wheezy harmonium. Then the bell began to toll, and a flag crept to the peak to inform the rest of the Fleet that the ship was about to commence Divine Service.The men hurried aft, seamen and marines pouring in a continuous stream through the open doors from the batteries. No sooner had the last man squeezed hurriedly into his place with the slightly hang-dog air seamen assume in the full glare of the public eye, than the Master-at-Arms appeared at the battery door and reported every one aft to the Commander. The Captain took his chair, facing the Ship's Company, and a little in advance of the remainder of the Officers; the Chaplain walked up the hatchway, stepped briskly to the lectern and gave out a hymn. The orchestra played the opening bars, five hundred men swung themselves to their feet, and the service began.Presently the Captain crossed to the lectern and read the lesson for the day. It dealt with warfare and bloodshed, and there was a suddenly awakened interest in the rows of intent faces opposite—for this was the consummation each man present believed would ultimately come to some day's work, although it might not be amid the welter and crash of shattered chariot and struggling horses, nor the twang of released bow-strings.... And the stern, level voice went on to tell of the establishment of laws, wise and austere as those which regulated the reader's paths and those of his listeners; while under the stern-walk a flock of gulls screeched and quarrelled, and the water lapped with a drowsy, soothing sound against the side of the ship.After a while the Chaplain gave out the number of another hymn. The Bluejacket's most enthusiastic admirer would hesitate to describe him as a devout man; but when the words and tune are familiar—it may be reminiscent of happier surroundings—the sailor-man will sing a hymn with the fervour of inspiration. And if only for the sake of the half-effaced memories it recalled, the volume of bass harmony that rolled across the sunlit harbour doubtless travelled as far as the thunder of organ and chant from many a cathedral choir.Then, standing very upright, his fingers linked behind his back, the Chaplain commenced his sermon. He spoke very simply, adorning his periods with no flowery phrase or ornate quotation, suiting the manner of his delivery to the least intelligent of his hearers. There was no fierce denunciation, no sudden gestures nor change in the grave, even voice. He touched on matters not commonly spoken of in pulpits, and his speech was wondrous plain, as indeed was meet for a congregation such as his. And they were no clay under the potter's thumb. Composed for the most part of men indifferent to religion, almost fiercely resentful of interference with their affairs; living on crowded mess-decks afloat, fair game for every crimp and land-shark ashore. But there was that in the sane, temperate discourse that passed beyond creed or dogma, and a tatooed fist suddenly clenched on its owner's hat-brim, or the restless shifting of a foot, told where a shaft passed home.Here and there, screened by his fellows, a tired man's head nodded drowsily. But the "Padre" had learned twenty years before that it took more than a sermon to keep awake a seated man who had perhaps kept the middle watch, and turned out for the day at 6.15 A.M.; in the five hundred odd pairs of eyes that remained fixed on his face he doubtless read a measure of compensation.* * * * *The short-cropped heads bowed as in clear tones the Benediction was pronounced—"... and remain with you ... always." An instant's pause, and then, Officers and men standing upright and rigid, they sang the National Anthem.The Captain turned and nodded to the Commander, who was putting on his cap."Pipe down."XIX.THE PARRICIDE."'Ark!" said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over the downs—a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees."One of them motor-bikes——" murmured the man and paused. Away in the west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like the framework of a box suspended in mid-air. It drew near, rising and falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound grew louder. "Aeri-o-plane," continued the hedger, again speaking aloud, after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden from them by the shoulder of the downs.The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty road before him. "Lawks!" he ejaculated, "'ere's goin's-on!" A ripple from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little harbour. Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric power station lifted a slender head.In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms, and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the sound of their voices, the muffled clink of a hammer, and, from an unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical by distance.The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned over the rail with a smile of greeting."Any news?"The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth: "Enemy's Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen miles to the Sou'-East," he shouted. "Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got troops or Marines on board in marching order.... No, nothing, thanks—I'm going north to warn them. So-long..."Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed cottages showed up white against the turf.The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer nodded and put down his clubs."Guessed as much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll have a Council of War—Wow, wow!"* * * * *The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey, like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky. It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers across the smooth sea.A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater. They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake, leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased to trouble the surface—before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished into the fog—the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and another.* * * * *A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient to the tangle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly, and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were disembarking troops for a raid.There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen, a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.A minute passed; a cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into the water! From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling hoarsely.A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the periscope from her 12-pounders."Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain."They've bagged us, sir."A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck."Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again."Claim-to-have-put-you-out-of-action," spelt the handflags. The Captain smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sunburnt face of the Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander. "But he needn't have torpedoed his own father," he said, as if in continuation of his last remark. "The penalty for marrying young, I suppose."The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses clinked, and there was a gurgling silence."Not bad work," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "bagging your Old Man's ship.""Not so dusty," replied the Lieutenant in command of the Submarine, modestly.She was a brand-new Battleship, and had cost a million and three-quarters. It was his twenty-fourth birthday.XX.THE NIGHT-WATCHES."Out pipes! Clear up the upper deck!" The Boatswain Mate moved forward along the lee side of the battery repeating the hoarse call. Slowly the knots of tired men broke up, knocking the ashes out of their pipes, or pinching their cigarette-ends with horny fingers before economically tucking the remnants into their caps. A part of the Watch came aft, sweeping down the deck, coiling down ropes for the night. Then, as the bell struck, the shrill wail of the pipe rose again above the sound of the wind and waves. It grew louder and shriller, and died away: then, rising again, changed to another key and ended abruptly. It was the sailor's Curfew—"Pipe down."On the crowded mess-decks, where scrubbed canvas hammocks swung with the roll of the ship above the mess-tables, the ship's company was turning in. A struggle with a tight-fitting jumper, which, rolled up in company with a pair of trousers, was tucked under the tiny horse-hair pillow; a pat to the mysterious pockets lining the "cholera-belt," to reassure a man that his last month's pay was still intact, and then, with a steadying hand on the steel beam overhead, one after another they swung themselves into their hammocks and fell a-snoring.Aft in the Gunroom an extra half-hour's lights had been granted in honour of somebody's birthday, and the inmates of the Mess were still gathered round the piano. It was a war-scarred instrument: but it served its purpose, albeit the hero of the evening—in celebration of his advance into the sere and yellow leaf—had emptied a whisky-and-soda into its long-suffering interior. The musician, his features ornamented by a burnt-cork moustache, thumped valiantly at the keys."And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"roared the young voices. It was an old, old song, familiar to men who were no longer even memories with the singers and their generation. But its unnumbered verses and quaint, old-world jingle had survived unchanged the passing of "Masts and Yards," and were even then being handed on into the era of the hydroplane and submarine."Ten o'clock, gentlemen!" said the voice of the Ship's Corporal at the door. The Sub. eyed him sternly. "You may get yourself a glass of beer, Corporal," and thereby won a five-minutes' respite. Then——"Out lights, please, gentlemen," again broke in upon the revels."Corporal, will you——"The man shook his head with a grim smile. "Come along, please, gentlemen, or you'll get me 'ung."Reluctantly the singers withdrew, drifting by twos and threes to the steerage flat where their hammocks swung. The Ship's Corporal switched off the lights and locked the gun-room door. "I likes to see 'igh sperits meself," he admitted to the yawning Steward who accompanied him out of the Mess. The Gunroom Steward's reply was to the effect that you could have too much even of a good thing, and he retired gloomily to the pantry, where, in company with a vast ham and the gunroom crockery, he spent most of his waking hours.In the nearly deserted Wardroom a rubber of bridge was still in lingering progress; a sea raced frothing past the thick glass of a scuttle, and one of the players raised his eyes from his hand. "Blowing up for a dirty night," he observed. A Lieutenant deep in an arm-chair by the fire lifted his head. "It's sure to—my middle watch." He closed the book he was reading and stood up, stretching himself. Then with a glance at the clock he moved towards the door. As he opened it the Senior Engineer came into the Mess. His face was drawn with tiredness, and there were traces of dust round his eyes. He pulled off a pair of engine-room gloves, and, ordering a drink, thoughtfully rolled a cigarette. At the sound of his voice the Engineer Commander looked up from the game and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question to his subordinate. The Senior Engineer nodded. "Yes, sir, she's all right now; I don't think she'll give any more trouble to-night." He finished his drink and sought his cabin. He had had three hours' sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and hoped, as he undressed, that the infernal scrap-heap would hold together till he'd had a bit more.The night wore on, and one by one the inmates of the Wardroom drifted to their respective cabins. Outside the Captain's cabin the sentry beguiled the tedium of the vigil by polishing the buckle of his belt. Every now and again he glanced at the clock.At last the hands pointed to a quarter to twelve. In fifteen minutes his watch would be over. He buckled on his belt and resumed his noiseless beat. Occasionally from some cabin or hammock the snore of a tired sleeper reached his ears. The rifles, stowed upright round the aft-deck, moved in their racks to the measured roll of the ship, with a long-drawn, monotonous rattle, like a boy's stick drawn lightly across area railings.A tread sounded overhead, and a figure carrying a lantern came lightly down the hatchway. It was the Midshipman of the First Watch, calling the reliefs. He descended to the steerage flat, and bending down under the hammocks of his sleeping brethren, knocked at the door of one of the cabins. There was a lull in the stertorous breathing, in the warm, dim interior."Ten minutes to twelve, sir!" The inmate grunted and switched on his light. "All right," he growled.The boy moved off till he came to a hammock slung by the armoured door. He ranged up beside it and blew lightly into the face of the sleeper."Jimmy! Ten to twelve!"The occupant of the hammock opened one eye."'Ll right," he murmured sleepily, and closed it again.The Midshipman of the First Watch eyed him suspiciously."No you don't!" He shook the hammock. "Wake up, you fat-headed blighter, or I'll slip you." Then, changing his tone to a wheedling one: "Come on, Jimmy, it's a lovely night—much more healthy on the bridge than fugging in your beastly hammock."His relief said something under his breath, and emerged shivering from the blankets, blinking in the light of the lantern. Once his feet were fairly on the deck, the other turned and scampered up the ladder again.The bell struck eight times as the Lieutenant and Midshipman of the Middle Watch climbed the ladder to the fore bridge. The Fleet was steaming in two divisions, with a flotilla of destroyers stationed on the beam. Beyond them the silhouette of an island was just visible in the pale moonlight.At the last stroke of the bell the pipe of the Boatswain's Mate shrilled out, calling the Middle Watch. "A-a-all the starboard watch! Seaboats, crews, and reliefs fall in!" Fore and aft the ship the mantle of responsibility changed wearers. Sentries, seamen, stokers, signalmen, their tale of bricks complete for a few hours, turned over to their reliefs and hurried to their hammocks.On the bridge the two Lieutenants walked up and down for a few minutes, while the newcomer received details of the course and speed of the Fleet and the Captain's orders for the night. Then the Officer of the Watch that was ended unslung his binoculars and turned towards the ladder."I think that's all.... She's keeping station very well now, but they had a bit of trouble in the Engine-room earlier in the Watch. Captain wants to be called at daybreak. Good-night.""Good-night."The Midshipman of the Watch was already in position on the upper bridge, settling down to his four hours' vigil with a sextant on the lights of the next ship ahead. From the battery below came the voice of the Corporal of the Watch mustering the hands. Overhead the wind thrummed in the shrouds and halliards: the steady throb of the engines beat out an accompaniment—a deeppizzicatoaccompaniment as if from some mighty bass-viol floating up through the open casings—and, somehow dominating all other sounds, the ceaseless swish and murmur of the waves breaking along the ship's side.The Officer of the Watch crossed over to the Midshipman's side. "Are we in station all right?"The boy lowered the sextant: "Yes, sir, quite steady.""Right: give me the sextant and go and brew some cocoa in the chart-house. There's a spirit-lamp there."The Midshipman vanished and reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of steaming beverage. They drank together, gulping it hastily to warm themselves."A-ah!" sighed the Lieutenant gratefully. "That's better. Now put the cups back, and come and show me Arcturus—if you have shaken off your fat head!"
* * * * *
"And now," said the Young Doctor, "a 'chop-and-chips,' I think."
"A mixed-grill," substituted the other. "Kidney and sausage and tomato and all the rest of it. Oh yes, a 'mixed-grill.'"
They entered swing-doors, past a massive Commissionaire, who saluted with a broad smile. "They're askin' for you inside, sir," he whispered jocularly to the Junior Watch-keeper. "Wonderin' when you was comin' along.... Sailin' to-morrow, ain't you, sir?"
Together the "last-nighters" descended a flight of carpeted stairs and entered a subterranean, electric-lit lounge bar. A dozen or more of Naval men were standing about the fireplace and sitting in more or less graceful attitudes in big saddle-bag arm-chairs. The majority were conducting a lively badinage with a pretty, fair-haired girl who leaned over the bar at one end of the room. She smiled a greeting as the new-comers entered, and emerged from her retreat. The Junior Watch-keeper doffed his hat with a low bow and hung it on the stand. Then he bent down, swung her into his arms, and handed her like a doll to the Young Doctor, who in turn deposited her on the lap of a seated Officer reading the evening paper. "Look what I've found."
With a squeal she twisted herself to her feet and retreated behind the bar again, her hands busy with the mysteries of hair-pins.
"Hullo! hullo!" Greetings sounded on all sides. A tall broad-shouldered figure with a brown beard elbowed his way through the crush and smote the Junior Watch-keeper on the breast-bone.
"Dear sakes! Where have you sprung from? I just come from the Persian Gulf, and it's a treat to see a familiar face!"
"We're off to China again to-morrow," said the other, a half-suppressed note of exultation in his voice—"China-side again! Do you remember...?"
The bearded one nodded wistfully. "Do I not! ... You lucky devils.... Oh, you lucky devils! Here, Molly——"
* * * * *
The waiter sought them presently with the time-honoured formula: "Your grill's spoilin', gentlemen, please," and they took their places in the mirror-walled grill-room, where the violins were whimpering some pizzicato melody. A girl with dark eyes set a shade obliquely in a pale face, seated at the grand piano, looked across as they entered and smiled a faint greeting to the Young Doctor.
"I think we're entitled to a voluntary from the pianist to-night," said the other presently, his mouth full of mixed-grill. "What shall we ask for?"
The other thought for a moment. "There's a thing ... I don't know what it's called ... it's like wind in the leaves—sheknows." He beckoned a waiter and whispered. The girl with the pale face looked across the room and for an instant met the eyes of the Young Doctor; then she ran her fingers lightly over the keys and drifted into Sinding'sFrühlingsrauschen.
The Surgeon nodded delightedly. "That's the thing.... Good girl. I don't know what it's called, but it reminds me of things." He munched cheerfully, pausing anon to bury his face in a tankard of beer, and they fell to discussing prospects of sport up the Yangtse. Once or twice as she played, the girl behind the piano allowed her dark eyes to travel across the crowded grill-room over the heads of the diners, and her glance lingered a moment at the table where the two "last-nighters" were seated. The first violin, who was also a musician, sat with a rapt expression, holding his fiddle across his knees. When the piece was over he started abruptly—so abruptly it was evident that for him a spell had broken. He looked up at the pianist with a queer, puzzled expression, as if half-resentful of something.
The Young Doctor was arranging forks and a cruet-stand in a diagram on the table-cloth. "There was a joss-house here, if you remember, and the guns were here ... the pigeon came over that clump of bamboo...." The other, leaning across the table, nodded with absorbed interest.
/TB
The Lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Come along; we must be moving if we're going to the 'Palace.'" They paid their bill, tipped the waiter in a manner that appeared to threaten him with instant dislocation of the spine, and walked up the tiled passage that led past the open door of the lounge. From her vantage behind the bar inside, the girl some one had addressed as "Molly" caught a glimpse of their retreating figures. She slipped out through the throng of customers, most of whom had dined, and were talking to each other over their port and liqueurs, into the quiet of the corridor.
"Jerry!" she called; "Mr——"
"Lord!" ejaculated the Junior Watch-keeper, "I'd forgotten—" He turned quickly on his heel. "Hullo, Molly! We're coming back presently. But that reminds me..." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and the Surgeon strolled slowly on up the steps, round a bend, and was lost to view.
The girl gave a little breathless laugh. "That's what you all say, you boys. And you never do come back....Youweren't going without saying good-bye to me, were you?"
"No, no, Molly, of course I wasn't: and look here, old lady, here's a gadget I got for you—" he fumbled with the tissue paper enclosing a little leather case.
The girl stood with one hand on the lapel of his coat, twisted a button backwards, and forwards. "Jerry, I—I wanted to thank you ... you were a real brick to me, that time. It saved my life, goin' to the Sanatorium, an' I couldn't never have afforded it...." Her careful grammar became a shade confused.
The man gave a little, deep laugh of embarrassment. "Rot! Molly, that's all over and forgotten. No more nasty coughs now, eh?" He patted her shoulder clumsily.
"An' mind you drop me a line when that fathom of trouble of yours comes up to the scratch, and send me a bit of wedding-cake—here, hang on to this thing.... No, it's nothing; only a little brooch.... Good-bye, old lady—good-bye. Good luck to you, and don't forget to——"
The girl raised her pretty, flushed face and gave a quick glance up and down the deserted corridor. "Ain't you—aren't you going to—say good-bye ... properly—Jerry?"
The Junior Watch-keeper bent down. "'Course ... and another for luck...! Good-bye, dear; good-bye...!"
The Young Doctor was waiting with his nose flattened against the darkened window of a gunsmith's opposite when the Lieutenant joined him. His silence held a vague hint of disapproval as they fell into step. "That girl," he ventured presently, "isn't she a bit fond of you, old thing?"
The Junior Watch-keeper paused to light a pipe. "I—I don't think so, Peter. Not more than she is of a dozen others." He glanced at his companion: "You don't think I've been up to any rotten games, do you?" The other shook his head with quick protest. "But I like her awfully, and she's a jolly good little sport. They all are, taking them all round, in a Naval Port. It's a rotten life when you think of it ... cooped up there in that beastly atmosphere, year in, year out, listening to everlasting Service shop, or being made love to by half-tight fools. Their only refuge from it is in marriage—if they care to take advantage of some young ass. Who else do they meet...? The marvel of it is not that a few come to grief, but that so many are so jolly straight. That girl to-night—Molly—I suppose she has refused half a dozen N.O.'s. Prefers to wait till some scallywag in her own class can afford to take her away out of it. And I've heard her talking like a Mother to a rorty Midshipman—a silly young ass who was drinking like a fish and wasting his money and health pub-crawling. She shook him to the core. Lord knows, I don't want to idealise barmaids—p'raps I'd be a better man if I'd seen less of them myself—but——"
The Surgeon gripped his elbow soothingly. "I know—Iknow, old son. Don't get in a stew! And as for seeing less of them ... it's hard to say. Unless a man knows people ashore, and is prepared to put on his 'superfine suitings' and pay asinine calls when he might be playing golf or cricket, where else is he to speak to a woman all the days of his life? Dances...? I can't dance."
They had turned into the main thoroughfare, and the traffic that thronged the pavements and roadway made conversation difficult. The liberty men from scores of ships in the port streamed to and fro: some arm-in-arm with quietly-dressed servant girls and shop girls; others uproarious in the company of befeathered women. At short intervals along the street a flaring gin-palace or cinema-theatre flung smudges of apricot-coloured light on to the greasy pavements and the faces of passers-by. Trams clanged past, and every now and again a blue-jacket or military foot-patrol, belted and gaitered, moved with watchful eyes and measured gait along the kerb.
As they neared the music-hall the throng grew denser. On all sides the West Country burr filled the night, softening even the half-caught oath with its broad, kindly inflection. Men from the garrison regiments mingled with the stream of blue-clad sailors. A woman hawking oranges from the kerb raised her shrill voice, thrusting the cheap fruit under the noses of passers-by. A group of young Stokers, lounging round a vendor of hot chestnuts, were skylarking with two brazen-voiced girls. At the doorway of the music-hall, a few yards away, a huge man in livery began to bawl into the night, hoarsely incoherent.
The two officers mounted the steps together, and, as one obtained tickets from the booking-office, the other turned with a little smile to look down the mile-long vista of lights and roaring humanity. The scintillant tram-cars came swaying up the street from the direction of the Dockyard: on either side the gleaming windows of the shops that still remained open—the tattooists, the barbers, tobacconists, the fried-fish and faggot shops, and the host of humbler tradesmen who plied most of their trade at this hour—grew fainter and duller, until they dwindled away to a point under the dark converging house-tops. A girl, shouting some shameless jest, broke away from the horse-play round the chestnut-oven, and thrust herself, reeling with laughter, through the passing crowd. A burly Marine caught her by the waist as she wriggled past, and kissed her dexterously without stopping in his stride. His companion smirked appreciation of the feat, and glanced back over his shoulder....
The watcher on the steps turned and followed the other up the broad stairway.
* * * * *
A man with a red nose and baggy trousers was singing a song about his mother-in-law and a lodger. His accents were harshly North Country, and out of the paint-streaked countenance, his eyes—pathetic, brown monkey-eyes—roamed anxiously over the audience, as if even he had little enough confidence in the humour of his song.
The Lieutenant leaned back in his seat and refilled his pipe. "Isn't it wonderful to think that when we come home again in three years' time that chap with the baggy trousers and red nose—or his twin-brother, anyhow—will still be singing about the same old mother-in-law!"
Presently a stout, under-clad woman skipped before the footlights and commenced some broadly suggestive patter. The audience, composed for the most part of blue-jackets and Tommies, roared delight at each doubtful sally. She ended with a song that had a catchy, popular refrain, and the house took it up with a great burst of song.
"Hark at 'em!" whispered the Surgeon. "Don't they love it all! Yet her voice is nothing short of awful, her song means nothing on earth, and her anatomy—every line of it—ought to be in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.... Let's go and have a drink."
They ascended the stairway to the promenade, and passed under a curtain-hung archway into a long bar. The atmosphere was clouded with tobacco smoke, and reeked of spirits and cheap, clinging scent. From a recess in one corner a gramophone blared forth a modern rag-time, and a few women, clasped by very callow-looking youths, were swaying to a "One-step" in the middle of the carpeted space. Behind the bar two tired-looking girls scurried to and fro, jerking beer handles as if for a wager, and mechanically repeating orders. Settees ran the length of the walls under rows of sporting prints, and here more women, with painted lips and over-bright, watchful eyes, were seated at little tables. Most of them were accompanied by young men in lounge or tweed suits.
"Phew," grunted the Junior Watch-keeper, "what an atmosphere! Look at those young asses.... Kümmel at this time of night.... And we did it once, Peter! Lord! it makes me feel a hundred."
A panting woman disengaged herself from her youthful partner, and linked her arm within that of the Young Doctor. "Ouf!" she gasped, "I'm that 'ot, dearie. Stand us a drop of wot killed auntie!"
With a gallant bow the Young Doctor led her to the bar. "My dear madam," he murmured—"a privilege! And if you will allow me to prescribe for you—as a Medical Man—I suggest——"
"Port an' lemon," prompted the lady. She fanned herself with a sickly-scented and not over-clean scrap of lace. "Ain't it 'ot, Doctor! ... Glad I lef me furs at 'ome. Ain't you goin' to have nothin'...?"
* * * * *
The Junior Watch-keeper drew a deep breath as they reached the open street.
"Thank God for fresh air again!" He filled and refilled his lungs.
"'And so to bed,'" quoted the other. The taverns and places of amusement were emptying their patrons into the murky street. Raucous laughter and farewells filled the night.
"Yes." The Junior Watch-keeper yawned, and they walked on in silence, each busy with his own long thoughts. By degrees the traffic lessened, until, nearing the Dockyard, the two were alone in deserted thoroughfares with no sound but the echo of their steps. They were threading the maze of dimly-lit, cobbled streets that still lay before them, when a draggle-skirted girl, standing in the shelter of a doorway, plucked at their sleeves. They walked on almost unheeding, when suddenly the Young Doctor hesitated and stopped. The woman paused irresolute for a moment, and then came towards them, with the light from a gas-lamp playing round her tawdry garments. She murmured something in a mechanical tone, and smiled terribly. The Young Doctor emptied his pockets of the loose silver and coppers they contained, and thrust the coins into her palm: with his disengaged hand he tilted her face up to the light. It was a pathetically young, pathetically painted face. "Wish me good luck," he said, and turned abruptly to overtake his companion.
The woman stood staring after them, her hand clenched upon her suddenly acquired riches. An itinerant fried-fish and potato merchant, homeward bound, trundled his barrow suddenly round a distant corner. The girl wheeled in the direction of the sound.
"'Ere!" she called imperiously, "'ere!..."
The echo of her voice died away, and the Young Doctor linked his arm within the other's.
"There is a poem by some one[#] I read the other day—d'you know it?—
"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"
"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"
"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"
[#] John Masefield.
He mused for a moment in silence as they strode along. "I forget how it goes on: something about a 'vagrant gypsy life,' and the wind 'like a whetted knife'—
"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'
"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'
"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'
"That's how it ends, I know."
The Junior Watch-keeper nodded soberly. "Yes.... But it's the star we need the most, Peter—you and I."
* * * * *
It was early in the morning, and thin columns of smoke were rising from the funnels of a cruiser lying alongside one of the Dockyard jetties. On her decks there was a bustle of preparation: steaming covers were being laced to yards and topmasts: the Boatswain, "full of strange oaths" and of apoplectic countenance, moved forward in the wake of a depressed part of the watch. On the booms the Carpenter was superintending the stowage of some baulks of timber. Packing-cases were coming in at the gangway; barefooted messengers darted to and fro. There was a frequent shrilling of pipes, and the hoarse voice of the Boatswain's Mate bellowing orders.
Presently there came a lull, and the ship's company were mustered aft as a bell began to toll. Then over the bared heads the familiar words of the Navy Prayer drifted outward into space.
"... That we may return to enjoy ... the fruits of our labours." In the course of the next three years, the words, by reason of their frequent repetition, would come to mean to them no more than the droning of the Chaplain's voice; yet that morning their significance was plain enough to the ranks of silent men. A minute later, with the notes of a bugle, the ship boiled into activity again.
Out on the straw-littered jetty a gradually-increasing crowd had gathered. It was composed for the most part of women, poorly clad, with pinched, anxious faces. Some had babies in their arms; others carried little newspaper parcels tucked under their shawls: parting gifts for some one. A thin drizzle swept in from the sea, as a recovered deserter, slightly intoxicated, was brought down between an escort and vanished over the gangway amid sympathetic murmurs from the onlookers. A telegram boy pushed his way through the crowd, delivered his message of God-speed in its orange-coloured envelope, and departed again, whistling jauntily.
The men drifted out into the jetty to bid farewell, with forced nonchalance and frequent expectoration. Each man was the centre of a little group of relatives, discussing trivialities with laughter that did not ring quite true. Here and there a woman had broken down, crying quietly; but for the most part they stood dry-eyed and smiling, as befitted the women of a Nation that must be ever bidding "Vale" to its sons.
"All aboard!" The voices of the Ship's Police rose above the murmur of the crowd. Farewells were over.
A hoist of flags crept to the masthead, and an answering speck of colour appeared at the signal halliards over Admiralty House.
"Askin' permission to proceed," said some one. The gang-planks rattled on to the jetty, and a knot of workmen began casting off wires from the bollards.
"Stand clear!" shouted a warning voice. The ropes slid across the tarred planking and fell with a sullen splash. Beneath the stern the water began to churn and boil. The ship was under way at last, gliding farther every minute from the watching crowd. The jetty was a sea of faces and waving handkerchiefs: the band on board struck up a popular tune.
In a few minutes she was too far off to distinguish faces. On the fore bridge the Captain raised his cap by the peak and waved it. Somewhere near the turf-scarped fort ashore an answering gleam of white appeared and fluttered for a moment. The lines of men along the upper deck, the guard paraded aft, the cluster of officers on the bridge, slowly faded into an indistinct blur as the mist closed round them. For a while longer the band was still audible, very far off and faint.
After a while the watchers turned and straggled slowly towards the Dockyard Gates.
XVIII.
THE SEVENTH DAY.
The Sub-Lieutenant clanked into the Gunroom and surveyed the apartment critically. The Junior Midshipmen stationed at each scuttle fell to burnishing the brass butterfly nuts with sudden and anxious renewal of energy.
"Stinks of beer a bit," observed the Sub., "but otherwise it's all right. Hide that 'Pink 'Un' under the table-cloth, one of you." As he spoke the notes of a bugle drifted down the hatchway. "There you are! Officers' Call! Clear out of it, sharp!" Hastily they tucked away the possible cause of offence to their Captain, bundled their cleaning-rags into a cupboard, snatched their dirks off the rack, and hurried on deck.
On the quarter-deck the remainder of the Officers were assembling in answer to the summons of the bugle. Frock-coated figures clanked to and fro, struggling with refractory white gloves. Under the supervision of a bearded Petty Officer the Quarter-deck men were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to neatly coiled boats' falls and already gleaming metal-work. It was 9 A.M. on a Sunday forenoon, and the ship was without stain or blemish from her gilded truck to her freshly painted water-line. All the working hours of the previous day—what time the citizen ashore donned "pearlies" or broadcloth and shut up shop—the blue-jacket had been burnishing and scrubbing,—a lick of paint here, there a scrap of gold-leaf or a pound of elbow-grease. And pervading the ship was the comfortless atmosphere of an organisation, normally in a high state of adjustment, strained yet a point higher.
The Commander came suddenly out of the Captain's cabin and nodded to the Officer of the Watch.
"Sound off with the bell."
The buglers, drawn up in line at the entrance to the battery, moistened their lips in anticipation and raised their bugles. The Corporal of the Watch stepped to the bell and jerked the clapper.
Ding-ding!
Simultaneously the four bugles blared out, and the hundreds of men forward in the waist of the ship and on the forecastle formed up into their different divisions and stood easy. The divisions were ranged along both sides of the ship—Forecastle, Foretop, Maintop, Quarter-deck men on one side, Stokers, Day-men, and Marines on the other.
The "Rig of the Day" was "Number Ones," which was attended by certain obligations in the matter of polished boots, carefully brushed hair, and shaven faces. To any one unversed in the mysteries of the sailors' garb, the men appeared to be dressed merely in loose, comfortably-fitting blue clothes. But a hundred subtleties in that apparently simple dress received the wearer's attention before he submitted himself to the lynx-eyed inspection of his Divisional Lieutenant that morning. The sit of the blue-jean collar, the spotless flannel, the easy play of the jumper round the hips, the immaculate lines of the bell-bottomed trousers (harder to fit properly than any tail-coat or riding-breeches) all came in for a more critical overhaul than did ever a young girl before her first ball. And the result, in all its pleasing simplicity, was the sailor's unconscious tribute to that one day of the seven wherein his luckier brethren ashore do no manner of work.
The Captain stepped out of his cabin, and the waiting group of officers saluted. The Heads of Departments made their reports, and then, with an attendant retinue of Midshipmen, Aides-de-Camp, messengers, and buglers, followed the Captain down the hatchway for the Rounds.
Along the mess-decks, deserted save for an occasional sweeper or Ship's Corporal standing at attention, swept the procession; halting at a galley or casemate as the Captain paused to ask a question or pass a white-gloved hand along a beam in search of dust. Then aft again, past Gunroom and Wardroom—with a stoppage outside the former. The Captain elevated his nose.
"I think the beer-barrel must be leaking, sir," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "standing the rounds" in the doorway.
"See to it," was the reply, and the cortége swept on, with swords clanking and lanterns throwing arcs of light into dark corners suspected of harbouring a hastily concealed deck-cloth or of being the petcachefor somebody's coaling-suit.
Up in the sunlight of the outer world the band was softly playing selections from "The Pirates of Penzance." The ship's goat, having discovered a white kid glove dropped by the Midshipman of the Maintop, retired with it to the shelter of the boat-hoist engine for a hurried cannibalistic feast. The Officers of Divisions had concluded the preliminary inspection, and were pacing thoughtfully to and fro in front of their men. Suddenly the Captain's head appeared above the after hatchway.
The Lieutenant of the Quarter-deck Division, in the midst of receiving a whispered account of an overnight dance from his Midshipman, wheeled abruptly and called his Division to attention. Then—
"Off hats!"
As if actuated by a single lever each man raised his left hand, whipped off his hat and brought it to his side. The Captain acknowledged the Lieutenant's salute and passed quickly down the ranks, his keen eyes travelling rapidly from each man's face to his boots. Once or twice he paused to ask a question and then passed on to the next waiting Division.
Presently the bugler sounded the "Disperse"; the Divisions turned forward, stepped outward, and broke up. Here and there the Midshipman of a Division remained standing, scribbling hurriedly in his note-book such criticisms as it had pleased his Captain to make. One man's hair had wanted cutting; it was time another had passed for Leading Seaman.... A third had elected to attend Divisions—on this the Sabbath of the Lord his God—without the knife attached to his lanyard.
* * * * *
Half an hour later the normal aspect of the Quarter-deck had changed. Rows of plank benches, resting on capstan bars supported by buckets, filled the available space on each side of the barbette. Chairs for the Officers had been placed further aft, facing the men who were to occupy the benches. In front of the burnished muzzles of the two great 12-inch guns a lectern had been draped with a white flag, and between the guns a 'cello, flute, and violin prepared to augment the strains of a rather wheezy harmonium. Then the bell began to toll, and a flag crept to the peak to inform the rest of the Fleet that the ship was about to commence Divine Service.
The men hurried aft, seamen and marines pouring in a continuous stream through the open doors from the batteries. No sooner had the last man squeezed hurriedly into his place with the slightly hang-dog air seamen assume in the full glare of the public eye, than the Master-at-Arms appeared at the battery door and reported every one aft to the Commander. The Captain took his chair, facing the Ship's Company, and a little in advance of the remainder of the Officers; the Chaplain walked up the hatchway, stepped briskly to the lectern and gave out a hymn. The orchestra played the opening bars, five hundred men swung themselves to their feet, and the service began.
Presently the Captain crossed to the lectern and read the lesson for the day. It dealt with warfare and bloodshed, and there was a suddenly awakened interest in the rows of intent faces opposite—for this was the consummation each man present believed would ultimately come to some day's work, although it might not be amid the welter and crash of shattered chariot and struggling horses, nor the twang of released bow-strings.... And the stern, level voice went on to tell of the establishment of laws, wise and austere as those which regulated the reader's paths and those of his listeners; while under the stern-walk a flock of gulls screeched and quarrelled, and the water lapped with a drowsy, soothing sound against the side of the ship.
After a while the Chaplain gave out the number of another hymn. The Bluejacket's most enthusiastic admirer would hesitate to describe him as a devout man; but when the words and tune are familiar—it may be reminiscent of happier surroundings—the sailor-man will sing a hymn with the fervour of inspiration. And if only for the sake of the half-effaced memories it recalled, the volume of bass harmony that rolled across the sunlit harbour doubtless travelled as far as the thunder of organ and chant from many a cathedral choir.
Then, standing very upright, his fingers linked behind his back, the Chaplain commenced his sermon. He spoke very simply, adorning his periods with no flowery phrase or ornate quotation, suiting the manner of his delivery to the least intelligent of his hearers. There was no fierce denunciation, no sudden gestures nor change in the grave, even voice. He touched on matters not commonly spoken of in pulpits, and his speech was wondrous plain, as indeed was meet for a congregation such as his. And they were no clay under the potter's thumb. Composed for the most part of men indifferent to religion, almost fiercely resentful of interference with their affairs; living on crowded mess-decks afloat, fair game for every crimp and land-shark ashore. But there was that in the sane, temperate discourse that passed beyond creed or dogma, and a tatooed fist suddenly clenched on its owner's hat-brim, or the restless shifting of a foot, told where a shaft passed home.
Here and there, screened by his fellows, a tired man's head nodded drowsily. But the "Padre" had learned twenty years before that it took more than a sermon to keep awake a seated man who had perhaps kept the middle watch, and turned out for the day at 6.15 A.M.; in the five hundred odd pairs of eyes that remained fixed on his face he doubtless read a measure of compensation.
* * * * *
The short-cropped heads bowed as in clear tones the Benediction was pronounced—
"... and remain with you ... always." An instant's pause, and then, Officers and men standing upright and rigid, they sang the National Anthem.
The Captain turned and nodded to the Commander, who was putting on his cap.
"Pipe down."
XIX.
THE PARRICIDE.
"'Ark!" said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over the downs—a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees.
"One of them motor-bikes——" murmured the man and paused. Away in the west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like the framework of a box suspended in mid-air. It drew near, rising and falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound grew louder. "Aeri-o-plane," continued the hedger, again speaking aloud, after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.
As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden from them by the shoulder of the downs.
The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty road before him. "Lawks!" he ejaculated, "'ere's goin's-on!" A ripple from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.
A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little harbour. Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric power station lifted a slender head.
In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms, and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the sound of their voices, the muffled clink of a hammer, and, from an unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical by distance.
The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned over the rail with a smile of greeting.
"Any news?"
The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth: "Enemy's Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen miles to the Sou'-East," he shouted. "Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got troops or Marines on board in marching order.... No, nothing, thanks—I'm going north to warn them. So-long..."
Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed cottages showed up white against the turf.
The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer nodded and put down his clubs.
"Guessed as much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll have a Council of War—Wow, wow!"
* * * * *
The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey, like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky. It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers across the smooth sea.
A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.
Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater. They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake, leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased to trouble the surface—before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished into the fog—the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and another.
* * * * *
A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient to the tangle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly, and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were disembarking troops for a raid.
There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen, a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.
A minute passed; a cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into the water! From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.
Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling hoarsely.
A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the periscope from her 12-pounders.
"Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"
The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.
"They've bagged us, sir."
A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.
"Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.
The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.
The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.
"Claim-to-have-put-you-out-of-action," spelt the handflags. The Captain smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sunburnt face of the Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander. "But he needn't have torpedoed his own father," he said, as if in continuation of his last remark. "The penalty for marrying young, I suppose."
The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses clinked, and there was a gurgling silence.
"Not bad work," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "bagging your Old Man's ship."
"Not so dusty," replied the Lieutenant in command of the Submarine, modestly.
She was a brand-new Battleship, and had cost a million and three-quarters. It was his twenty-fourth birthday.
XX.
THE NIGHT-WATCHES.
"Out pipes! Clear up the upper deck!" The Boatswain Mate moved forward along the lee side of the battery repeating the hoarse call. Slowly the knots of tired men broke up, knocking the ashes out of their pipes, or pinching their cigarette-ends with horny fingers before economically tucking the remnants into their caps. A part of the Watch came aft, sweeping down the deck, coiling down ropes for the night. Then, as the bell struck, the shrill wail of the pipe rose again above the sound of the wind and waves. It grew louder and shriller, and died away: then, rising again, changed to another key and ended abruptly. It was the sailor's Curfew—"Pipe down."
On the crowded mess-decks, where scrubbed canvas hammocks swung with the roll of the ship above the mess-tables, the ship's company was turning in. A struggle with a tight-fitting jumper, which, rolled up in company with a pair of trousers, was tucked under the tiny horse-hair pillow; a pat to the mysterious pockets lining the "cholera-belt," to reassure a man that his last month's pay was still intact, and then, with a steadying hand on the steel beam overhead, one after another they swung themselves into their hammocks and fell a-snoring.
Aft in the Gunroom an extra half-hour's lights had been granted in honour of somebody's birthday, and the inmates of the Mess were still gathered round the piano. It was a war-scarred instrument: but it served its purpose, albeit the hero of the evening—in celebration of his advance into the sere and yellow leaf—had emptied a whisky-and-soda into its long-suffering interior. The musician, his features ornamented by a burnt-cork moustache, thumped valiantly at the keys.
"And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"
"And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"
"And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"
roared the young voices. It was an old, old song, familiar to men who were no longer even memories with the singers and their generation. But its unnumbered verses and quaint, old-world jingle had survived unchanged the passing of "Masts and Yards," and were even then being handed on into the era of the hydroplane and submarine.
"Ten o'clock, gentlemen!" said the voice of the Ship's Corporal at the door. The Sub. eyed him sternly. "You may get yourself a glass of beer, Corporal," and thereby won a five-minutes' respite. Then——
"Out lights, please, gentlemen," again broke in upon the revels.
"Corporal, will you——"
The man shook his head with a grim smile. "Come along, please, gentlemen, or you'll get me 'ung."
Reluctantly the singers withdrew, drifting by twos and threes to the steerage flat where their hammocks swung. The Ship's Corporal switched off the lights and locked the gun-room door. "I likes to see 'igh sperits meself," he admitted to the yawning Steward who accompanied him out of the Mess. The Gunroom Steward's reply was to the effect that you could have too much even of a good thing, and he retired gloomily to the pantry, where, in company with a vast ham and the gunroom crockery, he spent most of his waking hours.
In the nearly deserted Wardroom a rubber of bridge was still in lingering progress; a sea raced frothing past the thick glass of a scuttle, and one of the players raised his eyes from his hand. "Blowing up for a dirty night," he observed. A Lieutenant deep in an arm-chair by the fire lifted his head. "It's sure to—my middle watch." He closed the book he was reading and stood up, stretching himself. Then with a glance at the clock he moved towards the door. As he opened it the Senior Engineer came into the Mess. His face was drawn with tiredness, and there were traces of dust round his eyes. He pulled off a pair of engine-room gloves, and, ordering a drink, thoughtfully rolled a cigarette. At the sound of his voice the Engineer Commander looked up from the game and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question to his subordinate. The Senior Engineer nodded. "Yes, sir, she's all right now; I don't think she'll give any more trouble to-night." He finished his drink and sought his cabin. He had had three hours' sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and hoped, as he undressed, that the infernal scrap-heap would hold together till he'd had a bit more.
The night wore on, and one by one the inmates of the Wardroom drifted to their respective cabins. Outside the Captain's cabin the sentry beguiled the tedium of the vigil by polishing the buckle of his belt. Every now and again he glanced at the clock.
At last the hands pointed to a quarter to twelve. In fifteen minutes his watch would be over. He buckled on his belt and resumed his noiseless beat. Occasionally from some cabin or hammock the snore of a tired sleeper reached his ears. The rifles, stowed upright round the aft-deck, moved in their racks to the measured roll of the ship, with a long-drawn, monotonous rattle, like a boy's stick drawn lightly across area railings.
A tread sounded overhead, and a figure carrying a lantern came lightly down the hatchway. It was the Midshipman of the First Watch, calling the reliefs. He descended to the steerage flat, and bending down under the hammocks of his sleeping brethren, knocked at the door of one of the cabins. There was a lull in the stertorous breathing, in the warm, dim interior.
"Ten minutes to twelve, sir!" The inmate grunted and switched on his light. "All right," he growled.
The boy moved off till he came to a hammock slung by the armoured door. He ranged up beside it and blew lightly into the face of the sleeper.
"Jimmy! Ten to twelve!"
The occupant of the hammock opened one eye.
"'Ll right," he murmured sleepily, and closed it again.
The Midshipman of the First Watch eyed him suspiciously.
"No you don't!" He shook the hammock. "Wake up, you fat-headed blighter, or I'll slip you." Then, changing his tone to a wheedling one: "Come on, Jimmy, it's a lovely night—much more healthy on the bridge than fugging in your beastly hammock."
His relief said something under his breath, and emerged shivering from the blankets, blinking in the light of the lantern. Once his feet were fairly on the deck, the other turned and scampered up the ladder again.
The bell struck eight times as the Lieutenant and Midshipman of the Middle Watch climbed the ladder to the fore bridge. The Fleet was steaming in two divisions, with a flotilla of destroyers stationed on the beam. Beyond them the silhouette of an island was just visible in the pale moonlight.
At the last stroke of the bell the pipe of the Boatswain's Mate shrilled out, calling the Middle Watch. "A-a-all the starboard watch! Seaboats, crews, and reliefs fall in!" Fore and aft the ship the mantle of responsibility changed wearers. Sentries, seamen, stokers, signalmen, their tale of bricks complete for a few hours, turned over to their reliefs and hurried to their hammocks.
On the bridge the two Lieutenants walked up and down for a few minutes, while the newcomer received details of the course and speed of the Fleet and the Captain's orders for the night. Then the Officer of the Watch that was ended unslung his binoculars and turned towards the ladder.
"I think that's all.... She's keeping station very well now, but they had a bit of trouble in the Engine-room earlier in the Watch. Captain wants to be called at daybreak. Good-night."
"Good-night."
The Midshipman of the Watch was already in position on the upper bridge, settling down to his four hours' vigil with a sextant on the lights of the next ship ahead. From the battery below came the voice of the Corporal of the Watch mustering the hands. Overhead the wind thrummed in the shrouds and halliards: the steady throb of the engines beat out an accompaniment—a deeppizzicatoaccompaniment as if from some mighty bass-viol floating up through the open casings—and, somehow dominating all other sounds, the ceaseless swish and murmur of the waves breaking along the ship's side.
The Officer of the Watch crossed over to the Midshipman's side. "Are we in station all right?"
The boy lowered the sextant: "Yes, sir, quite steady."
"Right: give me the sextant and go and brew some cocoa in the chart-house. There's a spirit-lamp there."
The Midshipman vanished and reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of steaming beverage. They drank together, gulping it hastily to warm themselves.
"A-ah!" sighed the Lieutenant gratefully. "That's better. Now put the cups back, and come and show me Arcturus—if you have shaken off your fat head!"