Cuthbert, a naturally good-natured dog, hurried forward to meet him, but Bob, spurning his friendly advances, circled round on tip-toe, with his teeth bared and hair bristling. Cuthbert, seeing that a fight was inevitable, adopted similar tactics, and for some moments the two animals padded softly round and round nosing each other and preparing to spring in to the attack. Then, quite suddenly and for no apparent reason, there came a shrill yelp of pain from Bob, and before anyone realised what had happened his tail went down, he rushed madly over the gangway, and shot along the jetty like a flash of greased lightning.
"What the devil's the matter with him?" queried the officer of the watch, staring in amazement after the rapidly disappearing figure of the well-known fighter.
"Matter!" spluttered Cuthbert's owner, weak with laughter. "Lord!I've never seen anything like it! Did you see the way he skipped?"
"Did I not!" answered the O.O.W., laughing himself. "But what on earth made him streak off like that?"
"Come here, Cuthbert," said his master.
The dog came forward, wagging his tail, and had his muzzle removed.
"D'you see that?" asked his owner, pointing to the end of it. 'That' was a long and very sharp-pointed pin firmly soldered to the business end of Cuthbert's headgear.
North Corner Bob never visited that particular ship again.
She was a member of that gallant and distinguished corps after which this article is named. You will not find her regiment mentioned in any British Army List, nor, so far as I am aware, and for all the foreign sound of it, in the Army List of His Imperial Majesty the Czar of All the Russias. The name does not appear in any Army List at all, for the Hussars to which she belonged are a sea regiment, pure and simple.
Her uniform of dull grey, with no facings or trimmings of any sort or description, was strictly in keeping with her surroundings, for her favourite habitat was anywhere in the wild waste of waters lying between Greenland, the North Cape, the Naze, and the Orkneys.
Some people with a libellous sense of humour referred to her as a member of "Harry Tate's Own," while others, most unkindly, said she belonged to the "Ragtime Navy." But she did not seem to mind. She knew in her heart of hearts that her work was of paramount importance, and, complacent in the knowledge, smiled sweetly as a well-conducted lady should when jibes and insults are hurled at her long-suffering head.
She had a great deal to put up with in one way and another. Thanks to her enormous fuel capacity she spent a long time at sea and had very brief spells in harbour. Her work, though important, was always dull and monotonous, while in bad weather it was even worse. She had no prospect of sharing in the excitement of a big sea battle like her more warlike sisters, though, with them, she ran the chance of encountering hostile submarines and of having an altercation with an armed raider. But, taking it all round, she had comparatively little to hope for in the way of honour and glory; she merely had to be at sea for many weeks at a time to prevent money-grabbing neutrals from reaping a rich harvest by supplying munitions of war and articles of contraband to an impoverished Hun who could not be trusted to put those commodities to any gentlemanly purpose.
Muckle Flugga, I believe, is a remote headland in the Shetlands, and she, a member of the corps called after it, flew the White Ensign of the British Navy and was an armed merchant cruiser.
* * * * *
Before the war she was a crack passenger liner. On her upper deck, and expressly designed for the use of potentates and plutocrats, she had regular suites of apartments. Gorgeous suites they were, furnished like the rooms in a mansion ashore. The sleeping cabins had white enamelled panels and comfortable brass bedsteads. The day cabins or sitting-rooms, panelled in bird's-eye maple, oak, walnut, or mahogany, had large square windows, regular fireplaces, and were fresh with flowered chintzes, while the tiled bathrooms were fitted with all the different appliances for hot baths, tepid baths, cold baths, needle baths, shower baths, and douches. One simply turned a handle and the water came. A telephone in each sitting-room communicated with a central exchange somewhere deep down in the bowels of the ship, and one could summon a barber to trim one's hair, a manicure expert to attend to one's hands, a tobacconist with samples of cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco, or the presiding genius of a haberdashery establishment with quite the latest things in shirts, collars, socks, and neckties. In fact, living in one of the expensive suites was exactly like being in a large and luxurious hotel, except that it was vastly more comfortable.
Lower down in the ship were the single, double, and treble-berthed cabins for the first and second-class passengers. They, though small, were very comfortable, and were fitted with telephones through which one could summon a stewardess with a basin or a steward with a whisky and soda. Down below, too, were the saloons, huge apartments with carved panels, ornamental pillars, glass-pictured domes, coloured frescoes, and dozens of small tables. There was also the Louis XIV. restaurant, if one preferred a simple beefsteak to the more formal dinner, and smoking-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, drawing-rooms, writing-rooms, not to mention the swimming bath and the children's nursery.
We can imagine the great liner, spick and span in her spotless paint and gleaming brasswork, steaming through a placid summer sea. Her long promenade decks would be plastered with deck-chairs filled with recumbent passengers, some dozing, others smoking and talking. Some energetic enthusiast would be passing from group to group to collect sufficient people to play deck cricket, quoits, or bull-board, while yet another, armed with a notebook and a pencil, would be endeavouring to inveigle recalcitrant ladies with strict notions as to the sins of gambling into taking tickets for a sweepstake on the next day's mileage.
One would hear the laughter of children as they chased each other round the decks, and the sotto-voce remarks of some old gentleman roused from his afternoon nap by the sudden impact of a podgy infant of four tripping heavily over his outstretched feet.
After dark in some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a girl. They would be sitting very close together, and behaving… well, as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the tedium of voyages at sea.
Everything would be calm and peaceful. Everybody would be happy, even the young gentleman with no prospects travelling second class, who having won the sweepstake on the day's run and suddenly finding himself £20 the richer, celebrated his luck with his friends in the smoking-room.
* * * * *
But then the war came and changed everything.
The Admiralty requisitioned the ship and armed her with guns. They painted her a dull grey all over, and tore down all her polished woodwork to lessen the chances of fire in action, leaving nothing but the bare steel walls. Most of the cabins were stripped of their furniture and fittings, only enough being left intact to provide accommodation for the officers.
The carved woodwork and most of the tables and chairs in the saloons were taken away, and though the painted frescoes and glass domes still remained, they were dusty and neglected.
In one corner of the first-class saloon was the wardroom, a space partitioned off by painted canvas screens to provide messing accommodation for the more senior officers. Opposite to it was the gunroom, a similar enclosure for the juniors.
They manned her with a crew of between three and four hundred Royal Navy Reserve men, with a leavening of Royal Navy ratings and a few Marines. They appointed a Captain R.N. in command and two or three other naval officers, but by far the greater proportion of officers and crew belonged to the Reserve, and excellent fellows they were.
Certain of the men had served on beard in peace-time, and had elected to remain on, but the majority came to her for the first time when she commissioned as a man-of-war. Some were Scots fishermen, men from trawlers and drifters, excellent, hardy creatures used to small craft, bad weather, and boat work. Others, having served their time in the Navy, had taken to some shore employment, and in August 1914 had been recalled to their old Service.
Nearly every imaginable trade was represented. In one of the first-class cabins was the barber's shop, presided over by a man who in pre-war days had worked in a hair-cutting establishment not far from Victoria Station. Next door lived another man who had been a bootmaker, and he, bringing all the appurtenances of his trade to sea with him, carried on a roaring business as a "snob." There was also a haberdashery emporium kept by a seaman who had been employed in some linen-draper's shop in his native town, while a professional tailor in blue-jacket's uniform spent all his spare time in making and repairing the garments of his shipmates. Even the ship's electric laundry was manned by folk who were well acquainted with starching and ironing.
Most of the cooks and stewards had left, but sufficient remained to provide for the needs of the officers and men. The catering was still run by the company to which the vessel belonged, and, as she had roomy kitchens and all manner of labour-saving devices in the way of electric dish-washers and potato-peelers, the messing was even better than that on board a battleship.
Gone were the troops of laughing children and the passengers. A pile of wicked-looking shell and boxes of cartridges for the guns lay ready to hand in the nursery, while the promenade decks resounded to the tramp of men being initiated into the mysteries of the squad and rifle drill and the work at their guns.
* * * * *
They have been at it for two years; two years of strenuous naval routine and discipline which have transformed the passenger liner into no mean man-of-war.
"It is not possible to prevent the occasional appearance of enemy submarines within the range of our shores, but I can give an assurance that the measures which have been and will be taken are such as to render proceedings of this sort increasingly dangerous to the submarines."—DR. MACNAMARA,Financial Secretary to the Admiralty.
They looked an orderly little squadron of six as they steamed jauntily out towards the open sea in single line ahead through the grey-green, tide-ripped waters of the most thickly populated river estuary in the world.
They were prosaic, snub-nosed-looking little craft, short and squat, with high, upstanding bows, prominent wheelhouses, and stumpy mizzen-masts abaft all. They hailed from many ports and still bore the letters and numbers of their peace-time vocation: F.D. for Fleetwood, G.Y. for Grimsby, B.F. for Banff, and P.D. for Peterhead. They were steam herring drifters in the ordinary, common, or garden, piping times of peace; little vessels which went to sea for days on end to pitch, wallow, and roll at the end of a mile or a mile and a half of buoyed drift-net, in the meshes of which unwary herring, in endeavouring to force a way through, presently found themselves caught by the gills.
But now, each one of them flew the tattered, smoke-stained apology for a once White Ensign, and they were men-of-war, very much men-of-war. They had been at the game for nearly twenty-four months, and, through long practice, they elbowed their way in and out of the traffic with all the fussy, devil-may-care assertiveness of His Majesty's destroyers.
Their admiral, a Royal Naval Reserve lieutenant, who, in peaceful 1914, was still the immaculate third officer of a crack Western Ocean passenger liner, looked out of his wheelhouse windows and surveyed the potbellied, lumbering cargo carriers steaming by with all the kindly tolerance of the regular man-of-war's man. He, though he did not look it, for they had been coaling an hour before and he was still grimy about the face, was the only commissioned officer in the squadron, fleet, flotilla, or whatever you like to call it. All the other craft were commanded by skippers, ex-peacetime-captains of the fishing craft, who were used to the sea and its vicissitudes, and knew the ins and cuts of their vessels far better than they could tell you. The men, for the greater part, were also fishermen enrolled in the Reserve, with here and there an ex-naval rating in the shape of a seaman gunner or signalman.
They may have lacked polish. They knew little about springing smartly to attention and nothing whatsoever about the interior economy of a 6-inch gun. Their attire was sketchy, to say the least of it. Even the admiral wore grey flannel trousers, a once white sweater, and coloured muffler, and it is to be feared that an officer from a battleship might have referred to them collectively as a "something lot of pirates." Pirates they may have been, but at the best of times a strict adherence to the uniform regulations is not a fetish of those serving on board the vessels of the Auxiliary Patrol. They are, it is perfectly true, granted a sum of money by a paternal Government wherewith to purchase their kit, but brass buttons and best serge suits do not blend with life on board a herring drifter at sea in all weathers. Sea-boots, oilskins, jerseys, and any old thing in the way of trousers and headgear are far more fashionable. Indeed, one may occasionally happen upon a skipper wearing an ancient bowler hat when well out in the North Sea and away from the haunts of senior officers who might possibly take exception to his battered tile.
But they all took their job seriously, though, like most sailor folk, light-heartedly. They were inured to the sea and its hardships; many of them were part owners of their own craft, even the man in the red Salvation Army jersey tittivating the six-pounder gun in the last little ship of the line.
Exactly how they "strafed" the immoral and ubiquitous Hun submarine it is inexpedient to say. They had their little guns, of course, but were full of other 'gilguys' evolved for the same laudable purpose during a period of nearly two years of war. Moreover, the men were experts in their use, and that their 'gadgets' often worked to the detriment of Fritz may be deduced from that gentleman's extreme unwillingness to be seen in their vicinity, and a casual inspection of the records of the Auxiliary Patrol probably locked up somewhere in Whitehall. Some day these records may be made public, and then we shall read of happenings which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a nail-brush. Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision with a tar brush?
Striving to encompass the destruction of the wily submarine is by no means a one-sided game. Our small craft generally manage to have a credit balance on their side, but Fritz is no fool, and is not the sort of person to go nosing round an obvious trap, or to walk blindfold into a snare. Sometimes he mounts larger and heavier guns than his antagonists, and may come to the surface out of range of their weapons and bombard them at his leisure. In such cases the hunters may become the hunted, and may perchance be 'strafed' themselves. Then there are always mines, contact with one of which may pulverise an ordinary wooden drifter into mere matchwood.
The work is fraught with risk. It is every bit as dangerous as that of the mine-sweepers, and casualties, both in men and in ships, are simply bound to occur. But little is made of them. A few more names will appear in the Roll of Honour, and in some obscure newspaper paragraph we may read that "on Thursday last the armed patrol vessel ——— was blown up by a mine" or was "sunk by gunfire from a hostile submarine," and that "— members of her crew escaped in their small boat and landed at ———." That is all; no details whatsoever, nothing but the bare statement.
But the game still goes on.
The men who cheerfully undergo these risks in their anxiety to serve their country, were not professional fighters before the war: they are now; but in the palmy days of peace they were fishermen, seamen through and through, who, year in and year out, fair weather or foul, were at sea in their little craft, reaping the ocean's harvest. Their life was ever a hard and a dangerous one, and the hazards and chances of war have made it doubly so.
They have none of the excitement of a fight in the open. Much of their work in protecting the coastwise traffic is deadly in its monotony, and, as we have become used to it, has come to be looked upon as a matter of course.
Their gallant deeds are rarely the subjects of laudatory paragraphs in the newspapers, and the great majority go unrewarded. Even if we do happen to meet a man wearing a little strip of blue and white ribbon on his coat or jumper and ask him why he was decorated, he merely laughs, wags his head, and says —— nothing.
It is very unsatisfactory of him.
H.M.S. ————c/o G.P.O., LONDON.June 30th, 1916.
You ask me for a more elaborate account of a certain little affair which took place some time ago. It was merely an episode of a few light cruisers, anything up to a score of destroyers, and some seaplanes; quite a minor and a comparatively unimportant little business which elicited a brief announcement from the Secretary of the Admiralty, and must have proved rather a Godsend to those newspapers whose readers were anxious for naval news in any shape or form.
They made a certain amount of fuss about it, and the naval correspondents were soon hard at work elaborating the simple statement according to their usual habit. Indeed, the nautical expert ofEarth and Sea, with the very best intentions in the world, even went so far as to devote the greater part of a column to the business. It is to be hoped that his readers were duly edified; but we, who had taken part in the affair, were merely rather amused.
And so, for perhaps a week, and before being banished to the limbo of forgotten and unconsidered trifles, the business was a subject for intermittent conversation and a certain amount of conjecture. Then it was forgotten, and it is doubtful if it will ever be resurrected in any naval history of the war.
We had quite a good passage across the North Sea, and at dawn on the day of the operation we arrived in the vicinity of the Danish coast not far from the German frontier. The weather was good for the time of year. Bitterly cold, of course, besides which there were frequent low-lying snow flurries which came sweeping down across the sea and made it barely possible to see more than a quarter of a mile; while our decks, except where the heat of the engine and boiler rooms melted the snow as it fell, were soon covered. But in between the squalls the sky was blue, the sea was flat calm, and there was hardly any wind. Moreover, there was not a sign or a vestige of a Hun anywhere, not even a Zeppelin; nothing in sight except a few Danish fishing craft.
The seaplanes were soon hoisted out and started off on their job. They all seemed to get away without the slightest hitch, and it was a fine sight watching them taxi-ing along the calm water to get up speed, and then rising in the air one by one to disappear in the faint haze towards the horizon. What they were to do, exactly, I cannot say, but within ten minutes they had all disappeared and the squadron steamed to and fro waiting for their return. They were expected back in about an hour.
The full hour passed, and nothing happened. Another quarter of an hour; but still no signs of the 'planes. On board the ships people began to get rather anxious, thinking that they had been brought down by the Huns, and everybody with glasses was looking to the south-eastward for signs of them. But at last, when they had almost been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow squall. He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole covey, except two, had returned.
How their business had gone off was never divulged. A story did get about afterwards,—I saw it mentioned in some of the newspapers,—to the effect that one of them had arrived within two hundred feet immediately over the object he wanted to drop his bombs on, and then found he could not let them go because the releasing gear was clogged up with frozen snow. Whether or not the yarn is true it is impossible to say, but imagine the fellow's feelings when, after planing down to two hundred feet with all the anti-aircraft guns in the place going full blast, he found he could not drop a single egg! Poor devil!
The seaplanes that did return were soon hoisted in, but in the meanwhile eight destroyers and a couple of other craft had been sent on to steam down the coast in line abreast to see if by any chance the two missing ones had come down on the water. We were with this lot, and after an hour's steaming at 20 knots, by which time the island of Sylt was plainly visible about nine or ten miles dead ahead and no trace of the lost sheep had been seen, the search had to be abandoned.
It was then that the three destroyers to seaward sighted two steam trawlers some way off to the south-westward. They were flying no colours so far as we could see, but seemed to be in single line ahead, and as they were going straight for Sylt it was pretty obvious that they were mine-sweepers or patrol boats, and not mere fishermen.
The three outer destroyers,—we happened to be one of them,—promptly altered course to cut them off from the coast, and before very long we were buzzing along at something like 30 knots with an enormous mountain of water piled up in our wake, the water being rather shallow.
The trawlers, poor chaps, hadn't a dog's chance of getting away or of doing anything; but I must say we all admired them for their pluck. They had got into line abreast, and soon, when we were within about 5,000 yards, our leading craft hoisted some signal. We had no time to look it up in the book, but took it to be a signal asking if they would surrender. But not a bit of it. They were patrol boats, and each of them had a small gun, and presently there came a flash and a little cloud of brown smoke from the nearer one of the two. The shell fell some distance short.
We had all held our fire up till then, for it was mere baby killing and we did not want to do the dirty on them if it could be avoided, but as they started the game of firing on us, we had no alternative but to reply. The sea round about the nearer craft was soon spouting with shell splashes, and between the fountains of spray and clouds of dense smoke in which she tried to hide herself, we could see the red flashes of some of our shell as they hit and burst, and the spurt of flame from her own little gun as she fired at us. Only three or four of her projectiles came anywhere near, while the havoc on board her must have been indescribable. It was a hateful business to have to fire at her at all, but what else could we do as she would not surrender?
It was all over very soon. The nearer trawler was almost hidden in smoke, and presently, when we got ahead of her and to windward at a range of about 1,500 yards, we noticed a white thing fluttering in her mizzen rigging. It was a shirt, as we discovered afterwards, and a signal of surrender, so we ceased firing at once and ran down to her to pick up the survivors.
The further trawler, meanwhile, had been sunk by the destroyer ahead of us, the crew having abandoned her beforehand in two boats.
We steamed fairly close to our fellow and lowered a boat, for we could see all the survivors standing up with their hands above their heads. The ship herself was in a deplorable state. Shell seemed to have burst everywhere, and one of the first which struck her had cut a steam pipe in the engine-room and had stopped the engines. Clouds of steam were coming from aft, her upper deck was a shambles, and she was badly holed and on fire. She was still afloat, though sinking fast.
Our boat went across and brought back those that remained of her crew. There were thirteen of them all told, including the skipper, and of the men one was badly, and four more slightly, wounded. Nine had been killed outright.
Then occurred rather a pleasing incident. Our men, a long time before, were going to do all sorts of desperate things to any Germans they got hold of. They were full of the Lusitania business, bomb dropping from Zeppelins, and the treatment of our prisoners. But when the time came there was a complete revulsion of feeling. They were kindness itself, and when the prisoners came on board the seamen met the seamen and escorted them forward like honoured guests, while our stokers did the same for their opposite numbers.
We took all necessary precautions, of course, but the Germans were very well behaved and gave us no trouble at all. They were a particularly fine and intelligent-looking lot of men, and presently, when the wounded had been attended to, our fellows were filling them up with food and cocoa on the mess-deck. They seemed very pleased to get it, and judging from what one heard afterwards, they had evidently expected to be manacled, leg-ironed, and fed on biscuit and water. But our men did the best they could for them; gave them food, clothes, and cigarettes. The Germans were profoundly grateful, but couldn't quite understand it.
Their skipper, a reserve officer who spoke English like a native, had served as an officer in British ships, and seemed a good fellow. He was pleased to be congratulated on his plucky fight; but it was rather pathetic all the same, for he had been cut off practically at his own front door.
"You came upon us so suddenly and so near home," he said, looking at Sylt which was only six or seven miles away. "We had not a chance to do anything."
He told us that he had been in the wheelhouse of his trawler when the show started. One of our first shell passed through the glass windows within a foot of his head without bursting, and the very next did the damage in the engine-room. He ran down there to see what could be done, and this must have saved his life, for while he was away another shell burst in the wheelhouse and put about twenty holes in his greatcoat which was lying on the settee. I saw the coat and the holes when he came on board, and noticed it had the ribbon of the Iron Cross and that of some other decoration in the button-hole. He showed me his Iron Cross and was very proud of it, but what he got it for I did not gather. He seemed rather secretive about it. The other decoration, with a red-and-white ribbon, was the "Hamburg Cross," which is given to all officers and men belonging to the town who get the Iron Cross. I believe the other Hansa towns follow the same custom with their braves.
One thing about the skipper which struck me favourably was that he seemed very keen on the welfare of his men. The poor fellow who was badly wounded had been hit in the back, and three or four pieces of shell were still inside him. He must have been in terrible agony, but was very brave and did not utter a sound. An operation was quite out of the question, and as the poor chap was obviously in great pain our Surgeon-Probationer put him in a hammock on the mess-deck and gave him morphia. Soon afterwards the skipper asked to be allowed to visit him, and when the Doc. next went forward he found him swabbing the patient's brow with icy cold water to bring him to! The Doc. was rather peevish about it.
But to get on with the story of what happened. The trawler was sinking, but not quite fast enough, so we finished her off with a couple of lyddite shell on the waterline. In the meanwhile, as you probably know, for it was officially announced at the time, two destroyers had been in collision. The rammer crumpled her bows up a bit, but could still steam, but the ship rammed was rather badly damaged, and had to be taken in tow. It was in the middle of this operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest by our 'planes earlier in the morning, came out and started dropping bombs. None of them came very close to us,—the bombs, I mean,—but we saw a string of five fall and explode practically alongside one destroyer, and heard afterwards that there had been a free fight on her upper deck to secure as trophies the splinters which dropped on board. We were all using our A.-A. guns, and though we did not actually hit any of them so far as we could see, we made them keep up to a height from which accurate bomb-dropping was an impossibility, so nobody was hit. But nevertheless it was unpleasant, for no sooner had they let go one consignment than they went home again, filled up afresh, and came back for another go. They were bombing us off and on for four or five hours, so far as I can remember, and we counted seven or eight of the blighters in sight at once, so it was "embarras de richesse" so far as targets went.
We weren't going very fast, for the damaged destroyer could not be towed at a respectable speed on account of her injuries, and at about five o'clock in the afternoon the glass had gone down a lot, and the wind and sea started to get up from the westward. The prospect was not altogether joyful. We had heard the two trawlers shouting for help by wireless before we sank them, and knew that the German seaplanes had probably seen and reported an injured ship being taken in tow. (This afterwards turned out to be the case, though, according to their communiqué, the seaplanes claimed to have bagged her with a bomb, which was not so.) Moreover, Heligoland was a bare sixty miles away under our lee, so the chances were £100 to 1/2d. that the Huns would come out during the night and try to scupper the lot of us. It was with some joy, then, that we found there was a pretty strong supporting force within easy distance. In fact, we actually sighted them at about 6 p.m.
The weather grew steadily worse, and by sunset there was a pretty big sea and a fresh breeze, both of which were increasing every minute. The poor old ship in tow was making very heavy weather of it, while even we were pretty lively. But things got worse, for by ten o'clock, and a pitch dark night it was, it was blowing nearly a full gale. The sea, too, had got up to such an extent that there was nothing for it but to abandon the damaged destroyer. It was easier said than done, for the sea was too big for lowering boats, and the only other alternative was for some other craft to go alongside her and to take the men on. I did not see the business myself, but believe another destroyer put her stem up against the side of the one sinking and kept it there by going slow ahead, while the men hopped out one by one over the bows.
It was a most excellent bit of work on the part of the salvor, for with the two ships rolling, pitching, and grinding in the sea, and in utter darkness, it required a very good head and cool judgment to know how much speed was necessary to keep the bows just touching, and no more. If they had come into violent contact the rescuing ship might have been very badly damaged. I believe they had to have several shots at it, before they got every man away, but though two fell overboard in jumping across, they pulled it off all right without losing a single life. The only damage to the rescuing ship was a little bit of a bulge on the stem just below the forecastle, but this did not make a leak or impair her efficiency in any way, and she went about for months afterwards without having it straightened. They had every right to be proud of their honourable scar!
The poor old ship which had to be abandoned was then left to her fate, and nobody saw the end of her.
It must have been at about this time, though we did not see it, that some hostile destroyers came upon our light cruisers, or rather, our cruisers happened upon them. What took place I don't quite know, but the Huns were apparently sighted quite close, and our leading ship, jamming her helm over and increasing speed, rammed one full in the middle and cut her in halves. It must have been an awful moment for the poor wretches, for the stern portion of the destroyer sank one side, and the bow part went rushing on into the darkness at about thirty knots. The men on board her could be heard yelling, but it was quite impossible to do anything to save them as other enemy destroyers were in the neighbourhood and the sea was far too bad for lowering boats.
Nothing else of interest took place during the night, except that the weather got worse and worse. The next morning, when we were steaming against it, we were having a terrible doing, and it lasted for about twenty-four hours, until we got under the lee of the coast. The sea was one of the worst we had ever experienced, short and very steep, and we couldn't steam more than about eight knots against it. The motion was very bad, the ship crashing and bumping about in a most unholy manner, and we were all wet through and rather miserable. No hot food, either, for the galley fire had been put out.
The prisoner who had been badly wounded died early next morning. The Doctor said he might have lived if the weather had been good, but the motion finished him, poor fellow. He was buried at sea, the German officer reading the burial service.
We eventually got back into harbour and disembarked the prisoners, and never was I more pleased to get a decent meal and a little sleep. Aunt Maria, having so many nephews, has just sent me another fountain pen, the third since the war started. Also a pair of crimson socks knitted by her cook. The pen will be useful.
Do you want any more cigarettes? You never acknowledged the last lot I sent, you ungrateful blighter, and at any rate I think it's high time you wrote me a letter. Your last one was a postcard.
Forgive this letter of mine if it is a bit disconnected, but it's the best I can do at present.
Well, the best of luck and may you not stop a Hun bullet or a bit of shrapnel.
Yours always,T.
TheRapierwas an old destroyer, one of the 370-ton "thirty-knotters" completed in about 1901. She burnt coal and was driven by reciprocating engines, instead of using oil fuel and being propelled by new-fangled turbines, while 23 to 24 knots were all she could be relied upon to travel in the best of weather. She had a low, sharp bow and the old-fashioned turtle-back forward instead of the high, weatherly forecastle of the later destroyers, and in anything more than a moderate breeze or a little popple of a sea she was like a half-tide rock in a gale o' wind. In fact, except in the very calmest weather, she was a regular hog, for she rolled, pitched, and wallowed to her heart's content, varying the monotony at odd moments by burying herself in green seas or deluging herself in masses of spray.
Her small bridge, with its 12-pounder gun, steering wheel, compass, and engine-room telegraphs, was placed on the top of the turtle-back and about 25 feet from the bows. It acted as a most excellent breakwater and took the brunt of the heavier seas, and how often theRapiercame back into harbour with her bridge rails flattened down and her deck fittings washed overboard, I really do not know. It was a fairly frequent occurrence, for war is war, and they kept the little ship out at sea in practically all weathers.
Even in harbour, when her officers and men were endeavouring to obtain a little well-earned sleep, she sometimes had an exasperating habit of rolling her rails under and slopping the water over her deck, and then it was that Langdon, her lieutenant in command, wedged in the bunk in his little cabin in the stern, and driven nearly frantic by the irregular thump, thump, crash of the loosely hung rudder swinging from side to side as the ship rolled, rose in his wrath and cursed the day he was born.
But whatever he thought in his heart of hearts, he would not hear a bad word against his oldRapierin public. She might be ancient; but then she had done "a jolly sight more steaming" than any other craft of her age and class. She might burn coal in her furnaces instead of oil-fuel, and every ounce of coal had to be shovelled on board from a collier by manual labour, whereas, in an oil-driven destroyer, one simply went alongside a jetty or an "oiler," connected up a hose, and went to bed while a pump did all the work. But Langdon never could endure "the ghastly stink" of crude petroleum, while coal, though dirty, was clean dirt. TheRapiermight have old-fashioned engines, but with them one ran no chance of developing that affliction of turbine craft: water in the casing, the consequent stripping of blades off the turbine rotors, and a month or so in a dockyard as a natural concomitant. Moreover, everybody knew that destroyers with reciprocating engines were far and away the easiest to handle.
So, from what Langdon said, though it is true that he may have been rather prejudiced by the fact that she was his first independent command, the fifteen-year-oldRapierwas a jewel of fair price. The powers that be perhaps did not regard her with such rose-tinted optimism, but for all that, were evidently of the opinion that she was still capable of useful work, and kept her constantly at sea accordingly.
Exactly what her function was I had better not say, but she always seemed to be on the spot when things happened, and had assisted at the "strafing" of Hun submarines, and had been under fire a great many more times than some of her younger sisters, many of whom were craft at least three times her size, eight knots more speed, and infinitely better armed and more seaworthy.
So it was not to be imagined that theRapier, ancient though she was, suffered from senile decay.
* * * * *
"Curse this weather," the Lieutenant muttered, wrinkling his eyes in a vain endeavour to see through the murk. "We've been forty-eight hours on patrol, and now we're due to go into harbour this beastly fog comes down and delays us. It IS the limit!"
Pettigrew, the Sub-Lieutenant, agreed. "We shall have to coal when we arrive," he observed mournfully. "That'll take us two hours, and by the time we've finished, made fast to the buoy, had our baths, and made ourselves fairly presentable, it'll be two o'clock. I take it we go to sea at the usual time this evening, sir?"
Langdon nodded. "Bet your life!" he said with a sigh. "We shall be off again at eight p.m. I was looking forward to having a decent lunch ashore for once," he added regretfully, "but now this beastly fog's gone and put the hat on it. Lord! I'm fed up to the neck with the grub on board!"
"Tinned salmon fish-cakes for breakfast," murmured the Sub. "Curried salmon for lunch, and tinned rabbit pie for dinner. My sainted aunt! The Ritz and Carlton aren't in it!"
The skipper laughed.
The fog had come down at dawn, and now, halfway through the forenoon, the weather was still as thick as ever; so thick, indeed, that it was barely possible to see more than a hundred yards through the white, cotton-wool-like pall. It was one of those breathless, steamy days in mid-July. The sea was glassily calm, while the sun, a mere molten blot in the haze overhead, whose heat was unmitigated by the least suspicion of a breeze, was still sufficiently powerful to make it most uncomfortably warm. Altogether the torrid clamminess of the atmosphere, and its distinct earthy flavour, reminded one irresistibly of the interior of a greenhouse.
It was the sun who had been guilty of causing the fog at all. His rays had saturated the earth with warmth the day before, heat which had been given off during the cooler hours of darkness in a mass of invisible vapour. Impelled slowly seaward during the night, the heat wave, if one can so call it, had eventually come into contact with the colder atmosphere over the water, where, following the invariable law of nature, it had condensed into an infinite number of tiny particles of moisture. These, mingling and coalescing, had formed the dense masses of vapour which hung so impalpably over the dangerous, thickly populated sea-areas in the closer vicinity of the coast. Further afield, seven or eight miles away from the shore, there was nothing but a haze. More distant still the sun shone undimmed, and there were no signs of fog at all.
* * * * *
Thick weather at sea is always exasperating, and to avoid the chance of colliding with something they could not possibly avoid at any greater speed, Langdon had been forced to ease to the leisurely speed of eight knots, and eight knots to a T.B.D., even a relic of theRapier'sage, is just about as irritating as being wedged in a narrow lane in a 40-horse power Daimler behind a horse pantechnicon.
They had a man on the forecastle keeping a lookout. The automatic sounding machine was being used at regular intervals to give them some sort of an idea as to their position by a comparison of the depths obtained with those shown on the chart, but even then the eccentricity of the tidal currents and, let it be said, the erratic and most unladylike behaviour of theRapier'sstandard compass, made navigation a matter of some conjecture and a good deal of guesswork.
Somewhere ahead, veiled in its pall of fog, lay the coast. Ahead, and to the right, was a large area of shoal water, portions of which uncovered at low tide. It had already proved the graveyard of many fine ships whose bones still showed when the water fell, and Langdon had no wish to leave his ship there as an everlasting monument to his memory, while he, probably court-martialled, and at any rate having "incurred their Lordships' severe displeasure," left the destroyer service under a cloud which would never disperse.
Added to which there was always the chance of a collision, for the sea seemed full of ships. Time and tide wait for no man, and, Hun submarines or not, mines or no mines, fog or no fog, merchant vessels must run. To-day they seemed to be running in battalions and brigades, judging from the howling, yelping, and snorting of their steam whistles here, there, and everywhere.
But theRapiermanaged to avoid them somehow, and, shortly before noon, having heard the explosive fog signal on the end of the breakwater, she slid slowly past the lighthouse at the entrance and groped her way into the harbour. It was still as thick as it possibly could be, but she found the collier, and, after completing with coal, secured to her buoy.
Ten minutes later Langdon and the Sub were talking together in the little wardroom when there came a knock at the door.
"Signal just come through, sir," the signalman announced with a smile on his face. "Rapierwill proceed to Portsmouth at daylight to-morrow to refit. She will not be required for patrol to-night."
The ship was long overdue for the dockyard, but the skipper andPettigrew looked at each other, hardly able to believe their ears.
"Lord!" muttered the former. "That means a week's leave, Sub. D'you realise that?"
"Do I not, sir!" answered the Sub-Lieutenant, as the signalman retired with a grin.
We were steaming to the westward, towards the spot where the sun, glowing like a disc of molten copper, was slowly nearing the horizon. It had been one of those hot, breathless sort of days with no breeze; and now, near sunset, nothing but an occasional cat's-paw stole gently across the sea to ruffle its glassy surface in irregular-shaped patches. Elsewhere, the water, shining like a mirror, reflected the blazing glory of the sky.
Some distance off lay the coast, its familiar outline dim, purple, and mysterious in the evening mist. But it was neither the sunset, glorious as it was, nor the scenery which held our imagination. It was the shipping.
All manner of craft there were. First came theSpurt, of Tromsö, a Norwegian tramp of dissolute and chastened appearance, whose deliberate, plodding gait and general air of senility belied her name, or at any rate the English meaning of it. Her rusty black hull was decorated with three large squares painted in her national colours, red, with a vertical white-edged stripe of blue in the centre. Next a bulbous, prosperous-looking Dutchman, who seemed to waddle in her, or his, stride. She was slightly faster than the ancientSpurt, but was no flyer, and boasted a canary-yellow hull bearing her name in fifteen-foot letters, and enormous painted tricolours striped horizontally in red, white, and blue.
Then two Swedes with unpronounceable names who, by their embellishments, informed the world that they hailed respectively from Göteborg and Helsingborg. They also sported large rectangles, painted in vertical stripes of yellow and blue, while close behind them, a Dane, with an absurdly attenuated funnel and long ventilators sticking at all angles out of her hull like pins from a pincushion, ambled stolidly along like a weary cart-horse. She, scorning other decoration, merely showed the scarlet white-crossed emblem of her country. Some of the neutrals carried signs bearing their names which could be illuminated at night, and all seemed equally determined not to afford any prowling Hun submarine a legitimate excuse for torpedoing them on sight.
* * * * *
But the craft which outnumbered the others by more than four to one were the British. They bore no distinctive marks or colouring on their sides, and their travel-stained and weather-beaten appearance, their rusty hulls, discoloured funnels, and the generally dingy and unpretentious look about them showed that they were kept far too busy to trouble about external appearances. The only token of their nationality was the wisp of tattered red bunting fluttering at the stern of each; the gallant old Red Ensign which, war or no war, still dances triumphantly on practically every sea, except the Baltic.
Many of the passing vessels looked out of date and old-fashioned. Some veterans of the 'eighties or 'nineties, fit only to sail under a foreign flag according to pre-war standards, may have been dug out of their obscurity to play their part in the war. And a very important part it is. Ships must run, and, at a time when the Admiralty have levied a heavy toll for war purposes upon all classes of ships belonging to the Mercantile Marine, every vessel which will float and can steam can be utilised many times over for the equally important work of carrying cargo. It is not peaceful work, either, in these days of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and torpedoes ready to sink without warning.
The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile Marine proper, what, for want of a better term, we may call "the deep sea service," has supplied the Royal Navy with many thousands of splendid officers and men who are now serving their country in fighting ships as members of the Royal Naval Reserve. Moreover, numbers of its ships of all classes are employed for war purposes as armed merchant cruisers, transports, oil fuel vessels, colliers, ammunition ships, storeships, and the like. But the function of those ships which are left for their legitimate purpose of cargo carrying is of equal importance to the country, of inestimable value, in fact, since we could not exist without them. Their duty is fraught with constant peril. Submarines may be lurking and mines may have been laid upon the routes they have to traverse, but never have there been the least signs of unreadiness or unwillingness to proceed to sea when ordered to do so.
Most of the officers and men of the Mercantile Marine are not trained to war like their comrades of the Royal Navy. They are not paid, and their ships are not built, to fight; but yet, time and time again, their natural pluck and intrepidity has shown itself in the face of an entirely new danger.
* * * * *
Instances are so numerous that it is impossible to mention them all. Remember the gallant fight of the Clan MacTavish, with her single gun, against the heavily-armed German raider Moewe. Take the case of the "Blue Funneller"Laertes, Captain Probert, which was ordered to stop by an enemy submarine, but, disregarding the summons, proceeded at full speed, steering a zigzag course, and so escaped, Remember the littleThordis, Captain Bell, which, after having a torpedo fired at her, actually rammed and sank the submarine which fired it.
Again, there was the transportMercian, Captain Walker, which was attacked by gunfire from a hostile submarine in the Mediterranean. Some of the troops on board were killed, others were wounded, and nobody could have blamed the captain if he had surrendered. But what did he do? He endured a bombardment lasting for an hour and a half, and, thanks to the bravery and skill of all on board, the ship escaped.
There was also Captain Palmer, of theBlue Jacket, who, though his ship had actually been torpedoed, stood by her in his boats, reboarded her, and, in spite of her damage, steamed her to a place of safety. Recollect Captain Clopert, whose vessel, theSouthport, was captured by a German man-of-war, was taken to the island of Kusaie, and was there disabled by the removal of certain important parts of her machinery. She was evidently to be utilised as a collier, but no sooner had the enemy left than the master, officers, and men set to work to effect repairs. How they did it with the meagre appliances at their disposal only they themselves can say, but the fact remains that the ship escaped.
These cases are only typical. Whole volumes might be written round the warlike deeds of our "peaceful" merchantmen, and from the many instances of gallantry we read of and the still greater number which do not achieve publicity it is evident that on every occasion of encountering the enemy the master of the ship, backed up most nobly by his officers and crew, has not only done everything possible to save his ship from capture in the first instance, but has never hesitated to defend his vessel in accordance with the generally accepted tenets of International Law, which state that a merchant ship can defend herself when attacked.
Courage in the face of the enemy when one can return shot for shot is one thing, but heroism of the same kind in an unarmed ship is on rather a different plane.
The work of the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine is largely interdependent. The two great sea services of the country must ever work hand in hand and side by side, and let us never forget what we owe to the latter.
"Well, I'm damned!" ejaculated the first lieutenant, looking up from his breakfast as a barefooted signalman held a slate under his nose. "Just as I'm in the middle of painting ship!"
The navigator, doctor, and assistant paymaster looked up from their plates. "What's up, Number One?" queried the former.
"Only that the new skipper's arrived in the English mail," said the first lieutenant glumly.
"He's coming on board at nine o'clock in theSpartan'ssteamboat!"
"Good Lord!" protested Cutting, the doctor. "So soon? It was only a week ago we saw his appointment!"
"Can't help that," No. One growled. "He's arrived, and he'll be onboard in exactly three quarters of an hour's time. Lord help us!You'd better put on a clean tunic and your best society manners, Doc.You'll want 'em both."
"Why the deuce can't he leave us in peace a bit longer?" complainedFalland, the lieutenant (N).
"And why the devil does he want to come just at the end of the quarter when I'm busy with my accounts?" grumbled Augustus Shilling, the assistant paymaster, blinking behind his spectacles. "I know jolly well what it'll be. For the next week I shan't be able to call my soul my own, and he'll be sending for me morning, noon, and night to explain things. The writer's gone sick, too. Oh, it IS the limit!"
"It is, indeed," echoed the doctor despondently. "Farewell to a quiet life. By George! I haven't written up the wine books for the last fortnight. Have I got time to do 'em before he comes?"
The first lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. "You'd better make an effort, old man," he said. "He's a rabid teetotaler, and he's sure to ask to see 'em first thing."
"Heaven help us!" cried the medical officer, rising hastily from his chair and disappearing into his cabin.
"What sort of a chap did you say he was, Number One?" Falland queried, with traces of anxiety in his voice.
"I only know him by reputation," the first lieutenant answeredlugubriously. "But he's got the name of being rather … er, peculiar.At any rate, he hates navigators, so you'd better mind your P's andQ's, my giddy young friend."
"And I haven't corrected my charts for three weeks or written up the compass journal for a month!" Falland wailed. "Oh, Lor!"
From all of which it will be understood that the wardroom officers ofH.M. GunboatPuffinwere not overjoyed at the advent of their newCaptain.[1]
The date was some time during the last five years of the reign of Queen Victoria; the month, September, and though at this season of the year the climate of Hong-Kong is far too moist and too steamy to be pleasant, thePuffin'sofficers, adapting themselves to circumstances, had had plenty of shore leave and had managed to enjoy themselves. So had the men.
Their ship, an ancient, barque-rigged vessel of 1,000 odd tons; auxiliary engines capable of pushing her along at 9.35 knots with the safety valves lifting; and armed with I forget how many bottle-nosed, 5-inch, B.-L. guns and a Nordenfeldt or two, was swinging peacefully round her buoy in the harbour. She had swung there for precisely two months without raising steam, ever since her late commander had been promoted and had gone home to England, leaving the ship in temporary charge of Pardoe, the first lieutenant.
Captain Prato had been an easy-going man of serene disposition who allowed little or nothing to worry him, not even the Commander-in-Chief himself. As a consequence the wardroom officers swore by him, and so did Mr. Tompion, the gunner, and Mr. Slice, the artificer engineer. The ship's company were of the same opinion, so the littlePuffinwas what is generally known as a "happy ship."
But Commander Peter Potvin, R.N., Captain Prato's successor, was the direct antithesis of the former commanding officer, for he had the reputation in the Service of being a veritable little firebrand, and an eccentric little firebrand at that. He was small and thin, and possessed a pair of fierce blue eyes and a short, aggressive red beard, and was even reputed to insist on naval discipline being carried on in his own house ashore. At any rate, it is quite certain that his wife frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery, while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after three months' exemplary behaviour. But only one of them, Tony, aged 18 months, had ever worn a badge for more than a fortnight.
It was also said, with what truth I do not know, that his servants frequently had their leave stopped for not being "dressed in the rig of the day," and for omitting to wear hideous caps and aprons of an uniform pattern designed by Commander Potvin himself without the assistance of his wife. It was bruited about that the cook, housemaid, and parlourmaid,—the nurse alone being excused,—were turned out of their beds at the unearthly hour of 5.30 a.m. and that, as a punishment for "being found asleep in their hammocks after the hands had been called," they were rousted out at 4 a.m. to chop firewood.
The Potvin ménage was not a happy one, and as a consequence his retainers usually gave notice en masse directly they heard the gallant commander was about to come home on leave. Even the gardener and boot boy followed the general example, so it was lucky for Mrs. Potvin that she had an uncle at the Admiralty who generally managed to send, "dear Peter" to a foreign station. He was rarely at home, or his wife would have been wrought to the verge of lunacy.
No wonder thePuffin'swere not pleased at their future prospects, for the milk of human kindness evidently did not enter into the composition of their new commanding officer.
For twenty-four hours after his arrival on board Commander Potvin was too busy paying official calls and unpacking his belongings to make his presence really felt. The fun began the next morning, when, after divisions, he sent for Pardoe to come and see him in his cabin.
"You may have heard, First Lieutenant," he began, very pompously, "that I am a very observant man, and that I notice everything that goes on board my ship?"
"Indeed, sir," said Pardoe politely, wondering what on earth was coming next.
"Yes," said the commander. "I am unnaturally observant, and though some people may think I am a faddist, there is very little that escapes my notice. To start with, I always insist that my officers shall wear strict uniform, and at the present moment I am grieved to see that you are wearing white socks."
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know you would mind. The officers in the flagship wear them with white clothing."
"I was not aware that I had asked you a question, Lieutenant Pardoe," interrupted the skipper, his beard bristling. "Moreover, what they do or do not do in the flagship is no affair of mine. The uniform regulations lay down that socks are to be black or dark blue, and I expect my officers to wear them. I also observed just now that the Surgeon was wearing a watch strap across the front of his tunic, which is in strict defiance of the regulation which says that watch chains and trinkets are not to be worn outside the coat. I do not wish to have to take steps in the matter, but kindly bear it in mind yourself, and inform your messmates, that I insist on strict uniform."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"There are several more matters I wish to discuss," the captain resumed, twiddling his moustaches. "You will doubtless have heard that I like to keep my ship's companies happy and contented, eh?" He looked up enquiringly.
"Er—yes, sir. Of course, sir," said the first lieutenant lamely, having heard precisely the opposite.
"Very good. To keep the men happy and contented one has to keep them employed, so in future there will be no leave to either officers or men until four o'clock in the afternoon. We shall doubtless be able to find plenty for them to do on board."
Number One opened his mouth to expostulate, but thought better of it. "I like the men to feel that their ship is their home," continued the skipper, "and to encourage them to stay on board in the afternoons and evenings instead of spending their money and their substance in these terrible grog shops ashore, these low and vicious haunts of iniquity," he rolled his tongue round the words, "I propose that the officers shall prepare and deliver a series of lectures on interesting topics. I have," he added, "brought a magic lantern and a good stock of slides out from England, and some evening next week I propose to deliver the first lecture myself. The subject is a most instructive one, 'The effects of alcohol on the human body and mind,' and to illustrate it I have prepared a number of most excellent charts showing the increase in the consumption of spirits and malt liquor between 1873 and the present time. The charts, compiled from the most reliable data, are drawn up for most of the best known professions, sailors, soldiers, labourers, policemen, clergymen, and so on, and I can safely promise you a most interesting evening."
Pardoe, quite convinced that he had to deal with a lunatic, gasped and began to wonder how on earth he could leave the ship unostentatiously without damaging his subsequent career. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a hand at lecturing, sir," he said with a forced smile. "In fact there's hardly a subject I know enough about to——."
"Pooh, pooh," laughed the commander. "With due diligence in your spare time you will be able to learn up quite a lot of subjects, and as for the actual lecturing," he shrugged his shoulders, "practice makes perfect, and I have no doubt that before very long we shall find you quite an orator." He smiled benignly.
"We will have the lectures once a week, at 8 p.m., say on Thursdays," he went on, "and on Sundays I will conduct an evening service at 6.0., at which, of course, all officers will attend. You will read the lessons and collect the offertory, Mr. Pardoe. That will leave us five clear evenings a week for other harmless occupations, and I propose that on one of them we have readings for the men from the works of well-known authors. Something light and amusing from Dickens or Dumas to start with, and then, as we get on, we might try the more learned writers like Darwin, or—er—Confucius."
The wretched first lieutenant grew red about the face and started to breathe heavily.
"Then on another evening we might encourage the men to play progressive games like draughts, halma, picture lotto, spillikins, ping-pong, and beggar-my-neighbour. My sole object in doing all this, you will understand, is to keep the men amused and instructed, to divert their minds and, therefore, to keep them happy and contented. After a few weeks or so they will all be so anxious to come to our entertainments, that they will have lost all desire to go ashore at all. It is a good idea, is it not?"
The first lieutenant nodded grimly. The idea may have been excellent, but he could hardly imagine Petty Officer Timothy Carey, the horny captain of the forecastle, listening to Confucius; nor Baxter, the Sergeant of Marines, sitting down to a quiet game of spillikins with Scully, the cook's mate. In fact, he foresaw that when he informed the men of the arrangements about to be made for their welfare, he would have all his work cut out to repress the inevitable rebellion. Darwin, Confucius, picture lotto, and beggar-my-neighbour for the hardened ship's company of thePuffin! ThePolice Gazette,Reynolds' Weekly, pots of beer, and the games known as "Shove ha'penny" and "Crown and Anchor" were far more to their liking.
"Well," said Commander Potvin, "that is all I have to say at present; but I am gratified, very gratified indeed, that you agree with my ideas. I will draw up and issue detailed rules for our evening entertainments, but, meanwhile, I should be obliged if you would cause these to be distributed amongst the men. They will pave the way," he added, smiling as pleasantly as he was able, and handing Pardoe a neat brown paper parcel. "They will pave the way with good intentions, and I have no doubt that within a few weeks we shall have the happiest ship's company in the whole of the British Navy."
The first lieutenant, too astonished to reply, clutched the parcel and retired to the wardroom, where, flinging his cap on to the settee, he relapsed into the one armchair. "Lord!" he muttered, holding his head, "I believe the man's as mad as a hatter!"
He opened the package to find therein a quantity of bound sheets. He selected one of the pamphlets at random and examined it with a sigh. "Drink and Depravity," he read. "Pots of beer cost many a tear. Be warned in time or you'll repine."
"Great Caesar's ghost!" he ejaculated. "The man IS mad! To think that it should come to this. Poor, poor oldPuffin!"
A few minutes later Falland, on his way aft to visit the captain, glanced into the wardroom. Pardoe still sat in the armchair muttering softly to himself with his head bowed down between his hands. The floor, the table, and the chair were littered with tracts of all the colours of the rainbow. "Saints preserve us!" the navigator murmured. The next really interesting incidents occurred on Sunday morning, when the commanding officer made his usual rounds of the ship and inspected the men. So far nothing had officially been said about the newrégime; but, in some mysterious way, the ship's company had an inkling of the happy days in store for them, while, through a lavish distribution of tracts, literature which, I am sorry to relate, they solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink. Accordingly, to please him, and to show that they were not the hardened sinners, seasoned reprobates, and generally idle and dissolute characters he perhaps might take them for, they fell in at divisions on that Sabbath morn wearing their most cherubic and innocent expressions, and their newest and most immaculate raiment.
ThePuffinhad always been a clean ship, but on this particular occasion she surpassed herself, for all hands and the cook had done their very utmost to uphold her reputation. Her burnished guns and freshly scoured brass-work shone dazzingly in the sun; her topmasts and blocks had been newly scraped and varnished, while the running rigging, boat's falls, and other ropes about the deck were neatly coiled down and flemished. The decks themselves were as white as holystones, sand, and much elbow grease could make them, and, with her white hull with its encircling green riband and cherry-red waterline, her yellow lower masts and funnel, and a brand-new pendant flying from the main-truck and large White Ensign flapping lazily from its staff on the poop, thePuffinlooked more like a yacht than a man-o'-war. But Commander Potvin also had a reputation to keep up, and he would not be Commander Potvin if he could not find fault somewhere.
"Seaman's division—'shun!" shouted Falland, the officer in charge, as the commander and first lieutenant made their appearance from under the poop. "Off—caps!"
The men clicked their heels punctiliously and removed their headgear, and the captain, passing down the front rank with his sword trailing on the deck behind him, began his inspection.
"What is your name, my man?" he inquired condescendingly, halting opposite to a burly bearded able seaman.
"Joseph Smith, sir."
"I seem to remember your face," said the commander.
"Yes, sir. I served along 'o you in th'Bulldorgfive year ago."
"Indeed. That is most interesting. Well, Smith," eyeing him up and down, "I am always most pleased to see my old shipmates again."
"Yes, sir," answered the burly one, trying hard to look pleased himself, and turning rather red in the effort. As a matter of fact he was wondering if his commanding officer was blessed, or cursed, with a good memory, and if, by any chance, he remembered the occasion when he—Joseph Smith—had last stood before him on the quarterdeck of H.M.S.Bulldog. He had stood there as a defaulter, to be punished with ten days' cells and the loss of a hardly-earned good conduct badge, for returning from leave in a state of partial insobriety, and for having indulged in a heated and more than acrimonious discussion with the local constabulary. It had happened several years before, and since then he had turned over a new leaf, but he grew quite nervous at the recollection.
But the skipper, apparently, had quite forgotten it, for he went on speaking. "I am sorry to see, Smith, that, although you have served with me before, you have forgotten what I must have taken the greatest pains to teach you. Your hair is too long, and your beard is not trimmed in the proper service manner. Your trousers are at least two inches too tight round the knee, and six inches too slack round the ankle, while the rows of tape on your collar are too close together. It will not do," he added, glaring unpleasantly. "The uniform regulations are made to be strictly adhered to. Mr. Falland!"
"Sir."
"Have this man's bag inspected in the dinner hour every day for a fortnight. See that his hair is properly cut by next Sunday, and see that he either shaves himself clean, or that he does not use a razor at all, according to the regulations. I am surprised that you should have allowed him to come to divisions in this condition."
"Very good, sir."
The Commander passed on, leaving the delinquent with his mouth wide open in astonishment and righteous indignation. Smith was firmly of the opinion that his beard was everything that a beard should be, while, quite rightly, he had always prided himself on being one of the best dressed men in the ship. Any little irregularities in his attire, irregularities not countenanced by the regulations, were merely introduced for the purpose of making himself smarter than ever. It was a sad blow to his pride.
But many others suffered in the same way, for hardly a man in the division was dressed according to the strict letter of the law. Some had the tapes on their jumpers too high or too low; others had the V-shaped openings in front a trifle too deep; many, in their endeavours to make their loose trousers still more rakish, wore them in too flowing a manner over their feet, and still more, in their anxiety not to spoil the set of their jumpers, carried no 'pusser's daggers,' or knives, attached to their lanyards. Altogether the first Sunday was a regular débâcle for thePuffin'sbut an undoubted triumph for Commander Potvin.
"Mr. Falland," he said, having walked round the ranks. "I am sorry to find all this laxity in the important matter of dress, and I rely upon you to take immediate steps to have it rectified."