Chapter II

The big seaplane circled low over the harbour and then headed seaward, climbing slowly. There were two men aboard--a young Sub-Lieutenant as pilot and Mottin as observer. Mottin sat crouched low and leaning forward as he studied the chart-holder before him and scratched times and notes in his log-book. They were off on a routine patrol, but there was the additional interest to the trip that on "information received" they were to pay a little more attention than usual to a particular locality.

From his seat Mottin could see nothing of the pilot but his head and shoulders--a back view only, and that obscured by swathings of leather and wool. The two men's heads were joined by a cumbersome arrangement of listeners and tubes which, theoretically, made conversation practicable. As a matter of fact, the invariable rule of repeating every observation twice, and of adding embroidery to each repetition, pointed to a discrepancy between the theory and practice of the instrument. The machine was a big one, and its engines were in proportion. The accommodation in the broad fuselage was considerable, but on the present trip the missing units of the crew were accounted for by an equal weight of extra petrol and T.N.T. "eggs."

The morning had been hazy and they had delayed their start till nearly noon. It was not as clear as it might be even then, for in a quarter of an hour from leaving the slip the land was out of sight astern. At a thousand feet the pilot levelled off and ceased to climb. He flew mechanically, his head bent down to stare at the compass-card. At times he fiddled with air and throttle, twisting his head to watch the revolution indicator. The occasional bumping and rocking of the machine he corrected automatically without looking up. He had long ago arrived at the state of airmanship which makes a pilot into a sensitive inclinometer, acting every way at once.

Mottin finished his scribbling and sat up to look round. He raised himself till he sat on the back of his seat, and began to sweep the sea and horizon with a pair of large-field glasses. The wind roared past him, pressing his arm to his side as he faced to one side or the other, and making him strain the heavy glasses close to his eyes to keep them steady. An hour after starting he touched the pilot on the shoulder and shouted into his own transmitter. He waited a few seconds and shouted again, with the conventional oath to drive the sound along. The pilot nodded his swathed and helmeted head and swung the machine round to a new course. Mottin crouched down again and began to study his chart afresh. Navigation was easy so long as the weather was clear, but with poor visibility, which might get worse instead of better, he knew that it was remarkably easy to get lost in the North Sea, and at this moment he wanted to see his landfall particularly clearly. Five minutes later he saw it, and signalled a new course to the pilot by a nudge and a jerk of his gloved hand. A low dark line had appeared on the starboard bow, a line with tall spires and chimneys standing up from it at close intervals. The seaplane banked a little as they turned and headed away, leaving the land to recede and fade on their quarter. The hazy sun was low in the west and the mist was clearing. It had been none too warm throughout the journey, but it was now distinctly cold, the chill of a winter evening striking through fur and leather as if their clothes had been slit and punctured in half a dozen places.

Mottin had just slid back in his seat after a sweeping search of the sea through his glasses, and was slowly winding, with cold fur-gloved fingers, the neat carriage clock on the sloping board before him, when he heard a yelping war-cry from the pilot and felt the machine dive steeply and swerve to port. He half rose in his seat and then slipped back to feel for his bomb-levers. The submarine was just breaking surface eight hundred feet below and a mile ahead. As he looked she tucked down her bow and slipped under again, having barely shown her conning-tower clear of the short choppy waves. The pilot throttled well down and glided over the smooth, ringed spot which marked where she had vanished. As it slid past below them he opened up his engines again and "zoomed" back to his height. He turned his head to look at Mottin, but said nothing. Mottin made a circular motion with his hand and they began a wide sweep round, climbing all the while. Mottin sat back and thought hard. No, it had not been indecision that had prevented him from dropping bombs then. He knew it was not that, but the exact reasons which had flashed through his mind at the fateful moment must be hunted out and marshalled again. He knew that his second self, his wide-awake and infallible substitute who took over command of his body in moments of emergency, had thought it all out in a flash and had arrived at his decision for sound reasons. Yes, it was clear now, but that confounded fighting substitute of his was just a bit cold-blooded, he thought. They had petrol for the run home with perhaps half an hour to spare. Fritz had not seen them, as his lid had not opened--or at any rate if he had seen them through his periscope, the fact of no bomb having been dropped would encourage him to think that the seaplane had passed on unknowing. Of course they might have let go bombs, but, well, Fritz must have been at anything down to 80 feet at the moment they passed over him, and it was chancy shooting. Yes, it was quite clear. Fritz should be up again in an hour (he evidently wanted to come up), and if they were only high up and ready they would get a fair chance at him. Of course, they would not get home if they waited an hour; but if that cold-blooded second self of his thought it the right thing and a proper chance to take, well, it was so. Mottin looked over the side and wished it was not so loppy. A long easy swell was nothing, but this short choppy sea was going to be the devil. The pilot shouted something to him and pointed at the clock and the big petrol tank overhead. Mottin nodded comprehension, and shouted back. The Sub took a careful look overside and studied the water a moment. Then he laughed back at Mottin, and shouted something about bathing, which was presumably facetious, but which was lost in the recesses of the headpieces.

The sun was down on the horizon, and the hour had grown to a full ninety minutes before the chance came. They had not worried about clocks or thoughts of petrol after the first half-hour of circling. They were "for it," anyhow, after that, and it was going to come in the dark too, so that the question of whether it was going to be fifty or a hundred miles from land did not make much difference. Almost directly below them the long grey hull rose and grew clear, the splashing waves making a wide area of white water show on each side of her. The seaplane's engines stopped with startling suddenness, and to the sound of a rushing wind in the wires and of ticking, swishing propellers they began a two-thousand-feet spiral glide, coming from as nearly overhead as the turning circle of the big machine would allow. At two hundred feet the pilot eased his rudder and began a wider turn, and then the German captain saw. He leapt for the conning-tower, leaving a startled look-out man behind. The man tried to follow him down, but the lid slammed before he could arrive at it. He turned and looked helplessly at the big planes and body rushing down a hundred yards astern. With his hands half raised and shoulders hunched up the poor devil met his death, two huge bombs "straddling" the conning-tower and bursting fairly on the hull as the boat started under. Mottin had a vision of a glare of light from the rent hull, a great rush of foaming, spouting air, and then a graceful knife-edge stem, with the bulge of torpedo-tubes on each side of it, just showed and vanished in the turmoil of broken water. The seaplane roared up again, heading west, the young pilot--apparently oblivious to the fact that he hardly expected to be alive till morning--displaying his feelings on the subject of his late enemy by a series of violent "switchbacks."

Mottin checked him, rose, and began a careful look round. Any ship would be welcome now, neutral or not; but this was an unfrequented area to hope to be picked up in. The petrol might last five minutes or half an hour--one could not be certain. The gauge was hardly accurate enough in this old bus to work by. As he looked the engines gave a premonitory splutter and then picked up again. Well, it was five minutes, he reflected, not half an hour--that was all. The pilot turned and headed up wind. With the engines missing more and more frequently they glided down, making a perfect landing of the "intentional pancake" order on the crest of a white-topped four-foot wave. Instantly they began to feel the seas--the hard, rough, senseless water that was so different to the air they had come from. The machine made wicked weather of it, and it was obvious that she could hardly last long. She lurched and rocked viciously, constraining them to cling to the sides of the frail body. Mottin pulled off his headpiece, and the pilot followed suit.

"Well," said Mottin, "it was worth it--eh?"

"By gum, yes! It was that, and I give you full numbers, sir. I thought for a moment you had taken too long a chance, but you were right."

A wave splashed heavily over the speaker and laid three inches of water in a pool around his ankles.

"This is going to be a short business, sir, unless we get busy."

"I know," said Mottin. "Case of four anchors and wish for the day. Sea anchor indicated, and mighty quick too."...

An hour later it was pitch-dark, and a semi-waterlogged seaplane drifted south, head to sea, bucketing her nose into the lop. Two figures crouched together in the body of her, baling mechanically. On the upper plane an electric torch glowed brightly, pointing westward. The figures exchanged disjointed sentences as they baled, and occasionally one of them would stretch his head up for a glance round for possible passing lights.

"Cheer up, Sub!" said Mottin. "Your teeth are chattering like the deuce. Bale harder and get warm."

"It's not the cold, it's the weather that's doing me in, sir. I'm so damned sea-sick."

"Yes, it's a filthy motion, but she's steadier than she was. 'Fraid she's sinking."

The Sub-Lieutenant ceased baling for a moment and looked into his senior's face, dimly lit by the reflection from the torch overhead. "Do you know, sir," he said, "I don't feel as bucked as I did? I believe I've got half-way to cold feet about the show."

"Do you know, Sub"--Mottin copied the hesitating voice--"I've had cold feet the whole blinkin' time? If it wasn't for one thing I keep thinking of, I'd be properly howling about it."

"And what's that, sir?"

"D'you remember a line of Kipling's in that 'Widow of sleepy Chester' poem? It's about 'Fifty file of Burmans to open him Heaven's gate.' Well, that's keeping me cheered up."

"'Mm--that's true. How many do you think that boat carried?"

"Round about forty--she was a big packet."

"Only twenty file--still, that's good enough. Besides, they'd have done damage to-morrow if we hadn't got them."

"True for you, Sub--and they might have killed women on that trip. Now they won't get the chance."

"Twenty file. Ugh! I'll make 'em salute when I see them. Hullo! See that, sir?" The two men rose to their knees and stared out to the west. A bright glow showed beyond the horizon, and through it ran a flicker of pulsating flashes of vivid orange light. The glow broke out again a point to the northward, and the unmistakable beam of a searchlight swung to the clouds and down again. As they looked, the glow spread, and the rippling flashes as gun answered gun came into view over their horizon. Mottin fumbled for the glasses, but found them wet through and useless. The action was evidently coming their way, and was growing into a pyrotechnic display such as few are fortunate enough to see.

"Destroyers--coming right over us--Very's pistol, quick! We may get a chance here. Don't let the cartridges get wet, man--put 'em in your coat." The guns began to bark clearly above the straining and bumping noise of the crumbling seaplane, and a wildly-aimed shell burst on the water half a mile to windward. Both men were standing up now, staring at the extraordinary scene. A flotilla of destroyers passed each side of them, one leading the other by nearly a mile. The searchlights and gun-flashes lit the sea between the opposing lines, and the vicious shells sent columns of shining water up around the rapt spectators, or whipped overhead in a continued stuttering shriek.

A big destroyer passed at half a cable's length in a quivering halo of light of her own making. The short choppy beam sea sent a steady sheet of spray across her forecastle, a sheet that showed red in the light of the guns. As she passed the Sub-Lieutenant raised his hand above his head, and a Very's light sailed up into the air, showing every detail of the battered seaplane with startling clearness for a few seconds. A searchlight whirled round from the destroyer, steadied blindingly on their faces a moment, and was switched off on the instant. As swiftly as it had approached, the fight flickered away to the eastward, till the last gleam was out of sight, and the two wet and aching men crouched back into the slopping water to continue their baling.

"If they _do_ find us, it'll be rather luck, sir," said the younger man. "She isn't going to last much longer."

"Long enough, I reckon. But they may go donkey's miles in a running fight like that. Is that petrol tank free?"

* * * * *

"Yes, I couldn't get the union-nut off--it was burred; so I broke the pipe and bent it back on itself. It'll hold all right, I think--at least it will only leak slowly. Hullo, she's going, sir."

"Not quite. Pass that tank aft and we'll crawl out on the tail. That'll be the last bit under, and we may as well use her all we can."

* * * * *

With gasps and strainings they half-lifted, half-floated the big tank along till they had it jammed on end between the rudder and the control-wires. They straddled the sloping tail, crouching low to avoid the smack of the breaking seas, their legs trailing in the icy water. With frozen fingers the Sub-Lieutenant removed two Very's cartridges from his breast-pocket and tucked them inside his leather waistcoat.

A flurry of snow came down wind. The two were too wet already to notice it, but as it grew heavier the increased darkness made Mottin lift his head and look round. At that moment a gleam of brightness showed through to windward; as he looked it faded and vanished. He leaned aft and shouted weakly--

"Come on, man--wake up! Fire another one. They're here!"

It seemed an age to him before the pistol was loaded, and his heart sank as a dull click indicated an unmistakable misfire. He watched the last cartridge inserted with dispassionate interest. If one was wet, the other was almost certain to be, and--Bang! The coloured ball of fire soared up into the driving snow, and the pistol slipped from the startled Sub-Lieutenant's hand and shot overboard. The searchlight came on again and grew stronger and nearer, and as the glare of it became intolerable, a tall black bow came dipping and swaying past at a few yards' range. Mottin almost let his will-power go at that point--the relief was too great. He had a confused memory afterwards of crashing wood as the tailplane ground against a steel side, and of barking his shins as he was hauled across a wire guard-rail and dropped on a very nubbly deck. The wardroom seemed a blaze of intense light after the darkness outside, and the temporary surgeon who took charge of him the most sensible and charming person in the Service.

* * * * *

"Sit down--take your coat off--lap this down. That's right. Now, I have two duties in this ship--I'm doctor and I'm the wine caterer. They are not incompatible. You will therefore go to bed now in the Captain's cabin, and you'll have a hot toddy as soon as you're there; come along now and get your clothes off. Your mate is in the First Lieutenant's cabin, and he won't wake up till morning."

Twenty minutes later Mottin, from beneath a pile of blankets, heard a tinkle of curtain rings and looked out. A muffled, snow-covered figure entered quietly and began to peel off a lammy coat. Mottin coughed.

"Hullo! How are you feeling? I've just come for a change of clothes. I won't be long--I'm Sangatte. No, that's all right. I won't be turning in to-night; we're going right up harbour, and I'll be busy till daylight."

He bustled round the chest of drawers, pulling out woollen scarves, stockings, &c., and talking rapidly. "Lucky touch our finding you. I noted position when your first light went up, but as the chase looked like running on ninety mile yet, I didn't expect to find you. Your joss was in, because the snow came down and they put up a smoke-screen and ceased fire, so we lost touch, and I hadn't far to come back to look for you. Got a Fritz, did you? Good man! We'll have a bottle on your decoration when we get in. The Huns? Yes, they lost their rear ship right off, and the others were plastered good and plenty. We lost one on a mine, but we took the crew off and sank her. I sank your 'plane just now--tied a pig of ballast to her and chucked it over. I thought you might have left some papers--oh! you've got 'em, have you? That's good."

"Yes, they're in my coat pocket. I say, haven't I seen you before? I seem to remember you. Do you hunt?" Mottin stretched his legs out sleepily as he spoke.

"Yes--met you with the Hambledon or Cattistock, I expect. Haven't been on a horse for all of three years, though; and I don't suppose there'll be much doing that way for a long time, now they're putting half the country under plough. S'long. I'm for the bridge; ring that bell if you want anything. The Doc.'s got one or two wounded forrard, so he'll be busy, but my servant'll look out for you." The curtain clashed back, and Mottin, turning over, slid instantly into a log-like sleep.

A TRINITY.

The way of a ship at racing speed
In a bit of a rising gale,
The way of a horse of the only breed
At a Droxford post-and-rail,
The way of a brand-new aeroplane
On a frosty winter dawn.
You'll come back to those again;
Wheel or cloche or slender rein
Will keep you young and clean and sane,
And glad that you were born.

The power and drive beneath me now are above the power of kings,
It's mine the word that lets her loose and in my ear she sings--
"Mark now the way I sport and play with the rising hunted sea,
Across my grain in cold disdain their ranks are hurled at me.
But down my wake is a foam-white lake, the remnant of their line,
That broke and died beneath my pride--your foemen, man, and mine."
The perfect tapered hull below is a dream of line and curve,
An artist's vision in steel and bronze for gods and men to serve.
If ever a statue came to life, you quivering slender thing,
It ought to be you--my racing girl--as the Amazon song you sing.

* * * * *

Down the valley and up the slope we run from scent to view.
"Steady, you villain--you know too much--I'm not so wild as you;
You'll get me cursed if you catch him first--there's at least a mile
to go,
So swallow your pride and ease your stride, and take your fences
slow.
Your high-pricked ears as the jump appears are comforting things to
see;
Your easy gallop and bending neck are signals flying to me.
You wouldn't refuse if it was wire with calthrops down in front,
And there we are with a foot to spare--you best of all the Hunt!"
Great sloping shoulders galloping strong, and a yard of
floating tail,
A fine old Irish gentleman, and a Hampshire post-and-rail.

* * * * *

The sun on the fields a mile below is glinting off the grass
That slides along like a rolling map as under the clouds I pass.
The early shadows of byre and hedge are dwindling dark below
As up the stair of the morning air on my idle wheels I go,--
Nothing to do but let her alone--she's flying herself to-day,
Unless I chuck her about a bit--there isn't a bump or sway.
So _there's_ a bank at ninety-five--and here's a spin and a
spiral dive,
And here we are again.
And _that's_ a roll and twist around, and that's the sky and there's
the ground,
And I and the aeroplane
Are doing a glide, but upside-down, and that's a village and that's
a town--
And now we're rolling back.
And _this_ is the way we climb and stall and sit up and beg on
nothing at all,
The wires and strainers slack,
And now we'll try and be good some more, and open the throttle and
hear her roar
And steer for London Town.
For there never a pilot yet was born who flew a machine on a frosty
morn
But started stunting soon,
To feel if his wires were really there, or whether he flew on ice or
air,
Or whether his hands were gloved or bare,
Or he sat in a free balloon.

IN THE MORNING.

Back from the battle, torn and rent,
Listing bridge and stanchions bent
By the angry sea.
By Thy guiding mercy sent,
Fruitful was the road we went--
Back from battle we.

If Thou hadst not been, O Lord, behind our feeble arm,
If Thy hand had not been there to slam the lyddite home,
When against us men arose and sought to work us harm,
We had gone to death, O Lord, in spouting rings of foam.

Heaving sea and cloudy sky
Saw the battle flashing by,
As Thy foemen ran.
By Thy grace, that made them fly,
We have seen two hundred die
Since the fight began.

If our cause had not been Thine, for Thy eternal Right,
If the foe in place of us had fought for Thee, O Lord!
If Thou hadst not guided us and drawn us there to fight,
We never should have closed with them--Thy seas are dark and broad.

Through the iron rain they fled,
Bearing home the tale of dead,
Flying from Thy sword.
After-hatch to fo'c'sle head,
We have turned their decks to red,
By Thy help, O Lord!

It was not by our feeble sword that they were overthrown,
But Thy right hand that dashed them down, the servants of the proud;
It was not arm of ours that saved, but Thine, O Lord, alone,
When down the line the guns began, and sang Thy praise aloud.

Sixty miles of running fight,
Finished at the dawning light,
Off the Zuider Zee.
Thou that helped throughout the night
Weary hand and aching sight,
Praise, O Lord, to Thee.

AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS.

The wardroom of the Depôt ship was just emptying as the late-breakfast party lit their pipes and cigarettes and headed for the smoking-room next door, when a signalman brought the news in. The Commander, standing by the radiator, took the pad from the man's hand and read it aloud. He raised his voice for the first few words, then continued in his usual staccato tones as the silence of his audience showed that they were straining their ears in fear of missing a word:--

"_Lyddite_, _Prism_, _Axite_, and _Pebble_ in action last night
with six enemy destroyers--_Pebble_ sunk--fifty-seven survivors
aboard _Lyddite_--enemy lost two sunk, possibly three--_Lyddite_
with prisoners and _Prism_ with _Axite_ in tow arriving forenoon
to-day."

There was a moment's pause as the Commander handed the signal back, and then half a dozen officers spoke at once. The Fleet-Surgeon was not one of them. He gathered up his two juniors with a significant glance, as one sees a hostess signal to her Division as the dessert-talk flags, and the three vanished through the door to get to work on their grim preparations. The Engineer officers conferred for a minute in low tones and then followed them out. The signal had given clearer data for the workers in flesh and bone to act on than it had for those who work in metals, and there was nothing for the latter to do but to get their men ready and to guess at probabilities. The remainder of the Mess broke into a buzz of conversation: "_Axite_, she must be pretty well hashed up; it must have been gun-fire, a torpedo would have sunk her.... Rot! why should it? What about the _Salcombe_ or the _Ventnor_? _They_ got home.... Yes, but not from so far out, and there's a sea running outside too.... Well, the Noorder Diep isn't a hundred miles, and that must be where...."

The Commander beckoned the First Lieutenant to him, as that officer was rising from his chair at the writing-table. "You'd better warn the Gunner, Borden, that the divers may be needed; and tell my messenger as you go out that I want to see the Boatswain and Carpenter too--thank you." He turned to the ship's side and looked out through the scuttle at the dancing, sunlit waters of the harbour. He had supervised the work of preparation for assisting and patching lame ducks more than once before, and he knew that his subordinates needed little assistance from him. What was troubling his mind was the question of the casualties. The _Pebble_ was gone, so there was no need for spare hands to be provided for her, while her survivors were actually a gain. They would not be fit for work for a bit, though, a good few of them probably wounded, and the remainder perhaps needing treatment after immersion in a December sea. Then the three others--it sounded like a hard-fought action, and hard fights meant losses. That was the worst of these destroyer actions, the casualties were mostly good men, and it took so long to train good ratings. If only one saved the officers and men it wouldn't really matter how many destroyers were lost, he reflected, as he walked out of the mess towards his cabin and the little group of Warrant and Petty officers who awaited him by the doorway.

It was barely an hour later, and the bustle of preparation aboard the Depôt ship was still in progress when they came in sight. The outer forts had reported them as approaching the entrance, and the next news was good also, for it was simply the deduction on the part of the watching ships' companies, when they saw the big black-and-yellow salvage tugs that had been out since dawn come chugging up harbour alone, that the victors had disdained assistance. Then the _Lyddite_ showed her high bow and unmistakable funnels as she swung round the entrance shoals and steadied up harbour at a leisurely ten knots. At that distance she looked dirty and sea-worn, but intact. Close astern of her came _Prism_ and _Axite_, and as they showed, the watchers involuntarily caught their breaths.

The _Prism_ looked queer and foreign somehow, with no foremast, a bare skeleton of a bridge, and a shapeless heap where the forward funnel had stood. The _Axite_ looked just what she was--a mere battered hull, with very little standing above the level of her deck, her stern nearly awash, and her bow bent and torn as if some giant hand had gripped and twisted it. As the pair of cripples neared the dock entrance, two smaller tugs which had followed astern came hurrying up to close on the _Axite's_ sides, while the towing hawser that had been watched with such anxiety through three cold and stormy watches splashed in the churned-up water under the _Prism's_ counter. The _Prism_ increased speed slightly, and up against the blustering wind came the faint sound of cheering from the cruisers down the harbour as she passed them. She eased down into station astern of the _Lyddite_, and the Yeoman of Signals on the Depôt ship's bridge shifted his telescope from the shaking canvas of the wind-dodger to the steadier support of a stanchion.

"What's she like--can you make 'er out?" A Leading Telegraphist had walked out from the wireless office, and, in obvious hopes of getting hold of the telescope, was standing at his elbow.

"Pretty sight, I don't think," replied the Yeoman grimly. "Dirty work for the hospital there, and I reckon it's 'Port Watch look for messmates'--all along under the bridge she's been catching it, and I can't see--Yes, O.K.--He's up there on the bridge--_Who?_ The skipper, of course. Mister Calton, Commander--begging his pardon. Me and him were in the old _Cantaloup_ two years. Gawd! but ain't they been in a dust-up! What do you say? _Lyddite?_"

He turned to look as the big destroyer passed, half-raised his glass, and then lowered it. There was enough for his naked eye to see to discourage him from a closer view. Her decks were crowded with men, lying, standing, or sitting down. The white bandages showed up clearly against the general background of dull grime, and the bandages were many. A torpedo-tube pointing up like an A.A. gun, and a dozen or so of splinter holes in funnel and casing, showed that some, at least, of the wounded were her own. About the casing, between the wounded, lay dozens of dull brass cartridge-cases, and aft--a curious touch of triviality--two seamen and a steward were emptying boxes of smashed glass and crockery overside. A few men waved and shouted in reply as the Depôt ship roared a welcome across to her, but the greater number were silent. The two scarred and blood-spotted craft swung gently in to the jetty, where the lines of ambulances and stretchers awaited them, and as the first heaving-lines flew, the Yeoman turned to the Telegraphist with a look almost of pride on his dark saturnine face--

"Well, I'm ----," he said admiringly, "if that ain't swank! Did you see 'em? Why, stiffen the Dutch--they've got new Sunday Ensigns hoisted to come up harbour with, and"--he swung round and levelled his glass at the _Axite_, now almost hidden in the smoke and steam of the group of tugs around her at the lock gates--"I'm damned if she ain't got a new one up too. Here, have a look at it, man. It's on a boathook staff sticking up in the muzzle of the high-angle gun----"

1917.

The "liaison officer" felt distinctly nervous as his steamboat approached the gangway. He had no qualms as to his capabilities of carrying out the work he was detailed for--that of acting as signals-and-operations-interpreter aboard the Flotilla leader of a recently allied destroyer division--but the fact that he had been told that he must be prepared to be tactful weighed heavily on his mind. His ideas on the subject of Americans were somewhat hidebound, but at the same time very vague. Would they spring the statement on him that they had "come over to win the War for you," or would they refer at once to their War of Independence? Did the Yankees hate all Britishers, or---- His boat bumped alongside the neat teak ladder, and he noted with a seaman's appreciation the perfectly-formed coachwhipping and Turks' Heads on the rails. A moment later he was standing on a very clean steel deck, gravely returning the salute of what appeared to be a muster of all the officers in the ship.

A tall commander took a pace forward. "_Malcolm_," he said, "I'm Captain--glad to meet you." The Englishman saluted, and they shook hands. "My name's Jackson," he replied, and turned as the American, taking his arm, ran through a rapid introduction to the other officers. Each of these repeated the formula, accompanied by the quick bow and handshake. Jackson followed suit as best he could, and began to feel that on such formal occasions he had the makings of a real _attaché_ or diplomatist in him.

A few minutes, and he found himself sitting in a long-chair in a wardroom which might have been a counterpart of his own, and accepting a long cigar from the box handed him. "Did you have a good trip over?" he ventured.

"We sure did, and saw nix--not even a U-boat. Had a bit of a gale first day out, but it blew off quick. But say, there wasn't a German ship for three thousand miles. Don't you ever see some about?"

"Well, you see--er--no. They only show out now and then, and it's only for a few hours when they do. Of course, there are plenty of Fritzes, but they keep under most of the time--you don't see them much."

"Well, we thought it real slow, didn't we, Commander? We were just ripe for some gunplay, but we never got a chance to pull."

Jackson looked across at the Commander and smiled. "We felt that way for a long time, sir. But now we just go on hoping and keeping ready. We've had so many false alarms, you see."

The Commander laughed. "That's one on you, Benson," he said. "We won't get so excited next time we see the Northern Lights."

There was a general shout of laughter, and Jackson turned cold. This, he thought, was a little early for him to start putting his foot in it. The officer called Benson, however, did not appear to be about to throw over the alliance just yet. He walked to the sideboard, and returned with a couple of lumps of sugar in his hand. "Lootenant," he said gravely, "in the absence of stimulants in the U.S. Navy, I can only give you what we've got. We've no liquor aboard, but we've sure got sugar."

"Yes," said the Commander. "We're all on the water-waggon here, whether we like the ride or not."

Jackson sat up in his chair and shed his official pose. He could, at any rate, talk without reserve on Service subjects. "Well, sir," he said, "I'm not a teetotaller, but it doesn't worry me to go teetotal if I've got to. I don't worry about it if I'm in training for anything; and the fact is--well, if there was a referendum, or something of that sort, in the Navy as to whether we were to be compulsory teetotallers or not, I believe the majority would vote for 'no drinks.' _I_ would, anyway, and I'm what you'd call an average drinker."

"They didn't ask us to vote any, but if they had--in war-time--I guess we'd have voted the same way. If you can't get it you don't want it, and we've kind of got used to water now. And so your name's Jackson? Any relation?"

Jackson's brain worked at high pressure. This was a poser. Sir Henry Jackson? Stonewall? How many noted Jacksons were there? He played for safety and replied with a negative.

"Ah, well! there's perhaps some connection you don't know of," said the Commander encouragingly. "Which part of England are your folk from? Birmingham. Well, of course, it's a big family.... My father knew him well, and was with him through the Valley Campaign."

Jackson sighed with relief. "You're from Virginia then, sir?"

"No, sir--I'm from Maryland. My father joined the Army of Virginia two days before Bull Run."

"Are you all Southerners here, then?"

"We're sure _not_," came a chorus of voices. "Nix on Secesh ... John Brown's Body...." Jackson developed nerves again. He felt as if he had asked a Nationalist meeting to join him in drinking confusion to the Pope. The company did not seem disposed to let him off, however.

"Which do you think ought to have won, Lootenant? You were neutral--let's hear it."

Jackson looked apologetically at the Commander.

"Well, sir, I think the North _had_ to win; and" (he hurried on) "it's just as well she did, because if she hadn't there wouldn't be any U.S.A. now--only a lot of small states."

"That's so; but there need not have been any war at all."

"There needn't, sir; but it made the U.S.A. all the same. The big event of the Franco-Prussian War wasn't the surrender at Sedan; it was the crowning of the German Emperor at Versailles. And in the Civil War--well, it made one nation of the Americans in the same way as the other did of the Germans."

"Well, Lootenant, if wars are just to make nations into one, what was the good of our wars with you?"

Jackson was getting over his self-consciousness, and it was dawning on him that the American Navy has a method of "drawing" very similar to that in use in his own.

"They were a lot of use," he protested. "We sent German troops against you, and you killed lots of them."

There was a general laugh.

"Say, Jackson," came a voice, "this little old country of yours isn't doing much with the Germans now except kill them. Say, she's great! You're doing all the work, and you've kept on telling us you're doing nix. Your papers just talk small, as if your Army was only a Yale-Princetown football crowd, and you were the coon and not the Big Stick of the bunch that's in it."

"Well, you see, we don't like talking about ourselves except to just buck our own people up."

Jackson's tone as he said this was, I regret to say, just what yours or mine would have been. It could only be described as "smug."

"You sure don't. We like to say what we're doing when we come from New York."

Jackson prepared for an effort of tact. "I hear," he said, "you've got quite a lot of troops across already."

They told him--and his eyes opened.

"_What!_" he said. "And how many----?" He digested the answers for a moment, and decided that his store of tact could be pigeon-holed again for a while. "But what about--your papers haven't--I don't call that talking much. We still think you're just beginning."

"So we are,--we've hardly started. But our papers were given the wise word, and they don't talk war secrets."

Jackson readjusted his ideas slightly, and his attitude deflated itself. The transportation of the First Expeditionary Force had been talked of as a big thing, but this--and he had until then heard no whisper of it.

"And the country?" he asked. "What about all your pro-Germans and aliens?"

"They don't," came the answer. "What do you think of Wilson now?" Jackson edged away to cover again. "He's a very fine statesman, and a much bigger man than we thought him once."

"Same here; and he knows his America. He waited and he waited, and all the time the country was just getting more raw about the Germans, and then when he was good and ready he came in; and I guess now he's got the country _solid_."

Jackson pondered this for a moment, studying the clean-cut young faces--all of the universal "Naval" stamp--around him.

"I don't know," he said slowly, "that it wouldn't have been better for us if we'd been able to stop out a few months ourselves at first. It would have made _us_ more solid too. But we simply had to come in at once."

"You had; and if you hadn't, we'd have talked at you some."

Jackson laughed. "What! 'Too proud to fight,' and all that sort of thing? Yes, we'd have deserved it too. I say, what a shame Admiral Mahan died right at the beginning! There's nobody to take his place and write this war up."

"Yes, he'd have been over here first tap of the gong. And he'd have seen it all for himself, and given you Britishers and us lectures on the war of 1812--and every other war too."

"Yes, it's a great pity. He taught us what sea-power was, and till then we hardly knew we had it at all."

"Well, he taught you enough to get us busy mailing you paper about the blockade last year."

Jackson grinned. "You couldn't say much. You made all the precedents yourselves when you blockaded the South in '61. We only had to refer you to your own letters to get out of the argument."

The First Lieutenant beckoned for the cigar box again. "You knew too much diplomatic work for us in those days. We were new to that card game. But I'd sooner hear our talk now than the sort of gentle breathing of your folks when it comes to diplomacy."

"Never mind," said Jackson. "We're getting better. We'll have an autocracy, like you, before the war's over, instead of the democracy we've got now."

The circle settled down and waited. This was evidently not an unarmed foe, in the ancient Anglo-Saxon game.

"Amurrica's the only real democracy in the universe," said an incautious voice. Two heads turned towards the speaker, and several pairs of eyes spoke volumes.

"I beg your pardon," said Jackson. "America's a great country, but as you told me just now, she's solid. That means she's so keen on getting on with the work that she's chosen a boss and told him to go ahead and give his orders, and so long as he does his best to get on with the work, the people aren't going to quarrel with him. Now we are not really solid, just because we're too much of a democracy."

"Say, you wouldn't think that if you'd been over and seen our last elections; but there's sense in it, all the same. But Lloyd George--isn't he the same sort of Big Stick over here?"

"You read our political papers and see," said Jackson. "Do you take much interest in politics in your Navy?"

"Do we hell--does yours?"

"Not a bit, except to curse at them. Navies are outside politics."

"Except the German's, and their army and navy and politics are all the same thing; and they'll all come down together, too."

"Yes, but it's going to take some tough scrapping to do it. Let's hope no one starts fighting over the corpse when she's beaten."

"Well, I guess you won't, and we won't. We've both got all the land we can do with, and if there are any colonies to hand out after, we won't mind who gets 'em so long as the Kaiser doesn't. What we ought to do is to join England in a policing act for the world, and just keep them all from fighting."

"That'd be no good. The rest of them would combine against us. It would only mean a different Balance of Power."

"Oh! Now you're talking European. We stand out of the old-world Balance."

"You can't now. You've got hitched up in it, and you'll find you're tangled when you want to get back."

"We sure won't. We'll pull out when this round-up's over--you watch us."

The Commander glanced at his watch and rose. "Dinner's at 'half-six,'" he said. "You'd better let me show you the way to your room."

Jackson rose and followed him aft to the spare cabin. "Here you are," said the American. "Hope you'll be comfortable. The boys will do their best to make your stay here real home-like, and I hope you'll stay just as long as you can."

"I sure will, sir," came the answer, in a voice that was fast losing its English drawl; and Jackson, alone with his thoughts, stared at the door-curtain, and wondered why on earth it should have been considered necessary to tell him that a supply of tact would be useful to him in his new job.

IN FORTY WEST.

We are coming from the ranch, from the city and the mine,
And the word has gone before us to the towns upon the Rhine;
As the rising of the tide
On the Old-World side,
We are coming to the battle, to the Line.

From the valleys of Virginia, from the Rockies in the North,
We are coming by battalions, for the word was carried forth:
"We have put the pen away
And the sword is out to-day,
For the Lord has loosed the Vintages of Wrath."

We are singing in the ships as they carry us to fight,
As our fathers sang before us by the camp-fires' light;
In the wharf-light glare
They can hear us Over There,
When the ships come steaming through the night.

Right across the deep Atlantic where the _Lusitania_ passed,
With the battle-flag of Yankee-land a-floating at the mast,
We are coming all the while,
Over twenty hundred mile,
And we're staying to the finish, to the last.

We are many--we are one--and we're in it overhead,
We are coming as an Army that has seen its women dead,
And the old Rebel Yell
Will be loud above the shell
When we cross the top together, seeing red.

A RING AXIOM.

When the pitiless gong rings out again, and they whip your chair
away,
When you feel you'd like to take the floor, whatever the crowd
should say,
When the hammering gloves come back again, and the world goes round
your head,
When you know your arms are only wax, your hands of useless lead,
When you feel you'd give your heart and soul for a chance to clinch
and rest,
And through your brain the whisper comes,
"Give in, you've done your best,"
Why, stiffen your knees and brace your back--and take my word
as true--
_If the man in front has got you weak, he's just as tired as
you_.
He can't attack through a gruelling fight and finish as he began;
He's done more work than you to-day--you're just as fine a man.
So call your last reserve of pluck--he's careless with his chin--
You'll put it across him every time--Go in--Go in--_Go in!_

CHANCES.

The boxing-stage was raised a clear three and a half feet above the deck, and the mat showed glaringly white in the northern sunshine. The corner-posts were padded and wound with many layers of red and blue bunting. A glance round showed a great amphitheatre of faces, rising tier on tier up to the crouching figures of men on the main-derrick, funnel-casings, and masts. The spectators numbered, perhaps, close on three thousand, and there was hardly a man among them who had not qualified as a critic by personal experience at the game. The last two competitors had just left the ring in a storm of hand-clapping, and the white-sweatered seconds ceased their professional chatter and their basin-splashing employment to jump up and place the chairs back against the corner-posts as the next two officers entered.

Lieutenant Cairnley of H.M. T.B.D. ---- pulled the loose sleeves of his monkey-jacket across his chest and stretched out his legs as he sat down in the Blue corner. He looked across at his opponent, who was standing talking in a low voice to a second. Yes, he was evidently only just inside the middle-weight limit, and he, Cairnley, must be giving away all of half a stone. Still, that was half a stone less to carry about the ring, and he felt really fit and well-trained. An officer was standing in the ring, with a paper in one hand, and the other raised to call for silence.

"First round of the Officers' Middle-weights. In the Red corner, Lieutenant Santon of the----, in the Blue corner, Lieutenant Cairnley of the----." He slipped under the ropes and jumped down from the stage as the voice of the timekeeper followed his own--"Seconds out!" Cairnley felt the coat plucked from his shoulders, and he stood up as his chair was drawn away. "_Clang!_" went the heavy gong, and he walked forward with his right hand out and his eyes on his opponent's chest, in the midst of a great silence. As their gloves touched, Cairnley jumped quickly to one side and began his invariable habit of working round to his opponent's left hand. He was not allowed much time for "routine work." He had an impression of a looming figure getting larger, a whirl of feinting, and he was being rushed back across the ring in a storm of punches. His habit of keeping his chin down, shoulders up, and elbows in, saved him. He felt a thrill of respect for Santon's punch as his head rocked from heavy hook-blows on either side, and then he was inside his opponent's elbows, working his head forward, and lowering his right for a body punch before they struck the ropes. As he felt their springing contact at his back, he stiffened up and pushed his man away. The recoil of the hemp assisted him, and Santon gave ground a yard. Cairnley jumped at him, and, taking an even chance, sent a straight right over, which landed cleanly on the mouth. His left followed at once, but only touched lightly. Santon gave ground again, and the lighter man slid after him, sending a long left home to the nose. Cairnley thrilled as it landed. This man was strong, he felt, but not quick enough in defence. He half-feinted with his right, and sent his left out again. As the punch extended he slightly lifted his chin, and the ring whirled round him as he took a tremendous cross-counter that came in over his elbow. He came forward quickly to get to close quarters, but his opponent had no intention of letting him. There was a whirl of gloves and a sound of heavy, grunting hitting, and Cairnley found himself on his hands and knees, with a very groggy feeling in his head, looking across at Santon's white knees by the ropes at the far side of the ring. He stretched his neck, took a long breath, and rose shakily. He did not feel as shaky as he looked, for he had been in the ring before, and knew that a knock-down blow sometimes entraps the optimistic giver of it into sudden defeat, but in this case he was engaged with a boxer who took no chances. Santon approached quickly and began rapid feinting just outside hitting distance. Cairnley gave ground slightly and waited for the rush. This chap had a wicked right, he reflected, and he did not want to get caught napping again. Then Santon was on him slamming in lefts and rights, and working furiously to get him into a corner. Cairnley stooped and struggled to get in close. A muscular change in the body a foot from his eyes gave him warning of an approaching upper-cut, and he brought his right glove in front of his face in time to stop it. He felt Santon's left on the back of his head, and instantly shifted feet and escaped round his opponent's left side. As he shifted he jerked a hard, short left punch into the mark, and then repeated the blow. Santon broke away, and received a perfectly-timed straight left on the nose as the gong rang. There was a storm of applause as the men went to their corners, for Cairnley's recovery had been well guarded, and his quick hitting at the end of the round showed that he had not lost much speed. He lay back in his chair while his seconds fussed around him, and thought hard. That right cross-counter of Santon's was certainly a beauty, so much so that it must be his favourite punch. Could he be absolutely certain of its being produced if he gave it the same chance? Well, he had to win this on a knock-out, or not at all. He could not pick up all the points he had lost in the first round with only two to go, so it was a case of chancing it on his brains alone. Yes, he would just check his idea once, and if that proved that Santon would use the same punch for the same lead, he would go all out on the next. _Clang!_ He rose and walked straight forward to meet his man. At six-feet range he jumped in and drove his left for the mark. It did not land true, but it enabled him to close and start a succession of furious body punches. The two hammering, gasping white figures reeled about the ring for half a minute, heads down and arms working like pistons.

Cairnley knew that his man was too strong for him at that game, but for that round, brain and not muscle was his guide, and he wanted Santon to be warmed up and made to act by habit and use. They locked in a clinch, and a moment later broke clear at the word of the Referee--the first he had spoken in that fight. For a second they stood on guard swaying from side to side as they waited for an opening. Then Cairnley leaped in and sent out a full straight left. Even with his chin tucked well down he felt the jar of the right that slid again over his elbow, and striking full on the cheek, made his head ring and his neck ache. He stopped the left that followed, then landed on the face with his own left and closed again to hammer in short arm punches. He felt as he did so that the work he was engaged on must be done soon, as at this high-speed work he would not have the strength for a hard punch for long. Santon appeared to be a little inclined for a rest, too, for it was he who clinched this time. Cairnley rested limply against him and took a long breath as the voice of the Referee called them apart. He caught his breath again and called up all his reserve strength as they posed at long range, then he jumped forward as before, sent his left out three-quarters of the way, and showed his chin clear of his chest. Without a check in the movement his left dropped, his body pivoted, and he sent a full "haymaker" right up and across to the half-glimpsed head in front of him. A bony right wrist glanced from the top of his bent head, and at the same instant a jar, from his right knuckles to his back, told him that brains had beaten skill. He slipped aside, his hands mechanically raised in defence, and stumbled over Santon's falling body. As he scrambled up to cross the ring he looked back, and knew at once that not ten nor twenty seconds would be enough for that limp figure to recover in.