Chapter V: Part 5

At length, out of the chaos of his thoughts, two courses of action took shape and presented themselves for consideration. One was to bash the Blue Marine into irrecognition; the other was to get mercifully drunk as soon as possible. The Blue Marine, Ivor remembered, scaled a matter of fourteen stone, so he chose the latter alternative, and for thirty-six hours Oblivion, as understood by men of His Majesty's Forces, received him into her arms.

*III.*

"Did remain absen' over leave thirty-six tours, under haggravated circumstances," declaimed the Master-at-Arms.

It was the first time Ivor had broken his leave for three years. His head ached intolerably: he felt sick, too, and heard as from an infinite distance the cool, crisp tones of the Commander, who spoke sternly of the penalties attached to "not playing the game." Ivor listened sullenly. It was another and an older game he had tried to play,--a game in which Fate seemed to hold most of the trumps. There was a good deal more in the same strain about the abuse of privileges, and it all ended in his being placed in the Captain's Report, to stand over till next day.

At dinner his resentment against the Universe in general swelled into an excited flood of lower-deck jargon. In particular, he poured out invective on the perfidy of Woman, and 43 Mess, with the peculiar understanding vouched in the matter to men who go down to the sea in ships, sucked its teeth in sympathetic encouragement.

"I'd serve 'er to rights," said a youthful Second-Class Stoker darkly. He removed the point of his clasp-knife from his mouth, whither it had conveyed a potato, and illustrated with a gesture an argument certain of his feminine acquaintances in the Mile End Road were supposed to have found conclusive.

"Don't you take on, Taff," said another, pushing over his pannikin of rum. "'Ave a rub at this lot." Ivor finished his sympathiser's tot, and several others that were furtively offered him--for he was a popular little man among his messmates. But spirit--even "three-water" rum--is not the soundest remedy for an alcoholic head. It set him coughing, and deepened the sense of injury that rankled within him.

"Wot you wants," said a Leading Stoker, "is to run about an' bite things, like. You go on deck an' 'ave a smoke." He knew the danger-signals of a mess-deck with the intimacy of seventeen years' experience, and Ivor went sullenly. But it was a dangerous man that stopped at the break of the forecastle to light his pipe.

"Well," he said presently, "what d'you reckon I'll get whateffer?" His "Raggie" considered the situation. "Couldn't rightly say; there's the Jauntie[#] over by the 'atchway--go 'long an' ask 'im." Ivor smoked in silence for a moment, then nodded, and stepping through the wreaths of tobacco smoke, touched the Master-at-Arms on the shoulder. The latter, who was listening to a story related by the Ship's Steward, was a small man, with a grim vinegary face. He turned sharply--

[#] Master-at-Arms.

"Well?" he said curtly.

Now Ivor had stepped across the deck, honestly intending to ask the probable extent of the punishment the Captain would award him for breaking his leave. The suddenness with which the Master-at-Arms turned jarred his jangled nerves; the sour face opposite him was the face of the man who, on the Lower Deck, represented Law, Order, and Justice, things Ivor knew to be perverse and monstrous mockeries. His brain swam with the fumes of the thirty-six hours' debauch, reawakened by his messmate's rum. A sudden insane rage closed down on him like a mist, leaving him conscious only of the Master-at-Arms' face, as in the centre of a partly fogged negative, very distinct, and for an instant imperturbable and maddening.... Yet, as Ivor struck, fair and true between the eyes, he somehow realised that not even now had he got level with Fate.

*IV.*

A man seated in the foremost cell raised an unshaven face from his hands as the sullen report of a gun reached him through the open scuttle. For a while he speculated dully what it was for; then with curious disinterestedness remembered that it was the court-martial gun, and that he, Ivor Jenkins, was that day to be tried for an offence the extreme penalty for which is Death.

They said he'd slogged the Jauntie. For a while he had been, dazed and incredulous, but as the testimony of innumerable witnesses seemed to leave no doubt about the matter, Ivor accepted the intelligence with stoical unconcern. Personally he had no recollection of anything save a great uproar and a sea of excited faces appearing suddenly on all sides out of a red mist.... However, there were the witnesses, and, moreover, there was still an unexplained tenderness about his knuckles.

"I pleads guilty," was all the prisoner's friend (a puzzled and genuinely sympathetic Engineer Lieutenant) could get out of him.

"Well, I should have thought you were the last man to have done such a thing in the whole of the ship's company."

"Same 'ere, sir," said Ivor, and fell a-coughing.

Subsequent proceedings bewildered and finally bored him. They thrust documents upon him, wherein he found his name coupled to the incomprehensible prefix "For that he," and his misdemeanour described in a style worthy of the 'Police Budget.' The Chaplain visited him and spoke words of reproof in a kindly and mechanical tone. For the rest, he was left to himself throughout the long days; to cough and cough again, to watch the light grow and fade, to count the stars in the barred circle of the scuttle, and to the recollection of green, slanting eyes vexed by dusty sunlight in their depths....

* * * * *

"Have you any objection to any members of this Court?"

Ivor started at the question and looked round the cabin. Till then he had not noticed his surroundings much. A Captain and several Commanders in frock-coats and epaulettes were seated round a baize-covered table; they were enclosed by a rope covered with green cloth, secured breast-high to wooden pillars, also covered with green cloth. It was the Captain's fore-cabin, and the bulkheads were covered with paintings of ships. One of these in particular--a corvette close-hauled--arrested Ivor's attention. The Deputy Judge-Advocate, a Paymaster with a preternaturally grave face and slightly nervous manner, repeated his question.

"Do you object to being tried by any of the Officers present on the Court?" Ivor moistened his lips; why on earth should they expect him to object to them? An unknown Master-at-Arms standing beside him with a drawn sword nudged him in the ribs.

"No, sir."

The Captains and Commanders then rose with a clank of swords, and swore to administer justice without partiality, favour, or affection, in tones that for a moment brought Ivor visions of a stuffy chapel (Ebenezer, they called it) in far away Glamorganshire. Then the Judge-Advocate turned to him again.

"You need not plead either 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty.' But if you wish to plead 'Guilty' you may do so now."

At last: "Guilty," said Ivor Jenkins.

For an instant there was utter silence. The junior Commander stirred slightly and glanced at the clock: he would have time for that round of golf after all.

The Prisoner's Friend then gave evidence, and Ivor experienced his first sensation of interest at hearing himself described as an excellent working hand, who had never given anything but satisfaction to his superiors. A perspiring and obviously embarrassed Chief Stoker followed.

"The last man in the ship I'd 'a' thought 'ud do such a thing," he maintained. Ivor glanced at him indulgently, as one who hears an oft-repeated platitude, and resumed his study of the corvette close-hauled.

"Clear the Court," said the President briskly. Ivor found himself once more in the lobby, sitting between his escort. One, a kindly man, pressed a small, hard object into his hand. Ivor nodded imperceptible thanks, and under cover of a cough, conveyed it to his mouth. It was a plug of Navy tobacco.

A bell rang overhead, and the prisoner was marched back into Court.

"... to be imprisoned with hard labour for the term of twelve calendar months." It was over.

* * * * *

"Now say 'Ah!' ... Again! ... Raise your arms ... H'm." The Surgeon disentangled himself from his stethoscope and looked Ivor in the eyes.

"My lad," he said bluntly, "it's Hospital for you--and too late at that."

In the Wardroom later on he met the Engineer Lieutenant. "I'd make a better Prisoner's Friend than ever you will," he remarked. Pressed for an explanation, he tapped the stethoscope-case in his pocket.

"Consumption--galloping," he said.

Perhaps Ivor had held the Ace of Trumps after all.

*XXII.*

*CONCERNING THE SAILOR-MAN.*

"Able Seaman, Seaman Gunner, one Good Conduct Badge." Thus, with a click of unaccustomed boot-heels, he might describe himself at the monthly "Muster by open-list." In less formal surroundings, however, he is wont to refer to himself as a "matlow," a designation not infrequently accompanied by fervid embellishments.

Occasionally he serves to adorn the moral of a temperance tract: a reporter, hard pressed for police court news, may record one of his momentary lapses from the paths of convention ashore. Otherwise Literature knows him not.

Generally speaking, his appearance is familiar enough, though it is to be feared that the world--the unfamiliar world of streets and a shod people, of garish "pubs" and pitfalls innumerable--does not invariably see him at his best. The influence of the Naval Discipline Act relaxes ashore, and not unnatural reaction inspires him with a desire to tilt his cap on the back of his head and a fine indiscrimination in the matter of liquid refreshment.

But to be appreciated he must be seen in his proper sphere. On board ship he is not required to play up to any romantic _role_: no one regards him with curiosity or even interest, and he is in consequence normal. Ashore, aware of observation, he becomes as unnatural as a self-conscious child. A very genuine pride in his appearance is partly the outcome of tradition and partly fostered by a jealous supervision of his Divisional Lieutenant. A score of subtleties go to make up his rig, and never was tide bound by more unswerving laws than those that set a span to the width of his bell-bottomed trousers or the depth of his collar. This collar was instituted by his forebears to protect their jackets from the grease on their queues. The queue has passed away, but the collar remains, and its width is 16 inches, no more, no less. The triple row of tape that adorns its edge commemorates (so runs the legend) the three victories that won for him his heritage; in perpetual mourning for the hero of Trafalgar, the tar of to-day knots a black silk handkerchief beneath it. It is doubtful whether he is aware of the portent of these emblems, for he is not commonly of an inquiring turn of mind, but they are as they were in the beginning, they must be "just so," and that for him suffices.

A number of factors go to make his speech the obscure jargon it has been represented. Recruited from the North, South, East, and West, he brings with him the dialect he spoke in childhood. And it were easier to change the colour of a man's eyes than to take out of his mouth the brogue he lisped in his cradle. A succession of commissions abroad enriches his vocabulary with a smattering of half the tongues of Earth--Arabic, Chinese, Malay, Hindustanee, and Japanese: smatterings truly, and rightly untranslatable, but Pentecostal in their variety. Lastly, and proclaiming his vocation most surely of all, are the undying sea phrases and terms without which no sailor can express himself. Even the objects of everyday life need translation. The floor becomes a deck, stairs a hatchway, the window a scuttle or gun-port. There are others, smacking of masts and yards, and the "Tar-and-Spunyarn" of a bygone Navy; they are obsolete to-day, yet current speech among men who at heart remain unchanged, in spite of Higher Education and the introduction of marmalade and pickles into their scale of rations. The tendency to emphasis that all vigorous forms of life demand, finds outlet in the meaningless oaths that mar the sailor's speech. Lack of culture denies him a wider choice of adjectives: the absence of privacy or refinements in his mode of life, and a great familiarity from earliest youth, would seem an explanation of, if not an excuse for, a habit which remains irradicable in spite of well-meaning efforts to counteract it.

The conditions of Naval Service sever his home ties very soon in life. The isolation from feminine and gentler influences that it demands is responsible for the curiously intimate friendships and loyalty that exist on the mess-deck of a man-of-war. With a friend the blue-jacket is willing to share all his worldly possessions--even to the contents of the mysterious little bag that holds his cleaning-rags, brick, and emery paper. Since the work of polishing a piece of brass make no great demand on his mental activity, the sailor chooses this time to "spin a yarn," and, from the fact that the recipient of these low-voiced quaintly-worded confidences usually shares his cleaning-rags, the tar describes his friend as his "Raggie." To the uninitiated the word signifies little, but to the sailor it represents all in his hard life that "suffereth long and is kind." His love for animals, which is proverbial, affords but another outlet for the springs of affection that exist in all hearts, and, in his case, being barred wider scope, are intensified.

Outside events have for him but little interest. So long as he is not called upon to bear a hand by his divinely appointed superior, while his ration of rum and stand-easy time are not interfered with, the rise and fall of dynasties, battle, murder, and sudden death, leave him imperturbable and unmoved. Only when these are accompanied by sufficiently gruesome pictorial representations in the section of the press he patronises can they be said to be of much import to him. But he dearly loves a funeral.

His attitude towards his officers is commonly that demanded by an austere discipline, and accompanied more often than not by real affection and loyalty. He accepts punishment at the hands of his Superior in the spirit that he accepts rain or toothache. Its justice may be beyond his reasoning, but administered by the Power that rules his paths, it is the Law, as irrevocable as Fate.

Morally he has been portrayed in two lights. Idealists claim for him a guilelessness of soul that would insult an Arcadian shepherd. To his detractors he is merely a godless scoffer, rudely antagonistic to Religion, a brand not even worth snatching from the burning. Somewhere midway between these two extremes is to be found the man as he really is, to whom Religion presents itself (when he considers the matter at all) a form of celestial Naval Discipline tempered by sentimentality.

But these are generalities, and may not apply to even a fraction of the men in the Fleet to-day. Conditions of life and modes of thought on the Lower Deck are even now changing as the desert sand, and those who live among sailor-men would hesitate the most to unite their traits in one comprehensive summary. It is only by glimpses here and there of individuals who represent types that one may glean knowledge of the whole.

In the Ship's Office of a man-of-war are rows of neat brass-bound boxes, and here are stowed the certificates of the Ship's Company, those of each Class--seamen, engine-room ratings, marines, &c., being kept separately. At the first sight there is little enough about these prosaic documents to suggest romance or even human interest to the ordinary individual. Yet if you read between the lines a little, picking out an entry here and there among the hundreds of different handwritings, you can weave with the aid of a little imagination all manner of whimsical fancies. And if, at the end, the study of them leaves you little wiser, it will be with a quickened interest in the inner life of the barefooted, incomprehensible being on whose shoulders will some day perchance fall the burden of your destiny and mine.

The King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, with a flourish of unwonted metaphor, refer to the document as "a man's passport through life." The sailor himself, ever prone to generalities, describes his Certificate as his "Discharge." In Accountant circles in which the thing circulates it is known as a "Parchment."

A Service Certificate--to give its official title--is a double sheet of parchment with printed headings, foolscap size, which is prepared for every man on first entry into the Service. At the outset it is inscribed with his name, previous occupation and description, his religion, the name and address of his next of kin, and the period of service for which he engages.

In due course, when he completes his training and is drafted to sea, his Certificate accompanies him. As he goes from ship to ship, on pages 2 and 3 are entered the records of his service, his rating, the names of his ships, and the period he served in each.

On 31st December in each year his Captain assesses in his own handwriting, on page 4, the character and ability of each man in the ship. These fluctuate between various stages from "Very Good" to "Indifferent" in the former case; "Exceptional" to "Inferior" in the latter. Here, too, appear the history of award and deprivation of Good Conduct Badges; the more severe penalties of wrong-doing, such as cells and imprisonment. Here, too, they must remain (for parchment cannot be tampered with, and an alteration must be sanctioned by the Admiralty) in perpetual appraisement or reproach until the man completes his Engagement and his Certificate becomes his own property.

The heading PREVIOUS OCCUPATION shows plainly enough the trades and classes from which the Navy is recruited, and is interesting, if only for the incongruity of the entries. They are most varied among the Stokers' Certificates, as these men entered the Service later in life than the Seamen.

_Labourer_ suggests little save perhaps a vision of the Thames Embankment at night, and the evidence that some one at least found a solution of the Unemployment problem. But we may be wronging him. Doubtless he had employment enough. Yet I still connect him with the Embankment. At the bidding of the L.C.C. it was here he wielded pick and crowbar until the sudden distant hoot of a syren stirred something dormant within him: the barges sliding down-stream out of a smoky sunset into the Unknown suggested a wider world. So he laid down his tools, and his pay is now 2s. 1d. per diem: from his NEXT OF KIN notation he apparently supports a wife on it.

_Farm Hand_. Can you say what led him from kine-scented surroundings and the swishing milk-pails to the stokehold of a man-of-war? Did the clatter of the threshing-machine wake an echo of

"... the bucket and clang of the brasses
Working together by perfect degree"?

Perhaps it was the ruddy glow of the hop-ovens by night that he exchanged for the hell-glare of a battleship's furnaces. Or, as a final solution, was it the later product of these same ovens, in liquid form, that helped the Recruiting Officer?

_Newspaper Vendor_. A pretty conceit, that Vendor! He has changed vastly since he dodged about the Strand, hawking the world's news and exchanging shrill obscenities with the rebuke of policemen and cab-drivers. But the gutter-patois clings to him yet: and of nights you may see him forward, seated on an upturned bucket, wringing discords of unutterable melancholy from a mouth-organ.

_Merchant Seaman--Golf Caddie_. He spat in the sand-box before making your tee, and looked the other way when you miss your drive, if he was as loyal as caddie as he is a sailor. _Errand Boy--Circus Artiste_. Of a surety he was the clown, this last. His inability to forget his early training has on more than one occasion introduced him to a cell and the bitter waters of affliction. But he is much in demand at sing-songs and during stand-easy time.

Now here is one with a heavy black line ruled across his record on page 2, and in the margin appears the single letter "K" He is a recovered deserter. He "ran," after eight years' service and stainless record. Was it some red-lipped, tousle-haired siren who lured him from the paths of rectitude? Did the galling monotony and austere discipline suddenly prove too much for him? Was it a meeting with a Yankee tar in some foreign grog-shop that tempted him with tales of a higher pay and greater independence? Hardly the latter, I think, because they caught him, and on page 4 of the tell-tale parchment appears the penalty--90 days' Detention.

Lastly: _Porter_. Where on earth did he shoulder trunks and bawl "By y'r leave"? Was it amid the echoing vastness of a London terminus, with its smoke and gloom? Or--and this I think the more probable--was it on some sleepy branch-line that he rang a bell or waved a flag, collected tickets, and clattered to and fro with fine effect in enormous hobnail boots? Then one fine day ... but imagination falters here, leaving us no nearer the reason why he exchanged his green corduroys for the jumper and collar. And if we asked him (which we cannot very well), I doubt if he could tell himself.

They make a motley collection, these tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers, but in time they filter through the same mould, and emerge, as a rule, vastly improved. You may sometimes encounter them, in railway stations or tram-cars, returning on leave to visit a home that has become no more than an amiable memory.

And some day, maybe, you will advertise for a caretaker, or one to do odd jobs about the house and garden, whose wife can do plain cooking. Look out then for the man with tattooed wrists, and eyes that meet yours unflinching from a weather-beaten face. He will come to apply in person for the job--being no great scribe or believer in the power of the pen. He will arrange his visit so as to arrive towards evening,--this being, he concludes, your "stand-easy time." He wastes few words, but from the breast-pocket of an obviously ready-made jacket he will produce a creased and soiled sheet of parchment.

It is the record of his life: and after two-and-twenty years through which the frayed passport has brought him, at forty years of age, he turns to you for employment and a life wherein (it is his one stipulation) "there shall be no more sea."

*XXIII.*

*THE GREATER LOVE.*

The sun was setting behind a lurid bank of cloud above the hills of Spain, and, as is usual at Gibraltar about that hour, a light breeze sprang up. It eddied round the Rock and scurried across the harbour, leaving dark cat's-paws in its trail: finally it reached the inner mole, alongside which a cruiser was lying.

A long pendant of white bunting, that all day had hung listlessly from the main top-mast, stirred, wavered, and finally bellied out astern, the gilded bladder at the tail bobbing uneasily over the surface of the water.

The Officer of the Watch leaned over the rail and watched the antics of the bladder, round which a flock of querulous gulls circled and screeched. "The paying-off pendant[#] looks as if it were impatient," he said laughingly to an Engineer Lieutenant standing at his side.

[#] A pendant, one-and-a-quarter times the length of the ship, flown by ships homeward bound under orders to pay off.

The other smiled in his slow way and turned seaward, nodding across the bay towards Algeciras. "Not much longer to wait--there's the steamer with the mail coming across now." He took a couple of steps across the deck and turned. "Only another 1200 miles. Isn't it ripping to think of, after three years...?" He rubbed his hands with boyish satisfaction. "All the coal in and stowed--boats turned in, funnels smoking--that's what I like to see! Only the mail to wait for now: and the gauges down below"--he waggled his forefinger in the air, laughing,--"like that...!"

The Lieutenant nodded and hitched his glass under his arm. "Your middle watch, Shortie? Mine too: we start working up for our passage trial then, don't we? Whack her up, lad--for England, Home, and Beauty!"

The Engineer Lieutenant walked towards the hatchway. "What do you think!" and went below humming--

"From Ushant to Scilly...

The Lieutenant on watch turned and looked up at the Rock, towering over the harbour. Above the green-shuttered, pink and yellow houses, and dusty, sun-dried vegetation, the grim pile was flushing rose-colour against the pure sky. How familiar it was, he thought, this great milestone on the road to the East, and mused awhile, wondering how many dawns he had lain under its shadow: how many more sunsets he would watch and marvel at across the purple Bay.

"British as Brixton!" He had read the phrase in a book once, describing Gibraltar. So it was, when you were homeward bound. He resumed his measured pacing to and fro. The ferry steamer had finished her short voyage and had gone alongside the wharf, out of sight behind an arm of the mole. Not much longer to wait now. He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Postie" wouldn't waste much time getting back. Not all the beer in Waterport Street nor all the glamour of the "Ramps" would lure him astray to-night. The Lieutenant paused in his measured stride and beckoned a side-boy. "Tell the signalman to let me know directly the postman is sighted coming along the mole."

He resumed his leisurely promenade, wondering how many letters there would be for him, and who would write. His mother, of course, ... and Ted at Charterhouse. His speculations roamed afield. Any one else? Then he suddenly remembered the Engineer Lieutenant imitating the twitching gauge-needle with his forefinger. Lucky beggar he was. There was some one waiting for him who mattered more than all the Teds in the world. More even than a Mother--at least, he supposed.... His thoughts became abruptly sentimental and tender.

A signalman, coming helter-skelter down the ladder, interrupted them, as the Commander stepped out of his cabin on to the quarter-deck.

"Postman comin' with the mail, sir."

A few minutes later a hoist of flags, whirled hurriedly to the masthead, asking permission to proceed "in execution of previous orders." What those orders were, even the paying-off pendant knew, trailing aft over the stern-walk in the light wind.

* * * * *

The Rock lay far astern like a tinted shadow, an opal set in a blue-grey sea. Once beyond the Straits the wind freshened, and the cruiser began to lift her lean bows to the swell, flinging the spray aft along the forecastle in silver rain. The Marine bugler steered an unsteady course to the quarterdeck hatchway and sounded the Officers' Dinner Call.

"Officers' wives eat puddings and pies,
But sailors' wives eat skilly..."

chanted the Lieutenant of the impending first watch, swaying to the roll of the ship as he adjusted his tie before the mirror. He thumped the bulkhead between his cabin and the adjoining one.

"Buck up, Shortie!" he shouted; "it's Saturday Night at Sea! Your night for a glass of port."

"Sweethearts and wives!" called another voice across the flat. "You'll get drunk to-night, Snatcher, if you try to drink to all----" the voice died away and rose again in expostulation with a Marine servant. "... Well, does it _look_ like a clean shirt...!"

"Give it a shake, Pay, and put it on like a man!" Some one else had joined in from across the flat. The Engineer Lieutenant pushed his head inside his neighbour's cabin: "Come along--come along! You'll be late for dinner. Fresh grub to-night: no more 'Russian Kromeskis' and 'Fanny Adams'!"

"One second.... Right!" They linked arms and entered the Wardroom as the President tapped the table for grace. The Surgeon scanned the menu with interest. "Jasus! Phwat diet!" he ejaculated, quoting from an old Service story. "Listen!" and read out--

"Soup: Clear."

"That's boiled swabs," interposed the Junior Watch-keeper.

"Mr President, sir, I object--this Officer's unladylike conversation."

"Round of port--fine him!" interrupted several laughing voices.

"Go on, Doc.; what next?"

"Fish: 'Mullets.'"

"Main drain loungers," from the Junior Watch-keeper. "Isn't he a little Lord Fauntleroy--two rounds of port!"

"_Entree_: Russian Kromeskis----" A roar of protest.

"And----?"

"Mutton cutlets."

"Goat, he means. What an orgie! Go on; fain would we hear the worst, fair chirurgeon," blathered the Paymaster. "Joint?"

"Joint; mutton or----"

"Princely munificence," murmured the First Lieutenant. "He's not a messman: he's a--a--what's the word?"

"Philanthropist. What's the awful alternative?"

"There isn't any; it's scratched out." The A.P. and the Junior Watch-keeper clung to each other. "The originality of the creature! And the duff?"

"Rice-pudding."

"Ah me! alack-a-day! alas!" The Paymaster tore his hair. "I must prophesy ... _must_ prophesy,--shut up, every one! Shut up!" He closed his eyes and pawed the air feebly. "I'm a medium. I'm going to prophesy. I feel it coming.... The savoury is ... the savoury is"--there was a moment's tense silence--"sardines on toast." He opened his eyes. "Am I right, sir? Thank you."

The Surgeon leaned forward, and picking up the massive silver shooting trophy that occupied the centre of the table, handed it to a waiter.

"Take that to the Paymaster, please. First prize for divination and second sight. And you, Snatcher--you'll go down for another round of port if you keep on laughing with your mouth full."

So the meal progressed. The "mullets" were disentangled from their paper jackets amid a rustling silence of interrogation. The Worcester sauce aided and abetted the disappearance of the Russian Kromeskis, as it had so often done before. The mutton was voted the limit, and the rice-pudding held evidences that the cook's hair wanted cutting. The Junior Watch-keeper--proud officer of that functionary's division--vowed he'd have it cut in a manner which calls for no description in these pages. There weren't any sardines on toast. The Philanthropist appeared in person, with dusky, upturned palms, to deplore the omission.

"Ow! signor--olla fineesh! I maka mistake! No have got sardines, signor...!"

"Dear old Ah Ying!" sighed the Engineer Lieutenant, "I never really loved him till this minute. Why did we leave him at Hong-Kong and embark this snake-in-the-grass.... No sardines...!"

But for all that every one seemed to have made an admirable meal, and the Chaplain's "For what we have received, thank God!" brought it to a close. The table was cleared, the wine decanters passed round, and once again the President tapped with his ivory mallet. There was a little silence--

"Mr Vice--the King!"

The First Lieutenant raised his glass. "Gentlemen--the King!"

"The King!" murmured the Mess, with faces grown suddenly decorous and grave. At that moment the Corporal of the Watch entered; he glanced down the table, and approaching the Junior Watch-keeper's chair saluted and said something in an undertone. The Junior Watch-keeper nodded, finished his port, and rose, folding his napkin. His neighbour, the Engineer Lieutenant, leaned back in his chair, speaking over his shoulder--

"Your First Watch, James?"

The other nodded.

"Then," with mock solemnity, "may I remind you that our lives are in your hands till twelve o'clock? Don't forget that, will you?"

The Junior Watch-keeper laughed. "I'll bear it in mind." At the doorway he turned with a smile: "It won't be the first time your valuable life has been there."

"Or the last, we'll hope."

"We'll hope not, Shortie."

The buzz of talk and chaff had again begun to ebb and flow round the long table. The First Lieutenant lit a cigarette and began collecting napkin-rings, placing them eventually in a row, after the manner of horses at the starting-post. "Seven to one on the field, bar one--Chief, your ring's disqualified. It would go through the ship's side. Now, wait for the next roll--stand by! Clear that flower-pot----"

"Disqualified be blowed! Why, I turned it myself when I was a student, out of a bit of brass I stole----"

"Can't help that; it weighs a ton--scratched at the post!"

The Commander tapped the table with his little hammer--

"May I remind you all that it's Saturday Night at Sea?" and gave the decanters a little push towards his left-hand neighbour. The First Lieutenant brushed the starters into a heap at his side; the faintest shadow passed across his brow.

"So it is!" echoed several voices.

"Now, Shortie, fill up! Snatcher, you'd better have a bucket.... 'There's a Burmah girl a-settin' an' I know she thinks,'--port, Number One?" The First Lieutenant signed an imperceptible negation and pushed the decanter round, murmuring something about hereditary gout.

It was ten years since he had drunk that toast: since a certain tragic dawn, stealing into the bedroom of a Southsea lodging, found him on his knees at a bedside.... They all knew the story, as men in Naval Messes afloat generally do know each other's tragedies and joys. And yet his right-hand neighbour invariably murmured the same formula as he passed the wine on Saturday nights at sea. In its way it was considered a rather subtle intimation that no one wanted to pry into his sorrow--even to the extent of presuming that he would never drink that health again.

In the same way they all knew that it was the one occasion on which the little Engineer Lieutenant permitted himself the extravagance of wine. He was saving up to get married; and perhaps for the reason that he had never mentioned the fact, every one not only knew it, but loved and chaffed him for it.

The decanters travelled round, and the First Lieutenant leaned across to the Engineer Lieutenant, who was contemplatively watching the smoke of his cigarette. There was a whimsical smile in the grave, level eyes.

"I suppose we shall have to think about rigging a garland[#] before long, eh?"

[#] A garland of evergreens is triced up to the triatic stay between the masts on the occasion of an officer's marriage.

The other laughed half-shyly. "Yes, before long, I hope, Number One."

Down came the ivory hammer--

"Gentlemen--Sweethearts and Wives!"

"And may they never meet!" added the Engineer Commander. In reality the most domesticated and blameless of husbands, it was the ambition of his life to be esteemed a sad dog, and that, men should shake their heads over him crying "Fie!"

The First Lieutenant gathered together his silver rings. "Now then, clear the table. She's rolling like a good 'un. Seven to one on the field, bar----"

"Speech!" broke in the Paymaster. "Speech, Shortie! Few words by a young officer about to embark on the troubled sea of matrimony. Hints on the Home----"

The prospective bridegroom shook his head, laughing, and coloured in a way rather pleasant to see. He rose, pushing in his chair. In the inside pocket of his mess-jacket was an unopened letter, saved up-to read over a pipe in peace,

"My advice to you all is----"

"'Don't,'" from the Engineer Commander.

"Mind your own business," and the Engineer Lieutenant fled from the Mess amid derisive shouts of "Coward!" The voice of the First Lieutenant rose above the hubbub--

"Seven to one on the field--and what about a jump or two? Chuck up the menu-card, Pay. Now, boys, roll, bowl, or pitch ... 'Every time a blood-orange or a good see-gar'...!"

* * * * *

The Officer of the First Watch leaned out over the bridge rails, peering into the darkness that enveloped the forecastle, and listening intently. The breeze had freshened, and the cruiser slammed her way into a rising sea, labouring with the peculiar motion known as a "cork-screw roll": the night was very dark. Presently he turned and walked to the chart-house door: inside, the Navigation Officer was leaning over the chart, wrinkling his brows as he pencilled a faint line.

"Pilot," said the other, "just step out here a second."

The Navigator looked up, pushing his cap from his forehead. "What's up?"

"I think the starboard anchor is 'talking.' I wish you'd come and listen a moment." The Navigator stepped out on to the bridge, closing the chart-house door after him, and paused a moment to accustom his eyes to the darkness. "Dark night, isn't it? Wind's getting up, too...." He walked to the end of the bridge and leaned out. The ship plunged into a hollow with a little shudder and then flung her bows upwards into, a cascade of spray. A dull metallic sound detached itself from the sibilant rushing of water and the beat of waves against the ship's side, repeating faintly with each roll of the ship from the neighbourhood of the anchor-bed. The Navigator nodded: "Yes, ... one of the securing chains wants tautening, I should say. 'Saltash Luck'[#] for some one!" He moved back into the chart-house and picked up the parallel-rulers again.

[#] A thorough wetting.

The Lieutenant of the Watch went to the head of the ladder and called the Boatswain's Mate, who was standing in the lee of the conning-tower yarning with the Corporal of the Watch--

"Pipe the duty sub. of the watch to fall in with oilskins on; when they're present, take them on to the forecastle and set up the securing chain of the starboard bower-anchor. Something's worked loose. See that any one who goes outside the rail has a bowline on."

"Aye, aye, sir." The Boatswain's Mate descended the ladder, giving a few preliminary "cheeps" with his pipe before delivering himself of his tidings of "Saltash Luck" to the duty sub. of the port watch.

The Officer of the Watch gave an order to the telegraph-man on the bridge, and far below in the Engine-room they heard the clang of the telegraph gongs. He turned into the chart-house and opened the ship's log, glancing at the clock as he did so. Then he wrote with a stumpy bit of pencil--

"9.18. Decreased speed to 6 knots. Duty Sub. secured starboard bower-anchor."

He returned to the bridge and leaned over the rail, straining his eyes into the darkness and driving spray towards the indistinct group of men working on the streaming forecastle. In the light of a swaying lantern he could make out a figure getting out on to the anchor-bed; another was turning up with a rope's end; he heard the faint click of a hammer on metal. The ship lurched and plunged abruptly into the trough of a sea. An oath, clear-cut and distinct, tossed aft on the wind, and a quick shout.

He turned aft and rushed to the top of the ladder, bawling down between curved palms with all the strength of his lungs.

* * * * *

The Engineer Lieutenant who left the Wardroom after dinner did not immediately go on deck. He went first to his cabin, where he filled and lit a pipe, and changed his mess-jacket for a comfortable, loose-fitting monkey-jacket. Then he settled down in his armchair, wedged his feet against the bunk to steady himself against the roll of the ship, and read his letter. Often as he read he smiled, and once he blinked a little, misty-eyed. The last sheet he re-read several times.

"... Oh, isn't it good to think of! It was almost worth the pain of separation to have this happiness now--to know that every minute is bringing you nearer. I wake up in the morning with that happy sort of feeling that something nice is going to happen soon--and then I realise: you are coming Home! I jump out of bed and tear another leaf off the calendar,--there are only nine left now, and then comes one marked with a big cross.... Do you know the kind of happiness that hurts? Or is it only a girl who can feel it? ... I pray every night that the days may pass quickly, and that you may come safely."

It was a very ordinary little love-letter, with its shy admixture of love and faith and piety: the sort so few men ever earn, and so many (in Heaven's mercy) are suffered to receive. The recipient folded it carefully, replaced it in its envelope, and put it in his pocket. Then he lifted his head suddenly, listening....

Down below, the Engine-room telegraph gong had clanged, and the steady beat of the engines slowed. With an eye on his wrist-watch he counted the muffled strokes of the piston.... Decreased to 6 knots. What was the matter? Fog? He rose and leaned over his bunk, peering through the scuttle. Quite clear. He decided to light a pipe and go on deck for a "breather" before turning in, and glanced at the little clock ticking on the bulkhead. Twenty past nine; ten minutes walk on the quarter-deck and then to bed. It was his middle watch.

As he left his cabin some one in the Wardroom began softly playing the piano, and the Paymaster's clear baritone joined in, singing a song about somebody's grey eyes watching for somebody else. The Mess was soaking in sentiment to-night: must be the effect of Saturday Night at Sea he reflected.

He reached the quarter-deck and stood looking round, swaying easily with the motion of the ship. The sea was getting up, and the wind blew a stream of tiny sparks from his pipe. Farther aft the sentry on the life-buoys was mechanically walking his beat, now toiling laboriously up a steep incline, now trying to check a too precipitous descent. The Engineer Lieutenant watched him for a moment, listening to the notes of the piano tinkling up through the open skylight from the Wardroom.

"I know of two white arms
Waiting for me ..."

The singer had started another verse; the Engineer Lieutenant smiled faintly, and walked to the ship's side to stare out into the darkness. Why on earth had they slowed down? A sudden impatience filled him. Every minute was precious now. Why----

"MAN OVERBOARD. AWAY LIFEBOAT'S CREW!" Not for nothing had the Officer of the Watch received a "Masts and Yards" upbringing; the wind forward caught the stentorian shout and hurled it along the booms and battery, aft to the quarter-deck where the little Engineer Lieutenant was standing, one hand closed over the glowing bowl of his pipe, the other thrust into his trousers pocket.

The Engine-room telegraph began clanging furiously, the sound passing up the casings and ventilators into the night; then the Boatswain's Mate sent his ear-piercing pipe along the decks, calling away the lifeboat's crew. The sentry on the life-buoys wrenched at the releasing knob of one of his charges and ran across to the other.

The leaden seconds passed, and the Engineer Lieutenant still stood beside the rail, mechanically knocking the ashes from his pipe.... Then something went past on the crest of a wave: something white that might have been a man's face, or broken water showing up in the glare of a scuttle.... A sound out of the darkness that might have been the cry of a low-flying gull.

Now it may be argued that the Engineer Lieutenant ought to have stayed where he was. Going overboard on such a night was too risky for a man whose one idea was to get home as quickly as possible--who, a moment before, had chafed at the delay of reduced speed. Furthermore, he had in his pocket a letter bidding him come home safely; and for three years he had denied himself his little luxuries for love of her who wrote it....

All the same--would she have him stand and wonder if that was a gull he had heard...?

Love of women, Love of life....! Mighty factors--almost supreme. Yet a mortal has stayed in a wrecked stokehold, amid the scalding steam, to find and shut a valve; Leper Settlements have their doctors and pastor; and "A very gallant Gentleman" walks unhesitatingly into an Antarctic blizzard, to show there is a love stronger and higher even than these.

The Engineer Lieutenant was concerned with none of these fine thoughts. For one second he did pause, looking about as if for somewhere to put his pipe. Then he tossed it on to the deck, scrambled over the rail, took a deep breath, and dived.

The Marine sentry ran to the side of the ship.

"_Christ!_" he gasped, and forsook his post, to cry the tale aloud along the seething battery.

The ship shuddered as the engines were reversed, and the water under the stern began to seethe and churn. The Commander had left his cabin, and was racing up to the bridge, as the Captain reached the quarterdeck. A knot of officers gathered on the after-bridge.

"Pin's out, sir!" shouted the Coxswain of the sea-boat, and added under his breath, "Oars all ready, lads! Stan' by to pull like bloody 'ell--there's two of 'em in the ditch...." The boat was hanging a few feet above the tumbling water.

"Slip!" shouted a voice from the invisible fore-bridge. An instant's pause, and the boat dropped with a crash on to a rising wave, There was a clatter and thud of oars in row-locks; the clanking of the chain-slings, and the boat, with her motley-clad[#] life-belted crew, slid off down the slant of a wave. For a moment the glare of an electric light lit the faces of the men, tugging and straining grimly at their oars; then she vanished, to reappear a moment later on the crest of a sea, and disappeared again into the darkness.

[#] Any one near the boat responds to the call "Away Life-boat's crew!"

The Commander on the fore-bridge snatched up a megaphone, shouting down-wind--

"Pull to starboard, cutter! Make for the life-buoy light!"

The watchers on the after-bridge were peering into the night with binoculars and glasses. The A.P. extended an arm and forefinger: "There's the life-buoy--there! ... Now--there! D'you see it? You can just see the flare when it lifts on a wave.... Ah! That's better!"

The dazzling white beam from a search-light on the fore-bridge leaped suddenly into the night. "Now we can see the cutter--" the beam wavered a moment and finally steadied. "Yes, there they are.... I say, there's a devil of a sea running."

"Ripping sea-boats our Service cutters are," said another, staring through his glasses. "They'll live in almost anything; but this isn't a dangerous sea. The skipper 'll turn in a minute and make a lee for them."

"Think old Shortie reached the buoy?"

"Probably swimming about looking for the other fellow, if I know anything of him; who did he go in after?"

"One of the duty sub.--they were securing the anchor or something forward, and the bowline slipped----"

"By gad! He's got him! There's the buoy--yes, two of them. _Good_ old Shortie.... My God! _Good_ old Shortie!" The speaker executed a sort of war-dance and trod on the Paymaster's toes.

"When you've quite finished, Snatcher.... By the way, what about hot-water bottles--blankets--stimulants.... First aid: come along! 'Assure the patient in a loud voice that he is safe.' ... 'Aspect cheerful but subdued.' ... I learned the whole rigmarole once!"

From the fore upper bridge the Captain was handling his ship like a picket-boat.

"'Midships--steady! Stop both!" He raised his mouth from the voice-pipe to the helmsman, and nodded to the Officer of the Watch. "She'll do now.... The wind 'll take her down."

The Commander leaned over the rail and called the Boatswain's Mate--

"Clear lower deck! Man the falls!"

The ranks of men along the ship's side turned inboard, and passed the ropes aft, in readiness to hoist the boat. There were three hundred men on the falls, standing by to whisk the cutter to the davit-heads like a cockle-shell.

"They've got 'em--got 'em both!" murmured the deep voices: they spat impatiently. "What say, lads? Stamp an' go with 'er?"

"Silence in the battery! _Marry_!"

The Commander was leaning over the bridge rails; the Surgeon and two Sick-berth Stewards were waiting by the davits. Alongside the cutter was rising and falling on the waves....

"All right, sir!" The voice of the Coxswain came up as if from the deep. They had hooked the plunging boat on somehow, and his thumb-nail was a pulp....

Three hundred pairs of eyes turned towards the fore-bridge.

"_Hoist away!_"

No need for the Boatswain's Mate to echo the order; no need for the Petty Officers' "With a will, then, lads!" They rushed aft in a wild stampede, hauling with every ounce of beef and strength in their bodies. The cutter, dripping and swaying, her crew fending her off the rolling ship with their stretchers, shot up to the davits.

"High 'nough!"

The rush stopped like one man. Another pull on the after-fall--enough. She was hoisted. "_Walk back! ... Lie to!_"

A tense silence fell upon the crowded battery: the only sound that of men breathing hard. A limp figure was seen descending the Jacob's ladder out of the boat, assisted by two of the crew. Heady hands were outstretched to help, and the next moment Willie Sparling, Ordinary Seaman, Official Number 13728, was once more on the deck of a man-of-war--a place he never expected to see again.

"Ow!" He winced, "Min' my shoulder--it's 'urted...." He looked round at the familiar faces lit by the electric lights, and jerked his head back at the boat hanging from her davits. "_'E_ saved my life--look after 'im. 'E's a ... e's a--bleedin' 'ero, ..." and Willie Sparling, with a broken collar-bone, collapsed dramatically enough.

The Engineer Lieutenant swung himself down on to the upper deck and stooped to wring the water from his trousers. The Surgeon seized him by the arm---

"Come along, Shortie--in between the blankets with you!"

The hero of the moment disengaged his arm and shook himself like a terrier. "Blankets be blowed--it's my Middle Watch."

The Surgeon laughed. "Plenty of time for that: it's only just after half-past nine. What about a hot toddy?"

"Lord! I thought I'd been in the water for hours.... Yes, by Jove! a hot toddy----" He paused and looked round, his face suddenly anxious. "By the way, ... 'any one seen a pipe sculling about...?"

Down below the telegraph gongs clanged, and the ship's bows swung round on to her course, heading once more for England, Home, and Beauty.

*XXIV.*

*"A PICTURESQUE CEREMONY."*

"S---- Parish Church was, yesterday afternoon, the scene of a picturesque ceremony...."--_Local Paper_.

The Torpedo Lieutenant (hereinafter known as "Torps") was awakened by the June sunlight streaming in through the open scuttle of his cabin. Overhead the quarterdeck-men were busy scrubbing decks: the grating murmur of the holystones and swish of water from the hoses, all part of each day's familiar routine, sent his eyes round to the clock ticking on the chest of drawers.

For a while he lay musing, watching with thoughtful gaze the disc of blue sky framed by the circle of the scuttle; then, as if in obedience to a sudden resolution, he threw back the bed-clothes and hoisted himself out of his bunk. Slipping his feet into a pair of ragged sandals, he left his cabin and walked along the flat till he came to another a few yards away; this he entered, drawing the curtain noiselessly.

The occupant of the bunk was still asleep, breathing evenly and quietly, one bare forearm, with the faint outline of a snake tattooed upon it, lying along the coverlet. For a few moments the new-comer stood watching the sleeper, the corners of his eyes creased in a little smile. Men sometimes smile at their friends that way, and at their dogs. The face on the pillow looked very boyish, somehow, ... he hadn't changed much since _Britannia_ days, really; and they had been through a good deal between then and now. Wholesome, lean old face it was; no wonder a woman...

The sleeper stirred, sighed a little, and opened his eyes. For a moment they rested, clear and direct as an awakened child's, on Torps' face; then he laughed a greeting--

"Hullo, Torps!" He yawned and stretched, and rising on one elbow, thrust his head out of the scuttle. "Thank Heaven for a fine day! Number One back from leave yet?"

"Yes, he's back: you're quite safe."

The other lay back in the bunk. "Has Phillips brought my tea yet?" He looked round helplessly. "What an awful pot-mess my cabin is in. Those are presents that came last night--they've all got to be packed. What's the time? Why, it's only half-past seven! Torps, you are the limit! I swear I've always read in books that fellows stayed in bed till lunch on these occasions, mugging up the marriage-service. I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night--be blowed if I do!"

Torps lit a cigarette. "That's only in books. We'll have breakfast, and take your gear up to the hotel, and then we'll play nine holes of golf--just to take our minds off frivolous subjects."

"Golf! My dear old ass, I couldn't drive a yard!"

"Well, you're going to have a try, anyway. Everything's arranged that can be: you aren't allowed to drink cocktails; you can't see Her--till two o'clock. You'd fret yourself into a fever here in bed--what else do you think you're going to do?"