Chapter II: Life in the Fleet (3)

The problems of a hospital on a warship are quite different from those of even an advanced hospital at the Front. The latter has a fluctuating but more or less unbroken stream of casualties to handle, with sometimes weeks of warning when defensive or offensive action will make unusual demands. A battleship may easily be lying quietly at anchor in the morning and be joined in a death-grapple in the evening. Her surgeons may have spent a year with nothing more to keep their hands in than reducing sprains and stitching up cuts, and then a hundred casualties may drop out of the sky in the wake of a single enemy salvo. For them, it rarely rains but it pours, though it may be a long time between the storms.

The usual practice is for a warship to have a small permanent sick bay and hospital capable of coping with routine exigencies, and to supplement these during and after action by converting certain favourably located parts of the ship--always below the water-line if possible--into action dressing-stations. The equipment of these latter--operating tables, beds, lights, etc.--is all made on collapsible lines and kept stored close at hand. The battleship whose remarkable health record I am writing about, takes especial pride in the fact that it has two action dressing-stations, permanently equipped and ready for use at a moment's notice.

The men in the various turrets and casemates, as well as in all other parts of the ship where casualties are likely to occur in action, are trained to give first aid and carry their wounded to the nearest dressing-station. For the latter purpose a specially designed stretcher is used, so constructed that the wounded men, strapped in securely, can be carried at any angle with a minimum of discomfort. The stretcher at present in use in the British Navy is of Japanese manufacture. It is made almost entirely of canvas and strips of bamboo, the two materials which experience has shown are the best combination on the score of lightness and strength.

As soon as possible after an action the badly wounded are transferred to a base hospital ship, whence, as soon as they are able to stand the voyage, they are sent in a carrier ship to one of the big R.N.M.S. hospitals.

The superlative care which has been taken of the bodily health of the men of the Grand Fleet has been one of the main, if not _the_ main factor in contributing to the healthiness of mind and the keenness of spirit which have made it possible for them to "stick out" their long vigil in the northern seas.

ECONOMY IN THE GRAND FLEET

The wind had been whistling raw and cold through the foretop, from where I had been watching the night target practice, and my appetite was whetted to a razor edge by the time the game was over and the ship was again at anchor.

"I'm as hungry as a shark myself," said the Gunnery Commander, "but never mind, we'll have a good snack of supper just as soon as we climb down and get out of these Arctic togs."

Five minutes later, the first of a dozen officers who stamped in as fast as their duties were over, we were seated at one of the wardroom tables. "Would you rather have ham or sardine sandwiches?" some one asked. "Both!" I unblushingly replied, "unless the sardines are as large as whales."

A waiter came hurrying through the door in answer to the ring, buttoning his coat as though he had been surprised by an unexpected summons. "A couple of plates of ham and sardine sandwiches and beer all round," was the laconic but comprehensive order.

The old "Marine" smiled deprecatingly, as one who has unpleasant news to impart. "Sorry, sir," he said, addressing the Commander, "but the day's bread was finished at dinner, sir, an' the 'am we 'ad for breakfast was all we can 'ave to-day, sir."

And then the wonderful thing happened. I had expected the howl of a Roman stage mob to greet the disappointing announcement, but it was only the Commander's voice that was heard, speaking quietly as he rose from the table. "Very well, Jenkins," he said; "bring us some hot cocoa in the smoking-room. A good hot drink's the best thing for a night like this anyway."

Over steaming cups of the most nutritious and sustaining of drinks, the Commander told me, quite briefly and casually, something of what had been done in his ship (which was thoroughly typical of the other units of the Grand Fleet) to cut down the unnecessary consumption of food.

"The old idea," he said, "that a fighting man ought to be stuffed like a prize steer was discredited by experience long ago, but it took the war to jar us into putting that experience (like so many other things) into practice. Any man living a non-sedentary life will make a very brave attempt to eat all the food that is put before him, but that by no means proves that he needs it. If he is working hard enough in the open air the surplus over his normal requirement doesn't do him any harm, and so there wasn't much point in keeping it away from him as long as there was food to waste all over the world. But when the world's surplus began to be turned into a deficit by the war, the opportunity arose to kill two birds with one stone--to save food and to improve the health of the men. I am glad to say that we have been able to do both, and that, moreover, with the hearty concurrence of every one concerned, both officers and men. It's the same kind of thing that could be done with the civil population if only they were subject to the same control as the Navy. Perhaps, if an adequate rationing scheme can be devised, this will be accomplished.

"Generally speaking," he continued, "we have left the Navy ration just about as it was before the war, with the exception of those staples in which there is the worst shortage--bread, meat, and potatoes. The latter could be relaxed now if we desired, as there is ample supply in sight; but--to save transport and because we are better off anyhow on our present ration--even that item will probably remain as it is. Indeed, great as the actual food-saving has been, a still more important benefit has been that to our health. There are several factors contributing to the fact that the personnel of the Grand Fleet has incomparably the highest standard of health ever maintained in so large a body of men, and I am quite positive that by no means the least of these is the check that has been put on overeating by our food-saving measures. Again, I am sure that the civil population would be equally benefited by similar restriction."

This incident occurred on the occasion of my first visit to the Grand Fleet in the late fall of last year, but it was not until my return nearly two months later that I had opportunity to gather anything further of the details of food economy. Then I learned that a strict rationing was only the first part of a scheme of which the second was a waste prevention campaign. Bread and meat were both further restricted, but to the improvement rather than the detriment of the already high health standard of the Fleet. The bread now served consists of one-eighth potato, one-sixth barley meal, and the remainder--but slightly more than two-thirds--of "standard" flour, which itself contains a high percentage of the whole wheat. The Fleet Paymaster of my ship, who outlined the scheme to me, said that the idea was to reduce waste to a minimum, both "coming" and "going." "We aim to put no more food on the tables of either the officers or men than they will eat up clean. 'Jack Spratt' and his wife are our models. We try to see that the 'platter' is 'licked clean.' But we don't stop there by any means. 'Jack Spratt,' so far as we have any information, must have thrown away the bones, even if he and the missus did lick the platter. We not only save the bones, but even go so far as to skim the grease off the dish-water the platter is washed in. If you'll run over this report here you'll understand the 'fade-away' expression on the faces of the gulls that used to fatten on the waste of the Grand Fleet. It is merely a tabulated summary of a week's saving of the things which used to go down the chutes for the birds and the fishes."

There were numbers running to four and five figures in the table, most of them referring to the pounds of various refuse which had been collected and shipped for conversion into glycerine and other useful and valuable products. Without giving figures which might be "useful or heartening to the enemy," I will probably be permitted to state that the various headings were the following: Drippings, Fat Meat, Bones, Waste Paper, Bottles and Jars, Discarded Clothing, Lead Seals, Mail Bags and Tins. Several of the items would have run to substantial figures even in tons, and the money received for them at even the nominal prices paid by the contractor aggregated many thousands of pounds.

"You will now understand," continued the Fleet Paymaster, "just how it made us feel when we read in a London paper a few days ago a statement to the effect that _if_ the Navy had gone in for waste-saving in the same way the Army had, a certain total would have been greatly increased. Since we've been going into this sort of thing heart and soul for more than a year, and since it is far easier to check waste on a ship (where you have absolute control of all the in-comings and out-goings) than on land, you can imagine that reading that sort of 'tosh' makes us feel--well, about as we do when we try to digest the wisdom of the 'Naval Strategic Writers' of the type that want to put the Grand Fleet on wheels and send it to Berlin." Glancing quickly through the figures under the headings opposite the various ships of our squadron I noticed at once that there were considerable variations in their savings, and, knowing that the number of men did not vary materially on any of them, I asked the reason why the Flagship, for instance, with less than half the weight of "Bones" to her credit than "Ourself," was still able to put by something like 50 per cent. more "Drippings."

"It will probably be because we haven't yet 'standardized' our methods throughout the Fleet," replied the Paymaster; "because different ships may have different ways of going about the job. Of these particular items you have mentioned, perhaps we can find out something by talking to Mr. C----, the Warrant Officer who has charge of the collection of by-products."

Mr. C----, who was plainly an enthusiast, launched into the subject with eagerness.

"I've been intending to explain that matter of the drippings to you, sir," he said, addressing the Fleet Paymaster, "for the figures certainly have the look of not doing us justice. Fact is, though, that the only reason we've run behind the Flagship on this count is because I have been encouraging the messes to carry food-saving one stage farther by using the clean grease--the skimmings from their soup and the water their meat is boiled in--instead of margarine. With a little pepper and salt, most of them like it better even than butter, and of course they can use it much more free. And since dripping is worth much more for food than it ever can be to make up into soap or explosives, I figure I'm on the right track, even if it does give the _Lucifer_ and the _Mephistopheles_ a chance to head us in the 'grease' column. I must admit though, sir, that they've both been gaining a few pounds of second quality stuff by rigging 'traps'--settling tubs at the bottoms of their chutes--in which they catch any grease that has got away from them in the galley. I'll be beating them at that game before long, though, for I'm putting in settling tubs at both top and bottom, with a strainer in between.

"As for the 'Bones,'" he went on, turning to me, "that's largely 'personality.' 'Boney Joe,' my chief assistant, is perhaps more largely responsible than any one else for the fact that we are not only the champion 'bone-collecting' ship of the squadron, but also head the list with 'Bottles and Jars' and 'Empty Tins.' With 'Waste Paper' there's no use competing with the Flagships, for they come in for an even heavier bombardment of that kind of stuff from the Admiralty than we do; and as for 'Discarded Clothing,' I feel that a place at the bottom of the column would be more likely to indicate economical management than one at the top. But the things that represent a sheer saving, the things that used to be thrown away right along--they're what it's worth while piling up by every means we can, and they're the ones I want to keep heading the columns with. And, as I said before, 'Boney Joe' is the main feature of the show on this score. If you like, I will arrange it so that you can do his morning round with him to-morrow."

I accepted the offer with alacrity, for I had heard, or heard of, "Boney Joe" on several occasions already, but without once getting my eyes on him. The first time was when, in order to avoid a howling blizzard which was raging outside, I endeavoured to make my way forward to the ladders leading up to my cabin under the bridge by threading the mazes of the mess deck. Bent almost double to keep from butting the low swung hammocks, I tripped the more easily over a box of empty tins, and fell with one arm sousing elbow-deep into what proved to be a tub of "frozen" grease. Surveying the draggled cuff of my jacket in the morning, my servant pronounced his verdict without a moment's hesitation.

"Tumblin' into 'Boney Joe's' pickin's last night, sir, was you?" he said with a grin; "we's allus doin' it oursel's."

On a number of other occasions certain sirenical notes which came floating up to my cabin from the mess deck were variously ascribed to "'Boney Joe' doin' 'is rounds," "'Boney Joe' cadgin' for grease," and "Boney Joe singin' 'is 'Mornin' 'Ate.'" I had several pictures of "Boney Joe" in my mind, but not one of them came near to fitting the handsome, strongly built and thoroughly sailorly man-o'-war's-man whom Mr. C---- introduced to me as the bearer of that storied name on the following morning. Only a sort of scallawag twinkle in his eye revealed him as a man who liked his little joke.

"If you don't mind, sir," he said, saluting, "we'll clean up these last two flats, an' then we'll be clear to push along up to my 'bonatorium' an' have a bit o' a yarn."

Working with neatness and dispatch, "Joe" and his half-dozen assistants made rapid progress with their clean-up. "Pick-uppy" as the job was, everything was really in admirable order. Bones, papers, tins, bottles and grease--each had its separate receptacle. The grease was already hardening in large cans: the other refuse was in boxes or tubs. In each mess was one small tub with a few sad bits of assorted food in the bottom. Unable to classify this, I asked "Joe" what orphan asylum these crumbs were intended for.

"Not for no orphan 'sylum, sir," he replied with an appreciative grin; "only for the piggery. We don't keep no pigs oursel's, sir, but the A'miral on the 'X. Y. Z.' does, an' we all 'elps wi' wot we kin spare. They sends round a drifter tu pick up the leavin's ev'ry day or two, but Lor' bless yu', ther' ain't no leavin's since we got our by-producks macheen a-workin'. If the rest o' the ships don't dish out no more pig feed an' what we does, the 'X. Y. Z.'s' live stock'll be gettin' so thin they'll blow away one o' these days. This ain't really no place fer pigs and gulls no more, sir."

Considerable as the accumulation was, it was loosely sacked in a few minutes, after which it was carried forward to the hold where the repacking for shipment was carried on. This consisted largely of protecting the bottles with straw, forcing small tins inside of large ones, pouring the grease into larger cans and putting the bones into stronger sacks. "Joe" said that he called the place his "bonatorium" partly because bones formed the largest and most valuable item of shipment, but principally because they were his "favrut produck," the one he took the most pride in collecting. Even the few days' accumulation of refuse on hand was of huge bulk. I saw at once how important a work was being carried on, and had no envy for the pig or the gull whose lot it was to live on what is now thrown away by the Grand Fleet.

Mr. C---- was called away at this juncture, and, left cock of his own dunghill, "Boney Joe" became at once his own natural self. The sailorly man-o'-war's-man disappeared in an instant, and only one of the drollest characters in the British Navy remained behind.

"I'll be showin' yu 'ow I goes out tu drum up me bone trade," he said, throwing an empty sack over his shoulder and replacing his beribboned cap with a crumpled velour of the Hombourg type. "Found it in me pickin's; spose it kum from one o' the orficers," he added parenthetically, giving the queer headpiece a proprietary pat with his free hand. "Now 'ere's wot I sing tu 'em. Made it up mysel', too."

With a quick double-shuffle he began footing it up and down the junk-cluttered deck of the "bonatorium," singing in a voice which cut the air like the whine of the wind through the radio aerials.

"'Eave out all yer dead an' dyin',
'Eave out all yer bones an' fat,
'Eave out the stiff o' 'Littl' Willie,'
An' I'll give yu my 'at."

"Course I don't reely give 'em the 'at, sir," explained the singer, stopping for a moment in his march. "Th' 'at's only bait. But, jest th' same, they 'eaves out the bones an' fat all right. Last night they 'eaved a bone jest back o' me ear. Safest way's fer four o' us tu form a holler square an' so pertect the flanks, so tu speak. Nother thing. Yu 'eard me sing ''Eave out "Littl' Willie"' jest now? Wull, most times I sings it ''Eave out th' Kaisur's dotter,' meanin' Queen Sophy o' Greece, cose she's a rum un fer fair. But knowin' that in th' wardroom it warn't th' custim tu menshun a lydy's nyme in publick like, I brings in Willie insted."

"But why celebrate the young Hohenzollern in song at all?" I asked in perplexity. "I don't quite trace the connexion between the 'dead and dying,' and 'bones and fat' and the--the earthly remains of 'Little Willie.'"

"I ain't celebratin' 'em," explained "Joe"; "I'm abominatin' 'em, so tu speak. My refrunce is tu the dead an' dyin' sojers th' Kaisur cooks up tu make glysreen frum. I brings in Sophy an' Willie jest tu make 'em feel how they'd like it if 'twas their turn next."

Having cleared up this point, "Joe" began to shuffle again. "Nother thing I sing 'em is th' follerin'," he said.

"'Eave out all yure bones, bottles, tins, fats, boots and shoes,
If yu don't 'eave out you'll be sure to lose--
Cose then I'll pinch th' 'ull blinkin' lot mesel'!"

"An' tyke it frum me, I does pinch 'em too," he added, stopping in front of me again. "Likewise, any other reefoose--like ov'ralls an' such left lyin' roun' wher' it 'adn't ought tu be. Sum times they gets 'em back, an' sum times they duzen't. Serves 'em jolly well rite for bein' keerless."

At this juncture I began to search my pockets for a piece of paper upon which to jot down the burden of "Joe's" cries.

"Never mind, sir," he said cheerily as my hands came up empty, "ther's allus whatev'r yure needin' in th' stayshunary line in my wastepaper dupartment."

He threw back the cover of a huge box, and at almost the first grab brought up a scented sheet of pink note paper which--except where some one had written "Dear Kitty--Just a line to tell you I am in the pink and hoping----" followed by a blot, and a grease-spot in the middle--was just as good as new.

"This dupartment is both my joy an' my sorrer," said "Joe" pensively, digging his arm deep into the soft depths. "I salves the story o' 'Arseen Lupin' an' a Gieves joolry catalog--both compleet--this mornin', an' I've laid by some 'Merican papers (Pittsburg, I b'leeve) fer yu, sir. But th' tantylysin thing about it is what's allus missin'. Jest look at this, fer instance, sir," and he fished a greasy fragment of paper from a pocket of his overall and handed it to me. In a highly appropriate "atmosphere"--with the scent of fat to starboard, the fragrance of bones to port, and the ineffable odours of the "crumbs" grudgingly allotted to the "X. Y. Z.'s" piggery rising from the depths of the tub on the rim of which I sat--I read the following, just this and no word more:--

A SWEET SMELLING SAVOUR

I

Some rave about the subtle scents of Araby and Ind,
Of camphor and of ambergris, of sandal-wood and musk,
The poet chants the praises of the violet and the rose,
And stately lilies standing by the dew-drenched lawn at dusk.

II

My lady loves the lavender with, slender ...
The lover loves whatever perfume ...
The cow-slips simple fragrance ...
The pine-wood's spicy ...

III

But, far beyond all ...
The smell of ...

* * * * *

"It fair to druv me crazy huntin' fer that missin' peece," said "Joe" with a hurt sort of "'twas-ever-thus" expression in his eyes; "an' I felt it espeshul, sir, becus I writes po'try and songs a bit mysel'. 'E was jest workin' up tu a climacks, an' I'm wonderin' all th' time what it wuz that smelt better'n 'ambygris' an' musk an' roses an' lilies an' all the rest. D'yu spose, sir, it cud a bin that stuff they put in brilyantin?" and he ran stubby fingers through his hair in an apparent endeavour to waft me a whiff of the odour which had been there the Sunday before the last coaling.

A frivolous impulse prompted me to bid him ask the "X. Y. Z.'s" pigs, but the look in his eyes sobered me, and I said I felt sure it must have been "Attar of Roses," as that was said to be the most expensive of all perfumes.

"Joe" returned the fragment to his pocket, a brooding shadow sitting on his brow. "Ther' wuz only one thing ever fussed me more'n not locatin' th' end o' that pome, sir," he said sadly, beginning to fumble anew, "and that wuz this."

The greasy fragment which he unfolded and handed to me barely hung together at the blackened creases, but--well, no one who has ever watched wardroom firelight throw its rosy glow over the pinky pages of _La Vie Parisienne_ will ever fail to recognise the flimsiest wisp of it blowing before a winter gale.

"That's th' wrong side, sir," said "Joe," as I took the sheet tenderly and began to puzzle my way through a chart which was averred to be some sort of barometer of the emotions. "Scuse me, sir, but this is th' way. No, not like that. You've got 'er upside down. Ther', _that's_ 'er, or ruther wot's left o' 'er. Now wot d'yu think o' that fer tough luck?"

It had been just the usual _La Vie_ picture, nothing more or nothing less. A frou-frou of _lingerie_, a flash or two of pink cuticle, and--the rest was torn away.

"Wot makes it 'arder tu bear," said "Joe" mournfully, "is th' fack that it ain't offen that th' orficers let th' pictur' pages drift this far forrard th' wardroom. I 'ad picked up th' 'parly-voo' pages offen enuf, but a pictur', nary a one. An' now w'en this one comes, it's ripped off jest when it 'gins tu get good. Spose sum orficer, tryin' tu save matches, used th' best o' 'er tu lite 'is pipe wi."

I think that I did quite the kindest thing possible under the circumstances when I patted "Joe" sympathetically on the shoulder and assured him that, so far as my not inconsiderable experience with _La Vie_ pictures went, there was nothing to indicate that this one "got any better" on the missing fragment, and that I felt quite confident that "th' best o' 'er" had _not_ gone to light an "orficer's pipe."

Apparently a good deal cheered, "Joe" returned lightsomely to "shop," and told me with much gusto of a great find he had had that morning in the shape of an "'arf pound o' solid beef" hidden away in the angle of a bone. His first impulse, he said, had been to report the careless cook to the Fleet Paymaster, but on second thought he had decided to say nothing and contribute the morsel as "extra ration" to his mess.

"That way," he said philosophically, "I'll stop th' waste jest the same, an' yet won't start a ructshun wi' one o' me colleegs that mite throw me collectin' macheenry out o' order. Nuthin' like cuttin' down fricshun in this 'ere econ'my game."

There is a "Boney Joe" on every ship of the British Navy to-day. Could we not do with a few more of him in civil life as the time draws near when the hope of victory rests more and more on personal economy and universal saving?

CHRISTMAS IN A "HAPPY" SHIP

There was a hint of Christmas in the long stacks of parcels mail on the station platform and the motley array of packages in the hands of the waiting sailors, but for the rest there was nothing to differentiate the "Fleetward"-bound train from the same train as one might have seen it on any other day of the year. There is only a certain small irreducible minimum of men which can be spared from a fighting ship which at any time is liable to be sent into action, and the season sacred to the Prince of Peace is no exception.

To the average land-lubber nothing could appear nearer to the height of misfortune than the lot of the sailor who has to leave a nice, warm, comfortable hearthside in the south of England and return to his unceasing vigil in the storm-tossed northern seas at the one time of year set apart above all others for the family and the home, and I did my best to introduce a note of sympathy into my voice when I tried to condole with the ruddy-faced man-o'-war's man who had kindly volunteered to help me find my compartment.

"'Ard to be goin' back abord on Crismus Day, you think, sir?" he asked with a grin. "P'haps it is jest a bit 'ard to leave the missus jest now, but--ther' ain't no qu'ues in Scarpa Flow, and I've got a jolly good lot o' mates waitin' fer me in the ol' ----. She's a happy ship if ther' ever wuz un, an' Crismus at sea ain't 'arf so bad as you mite think, sir."

That there were several hundred similar-minded philosophers travelling by that train became evident at a point where they met and mingled for a space with some of the "lucky" ones who were gathering there to go home on a leave which had providentially coincided with the holiday season. Scan as closely as I would the men in the long blue lines, there was nothing to distinguish the "returning from" to the "going on" save the fact that the former were bulging with Christmas parcels.

Nor was there about any of the officers I met in the course of my northward journey any suggestion of an air of martyrdom on account of the fact that it was their lot to spend Christmas afloat instead of ashore. One of them was going to join a Destroyer Flotilla leader, and was too busy congratulating himself on the fact that he was to be second to a commander who had the reputation of having a "nose for trouble," and the faculty of always being "among those present" when anything of interest occurred in the North Sea to have time to lament the fact that he was missing--this time by only a couple of days--his eighth consecutive Christmas with his family. Another had equally high hopes of the life of adventure which awaited him in the light cruiser he had been appointed to, and a third entertained me for an hour with yarns of wardroom pranks on a battleship to which he was returning after a special course in gunnery at a south-coast port. It was the latter who used the identical expression in describing his ship as had been employed by the sailor I have quoted above.

"She's a happy ship, is the old ----," he said with an affectionate smile, "and it's glad I am to be getting back to her again."

The only man I met on the whole journey who seemed in the least sorry for himself was a King's Messenger--he was carrying a turkey under one arm and a dispatch box under the other--who complained that his schedule would not take him back to London until Christmas afternoon.

In the battleship to which I reported about the only evidence of Yule-tide observable on my arrival was the huge accumulation of "homebound" letters which the wardroom officers were engaged in censoring. The day before Christmas was distinctly "routine," with just a suggestion of festivity beginning to become manifest towards evening. The loungers by the wardroom fire smoked, chatted, and read the paper for an hour after dinner was over, but showed no disposition to melt away to bed as in the usual order of things. About ten o'clock a violin, banjo, and a one-stringed fiddle with a brass horn attached made their appearance, and upon these never entirely harmonising instruments their owners began inconsequentially to strum and scrape. As fragments of familiar airs became faintly recognisable, the loungers began to lay aside papers and cigars and to join in the choruses in that half-furtive manner so characteristic of the Briton in his first fore-running essays at "close harmony." Until he is assured of the vocal support of his neighbour, there is no sound in the world--from the roar of the lion to the roar of the cannon--which the average Englishman dreads so much as that of his own voice raised in song.

Volume increased with confidence, and it was not many minutes before the choruses were booming at full blast. For a while it was the more popular numbers from the late London revues which had the call, but these soon gave way to ragtime, and that in turn to those old familiar songs which have warmed the hearts and bound closer the ties of comradeship of the good fellows of the Anglo-Saxon world since ships first began to set sail from the shores of England to people the ends of the earth. From "Clementine" and "Who Killed Cock Robin?" to "Swanee River," and "My Old Kentucky Home," there was not a song that I had not heard--and even boomed raucously away in the choruses of myself--a hundred times in all parts of America. Every one of them is in the old "College Song Book," not a one of them, but which every man of the millions America is training for the Great Fight could have joined in without faking a word or a note.

A slight shifting of the gilt braid on the blue sleeves, a reshuffling of the papers and magazines on the table, and the wardroom of the ---- might have passed for that of any American battleship. The interposing of four poster and pennant peppered walls, the placing of the lounging figures in proper mufti, and you would have had a room in an American college "frat house" or club. The men, the songs, the vibrant spirit of good fellowship would have done for either of the settings.

Poignantly suggestive of the things of bygone college days was the change which came over the spirit of the scene when an exuberant young sub-lieutenant began doing stunts by trying to climb round a service chair without touching the deck. His inevitable fall upset the tilted chair of a visiting "snotty," who was playing his mandolin, and an instant later the two were rolling in a close embrace. Suddenly some one shouted "scrum!" and with an impetuous rush the singers ranged themselves into two rival "Rugger" teams, each trying to push the other against the wall.

Twitching at the stir of long dormant impulses, I restrained myself with an effort from mixing in the joyous mêlée, and maintained my dignity as a newly arrived visitor by backing into a corner and erecting a sofa barricade against the swirling human tide.

"Shades of Stanford and old Encina Hall" (I found myself gasping), "it's a 'rough-house,' a real college 'rough-house.'"

While it lasted that "scrum" had all the fierce abandon of a Freshman-Sophomore "cane rush," but even at its very climax (when it had upset the electric heater and was threatening to engulf the coal stove) there was a differentiation. One sensed rather than saw the thread of control restraining it, and knew that every pushing, laughing player of the game was subconsciously alert for a signal that would send him, tense and ready, to the performance of those complexly simple duties training for which he had given the best part of his life.

"Rugger" gave place to "chair polo," and that highly diverting sport in turn to comparatively "formal" bouts of wrestling and feats of strength and agility. It was while a row of shirt-sleeved figures were at the height of a "bat" competition (which consisted of seeing which one could hang the longest by his toes from a steel beam of the ceiling) that the Fleet Surgeon edged gingerly in behind my barrier and remarked that it was "funny to think how that up-ended line of young fighting cocks might be tumbling from their roost to go to action stations at the next tick of the clock. And they'd fight just like they play," he went on, fingering a sprained wrist that was proffered for diagnosis. "We've not a single case of any kind in the hospital to-day, and the men are just as healthy in mind as they are in body. It's half the battle, let me tell you, to live in a happy ship."

Christmas morning broke cold and clear, with a roystering wind from the north furrowing the Flow with translucent ridges of white-capped jade and chrysoprase. All but the imperative routine duties of the ship were suspended, and the men spent many hours decorating the mess deck for their midday feast. When all was ready the band, its various members masquerading as everything from Red Cross nurses and ballet girls to German naval prisoners and American cowboys, came to lead the Captain and wardroom officers on their ceremonial Christmas visiting round. From mess to mess we marched, the capering band leading the way and a policeman with a "sausage" club shepherding the stragglers at the rear. Every table was loaded not only with its Christmas dinner, but also with all the gifts received by those who sat there, as well as with any trinkets or souvenirs they had picked up in the course of their foreign cruises. Especially and intentionally conspicuous were numerous home photographs, stuck up in or propped against the cakes and boxes of sweets. Most of the tables had "Merry Christmas" and various other seasonal mottoes printed with letters ingeniously built from cigarettes.

A running fire of greeting met us at every turn, and at each table cigarettes, sweets, or chunks of succulent plum pudding were pressed upon us. Acceptance for the most part was on the ancient "touch and remit" system. I noticed that the officers spoke to most of the men directly under them by name, and that the exchange of greetings was invariably of unfeigned cordiality on both sides. The tour completed, the band escorted us aft, where, with a hearty three cheers and a "tiger" for the Captain and Commander severally, and the wardroom officers jointly, it left us and rollicked back to serenade the feasters forward.

Christmas chapel was a simple Church of England service without a sermon, followed by Holy Communion for those who desired to celebrate it. Luncheon, in order that the wardroom servants could be free for feasting with their mates, was on the buffet plan, each officer serving himself from a side table.

Two or three of the men with whom I had spoken in the course of the morning round, had used that now familiar expression about the good fortune of being in a "happy" ship, but the climax was capped that evening at dinner (at which the wardroom entertained the Warrant Officers) when the Captain employed it in explaining the easy _bonne camaraderie_ characterising that interesting occasion. I had told him how many times I had heard the words in question since my arrival, and asked him point blank if I was to assume by implication that the other ships of the Fleet were only dismal prisons of steel in comparison.

"Perhaps the men would try to make you believe something to that effect," he laughed, "but so also would those of the '----,' and the '----,' and the '----' regarding each other, the rest of the squadron and the whole of the Grand Fleet. As a matter of fact, if you had been on any one of them during the last twenty-four hours, you would probably have seen and heard and experienced just about what you have seen and heard and experienced here. You will not go far wrong if you say we are all 'Happy Ships' up here. The 'Happy Ship' is a tradition of the British Navy, and it's the one type of craft which does not become out of date with the march of science and the passage of the years."

IN A BALLOON SHIP

I had crossed in the old _Xerxes_ in those ancient days when, as the latest launched greyhound of the Cunarder fleet, she held for a few precarious months the constantly shifting blue-ribbon for the swiftest transatlantic passage; but in that angular "cubistic" lump of lead-grey looming over the bow of my spray-smothered launch to blot out the undulant skyline of the nearest Orkney, there was not one familiar feature. Her forward funnel had been "kippered" down the middle to somewhere about on the level of the lower deck, and carried up in two smaller stacks which rose abreast to port and starboard. This had been done (as I learned later) to make room for a platform leading forward from the waist over which seaplanes could be wheeled to the launching-stage, which ran out over the bow from beneath the bridge. The break in the forecastle had been closed in connexion with a sweeping alteration which had converted the whole forward end of the main deck into a roomy seaplane "repository" and repair shop.

The changes aft were no less startling. The old poop seemed to have been razed to extend the last two hundred feet of the main deck, and over the ten or fifteen-feet-high railing, which surrounded this, the top of a partly inflated observation balloon showed like the back of a half-submerged turtle. The whole effect was weird and "impossible" in the extreme, and I felt like exclaiming with the yokel who saw a giraffe for the first time: "Aw, there ain't no such animal."

I had been asked aboard the _Xerxes_ for an afternoon of seaplane and balloon practice. I had already seen a good deal of the former at various points in the Mediterranean and Adriatic, but the towed observation balloon--the "kite," as they call it--was an entirely new thing. I "put in" at once for an ascent in a kite, for I was anxious not only to get some sort of a firsthand idea of how it was being employed against submarines--of which I had already heard not a little--and also to compare the work with that of handling the ordinary observation balloons, of which I had seen so much in France, Italy, and the Balkans. The captain--whom I found just getting the ship under weigh from the bridge--after some hesitation, promised to "see what he could do," if there was not too much wind, when he was ready for "balloon work."

To one who has had experience only of hangars on land, perhaps the most impressive thing about an "aeroship" is the amount of gear and equipment which can be stowed and handled in restricted spaces. Wings and rudders which fold and refold upon each other until they form compact bundles that can be trundled about by a man or two, collapsible fuselages and pontoons, wheels which detach at a touch of a lever, "knock-down" transmissions--these things were everywhere the rule. One "baby" scout I saw almost completely assembled on the launching-stage, and the "tail," which a couple of men wired to the main body in a little more than a minute, I would have sworn I could have knocked off with a single well-placed kick. Yet, five minutes later, I saw that same machine "loop," "side-flop," "double-bank," and (quite at the will of its young pilot, who is rated the most expert seaplane man in the British Naval Air Service) recover at the end of a five-hundred-feet rolling fall, all without apparently starting a strut or rivet. "Collapsibility" and portability are evidently secured without sacrificing any essential strength.

The science of working the seaplane from the deck of a ship is still in process of development. Even up to quite recently it was the practice to put a machine overboard on a sling, and allow it to start from the water. The use of detachable wheels--which fall off into the sea after they have served their purpose in giving the preliminary run--has made launching from the deck practicable and comparatively safe, but the problem of landing even a wheeled machine on deck has not yet been satisfactorily solved. On account of lack of room, most of the experiments in this direction have ended disastrously, even tragically.

When a seaplane is about to be launched, after the usual preliminary "tuning" up on the launching-stage, the ship is swung dead into the teeth of the wind and put at full speed. This matter of wind direction is very important, for its variation by a fraction of a point from "head-on" may easily make a crooked run and a fluky launching. As the latter would almost inevitably mean that both plane and pilot must be churned under the swiftly advancing fore-foot of the ship, no precautions calculated to avoid it are omitted. Besides a wind-pennant at one end of the bridge, assurance is made doubly sure by the turning on of a jet of steam in the mathematical centre of the extreme tip of the launching-stage. When the back-blown steam streams straight along the middle plank of the stage, the wind is "right."

The captain, from the bridge, lifts a small white flag as a signal to the wing-commander that all is ready. The latter nods to the pilot, who starts his engine at full speed, while two mechanicians, braced against cleats on the deck, hold back the tugging seaplane. If the "tone" of the engine is right, the wing-commander (standing in front of the plane, and a little to one side) brings down his red-and-yellow flag, with a sharp jerk, falls on his face to avoid a collision, and the machine, freed from the grip of the men holding it, jumps away. The next two seconds tell the tale, for if a seaplane "gets off the deck" properly, the rest of its flight is not likely to be "eventful."

At practice, a seaplane sails over and drops its detachable wheels near a waiting drifter, which picks them up and returns them to the ship. The machine swoops low, and "kicks" loose the "spares" at a hundred feet or less above the surface of the water, and a pilot who let his wheels go from a considerably greater altitude drew a growl from the bridge, as a long fall is likely to injure them. Its flight over, a seaplane returns to the ship by alighting on the water several hundred yards astern, and floundering up alongside as best it can. With a high wind and a choppy sea, it is rough work. The machine is so "balanced" that its tractor propeller should revolve in the air and clear the water by several inches, even in a rough sea. It will occasionally strike into "green water," however, which is always likely to shatter the ends of the blades, if nothing else. The sheathing of the blades with metal affords considerable protection, though a certain risk is always present. The operation of picking a seaplane up and hoisting it inboard is a nice piece of seamanship at best, but in bad weather is a practicable impossibility. With a wind much above thirty miles an hour, indeed, only a very real need is likely to induce a "mother ship" to loose her birds from the home nest. With a sea too rough to make it possible for a seaplane to live in it, it is sometimes possible to carry on imperative reconnaisance by sending up an ordinary aeroplane (some of which are always carried); though the latter must, of course, make its landing on _terra firma_ when its work is over.

The wind had been freshening considerably all afternoon, but with no more than thirty miles an hour showing on the indicator, there was no reason for not letting me have my "balloon ride."

As the time approached for its ascent, the balloon was allowed to rise far enough from the deck to permit its car to be pushed underneath the centre of it, in order that the latter might not be dragged in the "getaway." I could now see that the monster had rather the form of the "bag" of an airship than the "silkworm-with-stomach-cramps" shape of the regulation modern observation balloon. Its nose was less blunt than that of the "sausage," and the ropes were attached so that it would be pulled with that nose boring straight into the wind, instead of tilted upwards like that of its army prototype. The three "stabilisers" at its stern were located, and appeared to function, similarly with those of the "sausage."

The basket was mid-waist deep, and just big enough to hold comfortably two men sitting on the strips of canvas which served as seats. Supplementing our jackets, two small life-preservers of the ordinary type were lashed to the inside of the basket. When I asked about parachutes, I was told that, while it was customary to carry them, on this occasion--as they were worse than useless to a man who had not practised with them--it was best not to bother myself with one. "Stick to the basket if anything happens," some one said; "it will float for a month, even if full of water." Some one else admonished not to blow up my jacket until we had stopped rising, lest it (from the expanding air, I suppose) should in turn blow me up. Then we were off. The last thing I noticed on the deck was the ship's cat, which I had observed a few moments previously rubbing his arched back ecstatically against a sagging "stabiliser," making a wild leap to catch one of the trailing guide-ropes.

"He always does that," I heard my companion saying behind me. "Some day perhaps he will catch it, and then--if it happens at a time when there isn't an opportunity to wind in and let him down easy--I'm afraid there won't be a one of his nine lives left in the little furry pancake it will make of him when he hits the water. It's surprising how the water will flatten out a--anything striking it at the end of a thousand feet fall. Only the week before last----"

To deflect the conversation to more cheering channels, I began to exclaim about the view. And what a view it was! The old _Xerxes_ was lying well down towards one end of the mighty bay, so that without turning the head one could sweep the eyes over the single greatest unit of far-reaching might in the whole world war, the Grand Fleet of the British Navy. And in no other way than in ascending in a balloon or a flying machine could one attain a vantage from which the whole of the fleet could be seen. Looking from the loftiest fore-top, from the highest hill of the islands, there was always a point in the distance beyond which there was simply an amorphous slaty blur of ships melting into the loom of the encircling land. But now those mysterious blurs were crystallising into definite lines of cleavage, and soon--save where some especially fantastic trick of camouflage made one ship look like two in collision, or played some other equally scurvy trick on the vision--I could pick out not only battleships, but cruisers, destroyers, submarines, ranged class by class and row on row. Even the method in the apparent madness with which the swarms of supply ships, colliers, oilers, trawlers, and drifters were scattered about was discernible.

Save for the visibility, which was diamond-clear in the slanting light of the low-hanging winter sun, it was just an ordinary, average Grand Fleet day. A squadron of battleships was at target practice, and--even better than their own gunnery officers--we could tally the foam-jets of the "wides" and "shorts" and the narrowing "straddles." A squadron of visiting battle-cruisers had just come to anchor and were swinging lazily round to the tide. Two of them bore names which had echoed to the ends of the world; the names of two of the others--from their distinctive lines and great size, I recognised them as twin giants I had seen still in the slips on the Clyde scarcely a year previously--the world has never heard. A lean, swift scout-cruiser, with an absence of effort almost uncanny, was cleaving its way out toward the entrance just as a line of destroyers came scurrying in after the rolling smoke-pall the following wind was driving on ahead of them. Out over the open seas to the east, across the hill-tops of the islands, dim bituminous dabs on the horizon heralded the return of a battleship squadron, the unceremonious departure of which two days previously had deprived me of the last two courses of my luncheon. In the air was another "kite"--floating indolently above a battleship at anchor--and a half-dozen circling aeroplanes and seaplanes. Countless drifters and launches shuttled in and out through the evenly lined warships.

We were now towing with the cable forming an angle of about sixty degrees with the surface of the water, and running up to us straight over the port quarter. The ship had thinned down to an astonishingly slender sliver, not unsuggestive of a speeding arrow whose feathered shaft was represented by the foaming wake.

"She's three or four points off the wind," commented my companion, "and yet--once we've steadied down--you see it doesn't make much difference in the weather we make of it. A head wind is desirable in getting up to keep from fouling the upper works amidships, but we hardly need to figure it down to the last degree as in launching a seaplane. When we're really trying to find something, of course, we have to work in any slant of wind that happens to be blowing. The worst condition is a wind from anywhere abaft the beam, blowing at a faster rate than the towing ship is moving through the water. In that case, the balloon simply drifts ahead to the end of its tether, swings around, and gives the ship a tow. If the wind is strong enough--say, forty miles an hour, with the ship doing twenty--to make her give a good steady pull on the cable, it is not so bad; but when it is touch-and-go between ship and wind the poor old 'kite' is all over the shop, and about as difficult to work in as to ride in--which is saying a good deal."

"What do you mean by work?" I asked.

"Looking out for things and reporting them to the ship over the telephone," was the reply. "Perhaps even trying to run them down and destroy them."

"Can't we play at a bit of work now?" I suggested. "Supposing we were at sea, and you saw what you thought to be the wake of the periscope of a U-boat a few miles away. What would you do?"