"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
THE WET LITANY
When the water's countenance
Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
When the tattered smokes forerun
Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
When the curtain of the haze
Shuts upon our helpless ways--
Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
_Libera nos domine_!
When the engines' bated pulse
Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
When the wash along the side
Sounds, a sudden, magnified
When the intolerable blast
Marks each blindfold minute passed.
When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
Guides us through the haggard night;
When the warning bugle blows;
When the lettered doorways close;
When our brittle townships press,
Impotent, on emptiness.
When the unseen leadsmen lean
Questioning a deep unseen;
When their lessened count they tell
To a bridge invisible;
When the hid and perilous
Cliffs return our cry to us.
When the treble thickness spread
Swallows up our next-ahead;
When her siren's frightened whine
Shows her sheering out of line;
When, her passage undiscerned,
We must turn where she has turned--
Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
_Libera nos Domine_!
"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
PART I
... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
here?"
"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
undervest."
"I'm sorry for that."
"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
see life!"
For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
"They wear spurs there?"
"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
_résumé_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
beginnin' to follow our tatties? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
Fleet's cruisers except _Devulotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
by--an accident.
"Well?"
"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
you need?"
"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
night."
"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
might construe precisely as he pleased.
"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
shadow of the crane.
"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
"What do _you_ think of him?"
"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
furniture there was none.
"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
"Awful?" I said.
"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
dealt out like cards.
"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"
he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"
As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they
gave as I touched them.
"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects
perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops,
thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up
they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally
'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish
bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."
Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at
the stern.
"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as
near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red
Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect
equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are
now adjustin' to our _arriere-pensée_--as the French would put it--by
means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'
me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey--
Portsmouth, I should say."
"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
outboard, "but it will do for the present."
"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A
first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence
we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to
represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the
forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously
fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added
a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'
forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about
the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."
"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up
deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after
what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."
"What the dickens are we going to do?"
"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
us.
"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
we'll do."
"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
what appeared to be surf.
"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
pursooed."
"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
first, Sir."
Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
narrow deck.
"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
voice, rather like a chaplain's.
"_Who_?" was the answer.
"Carter--et--Jones."
"Oh, Lord!"
There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
_Dirk_.
"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
us."
"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
_Stiletto_."
A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
anticipation."
"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
three men.
"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
was away.
"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
with your flo-tilla?"
"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
Two men laughed together.
"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
we go. Well?"
Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
by his quivering arm.
"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
to the citadel."
"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
it, Sir."
"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
Weymouth at all?" I asked.
"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
muckin' about for strategical purposes--hanamerin' like blazes in the
engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
considered good for the young gentlemen."
"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
procession of tiny cigar ends.
"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
dwindled even as we watched.
"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
call an acquired habit."
I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
deck at once.
"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
are worse than you!"
I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
lop is what fetches it up."
The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
like a gull's.
"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
altogether beside the mark.
