Part 8

With a gallant bow the Young Doctor led her to the bar. "My dear madam," he murmured--"a privilege! And if you will allow me to prescribe for you--as a Medical Man--I suggest----"

"Port an' lemon," prompted the lady. She fanned herself with a sickly-scented and not over-clean scrap of lace. "Ain't it 'ot, Doctor! ... Glad I lef me furs at 'ome. Ain't you goin' to have nothin'...?"

* * * * *

The Junior Watch-keeper drew a deep breath as they reached the open street.

"Thank God for fresh air again!" He filled and refilled his lungs.

"'And so to bed,'" quoted the other. The taverns and places of amusement were emptying their patrons into the murky street. Raucous laughter and farewells filled the night.

"Yes." The Junior Watch-keeper yawned, and they walked on in silence, each busy with his own long thoughts. By degrees the traffic lessened, until, nearing the Dockyard, the two were alone in deserted thoroughfares with no sound but the echo of their steps. They were threading the maze of dimly-lit, cobbled streets that still lay before them, when a draggle-skirted girl, standing in the shelter of a doorway, plucked at their sleeves. They walked on almost unheeding, when suddenly the Young Doctor hesitated and stopped. The woman paused irresolute for a moment, and then came towards them, with the light from a gas-lamp playing round her tawdry garments. She murmured something in a mechanical tone, and smiled terribly. The Young Doctor emptied his pockets of the loose silver and coppers they contained, and thrust the coins into her palm: with his disengaged hand he tilted her face up to the light. It was a pathetically young, pathetically painted face. "Wish me good luck," he said, and turned abruptly to overtake his companion.

The woman stood staring after them, her hand clenched upon her suddenly acquired riches. An itinerant fried-fish and potato merchant, homeward bound, trundled his barrow suddenly round a distant corner. The girl wheeled in the direction of the sound.

"'Ere!" she called imperiously, "_'ere!_..."

The echo of her voice died away, and the Young Doctor linked his arm within the other's.

"There is a poem by some one[#] I read the other day--d'you know it?--

"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"

[#] John Masefield.

He mused for a moment in silence as they strode along. "I forget how it goes on: something about a 'vagrant gypsy life,' and the wind 'like a whetted knife'--

"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'

"That's how it ends, I know."

The Junior Watch-keeper nodded soberly. "Yes.... But it's the star we need the most, Peter--you and I."

* * * * *

It was early in the morning, and thin columns of smoke were rising from the funnels of a cruiser lying alongside one of the Dockyard jetties. On her decks there was a bustle of preparation: steaming covers were being laced to yards and topmasts: the Boatswain, "full of strange oaths" and of apoplectic countenance, moved forward in the wake of a depressed part of the watch. On the booms the Carpenter was superintending the stowage of some baulks of timber. Packing-cases were coming in at the gangway; barefooted messengers darted to and fro. There was a frequent shrilling of pipes, and the hoarse voice of the Boatswain's Mate bellowing orders.

Presently there came a lull, and the ship's company were mustered aft as a bell began to toll. Then over the bared heads the familiar words of the Navy Prayer drifted outward into space.

"... That we may return to enjoy ... the fruits of our labours." In the course of the next three years, the words, by reason of their frequent repetition, would come to mean to them no more than the droning of the Chaplain's voice; yet that morning their significance was plain enough to the ranks of silent men. A minute later, with the notes of a bugle, the ship boiled into activity again.

Out on the straw-littered jetty a gradually-increasing crowd had gathered. It was composed for the most part of women, poorly clad, with pinched, anxious faces. Some had babies in their arms; others carried little newspaper parcels tucked under their shawls: parting gifts for some one. A thin drizzle swept in from the sea, as a recovered deserter, slightly intoxicated, was brought down between an escort and vanished over the gangway amid sympathetic murmurs from the onlookers. A telegram boy pushed his way through the crowd, delivered his message of God-speed in its orange-coloured envelope, and departed again, whistling jauntily.

The men drifted out into the jetty to bid farewell, with forced nonchalance and frequent expectoration. Each man was the centre of a little group of relatives, discussing trivialities with laughter that did not ring quite true. Here and there a woman had broken down, crying quietly; but for the most part they stood dry-eyed and smiling, as befitted the women of a Nation that must be ever bidding "Vale" to its sons.

"All aboard!" The voices of the Ship's Police rose above the murmur of the crowd. Farewells were over.

A hoist of flags crept to the masthead, and an answering speck of colour appeared at the signal halliards over Admiralty House.

"Askin' permission to proceed," said some one. The gang-planks rattled on to the jetty, and a knot of workmen began casting off wires from the bollards.

"Stand clear!" shouted a warning voice. The ropes slid across the tarred planking and fell with a sullen splash. Beneath the stern the water began to churn and boil. The ship was under way at last, gliding farther every minute from the watching crowd. The jetty was a sea of faces and waving handkerchiefs: the band on board struck up a popular tune.

In a few minutes she was too far off to distinguish faces. On the fore bridge the Captain raised his cap by the peak and waved it. Somewhere near the turf-scarped fort ashore an answering gleam of white appeared and fluttered for a moment. The lines of men along the upper deck, the guard paraded aft, the cluster of officers on the bridge, slowly faded into an indistinct blur as the mist closed round them. For a while longer the band was still audible, very far off and faint.

After a while the watchers turned and straggled slowly towards the Dockyard Gates.

*XVIII.*

*THE SEVENTH DAY.*

The Sub-Lieutenant clanked into the Gunroom and surveyed the apartment critically. The Junior Midshipmen stationed at each scuttle fell to burnishing the brass butterfly nuts with sudden and anxious renewal of energy.

"Stinks of beer a bit," observed the Sub., "but otherwise it's all right. Hide that 'Pink 'Un' under the table-cloth, one of you." As he spoke the notes of a bugle drifted down the hatchway. "There you are! Officers' Call! Clear out of it, sharp!" Hastily they tucked away the possible cause of offence to their Captain, bundled their cleaning-rags into a cupboard, snatched their dirks off the rack, and hurried on deck.

On the quarter-deck the remainder of the Officers were assembling in answer to the summons of the bugle. Frock-coated figures clanked to and fro, struggling with refractory white gloves. Under the supervision of a bearded Petty Officer the Quarter-deck men were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to neatly coiled boats' falls and already gleaming metal-work. It was 9 A.M. on a Sunday forenoon, and the ship was without stain or blemish from her gilded truck to her freshly painted water-line. All the working hours of the previous day--what time the citizen ashore donned "pearlies" or broadcloth and shut up shop--the blue-jacket had been burnishing and scrubbing,--a lick of paint here, there a scrap of gold-leaf or a pound of elbow-grease. And pervading the ship was the comfortless atmosphere of an organisation, normally in a high state of adjustment, strained yet a point higher.

The Commander came suddenly out of the Captain's cabin and nodded to the Officer of the Watch.

"Sound off with the bell."

The buglers, drawn up in line at the entrance to the battery, moistened their lips in anticipation and raised their bugles. The Corporal of the Watch stepped to the bell and jerked the clapper.

Ding-ding!

Simultaneously the four bugles blared out, and the hundreds of men forward in the waist of the ship and on the forecastle formed up into their different divisions and stood easy. The divisions were ranged along both sides of the ship--Forecastle, Foretop, Maintop, Quarter-deck men on one side, Stokers, Day-men, and Marines on the other.

The "Rig of the Day" was "Number Ones," which was attended by certain obligations in the matter of polished boots, carefully brushed hair, and shaven faces. To any one unversed in the mysteries of the sailors' garb, the men appeared to be dressed merely in loose, comfortably-fitting blue clothes. But a hundred subtleties in that apparently simple dress received the wearer's attention before he submitted himself to the lynx-eyed inspection of his Divisional Lieutenant that morning. The sit of the blue-jean collar, the spotless flannel, the easy play of the jumper round the hips, the immaculate lines of the bell-bottomed trousers (harder to fit properly than any tail-coat or riding-breeches) all came in for a more critical overhaul than did ever a young girl before her first ball. And the result, in all its pleasing simplicity, was the sailor's unconscious tribute to that one day of the seven wherein his luckier brethren ashore do no manner of work.

The Captain stepped out of his cabin, and the waiting group of officers saluted. The Heads of Departments made their reports, and then, with an attendant retinue of Midshipmen, Aides-de-Camp, messengers, and buglers, followed the Captain down the hatchway for the Rounds.

Along the mess-decks, deserted save for an occasional sweeper or Ship's Corporal standing at attention, swept the procession; halting at a galley or casemate as the Captain paused to ask a question or pass a white-gloved hand along a beam in search of dust. Then aft again, past Gunroom and Wardroom--with a stoppage outside the former. The Captain elevated his nose.

"I think the beer-barrel must be leaking, sir," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "standing the rounds" in the doorway.

"See to it," was the reply, and the cortege swept on, with swords clanking and lanterns throwing arcs of light into dark corners suspected of harbouring a hastily concealed deck-cloth or of being the pet _cache_ for somebody's coaling-suit.

Up in the sunlight of the outer world the band was softly playing selections from "The Pirates of Penzance." The ship's goat, having discovered a white kid glove dropped by the Midshipman of the Maintop, retired with it to the shelter of the boat-hoist engine for a hurried cannibalistic feast. The Officers of Divisions had concluded the preliminary inspection, and were pacing thoughtfully to and fro in front of their men. Suddenly the Captain's head appeared above the after hatchway.

The Lieutenant of the Quarter-deck Division, in the midst of receiving a whispered account of an overnight dance from his Midshipman, wheeled abruptly and called his Division to attention. Then--

"Off hats!"

As if actuated by a single lever each man raised his left hand, whipped off his hat and brought it to his side. The Captain acknowledged the Lieutenant's salute and passed quickly down the ranks, his keen eyes travelling rapidly from each man's face to his boots. Once or twice he paused to ask a question and then passed on to the next waiting Division.

Presently the bugler sounded the "Disperse"; the Divisions turned forward, stepped outward, and broke up. Here and there the Midshipman of a Division remained standing, scribbling hurriedly in his note-book such criticisms as it had pleased his Captain to make. One man's hair had wanted cutting; it was time another had passed for Leading Seaman.... A third had elected to attend Divisions--on this the Sabbath of the Lord his God--without the knife attached to his lanyard.

* * * * *

Half an hour later the normal aspect of the Quarter-deck had changed. Rows of plank benches, resting on capstan bars supported by buckets, filled the available space on each side of the barbette. Chairs for the Officers had been placed further aft, facing the men who were to occupy the benches. In front of the burnished muzzles of the two great 12-inch guns a lectern had been draped with a white flag, and between the guns a 'cello, flute, and violin prepared to augment the strains of a rather wheezy harmonium. Then the bell began to toll, and a flag crept to the peak to inform the rest of the Fleet that the ship was about to commence Divine Service.

The men hurried aft, seamen and marines pouring in a continuous stream through the open doors from the batteries. No sooner had the last man squeezed hurriedly into his place with the slightly hang-dog air seamen assume in the full glare of the public eye, than the Master-at-Arms appeared at the battery door and reported every one aft to the Commander. The Captain took his chair, facing the Ship's Company, and a little in advance of the remainder of the Officers; the Chaplain walked up the hatchway, stepped briskly to the lectern and gave out a hymn. The orchestra played the opening bars, five hundred men swung themselves to their feet, and the service began.

Presently the Captain crossed to the lectern and read the lesson for the day. It dealt with warfare and bloodshed, and there was a suddenly awakened interest in the rows of intent faces opposite--for this was the consummation each man present believed would ultimately come to some day's work, although it might not be amid the welter and crash of shattered chariot and struggling horses, nor the twang of released bow-strings.... And the stern, level voice went on to tell of the establishment of laws, wise and austere as those which regulated the reader's paths and those of his listeners; while under the stern-walk a flock of gulls screeched and quarrelled, and the water lapped with a drowsy, soothing sound against the side of the ship.

After a while the Chaplain gave out the number of another hymn. The Bluejacket's most enthusiastic admirer would hesitate to describe him as a devout man; but when the words and tune are familiar--it may be reminiscent of happier surroundings--the sailor-man will sing a hymn with the fervour of inspiration. And if only for the sake of the half-effaced memories it recalled, the volume of bass harmony that rolled across the sunlit harbour doubtless travelled as far as the thunder of organ and chant from many a cathedral choir.

Then, standing very upright, his fingers linked behind his back, the Chaplain commenced his sermon. He spoke very simply, adorning his periods with no flowery phrase or ornate quotation, suiting the manner of his delivery to the least intelligent of his hearers. There was no fierce denunciation, no sudden gestures nor change in the grave, even voice. He touched on matters not commonly spoken of in pulpits, and his speech was wondrous plain, as indeed was meet for a congregation such as his. And they were no clay under the potter's thumb. Composed for the most part of men indifferent to religion, almost fiercely resentful of interference with their affairs; living on crowded mess-decks afloat, fair game for every crimp and land-shark ashore. But there was that in the sane, temperate discourse that passed beyond creed or dogma, and a tatooed fist suddenly clenched on its owner's hat-brim, or the restless shifting of a foot, told where a shaft passed home.

Here and there, screened by his fellows, a tired man's head nodded drowsily. But the "Padre" had learned twenty years before that it took more than a sermon to keep awake a seated man who had perhaps kept the middle watch, and turned out for the day at 6.15 A.M.; in the five hundred odd pairs of eyes that remained fixed on his face he doubtless read a measure of compensation.

* * * * *

The short-cropped heads bowed as in clear tones the Benediction was pronounced--

"... and remain with you ... always." An instant's pause, and then, Officers and men standing upright and rigid, they sang the National Anthem.

The Captain turned and nodded to the Commander, who was putting on his cap.

"Pipe down."

*XIX.*

*THE PARRICIDE.*

"'Ark!" said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over the downs--a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees.

"One of them motor-bikes----" murmured the man and paused. Away in the west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like the framework of a box suspended in mid-air. It drew near, rising and falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound grew louder. "Aeri-o-plane," continued the hedger, again speaking aloud, after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.

As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden from them by the shoulder of the downs.

The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty road before him. "Lawks!" he ejaculated, "'ere's goin's-on!" A ripple from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.

A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little harbour. Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric power station lifted a slender head.

In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms, and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the sound of their voices, the muffled clink of a hammer, and, from an unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical by distance.

The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned over the rail with a smile of greeting.

"Any news?"

The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth: "Enemy's Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen miles to the Sou'-East," he shouted. "Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got troops or Marines on board in marching order.... No, nothing, thanks--I'm going north to warn them. So-long..."

Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed cottages showed up white against the turf.

The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer nodded and put down his clubs.

"Guessed as much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll have a Council of War--Wow, wow!"

* * * * *

The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey, like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky. It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers across the smooth sea.

A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.

Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater. They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake, leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased to trouble the surface--before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished into the fog--the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and another.

* * * * *

A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient to the tangle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly, and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were disembarking troops for a raid.

There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen, a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.

A minute passed; a cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into the water! From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.

Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling hoarsely.

A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the periscope from her 12-pounders.

"Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"

The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.

"They've bagged us, sir."

A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.

"Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.

The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.

The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.