CHAPTER XII.

H.M.S. 'MARINER.'

I.

Your modern destroyer differs from her prototype of twenty years ago in much the same way as the present-day Rolls-Royce differs from the early motor-car of 1895. She is just about four times as large, is infinitely more seaworthy, is much faster, and better armed. She is an ocean-going craft which, with judicious handling, can keep the sea in practically any weather, whereas her more elderly sister usually had to run for shelter in a really bad gale of wind, and was unfit for constant work in the North Sea except in summer.

Pincher had seen destroyers at work, and had heard a great deal about them in one way and another; and when, in the first week of February, he found himself detailed as one of the crew of a new craft of this type on the verge of completion in a northern port, he was happy. True, he knew he 'wouldn't be 'arf seasick,' as he put it, and did not at all relish the idea, though the extra sixpence a day 'hard-lying money' was always something to be grateful for. He was aware, moreover, that life in a destroyer in war-time was considered rather a hard and risky existence; but he would probably be in the thick of anything which took place in the North Sea, and he owed 'them 'Uns' something for sinking his first ship and drowning many of his shipmates.

He wondered why he had been sent to a destroyer at all, however, for he knew that as a rule ordinary seamen were not eligible. As a matter of fact, it was Peter Wooten, the late senior watch-keeper of the _Belligerent_, who had worked the oracle. Wooten was the sort of person whom nothing could kill. I don't know how many times he had been wrecked, or how often his life had been in danger; but after the battleship sank he had been in the water for half-an-hour in nothing but a singlet and a pair of socks, in one of which was stuffed his last five-pound note. He had been picked up by a boat from one of the cruisers at the last moment, and purely by a lucky accident; but even then he had been rather annoyed with his rescuers because they laughed at his scanty and unofficer-like attire. He also had a grievance because he had lost his best uniform cap, a brand-new article which, he informed any one who cared to listen, had cost him the sum of twenty-two shillings and sixpence, and had last been on his head when he jumped overboard. Incidentally he had saved the lives of two men by helping them to reach pieces of wreckage; but, being as hard as nails himself, he was not one whit the worse for his aquatic adventures.

He eventually got ashore in a borrowed overcoat, proceeded on a fortnight's leave, and then, as the result of a visit to a friend at the Admiralty, found himself appointed to the _Mariner_, a new destroyer. Naturally he was delighted, and at once set about collecting a good ship's company for his new ship. He far preferred having men he knew to strangers who had never served with him before; and, by dint of a little judicious conversation with the officer in charge of the drafting-office at the barracks, Petty Officer Casey, Billings, M'Sweeny, and Pincher were officially detailed for his ship. It was Casey himself who had suggested Martin's inclusion, though that youth was unaware who had caused a point to be stretched in his favour.

Pincher was not really a nervous, highly strung individual with a vivid and preying imagination; but even so, five weeks had elapsed before the doctors consented to allow him to go to sea again. His nerves had been badly shaken, and the sudden banging of a door or unusual sounds of any kind brought him out in a cold and horrible perspiration. Crossing a street through traffic or entering a boat was an ordeal which caused him many moments of poignant mental agony.

They had sent him on three weeks' leave, and the twenty-and-one days of blissful ease, during which he saw nothing of the sea, and was treated as more or less of an invalid and as very much of a war-worn hero, helped to restore him to his normal self. The presence of Emmeline, by special request, also had its effect, for with the girl as his constant companion he was able to forget many painful incidents which it was as well should be forgotten.

But the advent of Emmeline certainly did involve him in complications of another kind. A porter had told the stationmaster that he had seen Mrs Martin embrace the girl when she arrived at the railway station. The stationmaster imparted the information to his wife; and that lady, an inveterate gossip, spread the news far and wide. It caused no small flutter among the maidens of Caxton. It was neither correct nor proper for the mother of an eligible youth to go kissing a girl in public unless the youth himself regarded the maiden as his 'intended,' on approval, as it were; so Mrs Martin, quite inadvertently, put her foot in it, and caused the cat to leap out of the bag in one act.

Not that Emmeline or Pincher cared a jot who knew. It was bound to come out sooner or later, and each found the company of the other quite sufficient and pleasant enough to make life well worth living. The fact that the village girls were bitterly incensed and obviously jealous was rather amusing than otherwise. Though not admitting it, they would have regarded it as an honour to be seen about with a sailor or a soldier in uniform now that it was war-time. They considered that Pincher had played them a low-down trick in ignoring their charms and in going elsewhere for an object for his affections, and they did not hesitate to say so. They took the precaution of making their remarks in private, however, for with their parents Pincher was something of a hero. Their mothers knitted him socks and comforters, and at the 'Bull and Bottle' he could, if he had wished it, have absorbed sufficient malt liquor at the fathers' expense to float a battleship. So when he heard that busy tongues were wagging in his direction he laughed happily and said nothing. Emmeline, wise girl, did the same.

Some of the _Mariner's_ ship's company and all the officers had been sent up north beforehand to become acquainted with their new ship; but at last came the day when the remainder--some sixty odd seamen and stokers--were put into a train with their bags, hammocks, and some mascots, in the shape of a monkey, two cats, and one small goat, for which they had not taken tickets.

The goat, Pompey, was young, but had a voracious appetite, for before they got to London he had eaten two pork-pies, the property of Pincher Martin, three packets of Wild Woodbine cigarettes of M'Sweeny's, and half a magazine belonging to some one else, while the respective owners slumbered peacefully. On arrival in the Metropolis he was so overcome by his miscellaneous diet as to be violently and unexpectedly ill in the omnibus on the way to King's Cross; whereupon the conveyance was stopped for brandy to revive him. As a consequence, they very nearly missed their train to the north; while Pompey, unused to potations in any form, spent the remainder of the journey in a state of coma.

The two cats behaved well; but, in the small hours of the morning, just before the train was due to start from one station, Jane the monkey was discovered to be missing. The whistle had already blown, but the train was stopped, and forty-three bluejackets, vowing that nothing on earth would induce them to be parted from their pet, swarmed from their carriages and went off in search of the truant. Ten minutes later, Jane, gibbering like a lunatic, but with absolutely no malicious intent, was discovered chasing a middle-aged, portly, highly respectable, and very terrified female round and round the table in the third-class waiting-room. The monkey was enjoying herself hugely; not so the lady.

'Such goin's on didn't oughter be allowed, young man!' she panted breathlessly when Billings stormed her retreat, and Jane abandoned the pursuit.

'Lor' bless yer, marm!' laughed Joshua, helping her to collect her scattered parcels, 'she's that tame she'd feed out o' yer 'and.--Come 'ere, Jane,' he added coaxingly. 'Come an' show th' lady 'ow nice ye kin be'ave.'

The animal, busily investigating the contents of the water-carafe on the table, clucked twice, and evinced no further interest.

'Them wild hanimals didn't oughter be allowed!' the woman retorted nervously. 'An' you, young man,' she went on, fixing Joshua with a horny eye, 'is a disgrace to your uniform! You oughter be fightin' them Germans instead o' chasin' monkeys round railway stations at this time o' night. I'm a respectable married woman, I am, an' if my 'usband knoo o' these goin's on 'e'd be very angry. My 'usband's a foreman bricklayer'----

'I'm sorry yer takes it that way, marm,' said Joshua apologetically, picking up the protesting animal by the scruff of her neck, and then touching his forelock. 'I'm sure our Jane didn't mean no 'arm. I'm a respeccable married man meself, an''----

'Married man, are you?' interrupted the lady, with a snort, as the seaman, with Jane perched on his shoulder, prepared to take his departure. 'Married? Shame on you! What'd your poor wife say if she see'd you be'avin' like this, an' chasin' respectable women with your wild hanimals instead o' fightin' for your country? I've a good mind to 'ave the lor on you! The wild beast nearly bit me; would 'ave done if I 'adn't run'----

There was no pacifying her, and Joshua, smothering his amusement, beat a hasty retreat. Her strident remarks followed him down the platform.

It took some time to collect the others, who had scattered all over the station in search of the deserter; but eventually, after a long and heated altercation with two ticket-collectors and three porters, reinforced by the guard and a sleepy station-master, the train was suffered to proceed on its journey twenty minutes late. The travellers, hungry, irritable, and very peevish, arrived at their destination at six o'clock in the morning, in a thick fog and a depressing north-country drizzle, to discover, on disembarking with their menagerie, that half-a-dozen hammocks and three kit-bags had, by inadvertence on some one's part, been left behind in London.

But all's well that ends well; and, two hours later, after breakfast, the party, slightly more cheerful, arrived at the shipyard where the _Mariner_ was being completed. They found the workmen still busy upon her; and as she would not be ready for commissioning for another week, the men were billeted in lodgings for the time being.

But they were not allowed to kick their heels in idleness. There is always plenty to be done before a new ship is ready for sea; while in war, when every one is working at full pressure, the labour of a fortnight has often to be crammed into three or four days. Ammunition had to be transferred from railway trucks to the magazines and shellrooms; torpedoes had to be placed in their tubes; and a whole trainload of stores unloaded, sorted out, checked, and carried on board--dozens of drums of oil, tons of paint, bolts of canvas, bundles of cotton-waste, coils of wire and hemp rope, broomsticks and boat-hook staves, oars, cooking utensils, crockery, knives, spoons, forks, bedding, provisions, rum, and many other things too numerous to mention! It was like furnishing a new and empty house, except that a dwelling is not expected to cruise about the countryside at something over thirty knots, and does not as a rule contain sufficient in the way of lethal weapons and explosives to sink a squadron of battleships. Neither does the average residence accommodate eighty odd people. It was hard work, for the men were busy all day and every day, from early morn till dewy eve.

In the meantime, the contractors' workmen, using every effort to get the ship completed by the proper date, swarmed on board in their dozens. All day and all night the air resounded with the clanging of their hammers and the deafening rattle of their pneumatic drills. A party of bluejackets, under the orders of Mr Daniel Menotti, the gunner (T), once spent the whole of a bitterly cold forenoon stowing shell in the after shellroom. At eleven-thirty, when the men were looking forward to their midday meal, and were congratulating themselves that their labours were nearly finished, one of the contractors' foremen suddenly appeared.

'Hallo!' he remarked affably; 'what's going on here?'

'We're stowin' the after shellroom,' said Mr Menotti blithely. 'Reckon we've done it in record time, too.' He rubbed his hands contentedly.

The foreman scratched his right ear. 'That's rather unfortunate,' he observed, with a smile hovering round his mouth. 'We've not finished the woodwork yet, and we can't get on with it if all your projectiles are stowed.'

'Can't get on with it!' echoed the gunner. 'Why, Mr Scroggins--your Mr Scroggins--told me it was all right to carry on with the job!'

'I,' retorted the foreman dourly, tapping his bosom--'I am the man in charge, and Mr Scroggins isn't. You shouldn't have taken his word. If you'd come to me I could have told you that'----

'Mean to say you want the whole blessed lot humped out again?' the gunner demanded wildly. 'We've spent the whole bloomin' forenoon over the job, and'----

'That's just exactly what I do mean,' interrupted the foreman, smiling benignly. 'We can't put the woodwork up if your shell are there, and if the woodwork's not put up the ship'll be delayed. That's all about it.' It was his ultimatum, and with a polite nod to the exasperated officer he walked off.

'Lord love us!' Mr Menotti ejaculated; 'd'you mean to say'---- Words failed him, and he contented himself with shaking his fist at the foreman's retreating back. 'Damn an blast!' he muttered fiercely, recovering his breath but not his composure; 'of all the ruddy sons o' Ham you're about the worst! Why couldn't you have told me this three hours earlier, you lop-eared tinker? Why didn't you---- Oh, you perishin' swab, you!--Come on, lads,' he added mournfully, shrugging his shoulders; 'we'll have to hump the whole bloomin' lot out again, damn an' blast him!' He ground his teeth with rage.

The 'lads' expressed their disapproval of things in general and contractors' foremen in particular in loud, full-blooded nautical blasphemy. But uncompleted ships are still under the control of the firm building them, and the firm--well, the firm takes precedence next to the Admiralty itself. So there was nothing for it but to undo the work of hours. Every single projectile had to be removed. There were one hundred and fifty of them, and each weighed thirty-one pounds, neither more nor less.

But they were all busy. Wooten kept a watchful eye upon everything that went on, and in the intervals of interviewing Admiralty overseers and foremen wrestled with his correspondence and confidential books and documents. MacDonald, the Scots first lieutenant, grappled with his watch and station bills, arranged the men in their various messes and boats, and detailed them for their guns, torpedo-tubes, and stations. He, as the executive officer, was entirely responsible for the organisation and interior economy of the ship, and found it a difficult job to think of and provide for all the possible contingencies which might arise when once they got to sea. Sometimes he tore his hair and cursed aloud, more particularly over the matter of the Smiths.

It so happened that some person at the drafting-office at the barracks, with a sense of misguided humour, had thought fit to include no fewer than four Smiths in the _Mariner's_ crew. There was Reuben Smith, an able seaman; John Smith, a stoker; Peter Smith, the cook's mate; and Harry Smith, a long-haired officers' steward of the second class, with a pale face and a mournful aspect. The ubiquitous surname, cropping up at every turn, became the first lieutenant's bugbear. It haunted him night and day. Once, after a couple of hours' hard work, he discovered that he had placed Reuben Smith in the stokers' mess, John Smith with the seamen, Peter Smith in the wardroom, and the undesirable Harry with the petty officers. He had made out a fair copy of his list before discovering the error, and then, adding up the total, found he had two men too many. He checked it again, to discover that he had included not four but five Smiths, while yet another man had been counted twice over.

Thompson, the engineer-lieutenant-commander, who had stood by the ship while she was being built, wore a suit of brown overalls and a harassed expression. It was not to be wondered at, for, amongst other things, he was responsible for all the stores, and nearly every morning he received pathetic or peremptory missives from the officials of the dockyard whence the destroyer had been supplied. His stores reminded him of the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. He had packing-cases, crates, and parcels of every imaginable shape, size, description, and weight, all of which had to be unpacked, checked, and acknowledged. He hoped fervently that the things would sort themselves out and fit into their proper places at some period in the dim future; but every train which arrived brought him fresh consignments, until his pile reached such colossal proportions that he had serious doubts if they would be able to get it all on board.

However, he had no time to worry too much about the stores, for he had quite enough to think about with the machinery and boilers of the ship herself. He had seen all his air-pumps, feed-pumps, air-compressors, and what-nots erected and tested in the shop before they had been built into his ship. He had examined his boilers, bearings, and thrust-blocks, and had supervised the delicate adjustments of the turbines; and now he spent all his days and most of his nights in the engine-room seeing if everything worked in harmony. Occasionally things went wrong, and he found himself embroiled in long and highly technical arguments with the representatives of the firm. They wanted things done in their way because they were building the ship; while he, quite rightly, preferred his own method because he would have to run her when she got to sea. They generally came to some sort of a compromise; but Thompson always avers that that last awful week took at least ten years off his life, and I am inclined to believe him.

The sub-lieutenant, Hargreaves, who had only his charts to correct, was perhaps the lightest-worked officer of them all; but Mr Menotti became apoplectic about the face, and was brought to the verge of lunacy thrice daily. First he had discovered that he had too much ammunition; and then, on counting again, that he had thirty projectiles too few. He promptly sent a frantic telegram to the ordnance depot which had supplied the ammunition in the first instance, to receive in reply a curt message stating that so many shell--the proper number--had been despatched on such and such a date. They held his signed receipt for them, so would he kindly verify his statement? Their meaning could not have been plainer if they had wired, 'If YOU'RE such a silly juggins as to go losing shell, it is certainly not OUR fault!'

The gunner, with awful visions of courts of inquiry and courts-martial for the loss of valuable Government stores--to wit, shell, lyddite, thirty in number--searched high and low, but without success. They eventually turned up the day the ship sailed, arriving in a hand-cart propelled by two small youths, who said they--the shell, not the youths--had been found in a remote storehouse in the shipyard where Mr Menotti himself had put them for safety. The gunner always had a very short memory when he was harassed.

The shipyard was a depressing place, full of gaunt cranes, overhead gantries, grimy buildings, and huge corrugated-iron erections with tall chimneys which befouled and blotted out every vestige of the sky with their oily black smoke. Besides two destroyers and some other small craft, the firm were building a battleship, and the noise and clatter of the pneumatic riveters and drilling-machines was deafening. Cranes, with steel plates hanging precariously from their jibs, staggered drunkenly to and fro on their lines, screeching as they went. Piles of rusty plates, which presently would be built into some ship, lay everywhere in seeming confusion for people to bark their shins against after dark; while pale, apathetic youths stood here and there working the bellows of huge brazier affairs with coke fires for heating rivets. A shout from a grimy gentleman perilously balanced on a plank some ten feet overhead would warn them that another rivet was wanted; and, seizing the morsel of red-hot steel in a pair of tongs, the boys, with a dexterous flick of their wrists, would send it flying through space, to be caught as cleverly by a man with a bucket. To an outsider the whole yard seemed to be in a state of chaotic confusion, but in reality it was very highly organised, for gang relieved gang, and the work went on night and day.

It was nearly always raining, and the horrible slime was carried on board the _Mariner_ until her decks and living-spaces were literally an inch deep in black filth well trodden in by the feet of many workmen. The white wooden tables and stools on the mess-decks were caked in grime and covered with paint-splashes and candle-grease, while workmen shocked the susceptibilities of the first lieutenant by their monotonous and indiscriminate expectoration. He nearly wept every time he went on board. He would have to get the ship clean some day, and at present the labours of Hercules in the Augean stables seemed nothing to what he would have to undertake.

II.

At last came the day when the _Mariner_ left the river to carry out the first of a series of steam trials. As yet she was not a full-fledged man-of-war, and, being still in the hands of the contractors, was in the charge of a pilot. Wooten was present merely as a spectator, and to take over the command in the rare eventuality of their happening to sight an enemy. They sighted no enemy; but the trip shook many of the civilian voyagers to the core.

It was a cold and blustery day. The wind was off the shore, and had raised what Wooten called 'a little bit of a lop,' but what, in the opinion of the contractors' men, was 'a terrible storm.' It is true that the motion was supremely uncomfortable, and that when the destroyer was travelling at something over thirty knots she was deluged fore and aft in sheets of spray. The ship was very crowded, too. To start with, she carried the eighty odd souls who formed her proper naval crew. Then there were the Admiralty officers, overseers, and officials, the builders' representatives and foremen, and others from different sub-contracting firms who had supplied various portions of the machinery. The firm, who never did anything by halves, provided lunch in the wardroom for the officers and the more important officials. And such a lunch it was, brought on board in three enormous wicker hampers which filled the officers' bathroom! It would seem that food and drink were presently to circulate as freely in the wardroom as would lubricating oil and north-country blasphemy in the engine-room. But most of them had no food until the ship returned into harbour in the afternoon. They had reckoned without that fickle mistress, the sea, and she flattened many of them out. Bovril and brandy were more to their liking than solid food. Moreover, some of them were rather nervous about going out of the harbour at all.

'I say, commander,' one of the firm's bigwigs had said to Wooten as they steamed down the river, 'is it true that the Germans have been laying mines off the coast?'

'M'yes,' said the lieutenant-commander; 'I believe it is.'

'Is there any chance of our being blown up?'

'No-o,' said Wooten slowly; 'I don't really think there is, though of course this bad weather we've been having lately will have broken many of 'em adrift.'

'And what'll happen if we hit one?' his companion wanted to know.

'Happen!' said the naval officer. 'The bloomin' thing'll probably go off, and we shall take single tickets to heaven in a puff of smoke. We're chock-full of lyddite and gun-cotton, and'----

The civilian seemed rather perturbed. 'Of course, I'm not really nervous,' he hastened to explain, looking rather white about the gills as he fidgeted with an inflatable rubber life-belt round his middle; 'but I do hope you'll keep a careful eye on the pilot.'

'Of course I will. I'm not going to let him bump one of the bally things unless I can't help it. She's still your ship, though,' added Wooten, 'and I'm not really responsible.'

'No, I quite understand that,' said the other; 'but, you see, I'm not used to--er--risks of this kind. I'm not paid for it, and I've a wife and five children.'

'You're insured, I suppose?' asked Wooten, smiling to himself.

'Yes; but my policy doesn't cover war risks.'

'H'm! that's bad; but I shouldn't worry about it if I were you. If we do go sky-high'---- Wooten paused.

'What were you going to say?' the bigwig asked apprehensively.

'I was thinking,' Wooten went on with a malicious twinkle in his eye--'well, I was thinking that if we are blown up there will be quite a merry little lot of us--nearly a couple of hundred--what? I can almost see myself as a nice fat little cherub sitting on a damp cloud twanging a harp--eh? They'll probably serve you out with a trombone. Can you play one?' He laughed, for somehow his companion reminded him of the man who had played that instrument in the orchestra of the Portsmouth Hippodrome in pre-war days.

'I do wish you'd be serious,' the contractors' representative observed sadly. 'This is no joking matter.'

'I am serious,' Wooten protested, trying hard to control his face.

'But you seem to like the idea.'

Wooten shook his head. 'Don't you believe it,' he replied. 'But just think what a glorious death it would be for you if you did go sky-high! Why, your name would be in the Roll of Honour, and your photo in the _Daily Mirror_. You'd be a public hero!'

'Better be a live convict than a dead hero,' observed the bigwig glumly, going off to seek consolation elsewhere.

But when they did get to sea, and the _Mariner_ started first to bob and curtsy, and then, as she gathered speed, to kick and dance like a bucking mule, the violent motion drove all thoughts of mines or German submarines out of their heads. They were seasick--fearfully and wonderfully seasick. The joys of a sailor's life were not for them, and most of the contractors' men and not a few of the ship's company wished that they might die. The very thought of food made their gorges rise in disgust, so lunch was delayed until their return into harbour just before dark.

Wooten and the officers were enthusiastic about the ship. 'She's a rattling good sea-boat,' the former remarked, rubbing the caked salt out of his eyes as he sat down in the wardroom when the ship had secured alongside her wharf. 'We hardly took a green sea on board the whole time.--Give me some of that game-pie and a whisky-and-soda, steward! I'm perishing with hunger.'

'Green seas!' laughed a lately revived contractors' official, busy with a plate of galantine on the opposite side of the table; 'the water seemed to be coming on board everywhere. I thought the weather was absolutely poisonous.'

'Poisonous!' echoed the skipper, looking up with his mouth full. 'My dear sir, it was a ripping day. Nearly flat calm.'

'You call that nearly flat calm?'

'Course I do. There was nothing but a little bit of a lop.'

'A lop, d'you call it? And what the deuce are these craft like in a gale?'

'A bit lively, and most damnably wet,' said Wooten.

'Well, thank God I'm not a destroyer sailor!' exclaimed the civilian with a sigh of heartfelt relief. 'I think you fellows ought to get treble pay in bad weather.'

'So do I,' the naval officer agreed. 'But none of us get our deserts, thank Heaven!'

Every one laughed.

The first trial was not a complete success, and the ship was delayed for a few days with defective fan engines. Then, with the faults rectified, they went to sea again, and this time everything worked smoothly--far more smoothly than Thompson, the engineer-lieutenant-commander, had dared to hope.

The _Mariner_ was a flyer, or at least she flew faster than any other ship most of them had ever been in before. The ship's company talked of her being able to do thirty-seven knots, and thought themselves no small beer in consequence; but as a matter of fact their estimate was exaggerated.

They carried out several more trials, and eventually, in the third week of February, the ship commissioned. Her officers and men shifted themselves and their belongings on board from their respective hotels and lodgings. Pompey, Jane, the two cats, and a newly acquired fox-terrier puppy rejoicing in the name of Tirpitz were dragged ruthlessly on board, and the destroyer hoisted her pendant and ensign. She was a man-of-war at last.

Two days later she sailed to the southward. The good wishes of her builders went with her; for, if anything serious went wrong with her interior economy within the next few months, they, by their contract, were due to pay the piper.

And so the _Mariner_ put out to sea.

III.

All things are said to have their uses; but I have never yet been able to discover any utilitarian purpose attached to a fog. I believe that the men serving in lighthouses and lightships benefit by them to the extent that they receive extra pay in return for their want of sleep while their hooters and sirens are working; but I am more than certain that this small addition to their salaries would be more than made up by annual subscriptions from cheerful captains, masters, and officers of His Majesty's Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine were fogs to be abolished altogether.

There are fogs and fogs. A fog ashore is a nuisance which may cause one to arrive as much as an hour late at the office, may make one miss an appointment with one's dentist, or, worse still, an appointment to lunch or dinner with some opulent acquaintance. I have even heard of a London fog which was so thick that the conductor of a motor-omnibus, who had left his vehicle to discover his whereabouts, was unable to find it again. I feel sorry for that man, for a fog ashore is always an inconvenience and a nuisance, sometimes even a positive danger. But a real fog at sea is ever a ghastly nightmare; while thick weather in war-time, when one has to pursue a zigzag and serpentine track along a coast to dodge well-sown minefields laid for one's especial discomfiture and disintegration by an obliging and thoughtful cousin from the other side of the North Sea--well, the less said about it the better. Moreover, when the restricted navigable channels are crowded with merchant ships which the presence of mines and enemy submarines does not seem to deter, and when most of the buoys and navigational safeguards have been removed for the annoyance of the afore-mentioned Hun submarine, the difficulties are increased. Piloting a vessel in such circumstances might perhaps appeal to some jaded individual in search of new thrills; but to the ordinary simple sailor, who gets his thrills as regularly as clockwork free, gratis, and for nothing, an off-shore fog is an invention of the Evil One.

So when, during the _Mariner's_ first passage, Wooten noticed the horizon to seaward was gradually becoming obliterated in a luminous haze, and the outline of the land was rapidly becoming less and less distinct in white, cotton-wool-like puffs of vapour, he cursed gently and felt anxious.

'Yes,' he growled disgustedly to the first lieutenant, whose watch it was, 'we're in for a regular thick un. D'you see this little lot?' He placed a finger on a large red oblong outlined on the chart.

MacDonald nodded.

'That's their latest minefield,' the skipper continued. 'According to all accounts it's a pretty good un, as four steamers have been blown up there within the last two days. We shall be up to this corner of it in about a quarter of an hour, and we've got to snuggle in between it and the shore somehow. I don't much fancy running along within a mile of the coast if we can't see a yard in front of our faces. However,' he added with a sigh, 'I suppose it's got to be done.'

The first lieutenant looked at the chart. 'We can ease down and run a line of soundings, sir,' he observed; 'but even then I doubt if the lead'll tell us much. The water's under ten fathoms the whole way, and we might pile up on one of these banks before we know where we are. They're steep to.'[33] He pointed to some patches of closely clustered dots representing sandbanks. 'Perhaps we might pick up one of the buoys, sir?' he added hopefully.

[33] A coast or a shoal is said to be 'steep to' when comparatively deep water extends right up to its seaward edge. The lead, therefore, gives little indication of a ship's proximity to danger.

Wooten seemed doubtful. 'Most of 'em have been taken away,' he answered. 'I do wish these perishin' Huns would go and do their dirty work somewhere else! Our compasses are none too accurate, and Heaven alone knows exactly what the tide is doing.' He was very much annoyed, and not a little apprehensive; for the haze over the land was getting thicker every minute, and there was no breeze to dispel it.

Ten minutes later the _Mariner_ was travelling in a cold and clammy mist through which it was impossible to see more than a mile; while five minutes afterwards she had run into a solid wall of thick gray fog, and their range of vision was bounded by a narrow circle with a radius of barely a hundred yards.

'Damn!' Wooten muttered fiercely, stepping to the engine-room telegraph and turning the handle until the pointer showed the revolutions of the turbines for ten knots.

With the sounding-machine going every five minutes, the siren wailing mournfully every two, and extra lookouts placed on the forecastle, they groped their way blindly on. It was trying work; for, now that the fog had shut down, the neighbourhood at once seemed crowded with other ships, the dismal hooting of whose sirens and steam-whistles came from all directions at the same time. The noises they made were curious. Some barked like dogs; others cleared their throats noisily, or stammered and yelped shrilly; while more boomed and bellowed like cattle, howled liked wolves, or laughed like jackasses.

'I've heard a farmyard in the early mornin',' Wooten observed; 'but the racket that's going on now fairly licks creation.'

Once they sighted a huge dull blur in the haze right ahead, and the skipper, holding his breath, jammed the helm over just in time to avoid a large Norwegian tramp laden with timber. The vessels slid by each other barely twenty feet apart, and as they passed a man with an excited purple face and a white beard leant over her bridge-rail gesticulating wildly. 'Why for you no look where you come?' he bellowed in incoherent and very bad English.

'Don't get excited, Father Christmas!' Wooten retaliated, justly annoyed. 'Why the deuce don't you sound your hooter, you perishin' pirate?'

The master of the steamer waved his fists excitedly, but before he could collect his wits and think of anything further to say the vessels had slid past each other and were out of sight and earshot.

For an hour the _Mariner_ travelled on, with the fog as thick as ever. They were running down the Channel between the minefield and the banks lying off the shore; but in spite of the fact that they were working entirely by dead reckoning, and the tide was an unknown quantity, nothing unforeseen occurred.

'What the deuce is that?' asked MacDonald, as an excited, irregular, and strident 'He-he-haw-haw-haw!' burst out from the murk ahead.

Wooten laughed. 'Sounds exactly like a donkey braying,' he said. 'As a matter of fact, it's some blighter playing on one of those hand fog-horns. Sailing-craft of sorts. He's right ahead, too. Keep your eyes skinned!'

A moment later there came a wild yell from the forecastle, 'Ship right a'ead, sir!'

'Starboard! Hard a-starboard!' the skipper ordered at once, as a blurred silhouette came out of the mist right under the destroyer's bows. 'By George! we've got her!' His heart was in his mouth, and he gripped the rail convulsively and waited for the crash.

But they didn't hit her quite; for the _Mariner_, turning sharply to port under her helm, just shaved past within a fathom of a small decked sailing-boat with brown, idly flapping sails. An ancient mariner in a billycock hat at her wheel stared up open-mouthed at the destroyer's bridge, and then, yelling like a maniac, darted aft and hauled in on the painter of the dinghy towing astern. He did it just in time to save his small boat from being run into and destroyed. Farther forward a red-faced boy, with one hand on the pump-handle of a battered brass fog-horn, looked up with frightened eyes, as they passed so close that Wooten could almost see the drops of moisture on his rough blue jersey.

The midship gun's crew happened to be cleaning their weapon as the boat drifted by.

''Ow do, granfer?' said the irrepressible Billings, stepping to the rail and removing his cap with a low bow. 'Where did yer git that 'at?'

'You keep a civil tongue in yer ---- 'ead!' retorted the aged fisherman with some heat.

'Now then, yer naughty boy,' answered the seaman, wagging a finger reprovingly, 'don't git usin' sich langwidge. Comin' aboard ter 'ave a nice drop o' rum?'

'Go to 'ell!' shouted the naughty boy, purple in the face. 'You ---- torpeder deestroyers'll be the ---- death o' th' likes o' me! Second ---- time we've bin nearly run down this marnin'! W'y can't you ---- look where you're ---- well goin'? We've got our ---- livin' to get'---- The remainder of his remarks were inaudible as his craft dropped astern and was swallowed up in the fog.

'Nice ole gent, ain't 'e?' Billings remarked with a grin, gazing after the boat with admiration. 'Don't 'e talk well? I 'specs, if we really know'd it, that ole bloke is a shinin' light in one o' these 'ere chapels ashore. Don't matter wot yer sez an' does in the week, s'long as yer good an' goes ter chapel reg'lar o' Sundays.'

''Ow often does we git these 'ere fogs?' queried Pincher, a trifle anxiously. ''Ow in 'ell does the skipper know where-abouts th' bloomin' ship is if 'e carn't see nothink?'

Joshua smiled condescendingly. 'Fawgs!' he said. 'Sometimes we 'as 'em in th' North Sea fur days an' days on end--weeks sometimes.'

'But 'ow does ships find their way abart then?' Pincher persisted.

'Find their way abart?' Billings repeated, scratching his nose with an oily forefinger. 'I dunno rightly. They eases down an' keeps their soundin'-machines goin' reg'lar, an' uses their compasses; but I reckons they doesn't allus know where they is. They pretends to, o' course, but I believe they trusts ter luck more 'n 'arf th' time.'

Martin sucked his teeth. 'But supposin' we 'its somethink?' he asked. 'Supposin' we 'ad a bargin' match wi' another ship, or runs ashore?'

Billings grunted. 'W'en that 'appens yer kin start thinkin' abart it,' he returned. 'It's no good yer troublin' yer 'ead abart wot may 'appen; yer won't git no sleep, an' won't 'ave no happetite, if yer does. S'pose we gits blowed up by a mine or by one o' them there ruddy submarines; s'pose we 'as a collision wi' somethink a bit bigger'n ourselves, or per'aps 'as a bomb dropped on our 'eads from a bloomin' hairyoplane or a Zeppeling?'

'Well, an' wot abart it?' demanded the ordinary seaman, rather perturbed at Billings's summing up of the different ways in which they might meet their fate.

'Wot abart it? Why, I tells yer it ain't no use yer worryin'. If we does 'ave bad luck an' 'as an 'orrible disaster, shove yer life-belt on an' trust ter luck, same as yer did in th' ole _Belligerent_. It takes an 'ell of a lot to sink a deestroyer,' Joshua added. 'I've seen 'em 'arter collisions wi' their bows cut orf, their starns missin', an' chopped clean in 'alves, I 'ave; but still they floated some'ow, an' wus towed back 'ome inter 'arbour.'

'I don't fancy seein' this 'ere ship chopped in 'alves,' said Pincher dubiously.

'Don't talk so wet,' Joshua growled. 'Yer ain't frightened, are yer?'

'Course I ain't!' came the indignant reply.

'Yer looks ter me as if yer wus,' said the A.B. 'But, any'ow, don't worry yer 'ead. A deestroyer's a ruddy sight safer'n some other ships. We've got speed, we 'ave, an' kin run away if we're chased by an 'ostile cruiser, an' we don't draw too much water fur bumpin' mines and sichlike. Jolly sight safer 'n livin' ashore, I calls it.'

'I dunno so much.'

'Course it is. Look at th' ways yer kin lose th' number o' yer mess w'en ye're livin' on th' beach,' Billings replied with a snort. 'Yer kin be run over an' laid out by a motor-bus. Yer kin be drownded in yer barth, or git a chimney-pot dropped on yer napper in a gale o' wind. Yer kin be suffocated in yer bed if yer leaves th' gas burnin', an''----

'An' yer nearly dies o' suffocation if yer drinks more 'n a gallon o' beer,' chimed in another man, who knew Billings's past history.

Joshua turned round wrathfully. 'I don't stan' no sauce from th' likes o' you, Dogo!' he exclaimed, advancing threateningly.

'It's true, ain't it?' queried Dogo, retreating to a convenient distance. 'Besides, I never said 'oo it wus 'oo nearly died o' suffocation, did I?'

'No, but I knows ruddy well 'oo yer means, yer perishin' lop-eared milkman; an' nex' time yer sez things ter me I'll give yer a clip 'longside th' ear'ole as'll keep yer thinkin' abart it fur a week!'

The bystanders laughed.

'Don't you take no notice o' 'im, Pincher,' Joshua went on. ''E ain't no sailor. Afore this 'ere war started 'e wus drivin' one o' these 'ere milk-carts an' shoutin' "Milk-o!" artside th' 'ouses, an' makin' love ter th' slaveys!' It was perfectly true so far as the driving of the milk-chariot was concerned, for Dogo Pearson, after serving his first period in the navy, had retired into civil life as a milkman, only to be called up again on the outbreak of war.

It was Dogo's turn to get angry. 'Look 'ere, Billin's!' he said angrily; 'I'll 'ave yer know'----

'You men had better be gettin' on with cleanin' that gun!' came the wrathful voice of Mr Menotti, who had come forward unseen. 'It's not half done, red rust everywhere, an' you're all standin' round spinnin' yarns. Get a move on, or I'll have you up here cleanin' it in your spare time!'

The argument ceased, and the gun's crew, stifling their amusement, busied themselves with their emery-paper, bath-brick, and polishing-rags.

'You wait till I gits yer on th' mess-deck, me boy-o!' growled Joshua _sotto voce_ when the gunner's back was turned.

'Orl right, chum,' Dogo grinned unconcernedly; 'don't go gittin' rattled.'

Billings was really a great friend of his.

All things come to an end in time, even sea fogs, and that same evening the _Mariner_ steamed jauntily into her first port of call and dropped her anchor.

'I'm glad you've arrived all right,' said the senior naval officer when Wooten went over to report himself. 'To tell the truth, we were a bit anxious about you.'

'Anxious, sir! Why?'

'We've had to close the Channel to all traffic until it's been swept,' said the S.N.O. 'A steamer went up on a mine bang in the middle of the fairway about an hour after you must have passed the place.'

'Good Lord!' the lieutenant-commander ejaculated with a sigh of relief.

The S.N.O., who was used to such things, smiled blandly. 'Have a cigarette,' he said, pushing the box across. 'What about a glass of brown sherry? I've just got a new lot in, and it's rather good stuff.' He reached up and fingered a hanging bell-push.

'Thank you, sir. I think I will.'

The S.N.O. rang the bell for his steward.