CHAPTER XV.

COMINGS AND GOINGS.

I.

''Ere, wot's that over there?' inquired Pincher Martin, coming on to the forecastle early one morning with a basin of hot cocoa for one Billings, able seaman.

Joshua looked round. 'Na then, young fella, don't go spillin' the ruddy stuff,' he grunted agitatedly, taking the bowl with a nod of thanks. 'Wot's wot?'

'That there,' said the ordinary seaman, pointing.

''Er?' remarked the A.B. huskily, breathing heavily on to the hot liquid to cool it. 'That there? Only a bloomin' Zeppeling, Pincher. You've see'd 'em afore, ain't yer?'

'Course I 'as. Only I thort to meself as 'ow she looked a bit different, some'ow. Quite pretty like, ain't she?'

The distant airship, floating apparently motionless above the eastern horizon, certainly did appear a thing of beauty for the time being. Her elongated body, dwarfed by the distance until it appeared barely an inch long, was plainly silhouetted as a gray-blue shape against the clear, rosy sky of the dawn, while her curved under-side reflected the scarlet and orange of the rapidly rising sun. She looked graceful and almost ethereal--not a thing of bombs, terror, and destruction.

Joshua drank his cocoa with noisy gulps. 'I don't know abart wot she looks like,' he observed at length, wiping his mouth with the back of a particularly grimy hand. 'You wait till she starts droppin' 'er bombs. I reckons them blokes is no better'n murderers.'

'Why doesn't we 'ave a pop at 'er?'

''Ave a pop at 'er! She's twenty mile orf, if she's a hinch, an' yer knows as well as I does that none o' our ships 'ere 'as got hanti-haircraft guns wot'll 'it 'er at that range.' Joshua sucked his teeth, and proceeded to explore the inner recesses of his mouth with the end of a burnt match.

'Why doesn't we chase 'er, then?'

'Chase 'er! Wot's the good? She kin go 'er fifty knots, an'll be orf like a rigger afore we gits anywheres near 'er. She'll watch it she don't git inter trouble. You ain't got a fag or a fill o' bacca abart yer, I s'pose?'

Pincher shook his head firmly. He knew Joshua of old.

Billings smiled affably, produced a well-blackened clay from the pocket of his lammy coat, and proceeded to light it. 'Ah!' he sighed contentedly, patting himself gently on the stomach and puffing out a cloud of smoke, 'that drop o' cocoa done me orl th' good in the world. I feels has bright an' has fresh as a li'l dicky-bird.'

Pincher smiled, for the simile was hardly an apt one. Joshua had kept the first watch till midnight, and, after four hours' sleep in his clothes, had been up again since four o'clock as a member of the duty gun's crew. His eyes were sleepy and bloodshot, his hands and face were indescribably filthy, and his chin sported an ugly stubble of three days' growth. He was not a pleasant sight. Moreover, it was summer, and the weather was perfectly fine and unusually warm; but, true to the custom of the British bluejacket, he was wearing sufficient clothing to keep the cold from an Antarctic explorer. His figure was ponderous at the best of times; it was now elephantine, and anything less like a dicky-bird it was impossible to imagine.

'That bloke,' he went on, pointing with his pipe-stem at the far-away airship, 'is spyin' art th' land. She's 'avin' a "looksee" at wot we're doin' of, an' I shouldn't wonder but wot ole Zep wus up there hisself. I did 'ear as 'ow 'e'd bin given th' Iron Cross.'

'Garn!' chortled Pincher rudely. 'Wot for?'

'Strafin', fat'ead; wot else d'you think? Probably 'e's usin' 'is wireless an' tellin' ole Tirpitz as 'ow we've come 'ere to pay 'im a visit. "Tirps, ole fella," 'e sez, "these 'ere gordamned Henglish swine 'ounds 'ave come agen." "Sorry, Zep, ole chum," sez Tirps; "I carn't attend to 'em now. I'm hinvited ter breakfuss wi' th' Hadmiral o' th' 'Igh Sea Fleet, an' I carn't git wastin' of 'is bacon an' heggs in these 'ere 'ard times. Tell th' Henglish ter shove orf outa it, an' ter come agen, an' I'll 'ave a few submarines an' mines awaitin' for 'em. Th' navy's 'avin' its make an' mend,[35] an' carn't be disturbed." That's wot ole man Tirps is sayin', I'll give yer my word.'

[35] 'Make and mend' = an afternoon set apart for making and mending clothes--that is, a half-holiday.

The men round about laughed.

'I reckons they'll never come out o' their 'arbour 'cept they knows Jellicoe an' Beatty is outa th' way,' some one observed.

'An' our boss!'[36] chipped in another man. ''E's a 'oly 'orror for scrappin'. Look wot 'e done at 'Eligoland! "If yer sees a 'Un, go fur 'im;" that's 'is motter.'

[36] 'Our boss,' the commodore in command of the force to which the _Mariner_ was attached.

'An' a damn good motter, too,' said Joshua approvingly. 'But I reckon they knows wot they're up against. This 'ere war's like 'ide an' seek. W'en we pops inter 'arbour fur a bit, they pops art, takin' mighty good care not ter git too far from 'ome, mind yer; an' w'en we pops art arter 'em, they pops back 'ome agen. It ain't play in' the game, in a manner o' speakin'. 'Ow many times 'as we bin scullin' round th' North Sea an' never see'd a ruddy thing? Dozens an' dozens! It makes me fair sick sometimes.'

'But they 'ave bin acrost once or twice, an' bombarded places,' Pincher ventured.

Billings snorted loudly. 'Course they 'as; but it don't take much guts ter come scuttlin' acrost th' North Sea durin' th' night, an' ter start pluggin' shell at an undefended town th' nex' mornin'! They takes jolly good care they doesn't stay too long, I hobserves, an' they shoves orf back 'ome agen afore anythin' big 'as a chawnce o' gettin' a slap at 'em. Arter orl, wotever blokes ashore may say abart th' navy not bein' there ter pertect 'em, we carn't ruddy well be everywheres. Th' North Sea ain't no bloomin' duck-pond; an' look at th' time we spends on th' briny!'

His hearers nodded in agreement.

'I reckons some o' these 'ere shore-loafers don't know w'en they're well orf,' Joshua went on. 'They gits orl their meals reg'lar; but a good many on 'em don't recollec' as 'ow it's th' likes of us wot's keepin' their stummicks full. They 'as ter pay a bit extry fur their vittles p'r'aps; but that ain't nothink ter start 'owlin' abart in war-time.'

'That's a fac',' said Pincher wisely.

'Course it is; but a good many o' th' blokes wot I'm talkin' abart starts yellin' somethink horful w'en they gits a few shells plugged at 'em, an' wants ter know wot th' navy's doin' of. I don't 'xactly blame 'em, fur no blokes wot ain't mad likes bein' shot at; but they might recollec' that we're keepin' 'em from starvin', in a manner o' speakin', an' that we is doin' our bit; damn sight bigger bit than wot some of 'em himagines.' Joshua paused for breath.

'If them Germans 'ad a coast as long as ourn,' he went on--for when once he started to give vent to his opinions little could stop him--'an' if they 'ad undefended seaside towns th' same as we 'ave, I reckons we could go an' do th' dirty on 'em. Only we wouldn't, 'cos it ain't war ter go killin' a lot of innercent wimmin an' children wot ain't done no 'arm. I reckons we treats them 'Uns too good; fur wi' their submarines, an' Zeppelings, an' the way they treats our prisoners, they're no better 'n murderers!' He cleared his throat noisily, and expectorated with extraordinary violence into the sea. They were somewhere near the German coast at the time, so perhaps that accounted for his expression of contempt.

Billings only voiced the opinions of the remainder of his shipmates. Nobody thought for a single instant that Zeppelins would have any real effect on the war, and as often as not their advent, even at home, was taken as a joke; while people flocked from their houses to see the fun, thereby running a far greater risk than they themselves imagined.

Billings happened to be on shore leave during one raid, and in the midst of a very heavy fire from the anti-aircraft guns he discovered an elderly, scantily attired, and very irate female standing in the road. She had her umbrella up to ward off stray fragments of bombs or pieces of shell, and indeed splinters from the A.A. guns were falling far too close to be pleasant. The Zeppelin, illuminated by the glare of many searchlights, and surrounded by the flashes and little puffs of smoke of exploding projectiles, was almost immediately overhead; but the woman was far too wrathful to be frightened.

''Ere, missis,' said Joshua gallantly, ''adn't you better go 'ome?'

'Go 'ome!' she retorted; 'what for?'

''Er,' said Billings, pointing at the sky.

''Er!' snorted the lady contemptuously. 'I'm not afraid of the likes of 'er.--You dirty dog!' she added angrily, shaking her fist at the invader. 'Come down, you dirty 'ound!'

The 'dirty 'ound' evinced no particular emotion.

If the German public believed the mendacious Berlin _communiqués_ as to the damage inflicted on the hated British by their perambulating gas-bags they must have been very well pleased.

'A detachment of our naval airships visited London on the night of the 26th,' wrote Von Ananias, his tongue in his cheek. 'Several important points were attacked. At Poplar three shipbuilding yards were set on fire and completely destroyed, and a battleship in course of completion for the British navy was badly damaged. At Houndsditch a heavy battery was completely demolished, while bombs were successfully dropped on the barracks at Whitechapel, flinging the troops into a state of the utmost consternation and causing many casualties. Near Ludgate Hill a munition factory was observed to be in flames. One light cruiser and three destroyers anchored in the Thames near Gravesend were struck by bombs and sank with enormous loss of life. The inhabitants of the invaded districts are said to be petitioning the Government to stop the war, while many of them are leaving the neighbourhood. Our airships, though fired upon heavily from many points, have all returned in safety.'

No Zeppelin had been anywhere near Poplar, no battleship had been damaged, while Houndsditch was as innocent of heavy guns as Whitechapel was of soldiers. Neither was there a munition factory near Ludgate Hill; while the light cruiser and three destroyers which had foundered off Gravesend were nothing more or less than one old and empty barge sunk, and one waterman's wherry badly damaged. A more truthful account would have read as follows:

'Near X. a bomb fell into a kitchen-garden and completely overwhelmed a detachment of early lettuces and uprooted three apple-trees. A brigade of spring onions was also completely annihilated, while a regiment of tomatoes in their billets in a greenhouse suffered severe casualties. The owner of the garden is now charging threepence admission to view the damage. The proceeds will be handed over to the local Red Cross Funds, and the sum of twenty-four pounds three shillings and ninepence has already been collected. Fragments of the bomb are on view at Mr Button's shop at 45 High Street, and will be sold by auction at the next Red Cross sale.

'On the outskirts of Y. one aged donkey and four chickens were killed, while one cow, two pigs, and twenty-three fowls were wounded. A black tom-cat, which was visiting the chicken-run at the time of the raid, is also suffering from shock and nervous prostration, but is expected to recover.

'At B. a bomb exploded with terrific force in the street near the statue of the late Alderman Theophilus Buggins, J.P. This well-known work of art was hurled from its pedestal and badly shattered. It is feared it cannot be repaired.'

Truly 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Purely from a spectacular point of view I should imagine that all Zeppelin raids are much the same. They generally seem to take place late at night or in the small hours of the morning, while their usual accompaniment is the glare of many searchlights, the barking of guns, the bursting of shell, and the dropping of bombs with or without loss of life and damage to property. The _Mariner's_ men saw several raids; but it was the first one they witnessed which left the most lasting impression on their minds.

There had been the usual report early in the evening to the effect that Zeps might be expected; but they had been warned so often before that, beyond taking the usual precautions in regard to lights, nobody on board really paid very much attention to it. The first intimation of the arrival of the invader was the sullen report of a distant anti-aircraft gun; whereupon Wooten, always a light sleeper, rose hastily from his bunk, attired himself in a green dressing-gown and a pair of sea-boots, and repaired to the deck with his binoculars. The other officers and the men, determined not to miss their share of the entertainment, followed his example, and in less than two minutes the deck was thronged with an excited, inquisitive crowd, all peering anxiously at the sky. It was rather like a regatta or a race meeting, except that the greater proportion of the spectators were far too lightly clothed to be strictly presentable.

The long pencils of light from many searchlights streamed forth and swept slowly across the starlit heavens.

'Where is the bloomer?' some one asked impatiently, as if he were at a music-hall waiting for a new turn. 'Why don't she come?'

'She's got cold feet, an' ain't comin',' laughed another man. 'There'll be no show ter-night.'

'I think I'll go back to me 'ammick,' cried somebody else. 'I carn't git standin' abart 'ere in these 'ere clo'es. Grr! ain't it parky?' It must have been, for the speaker was simply attired in a flannel shirt. His legs were bare, and his teeth were chattering.

'There she is!' exclaimed a stoker, pointing vaguely overhead. 'See 'er?'

'That ain't 'er. That's a bloomin' cloud!'

'Garn! That ain't no cloud. Not wot I'm lookin' at.'

'Tell yer it is.'

'No, it ain't. It's 'er, right enuf!'

Further conversation was rudely interrupted by the crash of a gun from ashore, and a thin trail of dim light climbed skywards in a curve as a tracer shell[37] hurtled its way through the air.

[37] A tracer shell for use against aircraft has a small cavity in its base filled with composition which is ignited when the gun fires. It emits a thin trail of smoke in the daytime and a luminous track at night, so that the gunners are able to see where their projectiles are going.

More guns roared out. More trails of light in the air, rather like the sparks from the tails of rockets!

The sky to the eastward suddenly began to flash and twinkle with momentary spurts of vivid orange flame as the shell started to burst; the searchlights swung round and became stationary, with their beams all pointed at one particular spot in the heavens. But still the spectators could see nothing of the raider. Before very long all the anti-aircraft guns in the place were hard at work pumping projectiles into the atmosphere as fast as they could. Streaks of light sped upwards like the stars from a Roman candle, and presently the heavens toward the point of junction of the searchlight-rays sparkled wickedly and with redoubled energy. Puffs of smoke from the shell explosions filtered slowly through the blue-white beams of the lights; but though the gunners could obviously see what they were firing at, the men on board the _Mariner_ had not been vouchsafed a glimpse of anything.

'Ow!' yelled some one, stamping on the deck in his excitement and impatience, 'why cawn't we see 'er? Where is she?'

'Keep yer flat feet 'orf o' me toes!' expostulated a gruff and much-injured voice. 'I ain't got no boots on. Knock orf jumpin' abart like a perishin' loonatic, carn't yer?'

The air was as full of sound as were the heavens of bursting shrapnel. Little guns and big guns were having the time of their lives. They banged, boomed, coughed, and spluttered together, and every now and then in the ear-splitting medley of sound one heard the hiccuping, deep-throated _poom-poom_ of an anti-aircraft pom-pom, the shrill staccato _ra-ta-ta-ta_ of a little ·303-inch high-angle Maxim, and the faint but quite unmistakable whistle and report of the shell as they clove their way through the air and exploded.

'Lord!' muttered Wooten with a laugh, his eyes glued to his glasses, 'I wonder where all the bits are coming down. We'll have to get under cover if they start loosin' off anywhere near us.'

It was a magnificent sight, quite the best fireworks display most of them had ever seen. The many searchlights made the night as light as day. The heavens were ablaze with the tell-tale sparkling flashes, while the earth seemed to vomit the fiery trails of tracer shell which crossed and recrossed in all directions. Brock's Benefit at the Crystal Palace was not in it.

Then, quite unexpectedly, there came a roaring thud from somewhere far away. Another, another, and yet another! The reports were loud and reverberating, and almost drowned the sound of the guns. They were bomb explosions, and the onlookers held their breath and glanced anxiously round to see how their neighbours were taking it. Nobody seemed unduly anxious, but some of them wondered vaguely what would happen if a missile fell on board the _Mariner_. Her thin decks offered no protection whatsoever, and if a bomb did hit her----

At last, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, a great, elongated, silvery-looking mass slid rapidly into view at the point of intersection of two of the searchlight-beams. It looked like an enormous hexagonal pencil suspended from the sky, and travelled with awe-inspiring sedateness and solemnity. It was the Zeppelin; but, from her size, she seemed to be at least ten thousand feet up. The searchlights followed her unremittingly. Her great bulk became indistinct and nebulous amidst wreathing eddies of smoke, while the shell-flashes seemed to be bursting out into space all round her.

'Ow!' yelled the excitable, dancing gentleman, as a particularly brilliant gout of flame flashed out immediately in line with the airship's blunt bows; 'that's got 'er! Did yer see 'er waggle?'

But shooting at a rapidly moving object high up in the air and almost immediately overhead is a much more difficult task than people imagine; and though some of the shell may have caused the Hun a certain amount of annoyance, it was tolerably certain that a good many more expended their energy in space.

But whatever the result, the raider evidently received a warmer reception than she had bargained for, for after being in sight for barely a minute she swung off and disappeared from view at a good fifty miles an hour. Whether or not she had been hit remained a mystery. Every anti-aircraft gunner in the place, even the man at the little ·303 Maxim, would have taken his solemn affidavit that missiles from his own particular weapon had hit her not once, but many times; while the _Mariner's_ men, judging from their conversation, were of the same opinion. Some of them were even prepared to swear that they had seen gaping holes in the Zeppelin's bows, stern, and amidships--all over her, in fact; but if their accounts were to be believed their eyesight must have been abnormally abnormal, while the Zep should have come down a mass of punctured fabric and twisted aluminium framework. She had done nothing of the kind.

The guns ceased firing; one by one the searchlights flickered, glowed redly, and went out. All was peace.

The men, chattering like monkeys, sought their hammocks. Their officers repaired to the wardroom and indulged in a nocturnal orgy of sardines, bread-and-butter, and bottled stout. The mixture was hardly a good one to sleep upon, but the sardines of Jean Peneau and the stout of Messrs Guinness were the invariable concomitants to a Zeppelin raid if the _Mariner_ was anywhere in the neighbourhood.

'I hope nobody got strafed by those bombs,' observed the sub. with his mouth full.

'I think they fell clear of the town,' said the skipper, removing the froth from a tumbler with a spoon.

They had. There had been no casualties.

II.

Altercations with Hun seaplanes were by no means uncommon, and their novelty soon wore off.

The North Sea is not celebrated for its clear weather, and in it one's horizontal range of vision is frequently restricted to four miles or less. The vertical visibility, when the clouds are lying low, is sometimes a few hundred feet, while in summer the absence of wind and the heat of the sun often bring fog or a luminous low-lying haze. Moreover, when there is any mist it is presumably easier for an aeroplane to see the comparatively large bulk of a ship upon the sea than it is for the ship to spot the slender shape of the aeroplane overhead.

In the earlier days of the war, when the flotilla and a couple or more light cruisers in massed formation were nosing round not far from the German coast, according to their habit, it was disconcerting, to say the least of it, suddenly to see a neat little line of four or five equally spaced upheavals of water close alongside one or other of the ships. It was more disconcerting still to hear the loud thud of the explosions, and to realise that they were caused by bombs dropped from the heavens for one's benefit by an aerial Hun of most immoral character. An aeroplane bomb exploding ashore may quite conceivably do comparatively little damage; but if the same missile descends upon the deck of a small ship the vessel will be severely injured, and may possibly sink. It is not pleasant to get into difficulties and to have one's ship incapable of movement within a short distance of a hostile coast. It is still more unpleasant to have her sink in the same locality.

On seeing the explosions one instinctively looked overhead, and there, flying low and dimly outlined in the haze, was usually the shape of a hostile seaplane, the inevitable black crosses on his wings proclaiming his nationality. In misty weather he often succeeded in approaching unseen, and sometimes dropped his unsavoury eggs before the anti-aircraft guns could get to work and make his life a misery and a burden. No sooner had he done his dirty work, moreover, than he either climbed and vanished in the clouds, or else circled rapidly round and disappeared whence he had come. His departure was always hastened by a burst of fire from every gun which would bear, but one rarely had a real chance of strafing him, for the whole affair was usually all over and done with in a minute or two. It was good luck that his aim was bad and that his bombs invariably missed, though sometimes they missed so close that people on deck were drenched with spray, and spent the rest of the day searching for splinters to keep as mementoes. If one had struck---- But what was the good of considering the possibility? At any rate, it was always very comforting to realise that a ship under way presents a very small and difficult target to a seaplane at the best of times; while, however numerous and thickly clustered a fleet, squadron, or flotilla may be, there is always far and away more area of water than there is of ships.

When the weather was really clear the boot was generally on the other foot, for then the seaplanes were usually driven off before they could get overhead. A good lookout was always kept, and at the first sight of a speck like a mosquito on the horizon, a mosquito which presently assumed the shape and proportions of a dragon-fly, the anti-aircraft guns' crews came tumbling up to their stations, and the muzzles of their weapons started twitching ominously. Then, when the Hun arrived within range, they let drive and let him have it.

With the older type of anti-aircraft gun, shooting at an aeroplane reminded one of trying to bring down a snipe with a Webley revolver. But now that we are provided with the best sort of weapon which brains and money can produce, the process of strafing the aerial Hun may be likened to dealing with the aforesaid bird with a 12-bore hammerless ejector loaded with No. 8 shot. The odds, of course, are usually on the snipe or the Hun, as the case may be, but more often than not we succeed in being accurate enough to make him supremely uncomfortable.

So the shooting with the A.A. guns was generally good. Puffs of smoke from the exploding shell darted out into space all round their target. The blue sky speedily became pock-marked with the white, bulbous, cotton-wool-like clusters, each one contributing its share of splinters to the unpleasantness of the upper atmosphere. The Hun as speedily retired. But not always. Sometimes he climbed high to get out of range, and then, at a height of twelve thousand to fourteen thousand feet, when scarcely visible, dropped his bombs. But the higher he went the more erratic became his practice, so really it did not matter much.

Occasionally, in the vicinity of their own coast, he and his friends attacked in coveys of six, seven, or a dozen at a time, and then things became very lively, and the A.A. guns had the time of their lives. Once the Huns attacked continuously from eight A.M. until noon. There were never less than three of them in range at any one time, and each one, after dropping his noisome cargo, hurried back to his base for a fresh consignment, and then returned for another strafe. But the bombs always fell wide, and in course of time people came to treat seaplane attacks with positive indifference. In early days all in the ship who could get away came on deck to watch the fun. They indulged in loud and ribald remarks, and gave the benefit of their advice to the men at the guns, to the Hun or Huns, and to anybody else who cared to listen. They also jeered uproariously when bombs fell a few yards wide and deluged them with water, and fought madly for any splinters which might fall on board. But later on, when they got used to the feeling, the advent of a seaplane or two did not disturb them very much, particularly if it was soon after the midday meal, and they had composed themselves for short naps on the sunny deck before recommencing their labours in the afternoon.

It seems that the British sailor, like his comrade in the trenches, can get used to anything. Moreover, the war seems to have set a new standard of excitement, and what will happen when hostilities cease and the men have to go back to the humdrum life of peace I really do not know. It would seem impossible to raise much real enthusiasm over regattas, boxing competitions, picture-palaces, or football matches after playing the far more thrilling game with men's lives and ships for the stakes.

But bluejackets are always peculiar people, and the most trivial happenings in the midst of the most appalling danger cause them the greatest amusement. In one merry little destroyer action in the North Sea one of the British vessels was having a very hot time, and a bursting shell caused a small fire in the engine-room. It was promptly extinguished by the fire-party under the charge of the chief stoker, and shortly afterwards an officer noticed this worthy coming aft with broad grins all over his face.

'What's the joke?' he wanted to know, for it struck him as rather peculiar that a man should be so much amused at such a time.

'I carn't 'elp larfin', sir!' said the man, bubbling over with glee. 'We 'ad a bit of a bonfire in the hengine-room jest now, sir, an' w'en I 'ears 'em 'ollerin' I runs along with the 'ose-pipe, shoves the end of 'im down the hengine-room 'atch, an' switches the water on.'

'What is there funny about that?' queried the officer.

'Only that we 'arf-drownded the Chief E.R.A., 'oo was standin' at the foot o' the ladder, sir,' gurgled the man. 'Funniest thing I've see'd fur a long time. 'E ain't got a dry stitch on 'im, and 'is langwidge was somethink 'orrid.' He finished with another cackle of amusement, and went off to spin the yarn to some one else.

At the time of the incident, which has the merit of being quite true, the ship was undergoing a very hot fire. Shell were falling all round her, and splinters were whistling through the air in all directions, and for the man to be convulsed with genuine merriment at the wetting of the chief engine-room artificer, at a moment when he himself was in imminent peril of his life, speaks well for his nerve. It rather reminds one of the true story of two marines, the loading numbers at the after-gun of a light cruiser which shall be nameless. She too was in the middle of a strenuous little action when a shell burst on board, and shortly afterwards both men saw a most desirable memento in the shape of a splinter lying on the deck. They made a simultaneous dart to secure the trophy, but Jones got there first.

''Ere!' said Smith, bitterly aggrieved, ''old on. I saw 'im first!'

'I've got 'im first!' chortled Jones, stooping down and picking up the morsel of steel. 'Ow!' he yelled the next instant, dropping it as if it had stung him, and sucking his fingers; 'the bloomin' thing's red-'ot!'

'Serve you ruddy well right,' retorted Smith. 'It ain't yourn, any'ow. You leave it alone!'

'I tell you it is mine,' answered the burnt gentleman. 'I got 'im first!'

'Look 'ere, Jones, if you carn't play fair I'll give you a punch on the jaw; s'welp me I will. I'm bigger'n wot you are, and I tells you I see'd the bloomin' thing first!'

'I got 'old of 'im first, an' don't care wot you says an' does,' exclaimed Jones, putting his foot on the coveted fragment. 'I'----

Further conversation was interrupted by the advance of Smith, and in another instant the quarterdeck of H.M.S. ---- was the scene of an impromptu battle. It would have been quite a pretty little tussle, for Smith was large, breathless, and bulky, while Jones was thin and wiry; but unfortunately the gunlayer, a sergeant, noticed that something was amiss with his weapon, and removed his eye from the telescopic sight.

'Here, you two,' he shouted, 'behave yourselves, and get on with loading the gun!'

''E's tryin' to pinch my splinter, sargint!' wailed Jones, applying a grimy hand to a rapidly swelling eye. 'I got 'im first!'

'No, sargint, 'e's a liar,' Smith cried with an air of injured innocence; 'I see'd it first!'

'Can't help that!' roared the N.C.O. 'Get along with the loading of the gun, and hafter the haction don't you forget I takes you both before the officer of the watch for unseemly conduc' and neglec' of dooty in the face of the enemy!'

The malcontents, rather crestfallen, ceased their bickering, and the gun went on firing. But the sergeant, a strict disciplinarian, was as good as his word. Smith and Jones, both good characters, were let off lightly. They each received fourteen days' No. 10 punishment for their misdeeds. The sergeant, a Solomon in his way, appropriated the shell-splinter and presented it to his wife.

III.

There was once a German steam-trawler called the _Anna Schroeder_. That was not her real name; but as she now flies the White Ensign and is known as the _Anita_, her original appellation does not matter. Hargreaves, the sub-lieutenant of the _Mariner_; Joshua Billings, A.B.; Pincher Martin, ordinary seaman; and several more of the destroyer's men, can tell you all about her, for they spent four days on board. They were four unforgettable days, and rumour says that the sub. and his braves are scratching themselves still.

From the _Anna Schroeder_, too, the 'Mariners,' in exchange for sundry excellent British cigarettes and a pound or so of ship's tobacco, procured some samples of particularly noisome 'war bread' and a small female pig. The bread, they said, was an excellent 'coorio' to send home to their friends; and, having the consistency and appearance of wood, it could, with due diligence, be manufactured into photograph-frames and tobacco-boxes. It took a beautiful polish. The sow, Annie, was retained on board as a mascot, and within a week of changing hands became quite friendly with her new masters. Inside a month she was sleeping in a specially made hammock, wore her own life-belt at sea, and ate her meals off a plate like a proper Christian. It is true that the rest of the menagerie on board--Jane, the monkey; Tiger and Mossyface, the two cats; Pompey, the goat; and Tirpitz, the fox-terrier--at first regarded her with some suspicion, but before long they appeared to have combined forces, and to have formed an alliance for the carrying on of offensive operations against any animal from any other ship which dared to come on board the _Mariner_. Annie's severest tussle was with the wire-haired terrier of the _Monsoon_, a plebeian but very conceited dog, who treated all vessels but his own with lordly contempt. She was ably assisted in the struggle by her willing allies, and for some minutes the battle raged furiously, to the accompaniment of barks, growls, squeals, shrill yelps, and much snorting from the fighters. But before much damage had been done on either side the engagement was brought to a sudden and wholly unexpected termination by both the principal combatants falling overboard in their excitement. They were duly rescued in the dinghy; and the contest, since they were both exhausted by swimming, was postponed _sine die_.

But all this has little to do with the _Anna Schroeder_. It so happened that at one period of the war the enemy was making himself particularly obnoxious by sinking many of our fishing-vessels in the North Sea. It was no very gallant mode of warfare; and, partly in a spirit of retaliation, and partly because My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty may have conceived a sudden desire for some steam-trawlers for mine-sweeping and other purposes, it was determined to pay the Hun back in his own coin. The authorities were always eager to save money if they possibly could, and acquiring the necessary craft free, gratis, and for nothing from the enemy was obviously far cheaper than chartering them from British owners.

That is how it came about that the _Mariner_, many more destroyers, and several light cruisers suddenly appeared one early morning in the midst of a German fishing-fleet engaged in its occupation not very far from its own coast. The visit came as a bolt from the blue, and since there was nobody present to protect them, the trawlers had no alternative but to surrender. Twenty-three of them, I think, were captured; while several more, too ancient and too rickety to be worth taking home as prizes, were sunk.

The serene atmosphere of that calm and peaceful summer morn was befouled with Teutonic oaths and much profanity. One could not help having some sympathy for the execrators, snatched off as they were practically within hailing distance of their own coast. But every German male person of a certain age and not a cripple is _ipso facto_ a soldier or a sailor; while every harmless trawler is a potential mine-layer or mine-sweeper. Most of the prisoners were young and lusty, and Fritz, Hans, Adolf, Karl, Heinrich, and many more of them had the not altogether joyful prospect of spending the rest of the war in British hands. Some of them disliked the idea intensely, and their scowling, sullen faces showed as much. Others, after making anxious inquiries as to how they would be treated and fed, expressed the opinion that things were not quite so bad after all, and that being a prisoner was far and away a happier prospect than serving in trenches at the front, whence they might never return.

It was this early morning strafe which accounted for the _Mariner's_ dealings with the _Anna Schroeder_; the adoption of Annie, the pig; and the adventures of the sub-lieutenant and his merry men.

The prize crew consisted of Hargreaves, one stoker petty officer, Joshua Billings, Pincher Martin, and three others whose names do not matter; and after ten minutes spent in transferring them, their belongings, food, water, weapons, a chart, and sundry other impedimenta to the trawler, and in removing certain of the prisoners to the destroyer, the _Mariner_ steamed off on her business, and left the sub. to his own devices, with orders to make the best of his way to the nearest British port.

How he proposed to get there he did not quite know. The deviation of the _Anna Schroeder's_ compass might be anything, and he had no means of checking it; but the fact did not seem to worry him much. He knew that if he steered west or thereabouts he would hit the English coast in time; and, having hit it, he proposed to steam north or south along it, and go into the nearest and most convenient harbour which happened to come into sight. What harbour it was he probably would not find out until after his arrival.

He was intensely proud of his first independent command, and his first care was to commandeer all the German ensigns he could find for trophies, to hoist an enormous White Ensign at the mizzen, and to display his badge of authority in the shape of a long white man-of-war pendant at the masthead. Then, when some one had persuaded the German engineer to raise a full head of steam in the antiquated boiler, and to start the engines, one of the _Mariner's_ men was put at the wheel, armed sentries were posted on deck and in the engine-room, and course was shaped for home. The men, inquisitive as usual, set about exploring the prize. She had on board more than three hundred pounds' worth of fresh-caught fish, but even the thought of this excellent food could not reconcile the bluejackets to certain other things they discovered. The first complaint came from Billings, who, as the eldest A.B. on board, had been selected as a spokesman by the others.

'Beggin' yer pardon, Mister 'Argreaves, sir,' he said, first expectorating over the ship's side, and then approaching the sub. with a very wry face, 'would yer mind 'avin' a look at th' quarters lately hoccupied by them Germans?'

'What's the matter with them?' asked the officer.

'They ain't fit fur 'uman 'abitation, sir; an' we 'as ter sleep there.'

'Why aren't they fit to live in?'

'Crawlin', sir,' said Billings disgustedly. 'Crawlin' wi' li'l hanimals! Cockroaches I don't mind, sir, bein' used to 'em in a manner o' speakin', an' there's plenty on 'em there; but there's hother hanimals present in hinnumerable quantities; creepin' things wi' legs the likes o' which I've never see'd afore.'

'Vermin?' queried the sub. in a whisper.

'Yessir. The beddin' 's one mass on 'em.'

'Well, I'm determined to have the ship clean before I've finished with her,' said Hargreaves, as if he were the commander of the latest Dreadnought, 'so heave all the bedding overboard. When you've done that, collect three of the German deckhands and make 'em scrub the place out. I'll inspect it when it's clean.'

'We ain't got no carbolic, I s'pose, sir?' Joshua queried anxiously. 'I doubts if soap an' water'll shift 'em.'

The sub. laughed. 'We brought none with us, I'm afraid. But find the man who looks after the stores, get what you can, and do your best.'

Joshua saluted and walked off. Five minutes afterwards a long line of blankets and straw mattresses was floating gaily astern.

But their troubles had only started, for a quarter of an hour later Billings reappeared with Pincher Martin, and between them they dragged the resisting figure of one of the prisoners, a small, dark man with a pair of shifty black eyes. Pincher, Hargreaves noticed, was armed with a cutlass and a revolver, and displayed the latter weapon ostentatiously.

'Good Lord!' he muttered; 'what's the matter now?'

'Prisoner an' hescort, 'alt!' bellowed Joshua.--'I brings this man afore you, sir, fur refoosin' ter scrub art 'is quarters w'en hordered, an' fur hassaultin' me.'

'And I haf von gomplaint to make,' put in the prisoner truculently. 'Von of ze sailors heet me!'

'What happened?' asked the sub. with a sigh.

'Well, sir,' Billings explained, 'it wus like this 'ere. I tells this man--'e knows Henglish just as well as I does, sir--ter start scrubbin' art, an' ter be smart abart it. 'E sezs 'e won't, 'cos 'e 'as 'is rights as a prisoner o' war, an' ain't goin' ter do no work.'

'Oh! did he?'

'Yessir, 'e did; an' I sez to 'im that if 'e doesn't hobey horders 'e'd best look out; an' wi' that 'e tries ter dot me one in the face.'

Hargreaves, stifling his amusement as best he could, scowled fiercely, and endeavoured to look judicial. 'And what happened then?' he inquired.

'Well, sir, ord'nary seaman Martin sees wot wus 'appenin', an' catches 'im one acrost th' 'ead wi' a broom-'andle.'

Pincher's bosom swelled with pride at the recollection.

'What have you got to say?' demanded the sub., turning to the German.

'My name ees Charrlie Smeeth, an' I haf lif in Englan' many year. I serve in Engleesh sheeps, an' I say to zis man'----

'I don't want to hear all that. What d'you mean by refusing duty?'

Smith, or Schmidt, as he probably was, licked his lips. 'I say to zis man, why he treat me like zat? And zen zis man,' indicating Martin, 'heet me on ze head with ze steeck and hurt me mooch.' He pointed to a large lump on the side of his cranium.

'That ain't true, sir,' Joshua interrupted. 'If Pinch--ordinary seaman Martin--'adn't sloshed 'im 'e'd 'a got me.'

The sub. scratched his beardless chin thoughtfully, for he hardly knew what to do. 'Look here,' he said at last, addressing the culprit sternly, 'you are a prisoner of war, and have to obey orders. If I have any further trouble with you, your hands and feet will be tied, and you will be put in the fish-hold for the rest of the passage. I will also report you on arrival in England, and have you court-martialled and shot. I mean what I say, mind; but I will give you this one warning, so you had better take it to heart. Do you understand what I say?'

'I onterstan',' said Schmidt, fidgeting nervously.

'Remove the prisoner and let him carry on with his work,' the officer ordered. 'If he offers any further violence shoot him at once.' He winked. Billings grinned understandingly, and the hapless German was led away in a cold and clammy perspiration. They had no further trouble with him.

Hargreaves was no fool, and, being fully aware that idleness only breeds discontent and bickering, took very good care to keep his prisoners busy. They were not treated with undue severity, and received exactly the same food as their captors; but they experienced for the first time the rigours of British naval discipline. All day long they were kept hard at work in scrubbing and scraping the _Anna_ to a state of hitherto undreamt-of cleanliness; while at night all of them--except the cook and the man on watch in the engine and boiler room, who perforce had to be allowed a certain amount of liberty, but were kept under constant supervision--slept in the stuffy little forecastle, with an armed sentry standing guard at the door.

Nothing on earth would induce the bluejackets to poke their noses inside the place, much less to inhabit it. They preferred to snatch what sleep they could under the stars; for though--thanks to the energy instilled into the unwilling Germans--the forecastle had been scrubbed far cleaner than it had ever been before, its cleanliness was merely superficial, and it was still well infested with 'hanimals,' as Billings called them.

'Them bugs is pisenous German bugs,' he had remarked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. 'Maybe them 'Uns is used ter 'em. I ain't, an' I'll watch it I don't go ter sleep in a place wi' wild hinsects a-suckin' o' me blood. It ain't fit an' proper, an' I sleeps on deck.'

Incidentally, it was the cook who gave Hargreaves one of the finest frights of his life. At midnight on the night they had come on board, the sub., leaving Billings in charge as officer of the watch, with orders to steer west and to call him at once if anything happened, retired to rest in a small compartment under the wheelhouse which had evidently been used as a charthouse, cabin, and storeroom all rolled into one. It was innocent of insects other than cockroaches, and had a cushioned locker at one side; while the rest of the space was filled with nets, cordage, canvas, paint, oil, and a quantity of food. Dependent from hooks in the ceiling were several dried fish, two bloated sausages, and a large raw ham. The place was stuffy and odorous; but Hargreaves was tired, and so, swathed in a blanket, he soon settled off to sleep on the locker with the door wide open.

Towards two in the morning some slight sound caused him to wake up with a start, and on opening his eyes his blood nearly froze in his veins. There, in the door, clearly silhouetted against the flood of moonlight beyond, was the dark figure of a man peering into the room in an attitude of rapt, listening attention. He was the German cook, from the shape of his bullet-head, and in one hand he held a murderous-looking knife with a long and glittering blade. He could only be there for one purpose, and his knife could only be intended for Hargreaves's throat.

The sub.'s first impulse was to shout for help, for an armed sentry should have been on the deck outside. Then he scouted the idea as impracticable, for the man would be upon him the instant he raised his voice, so he lay still, hardly daring to breathe. Then, with a feeling of great relief, he suddenly remembered the loaded automatic pistol under his pillow. He withdrew it softly, cocked the hammer without making a sound, and then, with the weapon poised, his finger on the trigger, and his nerves tingling, made up his mind to fire on the first sign of aggression.

The cook, treading stealthily, entered the room and looked round to the right and left. He next came towards the locker on which the sub. lay, and seemed to be examining the ceiling intently. Then he raised his knife for the blow.

The muzzle of the pistol went up and followed his every movement, but an instant later the sub. dropped the weapon with a chuckle of amusement.... The German was busily cutting a couple of inches off a particularly succulent sausage hanging from its hook.

When Hargreaves laughed his visitor dropped the knife with a clatter, and leapt from the room like a rabbit. The sub.'s mirth overcame him completely.

'Is everythink orl right, sir?' queried the anxious voice of Pincher Martin, who had been just outside the door the whole time.

'Yes,' spluttered the officer; 'there's nothing the m-matter.'

'Beg pardon, sir; only th' cook jumped art o' this 'ere door as if 'e'd see'd a ghost, sir. 'E seems a bit scared like.'

He was, poor man, badly scared, nearly as frightened as the sub. himself had been a few moments before; but he never quite realised how very near death the cravings of his stomach had led him. After all, no ordinary person is in the habit of making a hearty meal off a pungent, onion-flavoured sausage at two o'clock in the morning! All's well that ends well, but cookie escaped sudden death by the skin of his teeth.

Hargreaves never suffered his discipline to relax, and all through the second day of the passage the work of cleaning the ship went on. Even the German skipper, a very fat person, was pressed into service, and, since nothing else could be found for him to do, he volunteered to spend the morning in scrubbing out the wheelhouse.

'I hope onter-see boot com' an' tak' us all back to Germany!' he remarked feelingly in very bad English after half-an-hour's hard work on his hands and knees.

'If one does I'm afraid you won't get there,' retorted the hard-hearted sub-lieutenant with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

'If we sight a German submarine all the prisoners will be thrown overboard in life-belts, so that she'll have to stop to pick you up. Then, while she's doing it, I shall ram her at full speed.'

The German believed him implicitly. The brutal British were capable of anything. '_Ach!_' he exclaimed, sitting up on his haunches and wiping the drops of perspiration from a very scared face, 'dey vill nod pick us op. Ve shall be drown!'

'But surely your own countrymen won't stand by and see that happen?' said Hargreaves with pleasant curiosity.

'I do not know. Bot efen ef dem pick us op, you dry do sink der onter-see boot, so ve drown anyhows! I haf wife an' childrens, capitan,' he added agitatedly; 'many childrens. Von, do, dree, four, fif, six childrens. I doo old do fight. _Ach!_' he suggested with an oily smile, 'you safe me an' drown de ozzers. Dey not marriet. Dey not care!'

The sub. shook his head. 'I'm sorry,' he said; 'war is a very terrible thing.'

'I hope ve do not see onter-see boot!' murmured the other. '_Ach!_' he nodded, noticing Hargreaves's grinning face; 'you choke, es et nod?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You make fon, hey? You no drown der prisoners?'

'Depends upon how you behave yourselves,' came the noncommittal reply.

The skipper fell to with redoubled energy.

The weather was fine and the sea calm, but the _Anna's_ engines and boiler were long past their early youth, and they had steamed across the North Sea at a speed of barely seven knots. It was a heart-rending performance; and though Coggins, the stoker petty officer, exhorted the German fireman to shovel coal on the furnace until he was purple with passion and they were limp with weariness, the steam pressure to the engines dropped and dropped.

Shortly after noon on the second day, by which time they were on the Dogger Bank with not a vestige of another vessel in sight--there is not much fishing done in war-time--the climax came. It was not exactly due to the boiler, though the propeller had been revolving more and more slowly; but all of a sudden there came a peculiar grinding sound from the engine-room, and the screw refused duty altogether.

A moment or two later Coggins, breathless and blasphemous, appeared at the top of the hatch. 'It's no good, sir,' he wailed; 'it's no ---- good. I've done me best to tinker up they damned hengines to get 'em to 'eave round, but now the metal's bin and run in the cross'ead, and they won't 'eave round no more.'

'Is there nothing we can do to it?' queried the sub.

'I ain't seen nothin' aboard we can patch 'im up with, sir. Them hengines--them ---- hengines--ain't fit to crack nuts, let alone be aboard a ship!'

The sub. bit his lip, for there they were, well out of sight of land, the ship helpless, and nothing in sight. But he had been trained as an engineer himself, and was better at the job than some people imagined.

'I'll come and have a look at it,' he announced. 'We must do something. I can't sail the damned ship home, and there's nobody here to tow us!'

Eventually, after three hours' hard labour, they succeeded in repairing the damage with a piece of sheet-brass filched from somewhere else. It is doubtful if any fully qualified engineer would have passed the repair as either safe or satisfactory; but by the time they had finished, and were black, bad-tempered, and greasy, the engines were persuaded to produce the revolutions for four knots without running very hot. Even four knots was better than drifting aimlessly about the sea with the prospect of being bagged by a submarine or dying of thirst and starvation.

The next thing which refused duty was the boiler itself. It gave out at eight o'clock the same evening, and once more Coggins, looking more like a demon from the nethermost pit than a respectable stoker petty officer of his Majesty's Navy, a rabid teetotaler, a strict chapel-goer, and the father of four children who attended Sunday school regularly, arrived on deck in a state of incoherent vituperation.

'And what's the matter now?' Hargreaves inquired.

'The biler, sir. 'E ain't bin cleaned for eight months, them Germans says. The uptake and toobes is all sooted up, and we carn't get no steam to the hengines no'ow!'

The sub. sighed. 'How long's it going to take to clean it?'

''Bout six or seven hours, sir.'

'Well, carry on with it at once.'

In ordinary circumstances a boiler is cleaned when it is stone-cold and the fires are drawn; but Coggins, in some miraculous manner unknown to any one save himself and his victims, goaded the Germans into such a state of frenzied activity that they swept the tubes and uptakes in five hours. They did it with the fires damped down but still alight, and what they suffered from the heat only they themselves knew. But the job was done somehow, the firemen were revived with neat navy rum, and by one o'clock the next morning the _Anna Schroeder_ resumed her journey at the exasperating speed of 3·75 knots.

They eventually arrived in a certain harbour late the same evening without further mishap; and Hargreaves, after seeing the prize and the prisoners turned over to the responsible authorities, and his own men comfortably housed and fed in the Sailors' Home, retired to an hotel, ate a hearty meal, had a hot bath well impregnated with Jeyes's Fluid, borrowed a suit of pyjamas, a razor, and a new toothbrush from the manager, and then turned in and slept for nearly twelve hours.

Little more remains to be told, for the next morning they left by train to rejoin their ship, taking with them sundry mementoes from the prize. They have passed through many vicissitudes since, but neither the sub. nor his men will ever forget the _Anna Schroeder_.