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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stand By!, by Henry Taprell Dorling
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Stand By!
+       Naval Sketches and Stories
+
+
+Author: Henry Taprell Dorling
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2008  [eBook #26049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAND BY!***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   "Taffrail" is the pseudonym of Henry Taprell Dorling.
+
+   The book from which this etext was prepared was missing the leaf
+   containing pages 41 and 42.
+
+
+
+
+
+STAND BY!
+
+Naval Sketches and Stories
+
+by
+
+"TAFFRAIL"
+
+Author of "Carry On!" "Pincher Martin O.D., Etc."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+C. Arthur Pearson, Limited
+Henrietta Street, W.C.
+1916
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  THE SHIP'S COMPANY
+  WHO ARE SECOND
+  TO NONE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+It seems almost unnecessary to remark that the characters and ships
+figuring in the sketches throughout this book are entirely fictitious.
+
+"Bunting," "The Acting Sub," "Our Happy Home," "The Lost Sheep," "The
+'Muckle Flugga' Hussars," and "The Mother Ship" appeared in the _Daily
+Mail_, and "The 'Pirates'" in the _Weekly Despatch_.  They are here
+reprinted, with minor alterations, by kind permission of the Editors.
+
+TAFFRAIL.
+
+1916.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  THE "ACTING SUB"
+  THE MOTHER SHIP
+  OUT HAPPY HOME
+  BLOODLESS SURGERY
+  "BUNTING"
+  THE LOST SHEEP
+  A NAVAL MENAGERIE
+  THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS
+  THE "PIRATES"
+  A MINOR AFFAIR
+  THE FOG
+  THE TRADERS
+  POTVIN OF THE "PUFFIN"
+
+
+
+
+STAND BY!
+
+
+THE "ACTING SUB"
+
+He was a very junior young officer indeed when the powers that be first
+gladdened his heart and ruined his clothes by sending him to a
+destroyer.  A mere sub-lieutenant with "(acting)" after his name,
+which, as any proper "sub" will tell you, is a sign of extreme
+juniority.  Moreover, the single gold stripe on his monkey jacket was
+still suspiciously new and terribly untarnished.
+
+Not so very long before he had been a "snotty" (midshipman) in a
+battleship, a mere "dog's body," who had to obey the orders of almost
+every officer in the ship except those few who happened to be junior to
+him.  It is true that he exercised his authority and a severe
+discipline on those midshipmen who had the misfortune to be a year or
+so younger than himself, and that he expressed a lordly contempt for
+the assistant clerk.  But he lived in the gun-room, slept in a hammock,
+kept all his worldly possessions in a sea-chest, and bathed and dressed
+in the company of fifteen other boisterous young gentlemen.
+
+Then he had his watches to keep at sea and his picket boat to run in
+harbour, while his spare time was fully employed in mastering the
+subtleties of gunnery, torpedo work, and electricity, and in rubbing up
+his rapidly dwindling knowledge of engineering and _x_ and _y_.  It was
+well that he did so, for at some distant period when the war ceased he
+would have to pass certain stringent examinations before he could be
+confirmed in the rank of lieutenant.
+
+So on the whole he had been kept fairly busy, more particularly as
+watch-keeping at the guns with the ship at sea in all weathers in war
+time was not all jam.
+
+But when he was sent to a destroyer he found the life was more
+strenuous, for the little ship spent far more time at sea.  The weather
+was sometimes very bad indeed, and at first he was sea-sick, but it was
+always a consolation to have a cabin of his own, to live in the
+wardroom, and to be treated as a responsible officer instead of a mere
+"makee learn."
+
+He had to work at least six times harder than he had in a battleship.
+For one thing he had all the charts to correct and to keep up to date,
+no small labour with pencil, dividers, parallel rulers, and much red
+ink in these days of war, prolific minefields, dangerous areas,
+extinguished lights, and removed buoys.  He also assisted with the
+ship's gunnery, and at sea kept a regular three watches, eight hours
+out of every twenty-four, with the first lieutenant and gunner.  But it
+was the sense of responsibility and the feeling that he was doing
+really useful work which gladdened his heart and kept him keen and
+energetic.
+
+"Have you ever been in a destroyer before?" his commanding officer had
+asked him as soon as he joined.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Ever kept officer of the watch at sea?"
+
+Again the answer was in the negative.
+
+"Well, you'll have to do it here, my son.  If you want to know anything
+come to me.  There's nothing much in it so long as you keep your eyes
+skinned.  You'll soon learn."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The skipper had said there was nothing in it, but the first night at
+sea he found himself alone on the bridge in charge of the ship he
+thought differently.
+
+A light cruiser squadron and two flotillas of destroyers were steaming
+at 20 knots in close formation without lights.  The night was as black
+as the wolf's mouth, and the rapidly rising wind cut the tops off the
+short seas and sent them flying over the bridge in constant showers of
+spray.  Moreover, the perpetual pitching and rolling soon gave our
+friend a squeamish and altogether nasty sensation in the region of his
+waistcoat, and in ten minutes, by which time the water had found its
+way through his oilskins and was trickling merrily down the back of his
+neck, he felt miserable.
+
+The ship was in the middle of a line of eight destroyers.  Two hundred
+yards ahead of him he could just discern the dim black blur of the next
+ahead and the occasional splutter of whity-grey foam in her wake as her
+stern lifted to the seas.  At times, when a driving rain squall came
+down from windward, he seemed to lose sight of her altogether, and,
+through inexperience and in his anxiety to catch up, increased the
+revolutions of the engines not wisely but rather too much.  The next
+thing that happened was that the squall cleared, and he found himself
+almost on top of her, and had to put the helm over and sheer out of
+line to avoid a collision.  At the same time he reduced speed to drop
+back into station.  Sometimes he reduced more than he should, with the
+consequence that the next astern nearly bumped him, while the leader
+shot ahead and vanished into the darkness like a ghost.
+
+It was then that he had horrible thoughts of being scrubbed for the
+deadly sin of losing touch with the flotilla and meandering about the
+ocean like a lost sheep looking for his next ahead.  If he did not
+succeed in finding her somebody's blood would be required.
+
+It was rather trying for a novice, and many times he remembered the
+commanding officer's standing orders.  "Do not hesitate to call me if
+you are in doubt or difficulty," they said, with the "Do not"
+underlined twice.  Should he rouse the skipper or should he not?  He
+was asleep in his clothes on the cushioned settee in the charthouse
+underneath the bridge and would be up in ten seconds if required.  But
+the acting "sub" did hesitate to call him unnecessarily.  After all, it
+was quite possible that the "C.O." might be rather peevish if he was
+hauled out for no reason.  He was not really "in difficulty," he
+persuaded himself, and he certainly did not wish to patent the fact
+that he could not keep the ship in station, whatever the circumstances.
+
+No; he would not call him.  He solved the problem by increasing the
+speed of the engines ever so slightly above the normal, and five
+minutes later heaved a sigh of profound relief as the black shape of
+the next ahead hove up out of the darkness.
+
+In an hour his helpless feeling had gone and he was jogging merrily
+along without any difficulty.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But the skipper, who was accustomed to the ways and tricks of
+newly-joined officers generally, and sub-lieutenants in particular, had
+been awake the whole time.  He always slept with one eye open at sea,
+and as the charthouse was immediately beneath the bridge and the
+shafting of the wheel and engine-room telegraphs passed within a few
+feet of his head, he knew at once from their agitated movement when
+anything really desperate was happening.  So when the helm went
+overhand the revolution telegraph revolved frantically five or six
+times in quick succession he yawned wearily, flung off his rug, and sat
+up.
+
+"I won't go up and interfere unless he sends for me," he thought to
+himself.  "He must learn."  He had been a "sub" in a destroyer himself.
+The summons never came.
+
+At three o'clock, by which time the dawn was breaking, the "C.O." did
+appear on the bridge.
+
+"Well, Sub?" he asked.  "What d'you think of station keeping at night?"
+
+"Quite easy, sir," said that young officer blandly, quite unaware of
+the acoustic properties of the charthouse.  "As easy as falling off a
+log."
+
+"Did you have any difficulty in seeing the next ahead?"
+
+"Not much, sir.  It was a bit dark at times, though."
+
+The "C.O." smiled to himself.  He knew.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The "sub," he has passed out of the "acting" stage, is now an expert at
+the game, and, to use the phraseology of his latest confidential
+report, is "energetic and trustworthy" and a "most promising and
+capable officer."
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTHER SHIP
+
+Sixteen years ago, when the ships of the Royal Navy still disported
+themselves in black hulls, with red water-lines, white upper works, and
+yellow masts and funnels, she was a smart cruiser attached to one of
+the large fleets.  She was as spick and span as elbow grease and
+ingenuity could make her, and the show ship of her squadron and the
+pampered darling of the admiral, went by the name of "the yacht."
+
+She was easily one of the cleanest ships afloat.  Her blue-black side,
+anointed daily with some mysterious compound rubbed on with serge, a
+compound the exact ingredients of which were known only to her
+commander and the painter who mixed it, was as smooth and as shiny as a
+mahogany table.  Her decks were as clean as scrubbers, holystones,
+sand, and perspiring blue-jackets could make them, and woe betide the
+careless sailor who defiled their sacred whiteness with a spot of
+paint, or the stoker who left the imprint of a large and greasy foot on
+emerging into the fresh air from his labours in the engine-room or
+stokehold.
+
+Her guns, steel, and brass-work winked and shimmered in the sun.  Her
+funnels were brushed over at frequent intervals with a wash the colour
+and consistency of cream, and before she went to sea her yellow masts
+and yards used to be swathed in canvas lest they should be defiled by
+funnel smoke.  Her boats, with their white enamel inside and out, their
+black gunwales with the narrow golden ribbon running round inside, the
+well-scrubbed masts, oars, thwarts, bottom-boards, and gratings, the
+brass lettered backboards, and cushioned sternsheets, were the pride of
+her midshipmen and the envy of nearly all the other young gentlemen in
+the squadron.
+
+But then, of course, this all happened in the "good old days," the
+palmy days when men-of-war spent no great portion of their time at sea
+and when, in some ships, Messrs. Spit and Polish were still the
+presiding deities.  No doubt, as we were sometimes asked to believe
+before the war, the Service has gone to the dogs since 1900, for noisy
+and blatant Mr. Gunnery has usurped the place of the above-mentioned
+pair and life generally has become more strenuous.  The ability to hit
+a hostile ship at a distance of twenty miles or so cannot be inculcated
+in the fastnesses of a harbour.  The job simply must be taken seriously.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+If you turn up her name in the "Navy List" of to-day--wild horses will
+not make me disclose it and the Censor would not pass it if I did--you
+will see that she still figures as a cruiser, though the fact remains
+that she never goes to sea for any war-like purpose.  They have even
+added insult to injury by removing some of her guns.
+
+This may be a matter for deep regret on the part of her officers and
+men, who, since they belong to the Royal Navy or the Royal Naval
+Reserve, naturally long to assist in an active manner at the
+discomfiture of some floating Hun.  Their thoughts may not exactly be
+pleasant when they read and hear of the warlike doings of their
+seagoing sisters, but they may console themselves by recollecting that
+the ship of 1916 is probably infinitely more valuable to the country
+than that of 1900, and that at the present time the Navy could not do
+without her.
+
+She is still clean but is no longer a "yacht," for her purpose is
+strictly utilitarian.  She performs the multifarious duties of a depôt
+ship, and as such attends to the ailments, aches and pains of, caters
+for the needs of, and generally acts as a well-conducted mother to a
+large number of destroyers.  You have only to ask these latter what
+they think of their parent, and there is not one of them who would not
+tell you that they could not get on without her.  Of course they
+cannot!  For destroyers, like delicate children prone to catch mumps,
+whooping-cough, and measles, cannot thrive without careful nursing,
+particularly in war time.
+
+And so, if the depôt ship receives a plaintive wail by signal to say
+that one of her children has been punctured through the bows by a
+projectile from a belligerent Hun, or that another, in a slight
+altercation at sea with one of her sisters, has developed a "slight
+dent" in herself to the accompaniment of leaky rivets and seams, she
+merely says, "Come alongside!"
+
+The destroyer does so, and, lo! an army of workmen step on board with
+their tools, and with much hammering and drilling, the outward
+application of a steel plate, some oakum, and some white lead, her
+hurts are plastered and she is rendered seaworthy once more.
+
+Sometimes the defects may be even more serious, as, for instance, when
+one of her charges, having been badly cut into in a thick fog or having
+unwisely sat down upon a mine, limps back into harbour with several
+compartments full of water and serious internal injuries as well.  But
+the depôt ship is quite equal to the emergency.  She sends her
+shipwrights, carpenters, and other experts on board the afflicted one
+and, with a large wooden patch, more oakum, and buckets of red and
+white lead, the destroyer is made sufficiently seaworthy to proceed to
+the nearest dockyard.
+
+Again, there may be engine-room defects, such  things  as  over-heated
+thrust-blocks, stripped turbines, and leaky valves.  There are boiler
+troubles and the periodical cleaning of the boiler tubes.  There can be
+defects in the guns, torpedo-tubes, searchlights, or electrical
+fittings; defects anywhere and everywhere, even in the galley-stove
+funnel or the wardroom pantry.  Mother has a large family and their
+ailments are very varied and diverse.  But she competes with them all
+and, save in cases of very severe damage, rarely confesses the job to
+be beyond her powers and has to send her troublesome child to a
+dockyard.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But this is not all she does.  If Spud Murphy, able seaman of a
+destroyer, carves the top off his finger or complains of "'orrible
+pains in th' stummick," he is sent to mother to be nursed back to
+health by her doctors.  If Peter Jones imagines he has not received the
+pay to which he is entitled, if he wishes to remit a monthly sum to his
+wife, or if he desires to become the possessor of a pair of boots, a
+tooth-brush, and a pair of new trousers, mother will oblige him.
+Moreover, the fond parent distributes the mails and supplies the beef,
+vegetables, bread, rum, haricot beans, tinned salmon, raisins, sugar,
+tea, flour, coffee, and a hundred and one other comestibles necessary
+for the nourishment of those on board her protégées.  She will also
+supply many other unconsidered trifles in the way of ammunition,
+torpedoes, rope, canvas, paint, emery paper, bath-brick, oil, bolts,
+nuts, pens, red ink, black ink, hectograph ink, foolscap, pencils,
+paper fasteners, postage stamps ... I will leave it at that.
+
+Heaven alone knows what else she can disgorge.  She seems to resemble a
+glorified Army and Navy Stores, with engineering, ship fitting, ship
+chandlery, outfitting, haberdashery, carpentry, chemists, dry
+provisions, butchers, bakers, stationery, postal, and fancy goods
+departments.  We have forgotten the certificate office or research
+department, where they will tell you the colour of the eyes of any man
+in the flotilla, the number of moles on the back of his neck, and the
+interesting fact that Stoker "Ginger" Smith has a gory heart transfixed
+by an arrow, together with the words "True Love," indelibly tattooed on
+his left forearm.
+
+The Criminal Investigation Department, which seems to be aware of the
+past history of everybody, will deal with offenders, while, to go to
+the opposite extreme, the depôt ship's padre will be only too happy to
+publish the banns of marriage for any member of his flock.
+
+In addition to all this the officers of the flotilla are honorary
+members of mother's wardroom, where, despite the fact that she
+sometimes has great difficulty in collecting the sums due at the end of
+the month, she allows them to obtain meals, drinks, and tobacco.
+Lastly, she gets up periodical kinematograph or variety shows to which
+all are invited, free, gratis, and for nothing....  What more could her
+children want?  She is a very good mother to them.  Her greatness has
+not departed.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HAPPY HOME
+
+Compared with that of a "27-knotter" of twenty years ago the wardroom
+of a modern destroyer is a palatial apartment.
+
+Imagine a room about 15 ft. long, 25 ft. wide--the whole beam of the
+ship--with about 7 ft.  headroom.
+
+It has white enamelled sides and ceiling.  A table, long enough to seat
+ten people at a pinch, runs athwartships, and ranged round it are
+various straight-backed chairs.
+
+On the after bulkhead is a square mahogany cupboard with a railed top,
+on which reposes a gramophone, while to the right, in the corner, is
+another cupboard reaching to the deck above and divided into numerous
+square lockers.  It is really intended for stationery, but provides an
+equally useful receptacle for bottled beer and stout.
+
+To right and left along the ship's side, with its row of small
+scuttles, are cushioned settees, and on the foremost bulkhead, to the
+left of the door, is a bookcase with cupboard underneath.  Except on
+Sundays, when the latter is specially tidied up for the "rounds," it
+will not bear close investigation.  It may be found to contain half a
+Stilton cheese (rather fruity), pats of butter, two bottles of
+Worcester sauce, fruit, one tin of Bluebell polish, and a large lump of
+oily waste.  No wonder our butter sometimes tastes peculiar!
+
+To the right of the door is a sideboard, a solid mahogany affair, with
+racks for glasses and tumblers, and cupboards for wine.  In the centre
+of it is a mirror which, on sliding down into a recess, reveals a small
+square hatch communicating with the pantry outside.
+
+Overhead, secured to the beams, are various pipes, electric light
+fittings, brass curtain rods, and a couple of swinging oil lamps.
+Several more oil lamps are in the bulkheads or walls.  They are used
+when steam is down and the dynamo is not running.  The furniture and
+fittings are completed by a comfortable-looking, well-padded armchair,
+a couple of steam radiators of polished, perforated brass for warming
+purposes when the ship is at sea, a red and blue carpet, curtains, a
+letter rack and notice board, and the stove.
+
+The latter is fitted to burn anthracite.  It looks well, with its
+highly polished brass casing and funnel reaching up through the deck
+above, but it has a very decided will of its own.  Sometimes, in a fit
+of contrariness, it persists in blazing like a blast furnace on muggy
+days until its sides are nearly red-hot and the heat of the wardroom is
+well-nigh intolerable.  But on chilly mornings it occasionally rings a
+change by refusing to burn at all, and merely vomits forth clouds of
+acrid, grey smoke.  This generally occurs during breakfast, when folk
+are sometimes apt to be snappish and irritable.  We have never really
+quite fathomed the idiosyncrasies of the stove.  Maybe it is sadly
+misunderstood, but at any rate we can always empty the vials of our
+wrath for its misdeeds upon the head of its unfortunate custodian, a
+newly caught officer's steward of the second class, with long hair and
+a mournful aspect.
+
+We are at war, and there is little or no attempt at decoration in our
+habitation.  The bright red and black tablecloth of the usual service
+pattern gives the place a touch of colour, but beyond this and a couple
+of vases of tightly packed flowers on the table, and on the ship's side
+a print of the gallant old admiral after whom the ship is named,
+everything serves a strictly utilitarian purpose.
+
+But in spite of its bareness the wardroom is very snug and comfortable.
+It is particularly inviting on returning from a spell at sea, when one
+goes below from the wet and chilly upper deck, to find everybody
+talking at the top of their voices, and pipes, cigarettes, and the
+stove all going full blast together.  If it is after sunset and the
+ship is "darkened" the scuttles will all have their deadlights down,
+and the place will be very, what we may call "frowsty."  The
+atmosphere, indeed, what with tobacco smoke and various unnameable but
+pungent odours from the pantry outside, might well be cut with a knife;
+but nobody seems to mind.  It is warm, at any rate, and is ten thousand
+times better than the piercing wind and bitter cold on deck.
+
+At sea it is not always pleasant.  In heavy weather the stern of the
+ship has an unwholesome knack of jumping into the air and shaking
+itself like the tail of a dog.  It is disconcerting, to say the least
+of it, particularly when the water sweeps its way aft along the upper
+deck in solid masses which no so-called watertight ventilator can keep
+out.
+
+When the helm goes over suddenly, too, and the ship slaps her stern
+into the heart of an advancing wave, a miniature Niagara comes pouring
+down the after-hatch, unless it happens to be shut.  It rarely is.  As
+a consequence the mess is sometimes inches deep in water, while the
+violent motion unships every moveable fitting in the place and flings
+it to the deck.
+
+At times the dog Cuthbert, in his basket, the gramophone, many broken
+records, chairs, tumblers, apples and bananas, books, magazines,
+papers, knives and forks, a tinned tongue, and the cheese play a
+riotous game of leapfrog on the deck, with the dirty water sluicing
+after them.
+
+From outside in the pantry come the crashing sounds of our rapidly
+disintegrating stock of crockery, and, if we dared to poke our noses
+inside this chamber of horrors, we should see a pale-faced officer's
+steward seated on a bench with his head held in his hands.  A joint of
+cold beef, a loaf of bread, an empty pickle jar, and cups, saucers, and
+plates are probably playing touch-last in the sink.  The floor is a
+noisome kedgeree of broken china and glass, sea water, pickles,
+chutney, condensed milk, and other articles of food.  But the steward,
+poor wight, is past caring.  He does not mind whether it is Christmas
+or Easter.
+
+A good many of the others are sea-sick as well, for a destroyer in
+really bad weather is worse than a nightmare, while it is practically
+impossible to keep dry or to get proper food even if one wanted it.
+But yet there is a rumour going round that, through reasons of economy,
+we are shortly to be docked of our "hard-lying" money!  But a word as
+to the inhabitants.
+
+First comes the commander or lieutenant-commander in command.  His
+cabin--which in heavy weather sometimes suffers the same fate as the
+wardroom, except that the litter on the deck is limited to water,
+clothes, books, and papers--is a good-sized apartment in the flat just
+forward of the wardroom.  At sea he spends all his hours on the bridge
+or in the charthouse, and is only seen below for odd ten minutes at a
+time.  In harbour, however, he has his meals in the wardroom with the
+other officers, but spends no small portion of his day at his
+writing-table in his cabin answering official conundrums as to why, for
+instance, two tablespoons and a napkin have been "lost overboard by
+accident in heavy weather" in the middle of a notoriously fine summer.
+He also grinds out official letters and reports by the sweat of his
+brow, and is gradually becoming a pastmaster in the art of "having the
+honour to be" somebody else's "obedient servant."
+
+Living in the wardroom and knowing all the members of the ship's
+company by name brings him into very intimate touch with the men and
+their affairs.  He knows of everything that goes on on board, and as
+most of the official correspondence of the ship is done by him he is a
+very busy man even in harbour.  At one time he also had to write and
+thank those good-hearted people who sent mufflers, mittens, cigarettes,
+balaclava helmets, and peppermints to the "dear sailors."
+
+Next comes the engineer-lieutenant-commander, or the "chief," as we
+call him.  He, too, has his hands full, for besides being in charge of
+the turbines, boilers, and all the machinery on board, he is also
+responsible for practically all the stores except provisions.  They
+range in variety from what his store books call prenolphthaline,
+solution of; cans, iron, tinned, 4 galls.; bits, brace, carpenter's,
+centre, 1 1/4 inches; to flags, hand, nainsook, white, with dark blue
+stripe, 2 ft. by 2 ft.; watches, stop; bolts, steel, screwed, bright,
+hexagonal-headed, 1 in. by 2 in.; sealing wax, foolscap, paper
+fasteners, and pencils; and paint, green, Brunswick, middling, whatever
+that may be.  This is just a small selection of the articles he keeps
+and has to account for at stocktaking, and if you turned out his
+various storerooms you would find he had sufficient articles to set up
+a combined ironmongery, ship chandlery, and stationery emporium.
+
+Occasionally he also is bothered with conundrums.  For instance, the
+naval store officer at one of the dockyard ports has a cheerful habit
+of forwarding a communication to the effect that "brushes, paint, three
+in number, and broomsticks, bundle of, one, demanded" on such and such
+a date "are in No. 8 store awaiting removal.  Kindly send for them as
+soon as possible, or if ship has sailed kindly say where these articles
+should be sent."  The ship always has sailed, and by the time the
+letter is received is usually hundreds of miles away in Scotland,
+Ireland, or Timbuctoo.  Moreover, as the censorship regulations
+strictly forbid the ship's location to be mentioned, the chief curses.
+
+His dilemma rather reminds us of the young and giddy naval officer who,
+after a riotous night in London forgot whether he had been appointed to
+H.M.S. Chatham at Dublin or H.M.S. Dublin at Chatham!
+
+Then we have the first lieutenant, the executive officer of the ship
+and the skipper's right-hand man.  He is the go-between betwixt
+officers and men, is responsible for the ship's interior economy,
+cleanliness, and organisation, and has to be pretty shrewd and
+levelheaded.  Energetic as well, for though a destroyer is a small
+vessel and carries under a hundred men all told, there is always
+something going on.  In addition to his other duties, too, he takes
+turns in keeping watch at sea with the sub-lieutenant and gunner.
+
+Next the sub-lieutenant.  He is the veteran of our little party so far
+as this war is concerned, for before he came to us he was in a
+battleship in the Dardanelles.  He is now the custodian of the charts,
+and has to keep them up to date, no easy matter in these strenuous
+times of Hun minefields.  He also runs the ship's football team, which
+goes ashore and disports itself in green jerseys whenever it gets the
+opportunity.  This, in itself, entails some work and an infinite amount
+of tact, particularly as fully half the ship's company wish to play.
+
+Next the gunner (T), responsible for the torpedo armament, electrical
+fittings, and the actual mechanism and mountings of the guns.  He is a
+very busy man, for his torpedoes, like children, always seem to have
+something the matter with their insides.
+
+Then comes the surgeon probationer.  He is not a fully qualified
+medical man, but a student from one of the large London hospitals
+temporarily enrolled in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.  He gives
+hygiene lectures to the ship's company, attends to their cuts,
+contusions, and minor ailments, and packs them off to hospital or to
+the mother ship if necessary.  After an action he would be more useful
+still.
+
+Lastly the "Snotty" of the Royal Naval Reserve, who does odd jobs of
+all kinds and generally assists the first lieutenant and the sub.
+
+"Cuthbert," our dog, is a Sealyham terrier.  He lives either in the
+wardroom or the skipper's cabin.  He has bad dreams sometimes, and
+makes strange noises in his sleep, but is the only member of our
+community who is really cheerful in bad weather, and is always ready
+for his food.
+
+"Bo," or "Hobo," to give him his full name--somebody was reading Jack
+London's "The Road" when he came aboard as a tiny kitten--is a
+black-and-white tom-cat of plebeian origin.  He is an honorary member
+of our mess and occasionally pays us visits at meal-times, and after
+nourishment sometimes condescends to occupy the armchair in front of
+the stove.  He is very friendly with Cuthbert.
+
+The first steward we had was an ex-valet.  He suffered from a swollen
+head and what he was pleased to call a "college education."  He may
+have been an excellent valet, but was no earthly good as the steward of
+a destroyer, and soon departed.  His sins would fill a book.  He used
+our expensive damask table napkins as dish cloths, involving us in
+endless complications with the Victualling Yard authorities, who
+objected to their being used for such a purpose.  He produced cold ham,
+biscuits, and pickles for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner.  Excellent
+in their way, no doubt, but rather monotonous in the depths of winter.
+On one occasion he skinned a pheasant to save himself the trouble of
+plucking it--we will draw a veil over what happened.
+
+The next caterer we had was an able seaman who re-entered the Navy as a
+volunteer for the war.  He, during his time out of the Service, had
+been a sort of general factotum to some dark-skinned South American
+potentate.  He is a real treasure--the A. B. I mean, not necessarily
+the potentate.  He feeds us liberally and well, though it is true that
+he speedily discovered the virtues of tinned salmon.  In fact we don't
+know what he would do without it, and the ubiquitous pig.  Sometimes we
+have tinned salmon fish cakes and bacon for breakfast, tinned salmon
+kedgeree, cold ham, and pig brawn for lunch, and roast pork as a joint
+for dinner.  By rights we should have grown cloven hooves and salmon
+scales, but we always have a pleasant feeling of repletion after meals
+and have no cause for real complaint.
+
+Our amusements are simple.  We talk a great deal of "shop" and argue a
+lot, read a great deal--some of us get through two "seven-pennies" a
+day--listen to the gramophone, write letters, play with the doctor's
+Meccano set, and try to persuade Cuthbert to strafe the cat.
+
+Our arguments are of the usual naval variety.  Positive assertion,
+followed by flat contradiction and personal abuse, terminating in a
+babel in which everybody shouts and no one listens.
+
+Sometimes, before breakfast, we have our early morning "hates," and are
+fractious and peevish.  We long to strafe someone or something, and if,
+like the soldiers in the trenches, we had the Huns always with us, we
+might vent our spleen on them.  But we can't, worse luck!
+
+But please do not imagine that we are unhappy, because we aren't.  Our
+mouldiness in the mornings is merely temporary.  If we could but catch
+a Hun before breakfast!
+
+
+
+
+BLOODLESS SURGERY
+
+The climb had been a stiff one.  The day was very hot, and, rather
+purple about the face and breathing heavily, the sailor relapsed on the
+springy, scented turf close to the cliff's edge and gazed pensively at
+the vista of shimmering sea spread out before him.
+
+He was a massive, rotund, bull-necked individual, with a face the
+colour of a ripe tomato, and wore on the sleeves of his jumper two red
+good conduct badges and the single gun and star of an able seaman,
+seaman gunner, of His Majesty's Navy.  His name was Smith, I
+discovered, and he was home on seven days' leave.  I had met him
+halfway up the hill ten minutes before, toiling laboriously to the
+summit like an asthmatic cart-horse, and with his crimson face shining
+and beady with perspiration.  A mutual glance and a casual remark about
+the excessive heat had led to conversation.
+
+He now sat on the turf mopping his heated countenance with a mottled
+blue and white handkerchief; but a few minutes later, having recovered
+himself sufficiently to smoke, produced a pipe, tobacco box, and
+matches from the interior of his cap.
+
+"You 'aint got a fill o' 'bacca abart you, I suppose, sir?" he queried,
+exploring the inner recesses of his brass tobacco box with a horny
+forefinger.
+
+"I'm afraid it's rather weaker stuff than you're used to," I remarked
+deprecatingly, handing my pouch across.
+
+"Yus," he agreed, examining its contents and proceeding to fill his
+pipe.  "It do look a bit like 'ay, don't it?  'Owever, seein' as 'ow I
+carn't git no more I'm werry much obliged, sir, I'm sure."
+
+"It's expensive hay," I said weakly, as he handed my property back and
+lit his pipe.  "It costs well over ten shillings a pound."
+
+The ungrateful old sinner puffed out a cloud of smoke.  "'Arf a
+Bradbury[1]!" he grunted unsympathetically.  "You're jokin', sir."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"But we pays a bob a pound fur 'bacca on board o' the ship," he
+expostulated.  "It's something like 'bacca; grips you by the neck,
+like."
+
+Evidently the delicate flavour of my best John Cotton did not
+sufficiently tickle his brazen palate.
+
+For a moment or two there was silence between us as we watched the
+gulls screaming and wheeling over some object in the water far beneath
+us.
+
+"Well," I asked, merely to start a conversation, "how d'you like the
+Navy?"
+
+"Suits me all right, sir," he said, "seein' as 'ow I've bin in it a
+matter o' fifteen year.  But between you an' me, sir," he hastened to
+add, "it ain't like wot it wus when I fust jined.  It's full o'
+noo-fangled notions an' sichlike."
+
+"What d'you mean?" I asked in some amazement.
+
+"Carn't say no more, sir.  Afore we wus sent on leaf we wus all
+cautioned special not to git talkin' abart the Service wi' civvies."
+
+I suppose I did look rather unlike a member of His Majesty's land
+forces, for I was wearing plain clothes and had only come out of
+hospital four days before, after being wounded for the second time on
+the western front.  (I am speaking of the fighting line in France, not
+anatomically.)  I hastened to explain who I was.
+
+"Sorry I spoke, sir," he apologised.  "I thought you wus one o' these
+'ere la-de-dah blokes out fur an arrin'.  Wot did you say your corpse
+wus?"
+
+"Corpse!  What corpse?"
+
+"Corpse, sir.  Rig'mint."
+
+"Oh, I see.  I'm only a doctor, a Lieutenant in the R.A.M.C.  I'm on
+sick leave, and crawled up here to-day to get some fresh air and to ...
+er, meet someone I know."  I looked at my wrist watch and glanced over
+my shoulder.
+
+"Young lady, sir?" he queried in a husky, confidential whisper.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I'm on the same lay meself," he told me, with a throaty sigh and a
+lovelorn look in his blue eyes.  "Expectin' 'er any minit now, seein'
+as 'ow it's 'er arternoon art.  'Er name's Hamelia, an' I don't come up
+'ere to look at the perishin' sea, not 'arf I don't.  I gits fair sick
+o' lookin' at it on board o' the ship."
+
+I was not in the mood for exchanging confidences as to my prospective
+matrimonial affairs, and my silence must have said as much.
+
+"Beggin' your pardon, sir; but seein' as 'ow you're a doctor, I wonder
+if you 'appens to know our bloke in the _Jackass_?"
+
+"Who, your doctor?"
+
+"Yessir.  Tall orficer 'e is, close on six foot 'igh, wi' black 'air,
+wot jined the Navy special fur the war.  Name o' Brown."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't know him," I said, puzzling my brains to fit any
+medical man of my acquaintance to his very loose description.
+
+"'E's a fair corker, sir," my companion grinned.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"The way 'e gits 'is leg pulled, sir."
+
+I scented a story, and as there was still no flutter of a white skirt
+down the slope to our right, I desired him to continue.
+
+"Well, sir," he started, "it wus like this 'ere.  The _Jackass_ is one
+o' these 'ere light cruisers, and one mornin' at 'arf parst nine, arter
+the fust lootenant,--Number One, as we calls 'im,--arter 'e 'ad
+finished tellin' off the 'ands for their work arter divisions, the
+doctor 'appened to be standin' close alongside 'im, Number One beckons
+to the chief buffer..."
+
+"I beg your pardon," I put in, rather mystified.  "I'm afraid I don't
+know very much about the Navy.  What's a chief buffer?"
+
+"Chief Bos'un's Mate, wot looks arter the upper deck, sir.  Name o'
+Scroggins.  Well, sir, Number One sez to 'im, 'Scroggins,' 'e sez.
+'You knows them buoys we was usin' yesterday?'--'Yessir,' I 'ears the
+chief buffer say.  'You means them wot we 'ad fur that there boat
+racin' yesterday?'--'Yes,' sez Jimmy the One.[2]  'I wants 'em all bled
+before seven bells this mornin'.'--'Aye, aye, sir,' sez Scroggins, and
+goes off to see abart it."
+
+"Bleed the boys!" I murmured in surprise.  "Do you mean to tell me they
+still have these archaic methods in the Navy?"
+
+"Course they does, sir," answered the A. B.  "They won't float else."
+
+"What, in case the ship is torpedoed or sunk by a mine?" I asked
+innocently, very perplexed.  "I'm a medical man myself; but I never
+knew that bleeding people made them more buoyant!"
+
+"If you arsks me these 'ere questions, sir, I carn't spin no yarn," the
+sailor interrupted with a twinkle in his eye.  "Well, sir, the fust
+lootenant tells the chief buffer to 'ave the buoys bled, but it so
+'appens that the doctor 'eard wot 'e said, so up 'e comes.--'Did I 'ear
+you tellin' the Chief Bos'un's Mate to 'ave the boys bled?' he
+arsks.--'You did indeed, Sawbones,' Number One tells 'im.--'But surely
+that's my bizness?' sez the doctor.--'Your bizness!' sez Number One,
+frownin' like.  ''Ow in 'ell d'you make that art?'--''Cos I'm the
+medical orficer o' this 'ere ship.'--'Ah,' sez Number One, slow like
+and grinnin' all over 'is face and tappin' 'is nose.  'You means, doc.,
+that I've no right to order the boys to be bled, wot?'--'That's just
+'xactly wot I does mean,' sez the doctor, gittin' a bit rattled like."
+
+"I quite agree with him," I put in.  "The First Lieutenant had no
+business at all to order the boys to be bled.  Besides, bleeding is
+hopelessly..."
+
+"Is it me wot's spinnin' this 'ere yarn or is it you, sir?" interrupted
+the narrator.  "'Cos if it's me, I loses the thread o' wot I'm sayin'
+if you gits arskin' questions."
+
+"I'm sorry," I sighed.  "Please go on."
+
+"Well, sir, Number One and the doctor 'as a reg'lar hargument and
+bargin' match on the quarterdeck, though I see'd Number One wus larfin'
+to 'isself the 'ole time.  The doctor sez to 'im as 'ow they'd best
+refer the matter to the skipper; but the fust lootenant sez they carn't
+do that 'cos the skipper's attendin' a court-martial and won't be back
+till the arternoon.  Then the doc. wants to know if Number One'll give
+'im an order in writin' to bleed the boys; but Number One larfs and sez
+'e won't be such a fool, and sez that in 'is opinion the buoys should
+be bled.  The doctor then sez the boys don't want bleedin', and arsks
+Number One if 'e's prepared to haccept 'is advice as a medical orficer.
+The fust lootenant sez of course 'e will, and sez as 'ow 'e'll arrange
+to 'ave all the buoys mustered in the sick bay at six bells, and that
+they needn't be bled if the doctor sez they don't want it."
+
+"It wus all I could do to stop meself larfin', 'specially when Number
+One sings art fur the chief buffer.  'Scroggins,' 'e sez, ''ave all o'
+them there buoys wot I wus talkin' abart in the sick bay by eleven
+o'clock punctual.'--Scroggins seems a bit startled.  'In the sick bay,
+sir?' 'e arsks.--'Yus,' sez Number One, grinnin' to 'isself and winkin'
+at the chief buffer.  'In the sick bay by six bells sharp.'--'Werry
+good, sir,' sez Scroggins, tumblin' to wot wus up, 'cos 'e saw the
+doctor standin' there.  I 'eard all o' wot 'appened, and I tells all my
+pals.  The chief buffer does the same, and so does Number One, so at
+six bells, when the sick bay stooard 'ad bin sent by Jimmy the One to
+tell the doctor as 'ow the buoys wus ready for bleedin', almost all the
+orficers and abart 'arf the ship's company 'ad mustered artside the
+sick bay under the fo'c'sle to see wot 'appened.
+
+"Presently the doctor comes along, sees the crowd, but goes inside
+without sayin' nothin'.  But soon we 'ears 'im lettin' go at the sick
+bay stooard inside.  'Wot the devil's the meanin' o' this?' 'e wants to
+know.--'Fust lootenant's orders, sir,' sez the stooard.--'Fust
+lootenant be damned,' the doctor sings art.  'I'll report 'im to the
+captain.  S'welp me, I will!'--And wi' that 'e comes artside werry
+rattled and walks aft without sayin' a word to no one.  I feels a bit
+sorry for 'im, sir," the story teller went on, "'cos Number One 'ad bin
+pullin' 'is leg agen."
+
+"Pulling his leg?" I echoed.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the seaman, bursting with merriment.  "'Cos the sick
+bay, and it weren't none too large, was all but filled up wi' six 'efty
+great casks, wi' flagstaffs and sinkers complete.  They wus the buoys
+Number One 'ad bin talkin' abart all along."
+
+I could not help laughing.
+
+"I see," I said.  "The First Lieutenant meant BUOYS and the doctor the
+ship's BOYS, what?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"But tell me," I asked.  "What about the bleeding?"
+
+"Bleedin', sir!  Why, d'you mean to tell me you don't know wot bleedin'
+a buoy is?"
+
+"I'm afraid my nautical knowledge is very limited," I apologised.
+
+"It's surprisin' wot some shoregoin' blokes don't know abart th' Navy,
+sir," said the burly one with some contempt, chuckling away to himself.
+"But if you reely wants to know, bleedin' a buoy means borin' a small
+'ole in 'im to let the water art, 'cos they all leaks a bit arter
+they've bin in the sea.  But I must say good arternoon, sir," he added
+hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder and rising to his feet.  "'Ere's
+my gal comin', and there's another abart 'arf a cable astern of 'er wot
+I expec's is yourn.  Good arternoon, sir, and don't git stoppin' no
+more o' them there bullets."  He touched his forelock.
+
+"But tell me?" I said.  "Did the first lieutenant and doctor make it up
+all right?"
+
+"Bet your life they did, sir," he said with a laugh, moving off.  "Them
+haffairs wus almost o' daily hoccurrence."
+
+"Good luck to you," I called out after him, "and thank you for a most
+instructive twenty minutes!"
+
+He looked back over his shoulder; his bright red face broadened into a
+huge smile, and he deliberately winked twice.
+
+I had to hurry away, for already the sailor nearly had his arm round
+his housemaid's waist, while my Anne, at least half an hour late, was
+panting wearily towards where I stood.
+
+"Who is your sailor friend?" was her first question.
+
+"Ananias the Second," I answered, for at the back of my mind I had a
+vague suspicion that the first lieutenant of the _Jackass_ was not the
+only member of her ship's company who delighted in pulling people's
+legs.
+
+
+
+[1] A "Bradbury" is one of the new £1 notes.  So called from the
+signature at the bottom.
+
+[2] "Jimmy the One," a lower-deck nickname for the First Lieutenant.
+
+
+
+
+"BUNTING"
+
+He was a short, thick-set, ruddy-faced, shrewd-eyed little person, who
+wore on the left sleeve of his blue jumper two good-conduct badges and
+the single anchor denoting his "Leading" rate, and on his right the
+crossed flags denoting his calling, together with a star above and
+below which signified that he was something of an expert at his job.
+In short, he was a Leading Signalman of His Majesty's Navy.  His name I
+need not mention.  To his friends he sometimes answered to "Nutty," but
+more often to "Buntin'."
+
+It was always a mystery to me why he had not come to wear the crossed
+anchors and crown of a Yeoman of Signals, for his qualifications
+certainly seemed to fit him for promotion to petty-officer's rank,
+while his habits and character in the last ship in which I knew him
+were all that could be desired.
+
+It was on board a destroyer that I came to know him really well, and
+here his work was onerous and responsible.  He had his mate, a callow
+youth who was usually sea-sick in bad weather, and at sea they took 4
+hours' turn and turn about on the bridge, each keeping 12 hours' watch
+out of the twenty-four.  But the elder man always seemed to be within
+sight and hearing, even in his watch below; and the moment anything
+unusual happened, the moment flags started flapping in the breeze,
+semaphores started to talk, the younger man became rattled and
+helpless, and things generally started to go wrong, all at the same
+moment, "Nutty" came clambering up the ladder to the assistance of his
+bewildered colleague.
+
+"Call yerself a signalman!" he would growl ferociously.  "Give us the
+glass, an' look sharp an' 'oist the answerin' pendant.  You ain't fit
+to be trusted up 'ere!"
+
+It is to be feared that the youthful one sometimes found his life a
+misery and a burden, for his mentor was a strict disciplinarian and did
+not hesitate to bully and goad him into a state of proper activity.
+But the youngster needed it badly.
+
+"Nutty" seemed to be blessed with the eyes of a lynx, the dexterity of
+a conjurer, and the tentacles of a decapod.  He invariably saw a
+floating mine, a buoy, or a lightship long before the man whose proper
+work it was to see it, and at sea, with a telescope to his eye, I often
+saw him apparently taking in two signals from opposite points of the
+compass at one and the same moment, with the ship rolling heavily and
+sheets of spray flying over the bridge.
+
+Somewhere at Portsmouth he had a wife and two children, whom he saw, if
+he was lucky, for perhaps seven days every six months.  Of his domestic
+affairs I knew little; but, judging from his letters, which were
+frequent and voluminous and had to pass through the hands of the ship's
+censor, he was devoted to his wife and family.  I hope they loved him.
+
+Why he was not a Yeoman of Signals I never discovered.  Perhaps he had
+a lurid past.  But conjecture is useless.  Promotion now would come too
+late to be of any use to him.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Butter, Monkey, Nuts," he rattled off as a light cruiser two miles
+away suddenly wreathed herself in flags.  "Zebra, Charlie,
+Fanny--Ethel, Donkey, Tommy--Ginger, Percy, Lizzie----  Got that, Bill?"
+
+An Able Seaman, busy with a pencil and a signal pad, signified that he
+had.
+
+"'Arf a mo', though," resumed the expert, re-levelling his telescope.
+"I ain't quite certain about that first 'oist.  Why on earth they can't
+'oist the things clear I dunno!" he grumbled bitterly, for some of the
+distant flags, as is often the case when the wind is light and
+uncertain, had coyly wrapped themselves round the halliards and refused
+to be seen.
+
+Someone on the bridge of the distant cruiser might almost have heard
+his remark, for as he spoke the halliards began agitatedly to jerk up
+and down to allow the bunting to flutter clear.
+
+"Ah!" he murmured.  "Now we'll get 'em....  Lord!" in a piercing
+undertone as some misguided humorist in the cruiser's stokehold
+inconsiderately allowed a puff of black smoke to issue forth from the
+foremost funnel, completely to obliterate the strings of flags.
+
+The Leading Signalman, not being a thought reader as well as a
+conjurer, put down his telescope with a grunt until the pall cleared
+away.  "In the first 'oist," he said when the atmosphere had cleared,
+"in the first 'oist, 'stead o' Fanny put 'Arry.'  'H' for 'Arry."
+
+The A.B. sucked his pencil and acquiesced, while his friend, darting to
+the after side of the small bridge, hoisted the white and red
+"Answering Pendant" to show that the signal had been seen and read.  He
+then handed the pad across, on which, in large sprawling capital
+letters, he had laboriously traced "BMN--ZCF--EDT--GPL."
+
+The "Butter, Monkey, Nuts" business, incomprehensible and startling as
+it might have been to any outsider, merely emphasised the difference in
+sound between various letters.  B, C, D, E, P, and T; J and K; M and N,
+among others, are very much alike when pronounced by themselves; but
+"butter" could not well be mistaken for "Charlie," neither could
+"monkey" be confounded with "nuts."
+
+The Leading Signalman looked out the meaning of the different groups of
+letters in the book provided for the purpose and showed the result to
+his commanding officer.  Its purport was comparatively unimportant,
+something about oil-fuel on arrival in harbour.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But finding out the meaning of those flag signals which he did not know
+by heart--and he knew most of them--was only a tithe of his duty.  He
+was equally expert at taking in a message spelt out by the whirling
+arms of a semaphore, arms which waved so rapidly, and whose giddy
+gyrations were so often well-nigh invisible against a bad background,
+that his performance savoured of the miraculous.  At night, too, he was
+just as good, for then the frenzied winking of a dim light would convey
+its meaning just the same.  It was a point of honour with him always to
+get a signal correctly the first time it was made.  I never saw him ask
+for a repetition.
+
+Only twice did I know him to laugh on the bridge, and the first time
+that occurred was when, through a series of circumstances which need
+not be entered into here, we nearly came into contact with the next
+ahead.  Such things do happen.
+
+Then it was that the next ahead--he was several years senior to us and
+a humorist--turned in his wrath and quoted the Bible.  "Your
+attention," his semaphore said, "is drawn to the Gospel according to
+St. Matthew, chapter 16, verse 23."
+
+We sent for the Bible, looked up the reference, and read: "But he
+turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an
+offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but
+those that be of men."
+
+The quotation was apt and the Leading Signalman's eyes twinkled.  Then
+I noticed his mouth expanding into a grin, and presently he laughed, a
+short, explosive sort of laugh rather like the bark of a dog.
+
+But we had our revenge a week later, when our next ahead--he was our
+friend as well as our senior--nearly collided with a buoy at the
+entrance to a certain harbour.
+
+"What about the Book of Proverbs?" our semaphore asked.  "Chapter 22,
+verse 28."
+
+"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set," he must
+have read.  I cannot remember the reply, but the Leading Signalman had
+laughed once more.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But "Bunting" will never smile again.  He went down with his ship on
+May 31, 1916.  The North Sea is his grave and the curling whitecap his
+tombstone.  His epitaph may be written across the sky in a trail of
+smoke from some passing steamer.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST SHEEP
+
+The glass had gone down with a thump during the afternoon, and all
+through the night the destroyer had been steaming home against a
+rapidly rising gale.
+
+Of how she came to be alone and parted from her flotilla the less said
+the better.  It was due to a variety of circumstances, among them being
+a blinding rain squall after dark the evening before, in which the
+officer of the watch was unable to see more than twenty yards, and some
+temporary trouble with an air pump which necessitated stopping to put
+it right.
+
+The sea, as is usual with the wind from the south-west, had risen fast,
+and by midnight it was heavy and steep, while the little ship, punching
+against it, had pitched, rolled, thumped and thudded as only a
+destroyer can.  The motion was dizzy and maddening--a combined pitch
+and heavy roll which was the very acme of discomfort.  Sometimes the
+bows fell into the heart of an advancing, white-topped hillock of grey
+water with a sickening downward plunge, and the breaking sea came
+surging and crashing over the forecastle to dash itself against the
+chart-house and bridge with a shock which made the whole ship quiver
+and tremble.  Then, with
+
+[Transcriber's note: pages 41 and 42 missing from source book.]
+
+edged volumes with unerring accuracy on to his long-suffering head.
+
+The only person who really did not mind the motion at all was the
+wireless operator in his little cubby-bole abaft the chart-house.  He,
+with a pair of telephone receivers clipped on over his ears ready to
+catch stray snatches of conversation from invisible ships and distant
+shore stations, sat enthroned in a chair bolted to the deck.  His den
+was hermetically sealed to keep out the water.  The smell and the heat
+were indescribable; but he was reading a week-old periodical with every
+symptom of enjoyment and calmly smoked a foul and very wheezy pipe
+filled with the strongest and most evil-smelling ship's tobacco.  But
+"Buzzer," as he was known to his friends, had the constitution of an ox
+and an interior like the exterior of an armadillo.  He could stand
+anything.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+An oil-skinned apparition, dripping with wet, appeared at the
+chart-house door.  "The orficer of the watch says it's daylight, sir,"
+it reported.  "There's nothin' in sight, but 'e thinks as 'ow the sea's
+goin' down a bit."
+
+The skipper, who had actually been asleep for forty consecutive
+minutes, sat up with a grunt, rubbed his eyes, and yawned.  Then, in
+the dull grey light of the dawn, he surveyed the unsavoury mixture on
+the floor with his nose wrinkled and an expression of intense disgust
+on his face.  But the sight of the broken cup reminded him of
+something, and reaching his hand underneath the cushion he extracted a
+vacuum flask, applied it to his lips, and swallowed what remained of
+the cocoa inside it.  He was hungry, poor wight, for his dinner the
+night before had consisted of two corned-beef sandwiches and a biscuit.
+Next, with a little sigh of satisfaction, he produced a pipe, tobacco,
+and matches from an inner pocket and lit up, examined the chart with
+the ship's track marked upon it, and glanced at the aneroid on the
+bulkhead and noticed it was rising slowly.
+
+Two minutes later, with his pipe bowl carefully inverted, he clambered
+up the iron ladder to the bridge.
+
+"Hail, smiling morn!" he remarked sarcastically, ducking his head as a
+sheet of spray came driving over the forecastle and across the bridge.
+"Well, 'Sub,' how goes it?"
+
+"Pretty rotten, sir," answered the sub-lieutenant, whose watch it was.
+"The wind shows no signs of going down, but I think the sea's a little
+less than it was.  We're not bumping quite so badly as we were."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The motion certainly was less violent, and after looking for a moment
+at the angry sea and the grey, cloud-wrapped sky streaked with its
+wisps of flying white scud, the skipper nodded slowly.  "You're right,"
+he said.  "It has gone down a bit.  We're beginning to feel the lee of
+the land.  Work her up gradually to twelve knots and see how she takes
+it."
+
+The "Sub" did so, and though the increase in speed brought heavier
+spray and more of it, the movement of the ship no longer synchronised
+with the period of the waves, and she became steadier.
+
+Before long the sea had gone down even more and the speed was increased
+to twenty knots.  Then, on the grey horizon ahead, appeared the smoke
+of many steamers, and a quarter of an hour later the destroyer was
+threading her way through a sea-lane so densely populated with shipping
+that it reminded one of dodging the traffic in Piccadilly.
+
+The next thing which hove in sight was a red-painted lightship, and
+half an hour later the destroyer, her funnels white with dried salt,
+was steaming into the harbour where the remainder of the flotilla were
+lying.  They, having escaped the really bad weather, had arrived the
+evening before, and one of them made a facetious signal to this effect
+as the destroyer secured to the tank steamer to replenish her supply of
+oil-fuel.
+
+The lost sheep had returned to its fold.
+
+
+
+
+A NAVAL MENAGERIE
+
+Denis was a pig, a very special sort of pig, a pig of German origin,
+and perhaps the only animal of his species in whose favour a special
+dispensation was made by the Board of Agriculture.  He originally
+belonged to the German light cruiser _Dresden_, and, after the
+destruction of that vessel at Juan Fernandez by the _Kent_, _Glasgow_,
+and _Orama_, was seen swimming about in the water close to the
+_Glasgow_.  A blue-jacket promptly jumped overboard and rescued him
+from a watery grave, and Denis, instead of being converted into pork or
+sausages, became a prisoner of war and a pet.  He did not seem the
+least dismayed by his change of nationality, and, being an adaptable
+creature of robust constitution, throve on a miscellaneous and
+indiscriminate diet of ships' provisions, eked out by tobacco,
+cigarette ends, and coal.  Moreover, within a month, so history
+relates, he was quite accustomed to sleeping in a hammock, where he
+snored exactly like a human being.
+
+But the regulations as to the importation of animals into Great Britain
+are necessarily stringent, and on the _Glasgow's_ arrival in home
+waters there were complications as to the disposal of Denis.  He could
+not be landed in the ordinary way, but eventually, after some
+correspondence, the Board of Agriculture solved the momentous question
+by giving special permission for him to be put ashore at Whale Island,
+the naval gunnery school in Portsmouth harbour.  There, so far as I
+know, he still remains as a naturalised Briton.
+
+But a pig is by no means the strangest animal which has made its home
+on board a man-of-war.  In a small gunboat in China some years ago the
+ship's company acquired a so-called tame alligator.  Algernon, as they
+christened him, came on board as a youngster a few weeks old and about
+four feet long, and soon developed a habit of appearing when the decks
+were being scrubbed in the mornings, when he revelled in having the
+hose played upon him and in having his scaly back well scrubbed with a
+hard broom.  He devoured a tame rabbit and two cats, but the crux came
+when he taught himself a trick of waiting until some unsuspecting
+person had his back turned, of making a sudden rush at his victim and
+capsizing him with a well-placed whisk of his horny tail, and then
+running in with a good-humoured smile and a ferocious snapping and
+gnashing of his yellow teeth.  It was all very funny, but so many
+innocent persons were wrought almost to the verge of nervous
+prostration by Algernon's ideas of sport, that at last the fiat went
+forth that he must die.  He was shot at dawn, and, less lucky than
+Denis, reached England in a stuffed and rather moth-eaten condition.
+
+Goats are comparatively common as pets in the Navy, but the goat of all
+the goats was a white creature rejoicing in the unromantic name of
+William who lived on board a cruiser.  His staple articles of food
+seemed to consist of tobacco, cigarettes, stray rope-yarns, bristles of
+brooms, and odds and ends of old canvas, while he was not averse to
+licking the galvanised compound off the newly painted quarter-deck
+stanchions whenever an opportunity of doing so presented itself.  He
+was a healthy goat of voracious appetite.  His gastric juices would
+have dissolved a marline-spike, and he even made short work of the
+greater portion of a pair of ammunition boots belonging to the
+Sergeant-Major of Royal Marines, and devoured with every symptom of
+relish a sheaf of official and highly important documents lying on the
+writing-table in the navigator's cabin.
+
+William, in spite of his varied diet, always looked well-nourished and
+in the rudest of health, and on Sundays was wont to appear at divisions
+with his hair and beard parted in the middle, wearing an elaborate
+brass collar, and with gilded horns and hooves.  He had charming
+manners, and even condescended to drink an occasional glass of sherry
+in the wardroom on guest nights.  Of his ultimate fate I have no
+knowledge, but, with the very miscellaneous contents of his interior,
+he would have provided a most interesting subject for a _post-mortem_
+examination.
+
+Several ships have had bears as pets, but one in particular, which was
+the mascot of a cruiser on the Mediterranean station, was a bear with a
+pronounced sense of humour.  On one occasion it so happened that the
+vessel to which he belonged was lying alongside the mole at Gibraltar,
+while another cruiser, fresh from England, was made fast just astern of
+her.  It was Sunday afternoon, and all hands and the cook, except those
+on duty, followed the usual custom of the Service by selecting sunny
+spots on deck and then composing themselves to peaceful slumber.  At
+about 2.30 p.m. Master Bruin, freeing himself from his chain, landed,
+ambled along the jetty, and approached the newly arrived vessel on a
+tour of investigation.  The sentry, not liking the look of the animal,
+found something important to do at the other end of his beat, while the
+bear proceeding on board unmolested, frightened nearly out of his wits
+a burly petty officer doing duty as quartermaster, and then followed up
+his moral victory by chasing him round and round the upper deck.  The
+petty officer, a well covered man, nearly dropped from heat and
+exhaustion, but just managed to barricade himself in the galley before
+being overtaken and fondly hugged.  The sleepers, meanwhile, hearing
+unusual sounds of revelry, woke up to see a wild-looking animal seeking
+another victim, and thinking that Bostock's menagerie had broken loose,
+rose from their couches and stampeded for the mess-deck.
+
+The bear then waddled aft in search of further recreation, and seeing
+the curtained doorway of one of the upper deck cabins, promptly elbowed
+his way in.  Inside was an officer fast asleep on the bunk, who,
+hearing the sound of heavy breathing, opened his eyes to see the shaggy
+bulk of his huge visitor interposed between him and the doorway.  For a
+moment he was non-plussed, and, keeping quite still, endeavoured to
+mesmerise the animal by looking him full in the eyes.  But the
+ferocious look on the bear's face, a pair of fierce twinkling eyes, an
+open mouth with its rows of sharp teeth, and a long red tongue dripping
+with saliva, warned him that mere mesmerism would be useless if he were
+to avoid a tussle.  There was only one other exit besides the door, so
+without further ado he sprang for ... the open scuttle.  He wormed his
+way successfully through the small orifice with some loss of dignity
+and greatly to the detriment of his Sunday trousers, flopped gracefully
+into the water with a splash, and, swimming to the gangway, clambered
+back on board again.  Then, rushing to his cabin, he slammed the door
+and imprisoned his unwelcome visitor inside.
+
+Next, seeking out the sentry, he desired him to eject the intruder.
+But the marine, a wise man, firmly but politely intimated that he had
+joined his corps to fight the King's enemies, not bears of unknown
+origin and ferocious aspect, and added that the only conditions on
+which he would undertake the job was with the assistance of his rifle,
+a fixed bayonet, and some ball ammunition.  The bear, meanwhile, locked
+in the cabin, was thoroughly enjoying himself in clawing and tearing to
+ribbons everything within reach, and by the time his breathless keeper
+from the other ship arrived upon the scene to conduct his charge home
+in disgrace, the cabin was in a state of utter desolation.  A bull in a
+china shop is nothing to an unwieldy brute of a bear in a small
+apartment measuring ten feet by eight.  All's well that ends well, but
+the officer's best trousers were completely ruined, and he himself
+never heard the end of his Sabbath afternoon adventure.  The bear
+received six strokes with a cane for his share in the proceedings.
+
+The last escapade of his that I heard of was when he hugged and removed
+most of the clothes from a low class Spanish workman from the dockyard
+at Gibraltar.  The man had baited him, eventually releasing the
+terrified, half-naked wretch, and chasing him at full speed for nearly
+half a mile.  A crowd of excited, laughing blue-jackets went in pursuit
+of the bear, but the faster they ran, the faster went the animal and
+his quarry.  Bruin enjoyed it hugely.  Not so the Spanish workman.
+
+Dogs and cats are as common in the Navy as they are elsewhere, and it
+is surprising how soon they become accustomed to naval routine.  The
+cats never go ashore unless their ship happens to be lying alongside a
+dockyard wall, when they usually desert _en bloc_ and attach themselves
+to some other ship, a fresh detachment coming on board in their stead.
+The dogs are more faithful, and their wisdom becomes positively
+uncanny, for always at the routine times for boats going ashore they
+will be found waiting ready at the top of the gangway.
+
+"Ginger" was an Irish terrier of plebeian origin belonging to a
+battleship.  He invariably landed in the postman's boat at 6.45 a.m.,
+and once ashore went off on his own business.  Nobody ever took the
+trouble to discover what he did, but punctually at eight o'clock he
+used to reappear at the landing place and return to the ship in the
+boat which took off the married officers.  On one occasion, however, he
+was badly sold, for though the postman landed at the usual time, the
+ship sailed at 7.30 to carry out target practice.  Half an hour later,
+therefore, there was no boat for Ginger, and his ship was a mere speck
+on the horizon; but nothing daunted, the wise hound proceeded to the
+Sailors' Home and spent the day there.  He was discovered the same
+afternoon when the ship returned into harbour, and his admirers always
+averred that his temporary absence was the result of a carefully
+thought out plan to avoid the sounds of gunfire, which he detested.
+
+There must be many officers and men in the Navy who remember "North
+Corner Bob," another red-haired Irish terrier, who used to frequent the
+landing place at North Corner in Portsmouth dockyard.  He was not a
+large dog, as terriers go, but was a ferocious creature of wild and
+bedraggled appearance, who seemed to regard North Corner as his own
+especial domain.  He fought every other animal who dared to venture
+near the place, and many a naval dog bore the marks of Bob's teeth to
+his dying day.
+
+He even boarded strange ships lying alongside and carried on his
+campaign of frightfulness there.  In fact he terrorised all the dogs in
+Portsmouth dockyard, including two spaniels belonging to the Admiral
+Superintendent.  But an officer in a certain ship whose wire-haired
+terrier Cuthbert had been badly beaten by Bob some days before,
+conceived a brilliant idea for having his revenge.  Early one morning,
+at Bob's usual time for passing by the ship on his way to North Corner,
+Cuthbert, wearing a brand new muzzle, was taking his morning
+constitutional on deck.  Bob, punctual to the minute, came trotting by
+in his usual don't-care-a-damn-for-anyone manner, but the sight of
+Cuthbert putting on an equal amount of side on board his own ship was
+too much for him, and rushing up the brow connecting the ship with the
+shore he came on board licking his lips in joyful anticipation and the
+lust of battle shining in his eye.
+
+Cuthbert, a naturally good-natured dog, hurried forward to meet him,
+but Bob, spurning his friendly advances, circled round on tip-toe, with
+his teeth bared and hair bristling.  Cuthbert, seeing that a fight was
+inevitable, adopted similar tactics, and for some moments the two
+animals padded softly round and round nosing each other and preparing
+to spring in to the attack.  Then, quite suddenly and for no apparent
+reason, there came a shrill yelp of pain from Bob, and before anyone
+realised what had happened his tail went down, he rushed madly over the
+gangway, and shot along the jetty like a flash of greased lightning.
+
+"What the devil's the matter with him?" queried the officer of the
+watch, staring in amazement after the rapidly disappearing figure of
+the well-known fighter.
+
+"Matter!"  spluttered  Cuthbert's  owner, weak with laughter.  "Lord!
+I've never seen anything like it!  Did you see the way he skipped?"
+
+"Did I not!" answered the O.O.W., laughing himself.  "But what on earth
+made him streak off like that?"
+
+"Come here, Cuthbert," said his master.
+
+The dog came forward, wagging his tail, and had his muzzle removed.
+
+"D'you see that?" asked his owner, pointing to the end of it.  'That'
+was a long and very sharp-pointed pin firmly soldered to the business
+end of Cuthbert's headgear.
+
+North Corner Bob never visited that particular ship again.
+
+
+
+
+THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS
+
+She was a member of that gallant and distinguished corps after which
+this article is named.  You will not find her regiment mentioned in any
+British Army List, nor, so far as I am aware, and for all the foreign
+sound of it, in the Army List of His Imperial Majesty the Czar of All
+the Russias.  The name does not appear in any Army List at all, for the
+Hussars to which she belonged are a sea regiment, pure and simple.
+
+Her uniform of dull grey, with no facings or trimmings of any sort or
+description, was strictly in keeping with her surroundings, for her
+favourite habitat was anywhere in the wild waste of waters lying
+between Greenland, the North Cape, the Naze, and the Orkneys.
+
+Some people with a libellous sense of humour referred to her as a
+member of "Harry Tate's Own," while others, most unkindly, said she
+belonged to the "Ragtime Navy."  But she did not seem to mind.  She
+knew in her heart of hearts that her work was of paramount importance,
+and, complacent in the knowledge, smiled sweetly as a well-conducted
+lady should when jibes and insults are hurled at her long-suffering
+head.
+
+She had a great deal to put up with in one way and another.  Thanks to
+her enormous fuel capacity she spent a long time at sea and had very
+brief spells in harbour.  Her work, though important, was always dull
+and monotonous, while in bad weather it was even worse.  She had no
+prospect of sharing in the excitement of a big sea battle like her more
+warlike sisters, though, with them, she ran the chance of encountering
+hostile submarines and of having an altercation with an armed raider.
+But, taking it all round, she had comparatively little to hope for in
+the way of honour and glory; she merely had to be at sea for many weeks
+at a time to prevent money-grabbing neutrals from reaping a rich
+harvest by supplying munitions of war and articles of contraband to an
+impoverished Hun who could not be trusted to put those commodities to
+any gentlemanly purpose.
+
+Muckle Flugga, I believe, is a remote headland in the Shetlands, and
+she, a member of the corps called after it, flew the White Ensign of
+the British Navy and was an armed merchant cruiser.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Before the war she was a crack passenger liner.  On her upper deck, and
+expressly designed for the use of potentates and plutocrats, she had
+regular suites of apartments.  Gorgeous suites they were, furnished
+like the rooms in a mansion ashore.  The sleeping cabins had white
+enamelled panels and comfortable brass bedsteads.  The day cabins or
+sitting-rooms, panelled in bird's-eye maple, oak, walnut, or mahogany,
+had large square windows, regular fireplaces, and were fresh with
+flowered chintzes, while the tiled bathrooms were fitted with all the
+different appliances for hot baths, tepid baths, cold baths, needle
+baths, shower baths, and douches.  One simply turned a handle and the
+water came.  A telephone in each sitting-room communicated with a
+central exchange somewhere deep down in the bowels of the ship, and one
+could summon a barber to trim one's hair, a manicure expert to attend
+to one's hands, a tobacconist with samples of cigars, cigarettes, and
+tobacco, or the presiding genius of a haberdashery establishment with
+quite the latest things in shirts, collars, socks, and neckties.  In
+fact, living in one of the expensive suites was exactly like being in a
+large and luxurious hotel, except that it was vastly more comfortable.
+
+Lower down in the ship were the single, double, and treble-berthed
+cabins for the first and second-class passengers.  They, though small,
+were very comfortable, and were fitted with telephones through which
+one could summon a stewardess with a basin or a steward with a whisky
+and soda.  Down below, too, were the saloons, huge apartments with
+carved panels, ornamental pillars, glass-pictured domes, coloured
+frescoes, and dozens of small tables.  There was also the Louis XIV.
+restaurant, if one preferred a simple beefsteak to the more formal
+dinner, and smoking-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, drawing-rooms,
+writing-rooms, not to mention the swimming bath and the children's
+nursery.
+
+We can imagine the great liner, spick and span in her spotless paint
+and gleaming brasswork, steaming through a placid summer sea.  Her long
+promenade decks would be plastered with deck-chairs filled with
+recumbent passengers, some dozing, others smoking and talking.  Some
+energetic enthusiast would be passing from group to group to collect
+sufficient people to play deck cricket, quoits, or bull-board, while
+yet another, armed with a notebook and a pencil, would be endeavouring
+to inveigle recalcitrant ladies with strict notions as to the sins of
+gambling into taking tickets for a sweepstake on the next day's mileage.
+
+One would hear the laughter of children as they chased each other round
+the decks, and the sotto-voce remarks of some old gentleman roused from
+his afternoon nap by the sudden impact of a podgy infant of four
+tripping heavily over his outstretched feet.
+
+After dark in some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a
+girl.  They would be sitting very close together, and behaving... well,
+as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the tedium of voyages at
+sea.
+
+Everything would be calm and peaceful.  Everybody would be happy, even
+the young gentleman with no prospects travelling second class, who
+having won the sweepstake on the day's run and suddenly finding himself
+£20 the richer, celebrated his luck with his friends in the
+smoking-room.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But then the war came and changed everything.
+
+The Admiralty requisitioned the ship and armed her with guns.  They
+painted her a dull grey all over, and tore down all her polished
+woodwork to lessen the chances of fire in action, leaving nothing but
+the bare steel walls.  Most of the cabins were stripped of their
+furniture and fittings, only enough being left intact to provide
+accommodation for the officers.
+
+The carved woodwork and most of the tables and chairs in the saloons
+were taken away, and though the painted frescoes and glass domes still
+remained, they were dusty and neglected.
+
+In one corner of the first-class saloon was the wardroom, a space
+partitioned off by painted canvas screens to provide messing
+accommodation for the more senior officers.  Opposite to it was the
+gunroom, a similar enclosure for the juniors.
+
+They manned her with a crew of between three and four hundred Royal
+Navy Reserve men, with a leavening of Royal Navy ratings and a few
+Marines.  They appointed a Captain R.N. in command and two or three
+other naval officers, but by far the greater proportion of officers and
+crew belonged to the Reserve, and excellent fellows they were.
+
+Certain of the men had served on beard in peace-time, and had elected
+to remain on, but the majority came to her for the first time when she
+commissioned as a man-of-war.  Some were Scots fishermen, men from
+trawlers and drifters, excellent, hardy creatures used to small craft,
+bad weather, and boat work.  Others, having served their time in the
+Navy, had taken to some shore employment, and in August 1914 had been
+recalled to their old Service.
+
+Nearly every imaginable trade was represented.  In one of the
+first-class cabins was the barber's shop, presided over by a man who in
+pre-war days had worked in a hair-cutting establishment not far from
+Victoria Station.  Next door lived another man who had been a
+bootmaker, and he, bringing all the appurtenances of his trade to sea
+with him, carried on a roaring business as a "snob."  There was also a
+haberdashery emporium kept by a seaman who had been employed in some
+linen-draper's shop in his native town, while a professional tailor in
+blue-jacket's uniform spent all his spare time in making and repairing
+the garments of his shipmates.  Even the ship's electric laundry was
+manned by folk who were well acquainted with starching and ironing.
+
+Most of the cooks and stewards had left, but sufficient remained to
+provide for the needs of the officers and men.  The catering was still
+run by the company to which the vessel belonged, and, as she had roomy
+kitchens and all manner of labour-saving devices in the way of electric
+dish-washers and potato-peelers, the messing was even better than that
+on board a battleship.
+
+Gone were the troops of laughing children and the passengers.  A pile
+of wicked-looking shell and boxes of cartridges for the guns lay ready
+to hand in the nursery, while the promenade decks resounded to the
+tramp of men being initiated into the mysteries of the squad and rifle
+drill and the work at their guns.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+They have been at it for two years; two years of strenuous naval
+routine and discipline which have transformed the passenger liner into
+no mean man-of-war.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PIRATES"
+
+"It is not possible to prevent the occasional appearance of enemy
+submarines within the range of our shores, but I can give an assurance
+that the measures which have been and will be taken are such as to
+render proceedings of this sort increasingly dangerous to the
+submarines."--DR. MACNAMARA, _Financial Secretary to the Admiralty_.
+
+
+They looked an orderly little squadron of six as they steamed jauntily
+out towards the open sea in single line ahead through the grey-green,
+tide-ripped waters of the most thickly populated river estuary in the
+world.
+
+They were prosaic, snub-nosed-looking little craft, short and squat,
+with high, upstanding bows, prominent wheelhouses, and stumpy
+mizzen-masts abaft all.  They hailed from many ports and still bore the
+letters and numbers of their peace-time vocation: F.D. for Fleetwood,
+G.Y. for Grimsby, B.F. for Banff, and P.D. for Peterhead.  They were
+steam herring drifters in the ordinary, common, or garden, piping times
+of peace; little vessels which went to sea for days on end to pitch,
+wallow, and roll at the end of a mile or a mile and a half of buoyed
+drift-net, in the meshes of which unwary herring, in endeavouring to
+force a way through, presently found themselves caught by the gills.
+
+But now, each one of them flew the tattered, smoke-stained apology for
+a once White Ensign, and they were men-of-war, very much men-of-war.
+They had been at the game for nearly twenty-four months, and, through
+long practice, they elbowed their way in and out of the traffic with
+all the fussy, devil-may-care assertiveness of His Majesty's destroyers.
+
+Their admiral, a Royal Naval Reserve lieutenant, who, in peaceful 1914,
+was still the immaculate third officer of a crack Western Ocean
+passenger liner, looked out of his wheelhouse windows and surveyed the
+potbellied, lumbering cargo carriers steaming by with all the kindly
+tolerance of the regular man-of-war's man.  He, though he did not look
+it, for they had been coaling an hour before and he was still grimy
+about the face, was the only commissioned officer in the squadron,
+fleet, flotilla, or whatever you like to call it.  All the other craft
+were commanded by skippers, ex-peacetime-captains of the fishing craft,
+who were used to the sea and its vicissitudes, and knew the ins and
+cuts of their vessels far better than they could tell you.  The men,
+for the greater part, were also fishermen enrolled in the Reserve, with
+here and there an ex-naval rating in the shape of a seaman gunner or
+signalman.
+
+They may have lacked polish.  They knew little about springing smartly
+to attention and nothing whatsoever about the interior economy of a
+6-inch gun.  Their attire was sketchy, to say the least of it.  Even
+the admiral wore grey flannel trousers, a once white sweater, and
+coloured muffler, and it is to be feared that an officer from a
+battleship might have referred to them collectively as a "something lot
+of pirates."  Pirates they may have been, but at the best of times a
+strict adherence to the uniform regulations is not a fetish of those
+serving on board the vessels of the Auxiliary Patrol.  They are, it is
+perfectly true, granted a sum of money by a paternal Government
+wherewith to purchase their kit, but brass buttons and best serge suits
+do not blend with life on board a herring drifter at sea in all
+weathers.  Sea-boots, oilskins, jerseys, and any old thing in the way
+of trousers and headgear are far more fashionable.  Indeed, one may
+occasionally happen upon a skipper wearing an ancient bowler hat when
+well out in the North Sea and away from the haunts of senior officers
+who might possibly take exception to his battered tile.
+
+But they all took their job seriously, though, like most sailor folk,
+light-heartedly.  They were inured to the sea and its hardships; many
+of them were part owners of their own craft, even the man in the red
+Salvation Army jersey tittivating the six-pounder gun in the last
+little ship of the line.
+
+Exactly how they "strafed" the immoral and ubiquitous Hun submarine it
+is inexpedient to say.  They had their little guns, of course, but were
+full of other 'gilguys' evolved for the same laudable purpose during a
+period of nearly two years of war.  Moreover, the men were experts in
+their use, and that their 'gadgets' often worked to the detriment of
+Fritz may be deduced from that gentleman's extreme unwillingness to be
+seen in their vicinity, and a casual inspection of the records of the
+Auxiliary Patrol probably locked up somewhere in Whitehall.  Some day
+these records may be made public, and then we shall read of happenings
+which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a
+nail-brush.  Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat
+which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a
+coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision
+with a tar brush?
+
+Striving to encompass the destruction of the wily submarine is by no
+means a one-sided game.  Our small craft generally manage to have a
+credit balance on their side, but Fritz is no fool, and is not the sort
+of person to go nosing round an obvious trap, or to walk blindfold into
+a snare.  Sometimes he mounts larger and heavier guns than his
+antagonists, and may come to the surface out of range of their weapons
+and bombard them at his leisure.  In such cases the hunters may become
+the hunted, and may perchance be 'strafed' themselves.  Then there are
+always mines, contact with one of which may pulverise an ordinary
+wooden drifter into mere matchwood.
+
+The work is fraught with risk.  It is every bit as dangerous as that of
+the mine-sweepers, and casualties, both in men and in ships, are simply
+bound to occur.  But little is made of them.  A few more names will
+appear in the Roll of Honour, and in some obscure newspaper paragraph
+we may read that "on Thursday last the armed patrol vessel ------ was
+blown up by a mine" or was "sunk by gunfire from a hostile submarine,"
+and that "-- members of her crew escaped in their small boat and landed
+at ------."  That is all; no details whatsoever, nothing but the bare
+statement.
+
+But the game still goes on.
+
+The men who cheerfully undergo these risks in their anxiety to serve
+their country, were not professional fighters before the war: they are
+now; but in the palmy days of peace they were fishermen, seamen through
+and through, who, year in and year out, fair weather or foul, were at
+sea in their little craft, reaping the ocean's harvest.  Their life was
+ever a hard and a dangerous one, and the hazards and chances of war
+have made it doubly so.
+
+They have none of the excitement of a fight in the open.  Much of their
+work in protecting the coastwise traffic is deadly in its monotony,
+and, as we have become used to it, has come to be looked upon as a
+matter of course.
+
+Their gallant deeds are rarely the subjects of laudatory paragraphs in
+the newspapers, and the great majority go unrewarded.  Even if we do
+happen to meet a man wearing a little strip of blue and white ribbon on
+his coat or jumper and ask him why he was decorated, he merely laughs,
+wags his head, and says ---- nothing.
+
+It is very unsatisfactory of him.
+
+
+
+
+A MINOR AFFAIR
+
+  H.M.S. --------
+    c/o G.P.O., LONDON.
+      June 30th, 1916.
+
+MY DEAR DANIEL,
+
+You ask me for a more elaborate account of a certain little affair
+which took place some time ago.  It was merely an episode of a few
+light cruisers, anything up to a score of destroyers, and some
+seaplanes; quite a minor and a comparatively unimportant little
+business which elicited a brief announcement from the Secretary of the
+Admiralty, and must have proved rather a Godsend to those newspapers
+whose readers were anxious for naval news in any shape or form.
+
+They made a certain amount of fuss about it, and the naval
+correspondents were soon hard at work elaborating the simple statement
+according to their usual habit.  Indeed, the nautical expert of _Earth
+and Sea_, with the very best intentions in the world, even went so far
+as to devote the greater part of a column to the business.  It is to be
+hoped that his readers were duly edified; but we, who had taken part in
+the affair, were merely rather amused.
+
+And so, for perhaps a week, and before being banished to the limbo of
+forgotten and unconsidered trifles, the business was a subject for
+intermittent conversation and a certain amount of conjecture.  Then it
+was forgotten, and it is doubtful if it will ever be resurrected in any
+naval history of the war.
+
+We had quite a good passage across the North Sea, and at dawn on the
+day of the operation we arrived in the vicinity of the Danish coast not
+far from the German frontier.  The weather was good for the time of
+year.  Bitterly cold, of course, besides which there were frequent
+low-lying snow flurries which came sweeping down across the sea and
+made it barely possible to see more than a quarter of a mile; while our
+decks, except where the heat of the engine and boiler rooms melted the
+snow as it fell, were soon covered.  But in between the squalls the sky
+was blue, the sea was flat calm, and there was hardly any wind.
+Moreover, there was not a sign or a vestige of a Hun anywhere, not even
+a Zeppelin; nothing in sight except a few Danish fishing craft.
+
+The seaplanes were soon hoisted out and started off on their job.  They
+all seemed to get away without the slightest hitch, and it was a fine
+sight watching them taxi-ing along the calm water to get up speed, and
+then rising in the air one by one to disappear in the faint haze
+towards the horizon.  What they were to do, exactly, I cannot say, but
+within ten minutes they had all disappeared and the squadron steamed to
+and fro waiting for their return.  They were expected back in about an
+hour.
+
+The full hour passed, and nothing happened.  Another quarter of an
+hour; but still no signs of the 'planes.  On board the ships people
+began to get rather anxious, thinking that they had been brought down
+by the Huns, and everybody with glasses was looking to the
+south-eastward for signs of them.  But at last, when they had almost
+been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow
+squall.  He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole
+covey, except two, had returned.
+
+How their business had gone off was never divulged.  A story did get
+about afterwards,--I saw it mentioned in some of the newspapers,--to
+the effect that one of them had arrived within two hundred feet
+immediately over the object he wanted to drop his bombs on, and then
+found he could not let them go because the releasing gear was clogged
+up with frozen snow.  Whether or not the yarn is true it is impossible
+to say, but imagine the fellow's feelings when, after planing down to
+two hundred feet with all the anti-aircraft guns in the place going
+full blast, he found he could not drop a single egg!  Poor devil!
+
+The seaplanes that did return were soon hoisted in, but in the
+meanwhile eight destroyers and a couple of other craft had been sent on
+to steam down the coast in line abreast to see if by any chance the two
+missing ones had come down on the water.  We were with this lot, and
+after an hour's steaming at 20 knots, by which time the island of Sylt
+was plainly visible about nine or ten miles dead ahead and no trace of
+the lost sheep had been seen, the search had to be abandoned.
+
+It was then that the three destroyers to seaward sighted two steam
+trawlers some way off to the south-westward.  They were flying no
+colours so far as we could see, but seemed to be in single line ahead,
+and as they were going straight for Sylt it was pretty obvious that
+they were mine-sweepers or patrol boats, and not mere fishermen.
+
+The three outer destroyers,--we happened to be one of them,--promptly
+altered course to cut them off from the coast, and before very long we
+were buzzing along at something like 30 knots with an enormous mountain
+of water piled up in our wake, the water being rather shallow.
+
+The trawlers, poor chaps, hadn't a dog's chance of getting away or of
+doing anything; but I must say we all admired them for their pluck.
+They had got into line abreast, and soon, when we were within about
+5,000 yards, our leading craft hoisted some signal.  We had no time to
+look it up in the book, but took it to be a signal asking if they would
+surrender.  But not a bit of it.  They were patrol boats, and each of
+them had a small gun, and presently there came a flash and a little
+cloud of brown smoke from the nearer one of the two.  The shell fell
+some distance short.
+
+We had all held our fire up till then, for it was mere baby killing and
+we did not want to do the dirty on them if it could be avoided, but as
+they started the game of firing on us, we had no alternative but to
+reply.  The sea round about the nearer craft was soon spouting with
+shell splashes, and between the fountains of spray and clouds of dense
+smoke in which she tried to hide herself, we could see the red flashes
+of some of our shell as they hit and burst, and the spurt of flame from
+her own little gun as she fired at us.  Only three or four of her
+projectiles came anywhere near, while the havoc on board her must have
+been indescribable.  It was a hateful business to have to fire at her
+at all, but what else could we do as she would not surrender?
+
+It was all over very soon.  The nearer trawler was almost hidden in
+smoke, and presently, when we got ahead of her and to windward at a
+range of about 1,500 yards, we noticed a white thing fluttering in her
+mizzen rigging.  It was a shirt, as we discovered afterwards, and a
+signal of surrender, so we ceased firing at once and ran down to her to
+pick up the survivors.
+
+The further trawler, meanwhile, had been sunk by the destroyer ahead of
+us, the crew having abandoned her beforehand in two boats.
+
+We steamed fairly close to our fellow and lowered a boat, for we could
+see all the survivors standing up with their hands above their heads.
+The ship herself was in a deplorable state.  Shell seemed to have burst
+everywhere, and one of the first which struck her had cut a steam pipe
+in the engine-room and had stopped the engines.  Clouds of steam were
+coming from aft, her upper deck was a shambles, and she was badly holed
+and on fire.  She was still afloat, though sinking fast.
+
+Our boat went across and brought back those that remained of her crew.
+There were thirteen of them all told, including the skipper, and of the
+men one was badly, and four more slightly, wounded.  Nine had been
+killed outright.
+
+Then occurred rather a pleasing incident.  Our men, a long time before,
+were going to do all sorts of desperate things to any Germans they got
+hold of.  They were full of the Lusitania business, bomb dropping from
+Zeppelins, and the treatment of our prisoners.  But when the time came
+there was a complete revulsion of feeling.  They were kindness itself,
+and when the prisoners came on board the seamen met the seamen and
+escorted them forward like honoured guests, while our stokers did the
+same for their opposite numbers.
+
+We took all necessary precautions, of course, but the Germans were very
+well behaved and gave us no trouble at all.  They were a particularly
+fine and intelligent-looking lot of men, and presently, when the
+wounded had been attended to, our fellows were filling them up with
+food and cocoa on the mess-deck.  They seemed very pleased to get it,
+and judging from what one heard afterwards, they had evidently expected
+to be manacled, leg-ironed, and fed on biscuit and water.  But our men
+did the best they could for them; gave them food, clothes, and
+cigarettes.  The Germans were profoundly grateful, but couldn't quite
+understand it.
+
+Their skipper, a reserve officer who spoke English like a native, had
+served as an officer in British ships, and seemed a good fellow.  He
+was pleased to be congratulated on his plucky fight; but it was rather
+pathetic all the same, for he had been cut off practically at his own
+front door.
+
+"You came upon us so suddenly and so near home," he said, looking at
+Sylt which was only six or seven miles away.  "We had not a chance to
+do anything."
+
+He told us that he had been in the wheelhouse of his trawler when the
+show started.  One of our first shell passed through the glass windows
+within a foot of his head without bursting, and the very next did the
+damage in the engine-room.  He ran down there to see what could be
+done, and this must have saved his life, for while he was away another
+shell burst in the wheelhouse and put about twenty holes in his
+greatcoat which was lying on the settee.  I saw the coat and the holes
+when he came on board, and noticed it had the ribbon of the Iron Cross
+and that of some other decoration in the button-hole.  He showed me his
+Iron Cross and was very proud of it, but what he got it for I did not
+gather.  He seemed rather secretive about it.  The other decoration,
+with a red-and-white ribbon, was the "Hamburg Cross," which is given to
+all officers and men belonging to the town who get the Iron Cross.  I
+believe the other Hansa towns follow the same custom with their braves.
+
+One thing about the skipper which struck me favourably was that he
+seemed very keen on the welfare of his men.  The poor fellow who was
+badly wounded had been hit in the back, and three or four pieces of
+shell were still inside him.  He must have been in terrible agony, but
+was very brave and did not utter a sound.  An operation was quite out
+of the question, and as the poor chap was obviously in great pain our
+Surgeon-Probationer put him in a hammock on the mess-deck and gave him
+morphia.  Soon afterwards the skipper asked to be allowed to visit him,
+and when the Doc. next went forward he found him swabbing the patient's
+brow with icy cold water to bring him to!  The Doc. was rather peevish
+about it.
+
+But to get on with the story of what happened.  The trawler was
+sinking, but not quite fast enough, so we finished her off with a
+couple of lyddite shell on the waterline.  In the meanwhile, as you
+probably know, for it was officially announced at the time, two
+destroyers had been in collision.  The rammer crumpled her bows up a
+bit, but could still steam, but the ship rammed was rather badly
+damaged, and had to be taken in tow.  It was in the middle of this
+operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest by
+our 'planes earlier in the morning, came out and started dropping
+bombs.  None of them came very close to us,--the bombs, I mean,--but we
+saw a string of five fall and explode practically alongside one
+destroyer, and heard afterwards that there had been a free fight on her
+upper deck to secure as trophies the splinters which dropped on board.
+We were all using our A.-A. guns, and though we did not actually hit
+any of them so far as we could see, we made them keep up to a height
+from which accurate bomb-dropping was an impossibility, so nobody was
+hit.  But nevertheless it was unpleasant, for no sooner had they let go
+one consignment than they went home again, filled up afresh, and came
+back for another go.  They were bombing us off and on for four or five
+hours, so far as I can remember, and we counted seven or eight of the
+blighters in sight at once, so it was "embarras de richesse" so far as
+targets went.
+
+We weren't going very fast, for the damaged destroyer could not be
+towed at a respectable speed on account of her injuries, and at about
+five o'clock in the afternoon the glass had gone down a lot, and the
+wind and sea started to get up from the westward.  The prospect was not
+altogether joyful.  We had heard the two trawlers shouting for help by
+wireless before we sank them, and knew that the German seaplanes had
+probably seen and reported an injured ship being taken in tow.  (This
+afterwards turned out to be the case, though, according to their
+communiqué, the seaplanes claimed to have bagged her with a bomb, which
+was not so.)  Moreover, Heligoland was a bare sixty miles away under
+our lee, so the chances were £100 to 1/2d. that the Huns would come out
+during the night and try to scupper the lot of us.  It was with some
+joy, then, that we found there was a pretty strong supporting force
+within easy distance.  In fact, we actually sighted them at about 6 p.m.
+
+The weather grew steadily worse, and by sunset there was a pretty big
+sea and a fresh breeze, both of which were increasing every minute.
+The poor old ship in tow was making very heavy weather of it, while
+even we were pretty lively.  But things got worse, for by ten o'clock,
+and a pitch dark night it was, it was blowing nearly a full gale.  The
+sea, too, had got up to such an extent that there was nothing for it
+but to abandon the damaged destroyer.  It was easier said than done,
+for the sea was too big for lowering boats, and the only other
+alternative was for some other craft to go alongside her and to take
+the men on.  I did not see the business myself, but believe another
+destroyer put her stem up against the side of the one sinking and kept
+it there by going slow ahead, while the men hopped out one by one over
+the bows.
+
+It was a most excellent bit of work on the part of the salvor, for with
+the two ships rolling, pitching, and grinding in the sea, and in utter
+darkness, it required a very good head and cool judgment to know how
+much speed was necessary to keep the bows just touching, and no more.
+If they had come into violent contact the rescuing ship might have been
+very badly damaged.  I believe they had to have several shots at it,
+before they got every man away, but though two fell overboard in
+jumping across, they pulled it off all right without losing a single
+life.  The only damage to the rescuing ship was a little bit of a bulge
+on the stem just below the forecastle, but this did not make a leak or
+impair her efficiency in any way, and she went about for months
+afterwards without having it straightened.  They had every right to be
+proud of their honourable scar!
+
+The poor old ship which had to be abandoned was then left to her fate,
+and nobody saw the end of her.
+
+It must have been at about this time, though we did not see it, that
+some hostile destroyers came upon our light cruisers, or rather, our
+cruisers happened upon them.  What took place I don't quite know, but
+the Huns were apparently sighted quite close, and our leading ship,
+jamming her helm over and increasing speed, rammed one full in the
+middle and cut her in halves.  It must have been an awful moment for
+the poor wretches, for the stern portion of the destroyer sank one
+side, and the bow part went rushing on into the darkness at about
+thirty knots.  The men on board her could be heard yelling, but it was
+quite impossible to do anything to save them as other enemy destroyers
+were in the neighbourhood and the sea was far too bad for lowering
+boats.
+
+Nothing else of interest took place during the night, except that the
+weather got worse and worse.  The next morning, when we were steaming
+against it, we were having a terrible doing, and it lasted for about
+twenty-four hours, until we got under the lee of the coast.  The sea
+was one of the worst we had ever experienced, short and very steep, and
+we couldn't steam more than about eight knots against it.  The motion
+was very bad, the ship crashing and bumping about in a most unholy
+manner, and we were all wet through and rather miserable.  No hot food,
+either, for the galley fire had been put out.
+
+The prisoner who had been badly wounded died early next morning.  The
+Doctor said he might have lived if the weather had been good, but the
+motion finished him, poor fellow.  He was buried at sea, the German
+officer reading the burial service.
+
+We eventually got back into harbour and disembarked the prisoners, and
+never was I more pleased to get a decent meal and a little sleep.  Aunt
+Maria, having so many nephews, has just sent me another fountain pen,
+the third since the war started.  Also a pair of crimson socks knitted
+by her cook.  The pen will be useful.
+
+Do you want any more cigarettes?  You never acknowledged the last lot I
+sent, you ungrateful blighter, and at any rate I think it's high time
+you wrote me a letter.  Your last one was a postcard.
+
+Forgive this letter of mine if it is a bit disconnected, but it's the
+best I can do at present.
+
+Well, the best of luck and may you not stop a Hun bullet or a bit of
+shrapnel.
+
+Yours always,
+  T.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOG
+
+The _Rapier_ was an old destroyer, one of the 370-ton "thirty-knotters"
+completed in about 1901.  She burnt coal and was driven by
+reciprocating engines, instead of using oil fuel and being propelled by
+new-fangled turbines, while 23 to 24 knots were all she could be relied
+upon to travel in the best of weather.  She had a low, sharp bow and
+the old-fashioned turtle-back forward instead of the high, weatherly
+forecastle of the later destroyers, and in anything more than a
+moderate breeze or a little popple of a sea she was like a half-tide
+rock in a gale o' wind.  In fact, except in the very calmest weather,
+she was a regular hog, for she rolled, pitched, and wallowed to her
+heart's content, varying the monotony at odd moments by burying herself
+in green seas or deluging herself in masses of spray.
+
+Her small bridge, with its 12-pounder gun, steering wheel, compass, and
+engine-room telegraphs, was placed on the top of the turtle-back and
+about 25 feet from the bows.  It acted as a most excellent breakwater
+and took the brunt of the heavier seas, and how often the _Rapier_ came
+back into harbour with her bridge rails flattened down and her deck
+fittings washed overboard, I really do not know.  It was a fairly
+frequent occurrence, for war is war, and they kept the little ship out
+at sea in practically all weathers.
+
+Even in harbour, when her officers and men were endeavouring to obtain
+a little well-earned sleep, she sometimes had an exasperating habit of
+rolling her rails under and slopping the water over her deck, and then
+it was that Langdon, her lieutenant in command, wedged in the bunk in
+his little cabin in the stern, and driven nearly frantic by the
+irregular thump, thump, crash of the loosely hung rudder swinging from
+side to side as the ship rolled, rose in his wrath and cursed the day
+he was born.
+
+But whatever he thought in his heart of hearts, he would not hear a bad
+word against his old _Rapier_ in public.  She might be ancient; but
+then she had done "a jolly sight more steaming" than any other craft of
+her age and class.  She might burn coal in her furnaces instead of
+oil-fuel, and every ounce of coal had to be shovelled on board from a
+collier by manual labour, whereas, in an oil-driven destroyer, one
+simply went alongside a jetty or an "oiler," connected up a hose, and
+went to bed while a pump did all the work.  But Langdon never could
+endure "the ghastly stink" of crude petroleum, while coal, though
+dirty, was clean dirt.  The _Rapier_ might have old-fashioned engines,
+but with them one ran no chance of developing that affliction of
+turbine craft: water in the casing, the consequent stripping of blades
+off the turbine rotors, and a month or so in a dockyard as a natural
+concomitant.  Moreover, everybody knew that destroyers with
+reciprocating engines were far and away the easiest to handle.
+
+So, from what Langdon said, though it is true that he may have been
+rather prejudiced by the fact that she was his first independent
+command, the fifteen-year-old _Rapier_ was a jewel of fair price.  The
+powers that be perhaps did not regard her with such rose-tinted
+optimism, but for all that, were evidently of the opinion that she was
+still capable of useful work, and kept her constantly at sea
+accordingly.
+
+Exactly what her function was I had better not say, but she always
+seemed to be on the spot when things happened, and had assisted at the
+"strafing" of Hun submarines, and had been under fire a great many more
+times than some of her younger sisters, many of whom were craft at
+least three times her size, eight knots more speed, and infinitely
+better armed and more seaworthy.
+
+So it was not to be imagined that the _Rapier_, ancient though she was,
+suffered from senile decay.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Curse this weather," the Lieutenant muttered, wrinkling his eyes in a
+vain endeavour to see through the murk.  "We've been forty-eight hours
+on patrol, and now we're due to go into harbour this beastly fog comes
+down and delays us.  It IS the limit!"
+
+Pettigrew, the Sub-Lieutenant, agreed.  "We shall have to coal when we
+arrive," he observed mournfully.  "That'll take us two hours, and by
+the time we've finished, made fast to the buoy, had our baths, and made
+ourselves fairly presentable, it'll be two o'clock.  I take it we go to
+sea at the usual time this evening, sir?"
+
+Langdon nodded.  "Bet your life!" he said with a sigh.  "We shall be
+off again at eight p.m.  I was looking forward to having a decent lunch
+ashore for once," he added regretfully, "but now this beastly fog's
+gone and put the hat on it.  Lord!  I'm fed up to the neck with the
+grub on board!"
+
+"Tinned salmon fish-cakes for breakfast," murmured the Sub.  "Curried
+salmon for lunch, and tinned rabbit pie for dinner.  My sainted aunt!
+The Ritz and Carlton aren't in it!"
+
+The skipper laughed.
+
+The fog had come down at dawn, and now, halfway through the forenoon,
+the weather was still as thick as ever; so thick, indeed, that it was
+barely possible to see more than a hundred yards through the white,
+cotton-wool-like pall.  It was one of those breathless, steamy days in
+mid-July.  The sea was glassily calm, while the sun, a mere molten blot
+in the haze overhead, whose heat was unmitigated by the least suspicion
+of a breeze, was still sufficiently powerful to make it most
+uncomfortably warm.  Altogether the torrid clamminess of the
+atmosphere, and its distinct earthy flavour, reminded one irresistibly
+of the interior of a greenhouse.
+
+It was the sun who had been guilty of causing the fog at all.  His rays
+had saturated the earth with warmth the day before, heat which had been
+given off during the cooler hours of darkness in a mass of invisible
+vapour.  Impelled slowly seaward during the night, the heat wave, if
+one can so call it, had eventually come into contact with the colder
+atmosphere over the water, where, following the invariable law of
+nature, it had condensed into an infinite number of tiny particles of
+moisture.  These, mingling and coalescing, had formed the dense masses
+of vapour which hung so impalpably over the dangerous, thickly
+populated sea-areas in the closer vicinity of the coast.  Further
+afield, seven or eight miles away from the shore, there was nothing but
+a haze.  More distant still the sun shone undimmed, and there were no
+signs of fog at all.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Thick weather at sea is always exasperating, and to avoid the chance of
+colliding with something they could not possibly avoid at any greater
+speed, Langdon had been forced to ease to the leisurely speed of eight
+knots, and eight knots to a T.B.D., even a relic of the _Rapier's_ age,
+is just about as irritating as being wedged in a narrow lane in a
+40-horse power Daimler behind a horse pantechnicon.
+
+They had a man on the forecastle keeping a lookout.  The automatic
+sounding machine was being used at regular intervals to give them some
+sort of an idea as to their position by a comparison of the depths
+obtained with those shown on the chart, but even then the eccentricity
+of the tidal currents and, let it be said, the erratic and most
+unladylike behaviour of the _Rapier's_ standard compass, made
+navigation a matter of some conjecture and a good deal of guesswork.
+
+Somewhere ahead, veiled in its pall of fog, lay the coast.  Ahead, and
+to the right, was a large area of shoal water, portions of which
+uncovered at low tide.  It had already proved the graveyard of many
+fine ships whose bones still showed when the water fell, and Langdon
+had no wish to leave his ship there as an everlasting monument to his
+memory, while he, probably court-martialled, and at any rate having
+"incurred their Lordships' severe displeasure," left the destroyer
+service under a cloud which would never disperse.
+
+Added to which there was always the chance of a collision, for the sea
+seemed full of ships.  Time and tide wait for no man, and, Hun
+submarines or not, mines or no mines, fog or no fog, merchant vessels
+must run.  To-day they seemed to be running in battalions and brigades,
+judging from the howling, yelping, and snorting of their steam whistles
+here, there, and everywhere.
+
+But the _Rapier_ managed to avoid them somehow, and, shortly before
+noon, having heard the explosive fog signal on the end of the
+breakwater, she slid slowly past the lighthouse at the entrance and
+groped her way into the harbour.  It was still as thick as it possibly
+could be, but she found the collier, and, after completing with coal,
+secured to her buoy.
+
+Ten minutes later Langdon and the Sub were talking together in the
+little wardroom when there came a knock at the door.
+
+"Signal just come through, sir," the signalman announced with a smile
+on his face.  "_Rapier_ will proceed to Portsmouth at daylight
+to-morrow to refit.  She will not be required for patrol to-night."
+
+The ship was long overdue for the dockyard, but the skipper and
+Pettigrew looked at each other, hardly able to believe their ears.
+
+"Lord!" muttered the former.  "That means a week's leave, Sub.  D'you
+realise that?"
+
+"Do I not, sir!" answered the Sub-Lieutenant, as the signalman retired
+with a grin.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRADERS
+
+We were steaming to the westward, towards the spot where the sun,
+glowing like a disc of molten copper, was slowly nearing the horizon.
+It had been one of those hot, breathless sort of days with no breeze;
+and now, near sunset, nothing but an occasional cat's-paw stole gently
+across the sea to ruffle its glassy surface in irregular-shaped
+patches.  Elsewhere, the water, shining like a mirror, reflected the
+blazing glory of the sky.
+
+Some distance off lay the coast, its familiar outline dim, purple, and
+mysterious in the evening mist.  But it was neither the sunset,
+glorious as it was, nor the scenery which held our imagination.  It was
+the shipping.
+
+All manner of craft there were.  First came the _Spurt_, of Tromsö, a
+Norwegian tramp of dissolute and chastened appearance, whose
+deliberate, plodding gait and general air of senility belied her name,
+or at any rate the English meaning of it.  Her rusty black hull was
+decorated with three large squares painted in her national colours,
+red, with a vertical white-edged stripe of blue in the centre.  Next a
+bulbous, prosperous-looking Dutchman, who seemed to waddle in her, or
+his, stride.  She was slightly faster than the ancient _Spurt_, but was
+no flyer, and boasted a canary-yellow hull bearing her name in
+fifteen-foot letters, and enormous painted tricolours striped
+horizontally in red, white, and blue.
+
+Then two Swedes with unpronounceable names who, by their
+embellishments, informed the world that they hailed respectively from
+Göteborg and Helsingborg.  They also sported large rectangles, painted
+in vertical stripes of yellow and blue, while close behind them, a
+Dane, with an absurdly attenuated funnel and long ventilators sticking
+at all angles out of her hull like pins from a pincushion, ambled
+stolidly along like a weary cart-horse.  She, scorning other
+decoration, merely showed the scarlet white-crossed emblem of her
+country.  Some of the neutrals carried signs bearing their names which
+could be illuminated at night, and all seemed equally determined not to
+afford any prowling Hun submarine a legitimate excuse for torpedoing
+them on sight.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But the craft which outnumbered the others by more than four to one
+were the British.  They bore no distinctive marks or colouring on their
+sides, and their travel-stained and weather-beaten appearance, their
+rusty hulls, discoloured funnels, and the generally dingy and
+unpretentious look about them showed that they were kept far too busy
+to trouble about external appearances.  The only token of their
+nationality was the wisp of tattered red bunting fluttering at the
+stern of each; the gallant old Red Ensign which, war or no war, still
+dances triumphantly on practically every sea, except the Baltic.
+
+Many of the passing vessels looked out of date and old-fashioned.  Some
+veterans of the 'eighties or 'nineties, fit only to sail under a
+foreign flag according to pre-war standards, may have been dug out of
+their obscurity to play their part in the war.  And a very important
+part it is.  Ships must run, and, at a time when the Admiralty have
+levied a heavy toll for war purposes upon all classes of ships
+belonging to the Mercantile Marine, every vessel which will float and
+can steam can be utilised many times over for the equally important
+work of carrying cargo.  It is not peaceful work, either, in these days
+of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and
+torpedoes ready to sink without warning.
+
+The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and
+drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes
+need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile Marine proper, what,
+for want of a better term, we may call "the deep sea service," has
+supplied the Royal Navy with many thousands of splendid officers and
+men who are now serving their country in fighting ships as members of
+the Royal Naval Reserve.  Moreover, numbers of its ships of all classes
+are employed for war purposes as armed merchant cruisers, transports,
+oil fuel vessels, colliers, ammunition ships, storeships, and the like.
+But the function of those ships which are left for their legitimate
+purpose of cargo carrying is of equal importance to the country, of
+inestimable value, in fact, since we could not exist without them.
+Their duty is fraught with constant peril.  Submarines may be lurking
+and mines may have been laid upon the routes they have to traverse, but
+never have there been the least signs of unreadiness or unwillingness
+to proceed to sea when ordered to do so.
+
+Most of the officers and men of the Mercantile Marine are not trained
+to war like their comrades of the Royal Navy.  They are not paid, and
+their ships are not built, to fight; but yet, time and time again,
+their natural pluck and intrepidity has shown itself in the face of an
+entirely new danger.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Instances are so numerous that it is impossible to mention them all.
+Remember the gallant fight of the Clan MacTavish, with her single gun,
+against the heavily-armed German raider Moewe.  Take the case of the
+"Blue Funneller" _Laertes_, Captain Probert, which was ordered to stop
+by an enemy submarine, but, disregarding the summons, proceeded at full
+speed, steering a zigzag course, and so escaped, Remember the little
+_Thordis_, Captain Bell, which, after having a torpedo fired at her,
+actually rammed and sank the submarine which fired it.
+
+Again, there was the transport _Mercian_, Captain Walker, which was
+attacked by gunfire from a hostile submarine in the Mediterranean.
+Some of the troops on board were killed, others were wounded, and
+nobody could have blamed the captain if he had surrendered.  But what
+did he do?  He endured a bombardment lasting for an hour and a half,
+and, thanks to the bravery and skill of all on board, the ship escaped.
+
+There was also Captain Palmer, of the _Blue Jacket_, who, though his
+ship had actually been torpedoed, stood by her in his boats, reboarded
+her, and, in spite of her damage, steamed her to a place of safety.
+Recollect Captain Clopert, whose vessel, the _Southport_, was captured
+by a German man-of-war, was taken to the island of Kusaie, and was
+there disabled by the removal of certain important parts of her
+machinery.  She was evidently to be utilised as a collier, but no
+sooner had the enemy left than the master, officers, and men set to
+work to effect repairs.  How they did it with the meagre appliances at
+their disposal only they themselves can say, but the fact remains that
+the ship escaped.
+
+These cases are only typical.  Whole volumes might be written round the
+warlike deeds of our "peaceful" merchantmen, and from the many
+instances of gallantry we read of and the still greater number which do
+not achieve publicity it is evident that on every occasion of
+encountering the enemy the master of the ship, backed up most nobly by
+his officers and crew, has not only done everything possible to save
+his ship from capture in the first instance, but has never hesitated to
+defend his vessel in accordance with the generally accepted tenets of
+International Law, which state that a merchant ship can defend herself
+when attacked.
+
+Courage in the face of the enemy when one can return shot for shot is
+one thing, but heroism of the same kind in an unarmed ship is on rather
+a different plane.
+
+The work of the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine is largely
+interdependent.  The two great sea services of the country must ever
+work hand in hand and side by side, and let us never forget what we owe
+to the latter.
+
+
+
+
+POTVIN OF THE _PUFFIN_
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" ejaculated the first lieutenant, looking up from
+his breakfast as a barefooted signalman held a slate under his nose.
+"Just as I'm in the middle of painting ship!"
+
+The navigator, doctor, and assistant paymaster looked up from their
+plates.  "What's up, Number One?" queried the former.
+
+"Only that the new skipper's arrived in the English mail," said the
+first lieutenant glumly.
+
+"He's coming on board at nine o'clock in the _Spartan's_ steamboat!"
+
+"Good Lord!" protested Cutting, the doctor.  "So soon?  It was only a
+week ago we saw his appointment!"
+
+"Can't help that," No. One growled.  "He's arrived, and he'll be on
+board in exactly three quarters of an hour's time.  Lord help us!
+You'd better put on a clean tunic and your best society manners, Doc.
+You'll want 'em both."
+
+"Why the deuce can't he leave us in peace a bit longer?" complained
+Falland, the lieutenant (N).
+
+"And why the devil does he want to come just at the end of the quarter
+when I'm busy with my accounts?" grumbled Augustus Shilling, the
+assistant paymaster, blinking behind his spectacles.  "I know jolly
+well what it'll be.  For the next week I shan't be able to call my soul
+my own, and he'll be sending for me morning, noon, and night to explain
+things.  The writer's gone sick, too.  Oh, it IS the limit!"
+
+"It is, indeed," echoed the doctor despondently.  "Farewell to a quiet
+life.  By George!  I haven't written up the wine books for the last
+fortnight.  Have I got time to do 'em before he comes?"
+
+The first lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.  "You'd better make an
+effort, old man," he said.  "He's a rabid teetotaler, and he's sure to
+ask to see 'em first thing."
+
+"Heaven help us!" cried the medical officer, rising hastily from his
+chair and disappearing into his cabin.
+
+"What sort of a chap did you say he was, Number One?" Falland queried,
+with traces of anxiety in his voice.
+
+"I only know him by reputation," the first lieutenant answered
+lugubriously.  "But he's got the name of being rather ... er, peculiar.
+At any rate, he hates navigators, so you'd better mind your P's and
+Q's, my giddy young friend."
+
+"And I haven't corrected my charts for three weeks or written up the
+compass journal for a month!" Falland wailed.  "Oh, Lor!"
+
+From all of which it will be understood that the wardroom officers of
+H.M. Gunboat _Puffin_ were not overjoyed at the advent of their new
+Captain.[1]
+
+The date was some time during the last five years of the reign of Queen
+Victoria; the month, September, and though at this season of the year
+the climate of Hong-Kong is far too moist and too steamy to be
+pleasant, the _Puffin's_ officers, adapting themselves to
+circumstances, had had plenty of shore leave and had managed to enjoy
+themselves.  So had the men.
+
+Their ship, an ancient, barque-rigged vessel of 1,000 odd tons;
+auxiliary engines capable of pushing her along at 9.35 knots with the
+safety valves lifting; and armed with I forget how many bottle-nosed,
+5-inch, B.-L. guns and a Nordenfeldt or two, was swinging peacefully
+round her buoy in the harbour.  She had swung there for precisely two
+months without raising steam, ever since her late commander had been
+promoted and had gone home to England, leaving the ship in temporary
+charge of Pardoe, the first lieutenant.
+
+Captain Prato had been an easy-going man of serene disposition who
+allowed little or nothing to worry him, not even the Commander-in-Chief
+himself.  As a consequence the wardroom officers swore by him, and so
+did Mr. Tompion, the gunner, and Mr. Slice, the artificer engineer.
+The ship's company were of the same opinion, so the little _Puffin_ was
+what is generally known as a "happy ship."
+
+But Commander Peter Potvin, R.N., Captain Prato's successor, was the
+direct antithesis of the former commanding officer, for he had the
+reputation in the Service of being a veritable little firebrand, and an
+eccentric little firebrand at that.  He was small and thin, and
+possessed a pair of fierce blue eyes and a short, aggressive red beard,
+and was even reputed to insist on naval discipline being carried on in
+his own house ashore.  At any rate, it is quite certain that his wife
+frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master
+had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had
+discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery,
+while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good
+conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after
+three months' exemplary behaviour.  But only one of them, Tony, aged 18
+months, had ever worn a badge for more than a fortnight.
+
+It was also said, with what truth I do not know, that his servants
+frequently had their leave stopped for not being "dressed in the rig of
+the day," and for omitting to wear hideous caps and aprons of an
+uniform pattern designed by Commander Potvin himself without the
+assistance of his wife.  It was bruited about that the cook, housemaid,
+and parlourmaid,--the nurse alone being excused,--were turned out of
+their beds at the unearthly hour of 5.30 a.m. and that, as a punishment
+for "being found asleep in their hammocks after the hands had been
+called," they were rousted out at 4 a.m. to chop firewood.
+
+The Potvin ménage was not a happy one, and as a consequence his
+retainers usually gave notice en masse directly they heard the gallant
+commander was about to come home on leave.  Even the gardener and boot
+boy followed the general example, so it was lucky for Mrs. Potvin that
+she had an uncle at the Admiralty who generally managed to send, "dear
+Peter" to a foreign station.  He was rarely at home, or his wife would
+have been wrought to the verge of lunacy.
+
+No wonder the _Puffin's_ were not pleased at their future prospects,
+for the milk of human kindness evidently did not enter into the
+composition of their new commanding officer.
+
+For twenty-four hours after his arrival on board Commander Potvin was
+too busy paying official calls and unpacking his belongings to make his
+presence really felt.  The fun began the next morning, when, after
+divisions, he sent for Pardoe to come and see him in his cabin.
+
+"You may have heard, First Lieutenant," he began, very pompously, "that
+I am a very observant man, and that I notice everything that goes on
+board my ship?"
+
+"Indeed, sir," said Pardoe politely, wondering what on earth was coming
+next.
+
+"Yes," said the commander.  "I am unnaturally observant, and though
+some people may think I am a faddist, there is very little that escapes
+my notice.  To start with, I always insist that my officers shall wear
+strict uniform, and at the present moment I am grieved to see that you
+are wearing white socks."
+
+"I'm sorry, sir.  I didn't know you would mind.  The officers in the
+flagship wear them with white clothing."
+
+"I was not aware that I had asked you a question, Lieutenant Pardoe,"
+interrupted the skipper, his beard bristling.  "Moreover, what they do
+or do not do in the flagship is no affair of mine.  The uniform
+regulations lay down that socks are to be black or dark blue, and I
+expect my officers to wear them.  I also observed just now that the
+Surgeon was wearing a watch strap across the front of his tunic, which
+is in strict defiance of the regulation which says that watch chains
+and trinkets are not to be worn outside the coat.  I do not wish to
+have to take steps in the matter, but kindly bear it in mind yourself,
+and inform your messmates, that I insist on strict uniform."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+"There are several more matters I wish to discuss," the captain
+resumed, twiddling his moustaches.  "You will doubtless have heard that
+I like to keep my ship's companies happy and contented, eh?"  He looked
+up enquiringly.
+
+"Er--yes, sir.  Of course, sir," said the first lieutenant lamely,
+having heard precisely the opposite.
+
+"Very good.  To keep the men happy and contented one has to keep them
+employed, so in future there will be no leave to either officers or men
+until four o'clock in the afternoon.  We shall doubtless be able to
+find plenty for them to do on board."
+
+Number One opened his mouth to expostulate, but thought better of it.
+"I like the men to feel that their ship is their home," continued the
+skipper, "and to encourage them to stay on board in the afternoons and
+evenings instead of spending their money and their substance in these
+terrible grog shops ashore, these low and vicious haunts of iniquity,"
+he rolled his tongue round the words, "I propose that the officers
+shall prepare and deliver a series of lectures on interesting topics.
+I have," he added, "brought a magic lantern and a good stock of slides
+out from England, and some evening next week I propose to deliver the
+first lecture myself.  The subject is a most instructive one, 'The
+effects of alcohol on the human body and mind,' and to illustrate it I
+have prepared a number of most excellent charts showing the increase in
+the consumption of spirits and malt liquor between 1873 and the present
+time.  The charts, compiled from the most reliable data, are drawn up
+for most of the best known professions, sailors, soldiers, labourers,
+policemen, clergymen, and so on, and I can safely promise you a most
+interesting evening."
+
+Pardoe, quite convinced that he had to deal with a lunatic, gasped and
+began to wonder how on earth he could leave the ship unostentatiously
+without damaging his subsequent career.  "I'm afraid I'm not much of a
+hand at lecturing, sir," he said with a forced smile.  "In fact there's
+hardly a subject I know enough about to----."
+
+"Pooh, pooh," laughed the commander.  "With due diligence in your spare
+time you will be able to learn up quite a lot of subjects, and as for
+the actual lecturing," he shrugged his shoulders, "practice makes
+perfect, and I have no doubt that before very long we shall find you
+quite an orator."  He smiled benignly.
+
+"We will have the lectures once a week, at 8 p.m., say on Thursdays,"
+he went on, "and on Sundays I will conduct an evening service at 6.0.,
+at which, of course, all officers will attend.  You will read the
+lessons and collect the offertory, Mr. Pardoe.  That will leave us five
+clear evenings a week for other harmless occupations, and I propose
+that on one of them we have readings for the men from the works of
+well-known authors.  Something light and amusing from Dickens or Dumas
+to start with, and then, as we get on, we might try the more learned
+writers like Darwin, or--er--Confucius."
+
+The wretched first lieutenant grew red about the face and started to
+breathe heavily.
+
+"Then on another evening we might encourage the men to play progressive
+games like draughts, halma, picture lotto, spillikins, ping-pong, and
+beggar-my-neighbour.  My sole object in doing all this, you will
+understand, is to keep the men amused and instructed, to divert their
+minds and, therefore, to keep them happy and contented.  After a few
+weeks or so they will all be so anxious to come to our entertainments,
+that they will have lost all desire to go ashore at all.  It is a good
+idea, is it not?"
+
+The first lieutenant nodded grimly.  The idea may have been excellent,
+but he could hardly imagine Petty Officer Timothy Carey, the horny
+captain of the forecastle, listening to Confucius; nor Baxter, the
+Sergeant of Marines, sitting down to a quiet game of spillikins with
+Scully, the cook's mate.  In fact, he foresaw that when he informed the
+men of the arrangements about to be made for their welfare, he would
+have all his work cut out to repress the inevitable rebellion.  Darwin,
+Confucius, picture lotto, and beggar-my-neighbour for the hardened
+ship's company of the _Puffin_!  The _Police Gazette_, _Reynolds'
+Weekly_, pots of beer, and the games known as "Shove ha'penny" and
+"Crown and Anchor" were far more to their liking.
+
+"Well," said Commander Potvin, "that is all I have to say at present;
+but I am gratified, very gratified indeed, that you agree with my
+ideas.  I will draw up and issue detailed rules for our evening
+entertainments, but, meanwhile, I should be obliged if you would cause
+these to be distributed amongst the men.  They will pave the way," he
+added, smiling as pleasantly as he was able, and handing Pardoe a neat
+brown paper parcel.  "They will pave the way with good intentions, and
+I have no doubt that within a few weeks we shall have the happiest
+ship's company in the whole of the British Navy."
+
+The first lieutenant, too astonished to reply, clutched the parcel and
+retired to the wardroom, where, flinging his cap on to the settee, he
+relapsed into the one armchair.  "Lord!" he muttered, holding his head,
+"I believe the man's as mad as a hatter!"
+
+He opened the package to find therein a quantity of bound sheets.  He
+selected one of the pamphlets at random and examined it with a sigh.
+"Drink and Depravity," he read.  "Pots of beer cost many a tear.  Be
+warned in time or you'll repine."
+
+"Great Caesar's ghost!" he ejaculated.  "The man IS mad!  To think that
+it should come to this.  Poor, poor old _Puffin_!"
+
+A few minutes later Falland, on his way aft to visit the captain,
+glanced into the wardroom.  Pardoe still sat in the armchair muttering
+softly to himself with his head bowed down between his hands.  The
+floor, the table, and the chair were littered with tracts of all the
+colours of the rainbow.  "Saints preserve us!" the navigator murmured.
+The next really interesting incidents occurred on Sunday morning, when
+the commanding officer made his usual rounds of the ship and inspected
+the men.  So far nothing had officially been said about the new
+_régime_; but, in some mysterious way, the ship's company had an
+inkling of the happy days in store for them, while, through a lavish
+distribution of tracts, literature which, I am sorry to relate, they
+solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new
+captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink.  Accordingly, to
+please him, and to show that they were not the hardened sinners,
+seasoned reprobates, and generally idle and dissolute characters he
+perhaps might take them for, they fell in at divisions on that Sabbath
+morn wearing their most cherubic and innocent expressions, and their
+newest and most immaculate raiment.
+
+The _Puffin_ had always been a clean ship, but on this particular
+occasion she surpassed herself, for all hands and the cook had done
+their very utmost to uphold her reputation.  Her burnished guns and
+freshly scoured brass-work shone dazzingly in the sun; her topmasts and
+blocks had been newly scraped and varnished, while the running rigging,
+boat's falls, and other ropes about the deck were neatly coiled down
+and flemished.  The decks themselves were as white as holystones, sand,
+and much elbow grease could make them, and, with her white hull with
+its encircling green riband and cherry-red waterline, her yellow lower
+masts and funnel, and a brand-new pendant flying from the main-truck
+and large White Ensign flapping lazily from its staff on the poop, the
+_Puffin_ looked more like a yacht than a man-o'-war.  But Commander
+Potvin also had a reputation to keep up, and he would not be Commander
+Potvin if he could not find fault somewhere.
+
+"Seaman's division--'shun!" shouted Falland, the officer in charge, as
+the commander and first lieutenant made their appearance from under the
+poop.  "Off--caps!"
+
+The men clicked their heels punctiliously and removed their headgear,
+and the captain, passing down the front rank with his sword trailing on
+the deck behind him, began his inspection.
+
+"What is your name, my man?" he inquired condescendingly, halting
+opposite to a burly bearded able seaman.
+
+"Joseph Smith, sir."
+
+"I seem to remember your face," said the commander.
+
+"Yes, sir.  I served along 'o you in th' _Bulldorg_ five year ago."
+
+"Indeed.  That is most interesting.  Well, Smith," eyeing him up and
+down, "I am always most pleased to see my old shipmates again."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the burly one, trying hard to look pleased
+himself, and turning rather red in the effort.  As a matter of fact he
+was wondering if his commanding officer was blessed, or cursed, with a
+good memory, and if, by any chance, he remembered the occasion when
+he--Joseph Smith--had last stood before him on the quarterdeck of
+H.M.S. _Bulldog_.  He had stood there as a defaulter, to be punished
+with ten days' cells and the loss of a hardly-earned good conduct
+badge, for returning from leave in a state of partial insobriety, and
+for having indulged in a heated and more than acrimonious discussion
+with the local constabulary.  It had happened several years before, and
+since then he had turned over a new leaf, but he grew quite nervous at
+the recollection.
+
+But the skipper, apparently, had quite forgotten it, for he went on
+speaking.  "I am sorry to see, Smith, that, although you have served
+with me before, you have forgotten what I must have taken the greatest
+pains to teach you.  Your hair is too long, and your beard is not
+trimmed in the proper service manner.  Your trousers are at least two
+inches too tight round the knee, and six inches too slack round the
+ankle, while the rows of tape on your collar are too close together.
+It will not do," he added, glaring unpleasantly.  "The uniform
+regulations are made to be strictly adhered to.  Mr. Falland!"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"Have this man's bag inspected in the dinner hour every day for a
+fortnight.  See that his hair is properly cut by next Sunday, and see
+that he either shaves himself clean, or that he does not use a razor at
+all, according to the regulations.  I am surprised that you should have
+allowed him to come to divisions in this condition."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The Commander passed on, leaving the delinquent with his mouth wide
+open in astonishment and righteous indignation.  Smith was firmly of
+the opinion that his beard was everything that a beard should be,
+while, quite rightly, he had always prided himself on being one of the
+best dressed men in the ship.  Any little irregularities in his attire,
+irregularities not countenanced by the regulations, were merely
+introduced for the purpose of making himself smarter than ever.  It was
+a sad blow to his pride.
+
+But many others suffered in the same way, for hardly a man in the
+division was dressed according to the strict letter of the law.  Some
+had the tapes on their jumpers too high or too low; others had the
+V-shaped openings in front a trifle too deep; many, in their endeavours
+to make their loose trousers still more rakish, wore them in too
+flowing a manner over their feet, and still more, in their anxiety not
+to spoil the set of their jumpers, carried no 'pusser's daggers,' or
+knives, attached to their lanyards.  Altogether the first Sunday was a
+regular débâcle for the _Puffin's_ but an undoubted triumph for
+Commander Potvin.
+
+"Mr. Falland," he said, having walked round the ranks.  "I am sorry to
+find all this laxity in the important matter of dress, and I rely upon
+you to take immediate steps to have it rectified."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+"And," the skipper continued, "I notice that you fall your men in
+according to size.  I know that some commanding officers like to
+inspect the men in this way, but personally I prefer to have them
+grouped according to appearance.  For instance, tall men together,
+short men together, and the same thing with the fat and the thin, the
+bearded and the clean-shaven."
+
+"Very good, sir.  But--" the navigator hesitated.
+
+"But what, Mr. Falland?"
+
+"Suppose a man is tall, thin, and bearded, sir?" asked Falland, in
+utter perplexity.
+
+"Seize upon his predominant feature, Mr. Falland, and use your own
+discretion in the matter," said the Captain, half suspecting that his
+subordinate was trying to make fun of him, but knowing full well that,
+whatever the navigator did, he could always find fault with it.
+
+He marched forward to continue his rounds, leaving the astonished
+divisional officer wondering if he was also to form special detachments
+of red-faced sailors, white-faced sailors, snub-nosed sailors, and
+bandy-legged sailors.
+
+The inspection of the upper-deck and mess-deck passed without much
+comment, the Captain even saying that he was glad to see that the ship
+was 'quite clean,' a term which made the zealous Pardoe writhe with
+annoyance; but the next thing which caught his attention was a small
+hencoop containing eight or nine miserable, bedraggled-looking fowls.
+
+"Bless my soul, First Lieutenant!" said he.  "Look at these fowls!"
+They were sorry looking birds, it is true, but Chinese chickens are not
+renowned for their beauty and sprightliness of appearance at the best
+of times.
+
+"They seem quite healthy, sir," the First Lieutenant answered, putting
+his head on one side in a most judicial manner.
+
+"Yes, yes," murmured the Commander.  "But they are all the colours of
+the rainbow.  White, yellow, brown, grey, and black."
+
+"So they are, sir," said Pardoe, as if he had observed the astounding
+fact for the first time.
+
+"Who do they belong to?"
+
+"They're yours, sir.  Your steward looks after them."
+
+"Does he, indeed?" said the skipper, rather nonplussed.  "Well, send
+for my steward."
+
+The portly and dignified Ah Fong presently appeared.
+
+"Is it not possible for you to buy fowls of all the same colour?" the
+"Owner" wanted to know.
+
+Ah Fong stared in hopeless bewilderment, trying to grasp his master's
+meaning.  "My no savvy, sah," he said, shaking his head.
+
+"Can you not buy your chickens, or my chickens, rather, all one colour?
+White, for preference, as the weather is hot."
+
+"I savvy, sah," exclaimed the Chinaman, with a beatific smile slowly
+spreading over his countenance.  "You no likee black piecee hen, sah?"
+
+"No, no, that's not what I mean at all," said Potvin, going off into a
+long explanation.
+
+At last Ah Fong began to understand what was wanted.  "No can do, sah!"
+he expostulated.  "S'pose I go 'shore catch piecee hen.  I say to one
+man, I wanchee plentee fat piecee hen, no wanchee olo piecee, wanchee
+young plenty big piecee hen for capten...."
+
+"I really cannot waste my time listening to this senseless
+conversation!" interrupted the Captain, with some petulance.  "Mr.
+Pardoe, you will kindly explain to him that in future all the fowls on
+board are to be white in the summer, and blue... 'er, I mean black, in
+the winter.  I will have them in the proper dress of the day like the
+ship's company, do you understand?"
+
+"I do, sir," said the wretched Pardoe with an inaudible sigh, as the
+little procession moved on.
+
+He did explain to the steward what was required, and Ah Fong was
+confronted with a dilemma.  However, he had his wits about him, and the
+next Sunday morning, to Number One's intense astonishment, every
+wretched fowl in the coop, black, grey, or brown, had been freshly
+whitewashed.  Their feathers were all plastered together, and they
+looked supremely unhappy and more bedraggled than ever, but the
+captain's aesthetic eye was apparently satisfied, for he passed them by
+with a glance and made no adverse remarks.
+
+After the ordeal of divisions the mess-stools, chairs for the officers,
+and reading desk were brought up and placed on desk under the awnings,
+and at 10.30, when church had been "rigged," the tolling of the bell
+summoned the officers and ship's company to divine service.  Pardoe,
+after satisfying himself that everything was ready, went aft to report
+to the Captain, and, somewhat to the surprise of everyone, Commander
+Potvin presently appeared without his tunic, advanced to the reading
+desk, and started the service.
+
+At first people thought that he had discarded his jacket merely for the
+sake of coolness, and, as the day was unusually hot, some of the other
+officers were half inclined to follow his sensible example.  But when
+at last church was over and Pardoe had occasion to see the Captain
+again, he discovered the real reason for the "Owner's" removal of his
+outer garment.
+
+"You may have noticed, Lieutenant Pardoe, that I took the precaution to
+remove my tunic before reading the Church service," said the skipper.
+
+"I did, sir," answered the First Lieutenant.  "In fact, it was so hot,
+that I nearly followed your example."
+
+Potvin glared.  "I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Pardoe?" he
+said with asperity.  "The fact of its being hot or cold does not effect
+my religious ideas."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir.  I thought that..."
+
+"Kindly do not impute these motives to me," the Commander went on to
+say.  "I consider that we should all attend divine service in a state
+of the utmost humility, and I removed my tunic so that I should appear
+before the Almighty in the same simple garb as the men, not as their
+commanding officer!"  He puffed out his chest with importance.
+
+Pardoe merely gasped, for the idea that the Almighty might be unduly
+influenced by the sight of the three gold stripes and curl on his
+captain's shoulder-straps was quite beyond his comprehension.
+Nevertheless, Commander Potvin was quite serious, and on leaving his
+presence Pardoe repaired to his cabin, and wrote a fervent appeal to a
+former captain of his, asking that officer to use his influence to have
+him removed from his present appointment.  He loved his little
+_Puffin_, it is true.  He would be very sorry to leave her; but
+anything was better than serving in a ship commanded by a lunatic.
+
+For a week the gunboat's officers and men endured the new routine with
+what fortitude they could muster.  On Monday they had their progressive
+games, when the watch on board,--the watch whose turn it was to go on
+leave had gone ashore to a man,--were compelled, much to their disgust,
+to squat round on the upper deck with draughts, halma, and
+picture-lotto boards spread out before them.  The proceedings were not
+exactly jovial, for the men looked, and were, frankly bored, while a
+party of four able seamen, finding the innocent attractions of Happy
+Families hardly exciting enough, were subsequently brought up before
+the First Lieutenant on a charge of gambling.
+
+Half an hour after the games started, moreover, two other men, one a
+marine and the other the ship's steward's assistant, fell in to see him.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked.
+
+"Well, sir," the marine explained.  "It's like this 'ere.  I was told
+off to play draughts along o' this man, an' all goes well until I makes
+two o' my men kings an' starts takin' all 'is.  Then 'e says as 'ow
+I've been cheatin', so I says to 'im, polite like, as 'ow I 'adn't done
+no such thing, an' wi' that 'e ups an' 'its me in the eye, sir, which
+isn't fair."
+
+"He hit you in the eye?" asked Number One.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the sea-soldier, exhibiting a rapidly swelling cheek.
+
+"What have you to say?" the First Lieutenant asked the alleged
+assailant.
+
+"What he says isn't true, sir.  I did say he had been cheatin', becos
+he had, becos he was movin' all his other pieces over the board how he
+liked.  I says he mustn't do that, becos it isn't the game, but he says
+that as he's been told off to play, he'll play how he bloomin' well
+likes.  I says it's cheatin', and he hits me on the nose, so I hits him
+back, and we has a bit of a dust up."  He exhibited a gory handkerchief
+as proof of his injuries.
+
+"Do either of you men bear any grudge against the other?" asked Pardoe,
+knowing that they had often been ashore together.
+
+"No, sir," came the immediate reply.
+
+"Well, go away, and don't make such fools of yourselves again.  We
+can't have all this bickering and fighting over a simple game of
+draughts."
+
+The two combatants retired grinning, and Pardoe, sighing deeply, walked
+up and down the deck wrapped in thought.  One fact was quite patent,
+and that was that if the innocent amusements for the ship's company
+were suffered to continue, he would require the wisdom and patience of
+a Solomon to arbitrate between the disputants.
+
+On Tuesday they had a reading from Shakespeare, conducted by the
+Captain, and, to judge from the _sotto-voce_ remarks of the audience,
+they were neither amused nor instructed.
+
+"'E must be wet if 'e thinks we liken listenin' to this 'ere stuff!"
+muttered Able Seaman McSweeny dismally.  "'E talks abart 'is ruddy
+merchant o' Venice, but I doesn't want to 'ear nothin' abart a....
+Eyetalian shopkeeper.  I expec's 'e was one o' these 'ere blokes wot
+wheeled an ice-cream barrer.  S'welp me I do!"
+
+A loud titter greeted his utterance, and Commander Potvin stopped
+reading for a moment, and glanced round with a fierce expression,
+without being able to see whence the sounds of merriment emanated.
+
+No, judging from the trite remarks from the men, the reading from the
+works of England's most famous poet and playwright was not an
+unqualified success.
+
+On Thursday came the Captain's lecture on the effects of alcohol, at
+which, to Pardoe's great astonishment, there was an unusually full
+attendance.  Even men belonging to the watch ashore were present, some
+of them bringing friends from other ships with them.
+
+The audience, suspicious at first, eventually became strangely
+enthusiastic, loud cheering, much stamping on the deck, and even
+shrieks and cat-calls completely drowning the lecturer's voice for
+moments at a time.  The applause became more vociferous still when the
+man attending the magic lantern inadvertently placed his hand on its
+almost red-hot top, and interrupted the proceedings with a loud and
+very startled: "Ow!  The bloomin' thing's burnt me!"
+
+Anyone but the Commander might have detected something sarcastic and
+ironical in the excessive applause, but he, the possessor of a skin
+like unto that of an armadillo, was very pleased with the reception of
+his discourse.
+
+"I told you I had an interesting subject," he said afterwards to the
+First Lieutenant.  "The hearty applause was very gratifying, and it is
+wonderful how a little straight talk goes down with the men."
+
+"I only hope my lecture will be an equal success, sir," answered
+Pardoe, rather at a loss what to say.
+
+His subject was "Cities of Ancient Greece."
+
+But at last came the time when the _Puffin_ was ordered to sea, and at
+8.30 on that fateful morning the gunboat, with her gallant commander
+standing on the poop in the attitude of Sir Francis Drake starting on
+his circumnavigation of the world, paddled gently down the crowded
+harbour and out through the Lye-mun pass.  It was in this narrow
+passage that they had their altercation with a lumbering Chinese junk
+tacking slowly to and fro against the tide.
+
+"Hard a-port!" ordered Falland, who was conning the ship.
+
+"Hard a-starboard!" contradicted the Commander excitedly.  "What are
+you thinking about, Mr. Falland?"
+
+The Navigator's order would have taken the ship well clear, but the
+helmsman, perplexed by having two diametrically opposite commands
+hurled at his head simultaneously, and not knowing which to obey, did
+nothing.
+
+There came a howl from the gunboat's forecastle and a frantic,
+blasphemous yelling from a party of Chinamen clustered on the junk's
+high poop.
+
+"Full speed astern!" roared Potvin.
+
+But it was too late, for a moment afterwards the _Puffin's_ flying
+jib-boom slid neatly through the very centre of the matting sail on the
+junk's mizzen mast.  More shrill cursing and strident execration from
+the junk, followed by a series of bumps and crashes as the two vessels
+collided, bow to stern.  A large pig, suspended, according to the
+pleasant habit of the Chinese, in a wicker-work basket over the junk's
+quarter, also two similar baskets filled with fowls, became detached
+from their moorings and fell overboard.  Then the junk's mizzen-mast
+began to bend ominously, and before long, amidst more shrieks and
+yells, it snapped off short and collapsed on the poop, knocking one
+elderly Chinaman and two children into the water as it fell.  It was
+followed almost immediately afterwards by the _Puffin's_ flying
+jib-boom.
+
+The gunboat's engines were stopped and the two vessels drifted together
+side by side, while a party with axes set to work to clear away the
+wreckage.
+
+"Why on earth don't you look where you're going?" the Commander bawled
+at the junkmaster.
+
+"Yah me ping wi taow!" howled the Chinaman, which, being interpreted,
+means, "You tailless son of a devil," the greatest possible insult.
+
+It was followed by more mutual abuse and recrimination, but the
+gentleman in the junk, since Commander Potvin could not understand a
+word he said, was popularly supposed to have got the best of the wordy
+encounter.
+
+But the skipper was quite determined to have somebody's blood, and
+seeing he could make no impression on the junk, vented his spleen on
+the Navigator.
+
+"Mr. Falland!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing and his heart full of
+rage.  "The collision was entirely your fault.  I shall report the
+matter to the Admiral, and meanwhile you will remain in your cabin
+under arrest!"
+
+"But, sir.  I really----"
+
+"I require no explanations, sir.  You are guilty of gross neglect and
+carelessness!"
+
+Falland left the poop.
+
+The damage was not sufficiently serious to delay the ship, and, having
+chopped herself free, she proceeded on her journey, her Commander
+taking upon himself the duties of the deposed Navigator.
+
+It was unfortunate that, in calculating the course to be steered, he
+applied 3° deviation the wrong way.  It was equally unfortunate that he
+miscalculated the set of the current, since it was these two things
+which, at 11.53 a.m. precisely, caused the gunboat to come into violent
+contact with a ledge of rocks with barely six feet of water over them
+at high water.
+
+"Good heavens!  What's that?" shouted the skipper, as there came a
+series of muffled, grinding crashes under water and the ship stopped
+dead.
+
+"We've hit something, sir," said Pardoe, who was on the poop.  They
+had, and for some hours remained stuck fast.  In fact, the _Puffin's_
+bones would have been there to this day if she had not been steaming at
+her leisurely, economical speed of 7 1/2 knots, and it was only by
+sheer good luck, and with the assistance of salvage tugs and appliances
+from Hong-Kong, that she was ever got off at all.  As it was she was
+merely badly damaged, and came back into harbour in tow of one tug,
+while a couple of others, with their pumps working at full speed and
+gushing forth streams of water, were lashed alongside her.
+
+Falland was not court-martialled, but a week later Commander Potvin,
+after an interview with the Admiral and certain medical officers, found
+that the climate of Hong-Kong was too rigorous for his constitution,
+and embarked on board a P. and O. steamer for passage home to England
+_en route_ for Yarmouth.
+
+The gunboat's officers watched her until she was out of sight, and then
+repaired to the wardroom and indulged in cocktails.
+
+"I'm sorry for him," said No. One, lifting his glass with a grin.
+
+"Here's luck to him, and to us."
+
+"Salve," nodded the doctor, swallowing his potion at a gulp.
+
+The Royal Naval Hospital for mental cases is situated at Yarmouth.
+
+
+
+[1] The commanding officer of a man-of-war, whatever his rank, is
+always "the captain."  More familiarly he may be referred to "the
+owner," "skipper," or "old man."
+
+
+
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diff --git a/26049-8.zip b/26049-8.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stand By!, by Henry Taprell Dorling
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Stand By!
+       Naval Sketches and Stories
+
+
+Author: Henry Taprell Dorling
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2008  [eBook #26049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAND BY!***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   "Taffrail" is the pseudonym of Henry Taprell Dorling.
+
+   The book from which this etext was prepared was missing the leaf
+   containing pages 41 and 42.
+
+
+
+
+
+STAND BY!
+
+Naval Sketches and Stories
+
+by
+
+"TAFFRAIL"
+
+Author of "Carry On!" "Pincher Martin O.D., Etc."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+C. Arthur Pearson, Limited
+Henrietta Street, W.C.
+1916
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  THE SHIP'S COMPANY
+  WHO ARE SECOND
+  TO NONE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+It seems almost unnecessary to remark that the characters and ships
+figuring in the sketches throughout this book are entirely fictitious.
+
+"Bunting," "The Acting Sub," "Our Happy Home," "The Lost Sheep," "The
+'Muckle Flugga' Hussars," and "The Mother Ship" appeared in the _Daily
+Mail_, and "The 'Pirates'" in the _Weekly Despatch_.  They are here
+reprinted, with minor alterations, by kind permission of the Editors.
+
+TAFFRAIL.
+
+1916.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  THE "ACTING SUB"
+  THE MOTHER SHIP
+  OUT HAPPY HOME
+  BLOODLESS SURGERY
+  "BUNTING"
+  THE LOST SHEEP
+  A NAVAL MENAGERIE
+  THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS
+  THE "PIRATES"
+  A MINOR AFFAIR
+  THE FOG
+  THE TRADERS
+  POTVIN OF THE "PUFFIN"
+
+
+
+
+STAND BY!
+
+
+THE "ACTING SUB"
+
+He was a very junior young officer indeed when the powers that be first
+gladdened his heart and ruined his clothes by sending him to a
+destroyer.  A mere sub-lieutenant with "(acting)" after his name,
+which, as any proper "sub" will tell you, is a sign of extreme
+juniority.  Moreover, the single gold stripe on his monkey jacket was
+still suspiciously new and terribly untarnished.
+
+Not so very long before he had been a "snotty" (midshipman) in a
+battleship, a mere "dog's body," who had to obey the orders of almost
+every officer in the ship except those few who happened to be junior to
+him.  It is true that he exercised his authority and a severe
+discipline on those midshipmen who had the misfortune to be a year or
+so younger than himself, and that he expressed a lordly contempt for
+the assistant clerk.  But he lived in the gun-room, slept in a hammock,
+kept all his worldly possessions in a sea-chest, and bathed and dressed
+in the company of fifteen other boisterous young gentlemen.
+
+Then he had his watches to keep at sea and his picket boat to run in
+harbour, while his spare time was fully employed in mastering the
+subtleties of gunnery, torpedo work, and electricity, and in rubbing up
+his rapidly dwindling knowledge of engineering and _x_ and _y_.  It was
+well that he did so, for at some distant period when the war ceased he
+would have to pass certain stringent examinations before he could be
+confirmed in the rank of lieutenant.
+
+So on the whole he had been kept fairly busy, more particularly as
+watch-keeping at the guns with the ship at sea in all weathers in war
+time was not all jam.
+
+But when he was sent to a destroyer he found the life was more
+strenuous, for the little ship spent far more time at sea.  The weather
+was sometimes very bad indeed, and at first he was sea-sick, but it was
+always a consolation to have a cabin of his own, to live in the
+wardroom, and to be treated as a responsible officer instead of a mere
+"makee learn."
+
+He had to work at least six times harder than he had in a battleship.
+For one thing he had all the charts to correct and to keep up to date,
+no small labour with pencil, dividers, parallel rulers, and much red
+ink in these days of war, prolific minefields, dangerous areas,
+extinguished lights, and removed buoys.  He also assisted with the
+ship's gunnery, and at sea kept a regular three watches, eight hours
+out of every twenty-four, with the first lieutenant and gunner.  But it
+was the sense of responsibility and the feeling that he was doing
+really useful work which gladdened his heart and kept him keen and
+energetic.
+
+"Have you ever been in a destroyer before?" his commanding officer had
+asked him as soon as he joined.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Ever kept officer of the watch at sea?"
+
+Again the answer was in the negative.
+
+"Well, you'll have to do it here, my son.  If you want to know anything
+come to me.  There's nothing much in it so long as you keep your eyes
+skinned.  You'll soon learn."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The skipper had said there was nothing in it, but the first night at
+sea he found himself alone on the bridge in charge of the ship he
+thought differently.
+
+A light cruiser squadron and two flotillas of destroyers were steaming
+at 20 knots in close formation without lights.  The night was as black
+as the wolf's mouth, and the rapidly rising wind cut the tops off the
+short seas and sent them flying over the bridge in constant showers of
+spray.  Moreover, the perpetual pitching and rolling soon gave our
+friend a squeamish and altogether nasty sensation in the region of his
+waistcoat, and in ten minutes, by which time the water had found its
+way through his oilskins and was trickling merrily down the back of his
+neck, he felt miserable.
+
+The ship was in the middle of a line of eight destroyers.  Two hundred
+yards ahead of him he could just discern the dim black blur of the next
+ahead and the occasional splutter of whity-grey foam in her wake as her
+stern lifted to the seas.  At times, when a driving rain squall came
+down from windward, he seemed to lose sight of her altogether, and,
+through inexperience and in his anxiety to catch up, increased the
+revolutions of the engines not wisely but rather too much.  The next
+thing that happened was that the squall cleared, and he found himself
+almost on top of her, and had to put the helm over and sheer out of
+line to avoid a collision.  At the same time he reduced speed to drop
+back into station.  Sometimes he reduced more than he should, with the
+consequence that the next astern nearly bumped him, while the leader
+shot ahead and vanished into the darkness like a ghost.
+
+It was then that he had horrible thoughts of being scrubbed for the
+deadly sin of losing touch with the flotilla and meandering about the
+ocean like a lost sheep looking for his next ahead.  If he did not
+succeed in finding her somebody's blood would be required.
+
+It was rather trying for a novice, and many times he remembered the
+commanding officer's standing orders.  "Do not hesitate to call me if
+you are in doubt or difficulty," they said, with the "Do not"
+underlined twice.  Should he rouse the skipper or should he not?  He
+was asleep in his clothes on the cushioned settee in the charthouse
+underneath the bridge and would be up in ten seconds if required.  But
+the acting "sub" did hesitate to call him unnecessarily.  After all, it
+was quite possible that the "C.O." might be rather peevish if he was
+hauled out for no reason.  He was not really "in difficulty," he
+persuaded himself, and he certainly did not wish to patent the fact
+that he could not keep the ship in station, whatever the circumstances.
+
+No; he would not call him.  He solved the problem by increasing the
+speed of the engines ever so slightly above the normal, and five
+minutes later heaved a sigh of profound relief as the black shape of
+the next ahead hove up out of the darkness.
+
+In an hour his helpless feeling had gone and he was jogging merrily
+along without any difficulty.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But the skipper, who was accustomed to the ways and tricks of
+newly-joined officers generally, and sub-lieutenants in particular, had
+been awake the whole time.  He always slept with one eye open at sea,
+and as the charthouse was immediately beneath the bridge and the
+shafting of the wheel and engine-room telegraphs passed within a few
+feet of his head, he knew at once from their agitated movement when
+anything really desperate was happening.  So when the helm went
+overhand the revolution telegraph revolved frantically five or six
+times in quick succession he yawned wearily, flung off his rug, and sat
+up.
+
+"I won't go up and interfere unless he sends for me," he thought to
+himself.  "He must learn."  He had been a "sub" in a destroyer himself.
+The summons never came.
+
+At three o'clock, by which time the dawn was breaking, the "C.O." did
+appear on the bridge.
+
+"Well, Sub?" he asked.  "What d'you think of station keeping at night?"
+
+"Quite easy, sir," said that young officer blandly, quite unaware of
+the acoustic properties of the charthouse.  "As easy as falling off a
+log."
+
+"Did you have any difficulty in seeing the next ahead?"
+
+"Not much, sir.  It was a bit dark at times, though."
+
+The "C.O." smiled to himself.  He knew.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The "sub," he has passed out of the "acting" stage, is now an expert at
+the game, and, to use the phraseology of his latest confidential
+report, is "energetic and trustworthy" and a "most promising and
+capable officer."
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTHER SHIP
+
+Sixteen years ago, when the ships of the Royal Navy still disported
+themselves in black hulls, with red water-lines, white upper works, and
+yellow masts and funnels, she was a smart cruiser attached to one of
+the large fleets.  She was as spick and span as elbow grease and
+ingenuity could make her, and the show ship of her squadron and the
+pampered darling of the admiral, went by the name of "the yacht."
+
+She was easily one of the cleanest ships afloat.  Her blue-black side,
+anointed daily with some mysterious compound rubbed on with serge, a
+compound the exact ingredients of which were known only to her
+commander and the painter who mixed it, was as smooth and as shiny as a
+mahogany table.  Her decks were as clean as scrubbers, holystones,
+sand, and perspiring blue-jackets could make them, and woe betide the
+careless sailor who defiled their sacred whiteness with a spot of
+paint, or the stoker who left the imprint of a large and greasy foot on
+emerging into the fresh air from his labours in the engine-room or
+stokehold.
+
+Her guns, steel, and brass-work winked and shimmered in the sun.  Her
+funnels were brushed over at frequent intervals with a wash the colour
+and consistency of cream, and before she went to sea her yellow masts
+and yards used to be swathed in canvas lest they should be defiled by
+funnel smoke.  Her boats, with their white enamel inside and out, their
+black gunwales with the narrow golden ribbon running round inside, the
+well-scrubbed masts, oars, thwarts, bottom-boards, and gratings, the
+brass lettered backboards, and cushioned sternsheets, were the pride of
+her midshipmen and the envy of nearly all the other young gentlemen in
+the squadron.
+
+But then, of course, this all happened in the "good old days," the
+palmy days when men-of-war spent no great portion of their time at sea
+and when, in some ships, Messrs. Spit and Polish were still the
+presiding deities.  No doubt, as we were sometimes asked to believe
+before the war, the Service has gone to the dogs since 1900, for noisy
+and blatant Mr. Gunnery has usurped the place of the above-mentioned
+pair and life generally has become more strenuous.  The ability to hit
+a hostile ship at a distance of twenty miles or so cannot be inculcated
+in the fastnesses of a harbour.  The job simply must be taken seriously.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+If you turn up her name in the "Navy List" of to-day--wild horses will
+not make me disclose it and the Censor would not pass it if I did--you
+will see that she still figures as a cruiser, though the fact remains
+that she never goes to sea for any war-like purpose.  They have even
+added insult to injury by removing some of her guns.
+
+This may be a matter for deep regret on the part of her officers and
+men, who, since they belong to the Royal Navy or the Royal Naval
+Reserve, naturally long to assist in an active manner at the
+discomfiture of some floating Hun.  Their thoughts may not exactly be
+pleasant when they read and hear of the warlike doings of their
+seagoing sisters, but they may console themselves by recollecting that
+the ship of 1916 is probably infinitely more valuable to the country
+than that of 1900, and that at the present time the Navy could not do
+without her.
+
+She is still clean but is no longer a "yacht," for her purpose is
+strictly utilitarian.  She performs the multifarious duties of a depot
+ship, and as such attends to the ailments, aches and pains of, caters
+for the needs of, and generally acts as a well-conducted mother to a
+large number of destroyers.  You have only to ask these latter what
+they think of their parent, and there is not one of them who would not
+tell you that they could not get on without her.  Of course they
+cannot!  For destroyers, like delicate children prone to catch mumps,
+whooping-cough, and measles, cannot thrive without careful nursing,
+particularly in war time.
+
+And so, if the depot ship receives a plaintive wail by signal to say
+that one of her children has been punctured through the bows by a
+projectile from a belligerent Hun, or that another, in a slight
+altercation at sea with one of her sisters, has developed a "slight
+dent" in herself to the accompaniment of leaky rivets and seams, she
+merely says, "Come alongside!"
+
+The destroyer does so, and, lo! an army of workmen step on board with
+their tools, and with much hammering and drilling, the outward
+application of a steel plate, some oakum, and some white lead, her
+hurts are plastered and she is rendered seaworthy once more.
+
+Sometimes the defects may be even more serious, as, for instance, when
+one of her charges, having been badly cut into in a thick fog or having
+unwisely sat down upon a mine, limps back into harbour with several
+compartments full of water and serious internal injuries as well.  But
+the depot ship is quite equal to the emergency.  She sends her
+shipwrights, carpenters, and other experts on board the afflicted one
+and, with a large wooden patch, more oakum, and buckets of red and
+white lead, the destroyer is made sufficiently seaworthy to proceed to
+the nearest dockyard.
+
+Again, there may be engine-room defects, such  things  as  over-heated
+thrust-blocks, stripped turbines, and leaky valves.  There are boiler
+troubles and the periodical cleaning of the boiler tubes.  There can be
+defects in the guns, torpedo-tubes, searchlights, or electrical
+fittings; defects anywhere and everywhere, even in the galley-stove
+funnel or the wardroom pantry.  Mother has a large family and their
+ailments are very varied and diverse.  But she competes with them all
+and, save in cases of very severe damage, rarely confesses the job to
+be beyond her powers and has to send her troublesome child to a
+dockyard.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But this is not all she does.  If Spud Murphy, able seaman of a
+destroyer, carves the top off his finger or complains of "'orrible
+pains in th' stummick," he is sent to mother to be nursed back to
+health by her doctors.  If Peter Jones imagines he has not received the
+pay to which he is entitled, if he wishes to remit a monthly sum to his
+wife, or if he desires to become the possessor of a pair of boots, a
+tooth-brush, and a pair of new trousers, mother will oblige him.
+Moreover, the fond parent distributes the mails and supplies the beef,
+vegetables, bread, rum, haricot beans, tinned salmon, raisins, sugar,
+tea, flour, coffee, and a hundred and one other comestibles necessary
+for the nourishment of those on board her protegees.  She will also
+supply many other unconsidered trifles in the way of ammunition,
+torpedoes, rope, canvas, paint, emery paper, bath-brick, oil, bolts,
+nuts, pens, red ink, black ink, hectograph ink, foolscap, pencils,
+paper fasteners, postage stamps ... I will leave it at that.
+
+Heaven alone knows what else she can disgorge.  She seems to resemble a
+glorified Army and Navy Stores, with engineering, ship fitting, ship
+chandlery, outfitting, haberdashery, carpentry, chemists, dry
+provisions, butchers, bakers, stationery, postal, and fancy goods
+departments.  We have forgotten the certificate office or research
+department, where they will tell you the colour of the eyes of any man
+in the flotilla, the number of moles on the back of his neck, and the
+interesting fact that Stoker "Ginger" Smith has a gory heart transfixed
+by an arrow, together with the words "True Love," indelibly tattooed on
+his left forearm.
+
+The Criminal Investigation Department, which seems to be aware of the
+past history of everybody, will deal with offenders, while, to go to
+the opposite extreme, the depot ship's padre will be only too happy to
+publish the banns of marriage for any member of his flock.
+
+In addition to all this the officers of the flotilla are honorary
+members of mother's wardroom, where, despite the fact that she
+sometimes has great difficulty in collecting the sums due at the end of
+the month, she allows them to obtain meals, drinks, and tobacco.
+Lastly, she gets up periodical kinematograph or variety shows to which
+all are invited, free, gratis, and for nothing....  What more could her
+children want?  She is a very good mother to them.  Her greatness has
+not departed.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HAPPY HOME
+
+Compared with that of a "27-knotter" of twenty years ago the wardroom
+of a modern destroyer is a palatial apartment.
+
+Imagine a room about 15 ft. long, 25 ft. wide--the whole beam of the
+ship--with about 7 ft.  headroom.
+
+It has white enamelled sides and ceiling.  A table, long enough to seat
+ten people at a pinch, runs athwartships, and ranged round it are
+various straight-backed chairs.
+
+On the after bulkhead is a square mahogany cupboard with a railed top,
+on which reposes a gramophone, while to the right, in the corner, is
+another cupboard reaching to the deck above and divided into numerous
+square lockers.  It is really intended for stationery, but provides an
+equally useful receptacle for bottled beer and stout.
+
+To right and left along the ship's side, with its row of small
+scuttles, are cushioned settees, and on the foremost bulkhead, to the
+left of the door, is a bookcase with cupboard underneath.  Except on
+Sundays, when the latter is specially tidied up for the "rounds," it
+will not bear close investigation.  It may be found to contain half a
+Stilton cheese (rather fruity), pats of butter, two bottles of
+Worcester sauce, fruit, one tin of Bluebell polish, and a large lump of
+oily waste.  No wonder our butter sometimes tastes peculiar!
+
+To the right of the door is a sideboard, a solid mahogany affair, with
+racks for glasses and tumblers, and cupboards for wine.  In the centre
+of it is a mirror which, on sliding down into a recess, reveals a small
+square hatch communicating with the pantry outside.
+
+Overhead, secured to the beams, are various pipes, electric light
+fittings, brass curtain rods, and a couple of swinging oil lamps.
+Several more oil lamps are in the bulkheads or walls.  They are used
+when steam is down and the dynamo is not running.  The furniture and
+fittings are completed by a comfortable-looking, well-padded armchair,
+a couple of steam radiators of polished, perforated brass for warming
+purposes when the ship is at sea, a red and blue carpet, curtains, a
+letter rack and notice board, and the stove.
+
+The latter is fitted to burn anthracite.  It looks well, with its
+highly polished brass casing and funnel reaching up through the deck
+above, but it has a very decided will of its own.  Sometimes, in a fit
+of contrariness, it persists in blazing like a blast furnace on muggy
+days until its sides are nearly red-hot and the heat of the wardroom is
+well-nigh intolerable.  But on chilly mornings it occasionally rings a
+change by refusing to burn at all, and merely vomits forth clouds of
+acrid, grey smoke.  This generally occurs during breakfast, when folk
+are sometimes apt to be snappish and irritable.  We have never really
+quite fathomed the idiosyncrasies of the stove.  Maybe it is sadly
+misunderstood, but at any rate we can always empty the vials of our
+wrath for its misdeeds upon the head of its unfortunate custodian, a
+newly caught officer's steward of the second class, with long hair and
+a mournful aspect.
+
+We are at war, and there is little or no attempt at decoration in our
+habitation.  The bright red and black tablecloth of the usual service
+pattern gives the place a touch of colour, but beyond this and a couple
+of vases of tightly packed flowers on the table, and on the ship's side
+a print of the gallant old admiral after whom the ship is named,
+everything serves a strictly utilitarian purpose.
+
+But in spite of its bareness the wardroom is very snug and comfortable.
+It is particularly inviting on returning from a spell at sea, when one
+goes below from the wet and chilly upper deck, to find everybody
+talking at the top of their voices, and pipes, cigarettes, and the
+stove all going full blast together.  If it is after sunset and the
+ship is "darkened" the scuttles will all have their deadlights down,
+and the place will be very, what we may call "frowsty."  The
+atmosphere, indeed, what with tobacco smoke and various unnameable but
+pungent odours from the pantry outside, might well be cut with a knife;
+but nobody seems to mind.  It is warm, at any rate, and is ten thousand
+times better than the piercing wind and bitter cold on deck.
+
+At sea it is not always pleasant.  In heavy weather the stern of the
+ship has an unwholesome knack of jumping into the air and shaking
+itself like the tail of a dog.  It is disconcerting, to say the least
+of it, particularly when the water sweeps its way aft along the upper
+deck in solid masses which no so-called watertight ventilator can keep
+out.
+
+When the helm goes over suddenly, too, and the ship slaps her stern
+into the heart of an advancing wave, a miniature Niagara comes pouring
+down the after-hatch, unless it happens to be shut.  It rarely is.  As
+a consequence the mess is sometimes inches deep in water, while the
+violent motion unships every moveable fitting in the place and flings
+it to the deck.
+
+At times the dog Cuthbert, in his basket, the gramophone, many broken
+records, chairs, tumblers, apples and bananas, books, magazines,
+papers, knives and forks, a tinned tongue, and the cheese play a
+riotous game of leapfrog on the deck, with the dirty water sluicing
+after them.
+
+From outside in the pantry come the crashing sounds of our rapidly
+disintegrating stock of crockery, and, if we dared to poke our noses
+inside this chamber of horrors, we should see a pale-faced officer's
+steward seated on a bench with his head held in his hands.  A joint of
+cold beef, a loaf of bread, an empty pickle jar, and cups, saucers, and
+plates are probably playing touch-last in the sink.  The floor is a
+noisome kedgeree of broken china and glass, sea water, pickles,
+chutney, condensed milk, and other articles of food.  But the steward,
+poor wight, is past caring.  He does not mind whether it is Christmas
+or Easter.
+
+A good many of the others are sea-sick as well, for a destroyer in
+really bad weather is worse than a nightmare, while it is practically
+impossible to keep dry or to get proper food even if one wanted it.
+But yet there is a rumour going round that, through reasons of economy,
+we are shortly to be docked of our "hard-lying" money!  But a word as
+to the inhabitants.
+
+First comes the commander or lieutenant-commander in command.  His
+cabin--which in heavy weather sometimes suffers the same fate as the
+wardroom, except that the litter on the deck is limited to water,
+clothes, books, and papers--is a good-sized apartment in the flat just
+forward of the wardroom.  At sea he spends all his hours on the bridge
+or in the charthouse, and is only seen below for odd ten minutes at a
+time.  In harbour, however, he has his meals in the wardroom with the
+other officers, but spends no small portion of his day at his
+writing-table in his cabin answering official conundrums as to why, for
+instance, two tablespoons and a napkin have been "lost overboard by
+accident in heavy weather" in the middle of a notoriously fine summer.
+He also grinds out official letters and reports by the sweat of his
+brow, and is gradually becoming a pastmaster in the art of "having the
+honour to be" somebody else's "obedient servant."
+
+Living in the wardroom and knowing all the members of the ship's
+company by name brings him into very intimate touch with the men and
+their affairs.  He knows of everything that goes on on board, and as
+most of the official correspondence of the ship is done by him he is a
+very busy man even in harbour.  At one time he also had to write and
+thank those good-hearted people who sent mufflers, mittens, cigarettes,
+balaclava helmets, and peppermints to the "dear sailors."
+
+Next comes the engineer-lieutenant-commander, or the "chief," as we
+call him.  He, too, has his hands full, for besides being in charge of
+the turbines, boilers, and all the machinery on board, he is also
+responsible for practically all the stores except provisions.  They
+range in variety from what his store books call prenolphthaline,
+solution of; cans, iron, tinned, 4 galls.; bits, brace, carpenter's,
+centre, 1 1/4 inches; to flags, hand, nainsook, white, with dark blue
+stripe, 2 ft. by 2 ft.; watches, stop; bolts, steel, screwed, bright,
+hexagonal-headed, 1 in. by 2 in.; sealing wax, foolscap, paper
+fasteners, and pencils; and paint, green, Brunswick, middling, whatever
+that may be.  This is just a small selection of the articles he keeps
+and has to account for at stocktaking, and if you turned out his
+various storerooms you would find he had sufficient articles to set up
+a combined ironmongery, ship chandlery, and stationery emporium.
+
+Occasionally he also is bothered with conundrums.  For instance, the
+naval store officer at one of the dockyard ports has a cheerful habit
+of forwarding a communication to the effect that "brushes, paint, three
+in number, and broomsticks, bundle of, one, demanded" on such and such
+a date "are in No. 8 store awaiting removal.  Kindly send for them as
+soon as possible, or if ship has sailed kindly say where these articles
+should be sent."  The ship always has sailed, and by the time the
+letter is received is usually hundreds of miles away in Scotland,
+Ireland, or Timbuctoo.  Moreover, as the censorship regulations
+strictly forbid the ship's location to be mentioned, the chief curses.
+
+His dilemma rather reminds us of the young and giddy naval officer who,
+after a riotous night in London forgot whether he had been appointed to
+H.M.S. Chatham at Dublin or H.M.S. Dublin at Chatham!
+
+Then we have the first lieutenant, the executive officer of the ship
+and the skipper's right-hand man.  He is the go-between betwixt
+officers and men, is responsible for the ship's interior economy,
+cleanliness, and organisation, and has to be pretty shrewd and
+levelheaded.  Energetic as well, for though a destroyer is a small
+vessel and carries under a hundred men all told, there is always
+something going on.  In addition to his other duties, too, he takes
+turns in keeping watch at sea with the sub-lieutenant and gunner.
+
+Next the sub-lieutenant.  He is the veteran of our little party so far
+as this war is concerned, for before he came to us he was in a
+battleship in the Dardanelles.  He is now the custodian of the charts,
+and has to keep them up to date, no easy matter in these strenuous
+times of Hun minefields.  He also runs the ship's football team, which
+goes ashore and disports itself in green jerseys whenever it gets the
+opportunity.  This, in itself, entails some work and an infinite amount
+of tact, particularly as fully half the ship's company wish to play.
+
+Next the gunner (T), responsible for the torpedo armament, electrical
+fittings, and the actual mechanism and mountings of the guns.  He is a
+very busy man, for his torpedoes, like children, always seem to have
+something the matter with their insides.
+
+Then comes the surgeon probationer.  He is not a fully qualified
+medical man, but a student from one of the large London hospitals
+temporarily enrolled in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.  He gives
+hygiene lectures to the ship's company, attends to their cuts,
+contusions, and minor ailments, and packs them off to hospital or to
+the mother ship if necessary.  After an action he would be more useful
+still.
+
+Lastly the "Snotty" of the Royal Naval Reserve, who does odd jobs of
+all kinds and generally assists the first lieutenant and the sub.
+
+"Cuthbert," our dog, is a Sealyham terrier.  He lives either in the
+wardroom or the skipper's cabin.  He has bad dreams sometimes, and
+makes strange noises in his sleep, but is the only member of our
+community who is really cheerful in bad weather, and is always ready
+for his food.
+
+"Bo," or "Hobo," to give him his full name--somebody was reading Jack
+London's "The Road" when he came aboard as a tiny kitten--is a
+black-and-white tom-cat of plebeian origin.  He is an honorary member
+of our mess and occasionally pays us visits at meal-times, and after
+nourishment sometimes condescends to occupy the armchair in front of
+the stove.  He is very friendly with Cuthbert.
+
+The first steward we had was an ex-valet.  He suffered from a swollen
+head and what he was pleased to call a "college education."  He may
+have been an excellent valet, but was no earthly good as the steward of
+a destroyer, and soon departed.  His sins would fill a book.  He used
+our expensive damask table napkins as dish cloths, involving us in
+endless complications with the Victualling Yard authorities, who
+objected to their being used for such a purpose.  He produced cold ham,
+biscuits, and pickles for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner.  Excellent
+in their way, no doubt, but rather monotonous in the depths of winter.
+On one occasion he skinned a pheasant to save himself the trouble of
+plucking it--we will draw a veil over what happened.
+
+The next caterer we had was an able seaman who re-entered the Navy as a
+volunteer for the war.  He, during his time out of the Service, had
+been a sort of general factotum to some dark-skinned South American
+potentate.  He is a real treasure--the A. B. I mean, not necessarily
+the potentate.  He feeds us liberally and well, though it is true that
+he speedily discovered the virtues of tinned salmon.  In fact we don't
+know what he would do without it, and the ubiquitous pig.  Sometimes we
+have tinned salmon fish cakes and bacon for breakfast, tinned salmon
+kedgeree, cold ham, and pig brawn for lunch, and roast pork as a joint
+for dinner.  By rights we should have grown cloven hooves and salmon
+scales, but we always have a pleasant feeling of repletion after meals
+and have no cause for real complaint.
+
+Our amusements are simple.  We talk a great deal of "shop" and argue a
+lot, read a great deal--some of us get through two "seven-pennies" a
+day--listen to the gramophone, write letters, play with the doctor's
+Meccano set, and try to persuade Cuthbert to strafe the cat.
+
+Our arguments are of the usual naval variety.  Positive assertion,
+followed by flat contradiction and personal abuse, terminating in a
+babel in which everybody shouts and no one listens.
+
+Sometimes, before breakfast, we have our early morning "hates," and are
+fractious and peevish.  We long to strafe someone or something, and if,
+like the soldiers in the trenches, we had the Huns always with us, we
+might vent our spleen on them.  But we can't, worse luck!
+
+But please do not imagine that we are unhappy, because we aren't.  Our
+mouldiness in the mornings is merely temporary.  If we could but catch
+a Hun before breakfast!
+
+
+
+
+BLOODLESS SURGERY
+
+The climb had been a stiff one.  The day was very hot, and, rather
+purple about the face and breathing heavily, the sailor relapsed on the
+springy, scented turf close to the cliff's edge and gazed pensively at
+the vista of shimmering sea spread out before him.
+
+He was a massive, rotund, bull-necked individual, with a face the
+colour of a ripe tomato, and wore on the sleeves of his jumper two red
+good conduct badges and the single gun and star of an able seaman,
+seaman gunner, of His Majesty's Navy.  His name was Smith, I
+discovered, and he was home on seven days' leave.  I had met him
+halfway up the hill ten minutes before, toiling laboriously to the
+summit like an asthmatic cart-horse, and with his crimson face shining
+and beady with perspiration.  A mutual glance and a casual remark about
+the excessive heat had led to conversation.
+
+He now sat on the turf mopping his heated countenance with a mottled
+blue and white handkerchief; but a few minutes later, having recovered
+himself sufficiently to smoke, produced a pipe, tobacco box, and
+matches from the interior of his cap.
+
+"You 'aint got a fill o' 'bacca abart you, I suppose, sir?" he queried,
+exploring the inner recesses of his brass tobacco box with a horny
+forefinger.
+
+"I'm afraid it's rather weaker stuff than you're used to," I remarked
+deprecatingly, handing my pouch across.
+
+"Yus," he agreed, examining its contents and proceeding to fill his
+pipe.  "It do look a bit like 'ay, don't it?  'Owever, seein' as 'ow I
+carn't git no more I'm werry much obliged, sir, I'm sure."
+
+"It's expensive hay," I said weakly, as he handed my property back and
+lit his pipe.  "It costs well over ten shillings a pound."
+
+The ungrateful old sinner puffed out a cloud of smoke.  "'Arf a
+Bradbury[1]!" he grunted unsympathetically.  "You're jokin', sir."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"But we pays a bob a pound fur 'bacca on board o' the ship," he
+expostulated.  "It's something like 'bacca; grips you by the neck,
+like."
+
+Evidently the delicate flavour of my best John Cotton did not
+sufficiently tickle his brazen palate.
+
+For a moment or two there was silence between us as we watched the
+gulls screaming and wheeling over some object in the water far beneath
+us.
+
+"Well," I asked, merely to start a conversation, "how d'you like the
+Navy?"
+
+"Suits me all right, sir," he said, "seein' as 'ow I've bin in it a
+matter o' fifteen year.  But between you an' me, sir," he hastened to
+add, "it ain't like wot it wus when I fust jined.  It's full o'
+noo-fangled notions an' sichlike."
+
+"What d'you mean?" I asked in some amazement.
+
+"Carn't say no more, sir.  Afore we wus sent on leaf we wus all
+cautioned special not to git talkin' abart the Service wi' civvies."
+
+I suppose I did look rather unlike a member of His Majesty's land
+forces, for I was wearing plain clothes and had only come out of
+hospital four days before, after being wounded for the second time on
+the western front.  (I am speaking of the fighting line in France, not
+anatomically.)  I hastened to explain who I was.
+
+"Sorry I spoke, sir," he apologised.  "I thought you wus one o' these
+'ere la-de-dah blokes out fur an arrin'.  Wot did you say your corpse
+wus?"
+
+"Corpse!  What corpse?"
+
+"Corpse, sir.  Rig'mint."
+
+"Oh, I see.  I'm only a doctor, a Lieutenant in the R.A.M.C.  I'm on
+sick leave, and crawled up here to-day to get some fresh air and to ...
+er, meet someone I know."  I looked at my wrist watch and glanced over
+my shoulder.
+
+"Young lady, sir?" he queried in a husky, confidential whisper.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I'm on the same lay meself," he told me, with a throaty sigh and a
+lovelorn look in his blue eyes.  "Expectin' 'er any minit now, seein'
+as 'ow it's 'er arternoon art.  'Er name's Hamelia, an' I don't come up
+'ere to look at the perishin' sea, not 'arf I don't.  I gits fair sick
+o' lookin' at it on board o' the ship."
+
+I was not in the mood for exchanging confidences as to my prospective
+matrimonial affairs, and my silence must have said as much.
+
+"Beggin' your pardon, sir; but seein' as 'ow you're a doctor, I wonder
+if you 'appens to know our bloke in the _Jackass_?"
+
+"Who, your doctor?"
+
+"Yessir.  Tall orficer 'e is, close on six foot 'igh, wi' black 'air,
+wot jined the Navy special fur the war.  Name o' Brown."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't know him," I said, puzzling my brains to fit any
+medical man of my acquaintance to his very loose description.
+
+"'E's a fair corker, sir," my companion grinned.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"The way 'e gits 'is leg pulled, sir."
+
+I scented a story, and as there was still no flutter of a white skirt
+down the slope to our right, I desired him to continue.
+
+"Well, sir," he started, "it wus like this 'ere.  The _Jackass_ is one
+o' these 'ere light cruisers, and one mornin' at 'arf parst nine, arter
+the fust lootenant,--Number One, as we calls 'im,--arter 'e 'ad
+finished tellin' off the 'ands for their work arter divisions, the
+doctor 'appened to be standin' close alongside 'im, Number One beckons
+to the chief buffer..."
+
+"I beg your pardon," I put in, rather mystified.  "I'm afraid I don't
+know very much about the Navy.  What's a chief buffer?"
+
+"Chief Bos'un's Mate, wot looks arter the upper deck, sir.  Name o'
+Scroggins.  Well, sir, Number One sez to 'im, 'Scroggins,' 'e sez.
+'You knows them buoys we was usin' yesterday?'--'Yessir,' I 'ears the
+chief buffer say.  'You means them wot we 'ad fur that there boat
+racin' yesterday?'--'Yes,' sez Jimmy the One.[2]  'I wants 'em all bled
+before seven bells this mornin'.'--'Aye, aye, sir,' sez Scroggins, and
+goes off to see abart it."
+
+"Bleed the boys!" I murmured in surprise.  "Do you mean to tell me they
+still have these archaic methods in the Navy?"
+
+"Course they does, sir," answered the A. B.  "They won't float else."
+
+"What, in case the ship is torpedoed or sunk by a mine?" I asked
+innocently, very perplexed.  "I'm a medical man myself; but I never
+knew that bleeding people made them more buoyant!"
+
+"If you arsks me these 'ere questions, sir, I carn't spin no yarn," the
+sailor interrupted with a twinkle in his eye.  "Well, sir, the fust
+lootenant tells the chief buffer to 'ave the buoys bled, but it so
+'appens that the doctor 'eard wot 'e said, so up 'e comes.--'Did I 'ear
+you tellin' the Chief Bos'un's Mate to 'ave the boys bled?' he
+arsks.--'You did indeed, Sawbones,' Number One tells 'im.--'But surely
+that's my bizness?' sez the doctor.--'Your bizness!' sez Number One,
+frownin' like.  ''Ow in 'ell d'you make that art?'--''Cos I'm the
+medical orficer o' this 'ere ship.'--'Ah,' sez Number One, slow like
+and grinnin' all over 'is face and tappin' 'is nose.  'You means, doc.,
+that I've no right to order the boys to be bled, wot?'--'That's just
+'xactly wot I does mean,' sez the doctor, gittin' a bit rattled like."
+
+"I quite agree with him," I put in.  "The First Lieutenant had no
+business at all to order the boys to be bled.  Besides, bleeding is
+hopelessly..."
+
+"Is it me wot's spinnin' this 'ere yarn or is it you, sir?" interrupted
+the narrator.  "'Cos if it's me, I loses the thread o' wot I'm sayin'
+if you gits arskin' questions."
+
+"I'm sorry," I sighed.  "Please go on."
+
+"Well, sir, Number One and the doctor 'as a reg'lar hargument and
+bargin' match on the quarterdeck, though I see'd Number One wus larfin'
+to 'isself the 'ole time.  The doctor sez to 'im as 'ow they'd best
+refer the matter to the skipper; but the fust lootenant sez they carn't
+do that 'cos the skipper's attendin' a court-martial and won't be back
+till the arternoon.  Then the doc. wants to know if Number One'll give
+'im an order in writin' to bleed the boys; but Number One larfs and sez
+'e won't be such a fool, and sez that in 'is opinion the buoys should
+be bled.  The doctor then sez the boys don't want bleedin', and arsks
+Number One if 'e's prepared to haccept 'is advice as a medical orficer.
+The fust lootenant sez of course 'e will, and sez as 'ow 'e'll arrange
+to 'ave all the buoys mustered in the sick bay at six bells, and that
+they needn't be bled if the doctor sez they don't want it."
+
+"It wus all I could do to stop meself larfin', 'specially when Number
+One sings art fur the chief buffer.  'Scroggins,' 'e sez, ''ave all o'
+them there buoys wot I wus talkin' abart in the sick bay by eleven
+o'clock punctual.'--Scroggins seems a bit startled.  'In the sick bay,
+sir?' 'e arsks.--'Yus,' sez Number One, grinnin' to 'isself and winkin'
+at the chief buffer.  'In the sick bay by six bells sharp.'--'Werry
+good, sir,' sez Scroggins, tumblin' to wot wus up, 'cos 'e saw the
+doctor standin' there.  I 'eard all o' wot 'appened, and I tells all my
+pals.  The chief buffer does the same, and so does Number One, so at
+six bells, when the sick bay stooard 'ad bin sent by Jimmy the One to
+tell the doctor as 'ow the buoys wus ready for bleedin', almost all the
+orficers and abart 'arf the ship's company 'ad mustered artside the
+sick bay under the fo'c'sle to see wot 'appened.
+
+"Presently the doctor comes along, sees the crowd, but goes inside
+without sayin' nothin'.  But soon we 'ears 'im lettin' go at the sick
+bay stooard inside.  'Wot the devil's the meanin' o' this?' 'e wants to
+know.--'Fust lootenant's orders, sir,' sez the stooard.--'Fust
+lootenant be damned,' the doctor sings art.  'I'll report 'im to the
+captain.  S'welp me, I will!'--And wi' that 'e comes artside werry
+rattled and walks aft without sayin' a word to no one.  I feels a bit
+sorry for 'im, sir," the story teller went on, "'cos Number One 'ad bin
+pullin' 'is leg agen."
+
+"Pulling his leg?" I echoed.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the seaman, bursting with merriment.  "'Cos the sick
+bay, and it weren't none too large, was all but filled up wi' six 'efty
+great casks, wi' flagstaffs and sinkers complete.  They wus the buoys
+Number One 'ad bin talkin' abart all along."
+
+I could not help laughing.
+
+"I see," I said.  "The First Lieutenant meant BUOYS and the doctor the
+ship's BOYS, what?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"But tell me," I asked.  "What about the bleeding?"
+
+"Bleedin', sir!  Why, d'you mean to tell me you don't know wot bleedin'
+a buoy is?"
+
+"I'm afraid my nautical knowledge is very limited," I apologised.
+
+"It's surprisin' wot some shoregoin' blokes don't know abart th' Navy,
+sir," said the burly one with some contempt, chuckling away to himself.
+"But if you reely wants to know, bleedin' a buoy means borin' a small
+'ole in 'im to let the water art, 'cos they all leaks a bit arter
+they've bin in the sea.  But I must say good arternoon, sir," he added
+hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder and rising to his feet.  "'Ere's
+my gal comin', and there's another abart 'arf a cable astern of 'er wot
+I expec's is yourn.  Good arternoon, sir, and don't git stoppin' no
+more o' them there bullets."  He touched his forelock.
+
+"But tell me?" I said.  "Did the first lieutenant and doctor make it up
+all right?"
+
+"Bet your life they did, sir," he said with a laugh, moving off.  "Them
+haffairs wus almost o' daily hoccurrence."
+
+"Good luck to you," I called out after him, "and thank you for a most
+instructive twenty minutes!"
+
+He looked back over his shoulder; his bright red face broadened into a
+huge smile, and he deliberately winked twice.
+
+I had to hurry away, for already the sailor nearly had his arm round
+his housemaid's waist, while my Anne, at least half an hour late, was
+panting wearily towards where I stood.
+
+"Who is your sailor friend?" was her first question.
+
+"Ananias the Second," I answered, for at the back of my mind I had a
+vague suspicion that the first lieutenant of the _Jackass_ was not the
+only member of her ship's company who delighted in pulling people's
+legs.
+
+
+
+[1] A "Bradbury" is one of the new L1 notes.  So called from the
+signature at the bottom.
+
+[2] "Jimmy the One," a lower-deck nickname for the First Lieutenant.
+
+
+
+
+"BUNTING"
+
+He was a short, thick-set, ruddy-faced, shrewd-eyed little person, who
+wore on the left sleeve of his blue jumper two good-conduct badges and
+the single anchor denoting his "Leading" rate, and on his right the
+crossed flags denoting his calling, together with a star above and
+below which signified that he was something of an expert at his job.
+In short, he was a Leading Signalman of His Majesty's Navy.  His name I
+need not mention.  To his friends he sometimes answered to "Nutty," but
+more often to "Buntin'."
+
+It was always a mystery to me why he had not come to wear the crossed
+anchors and crown of a Yeoman of Signals, for his qualifications
+certainly seemed to fit him for promotion to petty-officer's rank,
+while his habits and character in the last ship in which I knew him
+were all that could be desired.
+
+It was on board a destroyer that I came to know him really well, and
+here his work was onerous and responsible.  He had his mate, a callow
+youth who was usually sea-sick in bad weather, and at sea they took 4
+hours' turn and turn about on the bridge, each keeping 12 hours' watch
+out of the twenty-four.  But the elder man always seemed to be within
+sight and hearing, even in his watch below; and the moment anything
+unusual happened, the moment flags started flapping in the breeze,
+semaphores started to talk, the younger man became rattled and
+helpless, and things generally started to go wrong, all at the same
+moment, "Nutty" came clambering up the ladder to the assistance of his
+bewildered colleague.
+
+"Call yerself a signalman!" he would growl ferociously.  "Give us the
+glass, an' look sharp an' 'oist the answerin' pendant.  You ain't fit
+to be trusted up 'ere!"
+
+It is to be feared that the youthful one sometimes found his life a
+misery and a burden, for his mentor was a strict disciplinarian and did
+not hesitate to bully and goad him into a state of proper activity.
+But the youngster needed it badly.
+
+"Nutty" seemed to be blessed with the eyes of a lynx, the dexterity of
+a conjurer, and the tentacles of a decapod.  He invariably saw a
+floating mine, a buoy, or a lightship long before the man whose proper
+work it was to see it, and at sea, with a telescope to his eye, I often
+saw him apparently taking in two signals from opposite points of the
+compass at one and the same moment, with the ship rolling heavily and
+sheets of spray flying over the bridge.
+
+Somewhere at Portsmouth he had a wife and two children, whom he saw, if
+he was lucky, for perhaps seven days every six months.  Of his domestic
+affairs I knew little; but, judging from his letters, which were
+frequent and voluminous and had to pass through the hands of the ship's
+censor, he was devoted to his wife and family.  I hope they loved him.
+
+Why he was not a Yeoman of Signals I never discovered.  Perhaps he had
+a lurid past.  But conjecture is useless.  Promotion now would come too
+late to be of any use to him.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Butter, Monkey, Nuts," he rattled off as a light cruiser two miles
+away suddenly wreathed herself in flags.  "Zebra, Charlie,
+Fanny--Ethel, Donkey, Tommy--Ginger, Percy, Lizzie----  Got that, Bill?"
+
+An Able Seaman, busy with a pencil and a signal pad, signified that he
+had.
+
+"'Arf a mo', though," resumed the expert, re-levelling his telescope.
+"I ain't quite certain about that first 'oist.  Why on earth they can't
+'oist the things clear I dunno!" he grumbled bitterly, for some of the
+distant flags, as is often the case when the wind is light and
+uncertain, had coyly wrapped themselves round the halliards and refused
+to be seen.
+
+Someone on the bridge of the distant cruiser might almost have heard
+his remark, for as he spoke the halliards began agitatedly to jerk up
+and down to allow the bunting to flutter clear.
+
+"Ah!" he murmured.  "Now we'll get 'em....  Lord!" in a piercing
+undertone as some misguided humorist in the cruiser's stokehold
+inconsiderately allowed a puff of black smoke to issue forth from the
+foremost funnel, completely to obliterate the strings of flags.
+
+The Leading Signalman, not being a thought reader as well as a
+conjurer, put down his telescope with a grunt until the pall cleared
+away.  "In the first 'oist," he said when the atmosphere had cleared,
+"in the first 'oist, 'stead o' Fanny put 'Arry.'  'H' for 'Arry."
+
+The A.B. sucked his pencil and acquiesced, while his friend, darting to
+the after side of the small bridge, hoisted the white and red
+"Answering Pendant" to show that the signal had been seen and read.  He
+then handed the pad across, on which, in large sprawling capital
+letters, he had laboriously traced "BMN--ZCF--EDT--GPL."
+
+The "Butter, Monkey, Nuts" business, incomprehensible and startling as
+it might have been to any outsider, merely emphasised the difference in
+sound between various letters.  B, C, D, E, P, and T; J and K; M and N,
+among others, are very much alike when pronounced by themselves; but
+"butter" could not well be mistaken for "Charlie," neither could
+"monkey" be confounded with "nuts."
+
+The Leading Signalman looked out the meaning of the different groups of
+letters in the book provided for the purpose and showed the result to
+his commanding officer.  Its purport was comparatively unimportant,
+something about oil-fuel on arrival in harbour.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But finding out the meaning of those flag signals which he did not know
+by heart--and he knew most of them--was only a tithe of his duty.  He
+was equally expert at taking in a message spelt out by the whirling
+arms of a semaphore, arms which waved so rapidly, and whose giddy
+gyrations were so often well-nigh invisible against a bad background,
+that his performance savoured of the miraculous.  At night, too, he was
+just as good, for then the frenzied winking of a dim light would convey
+its meaning just the same.  It was a point of honour with him always to
+get a signal correctly the first time it was made.  I never saw him ask
+for a repetition.
+
+Only twice did I know him to laugh on the bridge, and the first time
+that occurred was when, through a series of circumstances which need
+not be entered into here, we nearly came into contact with the next
+ahead.  Such things do happen.
+
+Then it was that the next ahead--he was several years senior to us and
+a humorist--turned in his wrath and quoted the Bible.  "Your
+attention," his semaphore said, "is drawn to the Gospel according to
+St. Matthew, chapter 16, verse 23."
+
+We sent for the Bible, looked up the reference, and read: "But he
+turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an
+offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but
+those that be of men."
+
+The quotation was apt and the Leading Signalman's eyes twinkled.  Then
+I noticed his mouth expanding into a grin, and presently he laughed, a
+short, explosive sort of laugh rather like the bark of a dog.
+
+But we had our revenge a week later, when our next ahead--he was our
+friend as well as our senior--nearly collided with a buoy at the
+entrance to a certain harbour.
+
+"What about the Book of Proverbs?" our semaphore asked.  "Chapter 22,
+verse 28."
+
+"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set," he must
+have read.  I cannot remember the reply, but the Leading Signalman had
+laughed once more.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But "Bunting" will never smile again.  He went down with his ship on
+May 31, 1916.  The North Sea is his grave and the curling whitecap his
+tombstone.  His epitaph may be written across the sky in a trail of
+smoke from some passing steamer.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST SHEEP
+
+The glass had gone down with a thump during the afternoon, and all
+through the night the destroyer had been steaming home against a
+rapidly rising gale.
+
+Of how she came to be alone and parted from her flotilla the less said
+the better.  It was due to a variety of circumstances, among them being
+a blinding rain squall after dark the evening before, in which the
+officer of the watch was unable to see more than twenty yards, and some
+temporary trouble with an air pump which necessitated stopping to put
+it right.
+
+The sea, as is usual with the wind from the south-west, had risen fast,
+and by midnight it was heavy and steep, while the little ship, punching
+against it, had pitched, rolled, thumped and thudded as only a
+destroyer can.  The motion was dizzy and maddening--a combined pitch
+and heavy roll which was the very acme of discomfort.  Sometimes the
+bows fell into the heart of an advancing, white-topped hillock of grey
+water with a sickening downward plunge, and the breaking sea came
+surging and crashing over the forecastle to dash itself against the
+chart-house and bridge with a shock which made the whole ship quiver
+and tremble.  Then, with
+
+[Transcriber's note: pages 41 and 42 missing from source book.]
+
+edged volumes with unerring accuracy on to his long-suffering head.
+
+The only person who really did not mind the motion at all was the
+wireless operator in his little cubby-bole abaft the chart-house.  He,
+with a pair of telephone receivers clipped on over his ears ready to
+catch stray snatches of conversation from invisible ships and distant
+shore stations, sat enthroned in a chair bolted to the deck.  His den
+was hermetically sealed to keep out the water.  The smell and the heat
+were indescribable; but he was reading a week-old periodical with every
+symptom of enjoyment and calmly smoked a foul and very wheezy pipe
+filled with the strongest and most evil-smelling ship's tobacco.  But
+"Buzzer," as he was known to his friends, had the constitution of an ox
+and an interior like the exterior of an armadillo.  He could stand
+anything.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+An oil-skinned apparition, dripping with wet, appeared at the
+chart-house door.  "The orficer of the watch says it's daylight, sir,"
+it reported.  "There's nothin' in sight, but 'e thinks as 'ow the sea's
+goin' down a bit."
+
+The skipper, who had actually been asleep for forty consecutive
+minutes, sat up with a grunt, rubbed his eyes, and yawned.  Then, in
+the dull grey light of the dawn, he surveyed the unsavoury mixture on
+the floor with his nose wrinkled and an expression of intense disgust
+on his face.  But the sight of the broken cup reminded him of
+something, and reaching his hand underneath the cushion he extracted a
+vacuum flask, applied it to his lips, and swallowed what remained of
+the cocoa inside it.  He was hungry, poor wight, for his dinner the
+night before had consisted of two corned-beef sandwiches and a biscuit.
+Next, with a little sigh of satisfaction, he produced a pipe, tobacco,
+and matches from an inner pocket and lit up, examined the chart with
+the ship's track marked upon it, and glanced at the aneroid on the
+bulkhead and noticed it was rising slowly.
+
+Two minutes later, with his pipe bowl carefully inverted, he clambered
+up the iron ladder to the bridge.
+
+"Hail, smiling morn!" he remarked sarcastically, ducking his head as a
+sheet of spray came driving over the forecastle and across the bridge.
+"Well, 'Sub,' how goes it?"
+
+"Pretty rotten, sir," answered the sub-lieutenant, whose watch it was.
+"The wind shows no signs of going down, but I think the sea's a little
+less than it was.  We're not bumping quite so badly as we were."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The motion certainly was less violent, and after looking for a moment
+at the angry sea and the grey, cloud-wrapped sky streaked with its
+wisps of flying white scud, the skipper nodded slowly.  "You're right,"
+he said.  "It has gone down a bit.  We're beginning to feel the lee of
+the land.  Work her up gradually to twelve knots and see how she takes
+it."
+
+The "Sub" did so, and though the increase in speed brought heavier
+spray and more of it, the movement of the ship no longer synchronised
+with the period of the waves, and she became steadier.
+
+Before long the sea had gone down even more and the speed was increased
+to twenty knots.  Then, on the grey horizon ahead, appeared the smoke
+of many steamers, and a quarter of an hour later the destroyer was
+threading her way through a sea-lane so densely populated with shipping
+that it reminded one of dodging the traffic in Piccadilly.
+
+The next thing which hove in sight was a red-painted lightship, and
+half an hour later the destroyer, her funnels white with dried salt,
+was steaming into the harbour where the remainder of the flotilla were
+lying.  They, having escaped the really bad weather, had arrived the
+evening before, and one of them made a facetious signal to this effect
+as the destroyer secured to the tank steamer to replenish her supply of
+oil-fuel.
+
+The lost sheep had returned to its fold.
+
+
+
+
+A NAVAL MENAGERIE
+
+Denis was a pig, a very special sort of pig, a pig of German origin,
+and perhaps the only animal of his species in whose favour a special
+dispensation was made by the Board of Agriculture.  He originally
+belonged to the German light cruiser _Dresden_, and, after the
+destruction of that vessel at Juan Fernandez by the _Kent_, _Glasgow_,
+and _Orama_, was seen swimming about in the water close to the
+_Glasgow_.  A blue-jacket promptly jumped overboard and rescued him
+from a watery grave, and Denis, instead of being converted into pork or
+sausages, became a prisoner of war and a pet.  He did not seem the
+least dismayed by his change of nationality, and, being an adaptable
+creature of robust constitution, throve on a miscellaneous and
+indiscriminate diet of ships' provisions, eked out by tobacco,
+cigarette ends, and coal.  Moreover, within a month, so history
+relates, he was quite accustomed to sleeping in a hammock, where he
+snored exactly like a human being.
+
+But the regulations as to the importation of animals into Great Britain
+are necessarily stringent, and on the _Glasgow's_ arrival in home
+waters there were complications as to the disposal of Denis.  He could
+not be landed in the ordinary way, but eventually, after some
+correspondence, the Board of Agriculture solved the momentous question
+by giving special permission for him to be put ashore at Whale Island,
+the naval gunnery school in Portsmouth harbour.  There, so far as I
+know, he still remains as a naturalised Briton.
+
+But a pig is by no means the strangest animal which has made its home
+on board a man-of-war.  In a small gunboat in China some years ago the
+ship's company acquired a so-called tame alligator.  Algernon, as they
+christened him, came on board as a youngster a few weeks old and about
+four feet long, and soon developed a habit of appearing when the decks
+were being scrubbed in the mornings, when he revelled in having the
+hose played upon him and in having his scaly back well scrubbed with a
+hard broom.  He devoured a tame rabbit and two cats, but the crux came
+when he taught himself a trick of waiting until some unsuspecting
+person had his back turned, of making a sudden rush at his victim and
+capsizing him with a well-placed whisk of his horny tail, and then
+running in with a good-humoured smile and a ferocious snapping and
+gnashing of his yellow teeth.  It was all very funny, but so many
+innocent persons were wrought almost to the verge of nervous
+prostration by Algernon's ideas of sport, that at last the fiat went
+forth that he must die.  He was shot at dawn, and, less lucky than
+Denis, reached England in a stuffed and rather moth-eaten condition.
+
+Goats are comparatively common as pets in the Navy, but the goat of all
+the goats was a white creature rejoicing in the unromantic name of
+William who lived on board a cruiser.  His staple articles of food
+seemed to consist of tobacco, cigarettes, stray rope-yarns, bristles of
+brooms, and odds and ends of old canvas, while he was not averse to
+licking the galvanised compound off the newly painted quarter-deck
+stanchions whenever an opportunity of doing so presented itself.  He
+was a healthy goat of voracious appetite.  His gastric juices would
+have dissolved a marline-spike, and he even made short work of the
+greater portion of a pair of ammunition boots belonging to the
+Sergeant-Major of Royal Marines, and devoured with every symptom of
+relish a sheaf of official and highly important documents lying on the
+writing-table in the navigator's cabin.
+
+William, in spite of his varied diet, always looked well-nourished and
+in the rudest of health, and on Sundays was wont to appear at divisions
+with his hair and beard parted in the middle, wearing an elaborate
+brass collar, and with gilded horns and hooves.  He had charming
+manners, and even condescended to drink an occasional glass of sherry
+in the wardroom on guest nights.  Of his ultimate fate I have no
+knowledge, but, with the very miscellaneous contents of his interior,
+he would have provided a most interesting subject for a _post-mortem_
+examination.
+
+Several ships have had bears as pets, but one in particular, which was
+the mascot of a cruiser on the Mediterranean station, was a bear with a
+pronounced sense of humour.  On one occasion it so happened that the
+vessel to which he belonged was lying alongside the mole at Gibraltar,
+while another cruiser, fresh from England, was made fast just astern of
+her.  It was Sunday afternoon, and all hands and the cook, except those
+on duty, followed the usual custom of the Service by selecting sunny
+spots on deck and then composing themselves to peaceful slumber.  At
+about 2.30 p.m. Master Bruin, freeing himself from his chain, landed,
+ambled along the jetty, and approached the newly arrived vessel on a
+tour of investigation.  The sentry, not liking the look of the animal,
+found something important to do at the other end of his beat, while the
+bear proceeding on board unmolested, frightened nearly out of his wits
+a burly petty officer doing duty as quartermaster, and then followed up
+his moral victory by chasing him round and round the upper deck.  The
+petty officer, a well covered man, nearly dropped from heat and
+exhaustion, but just managed to barricade himself in the galley before
+being overtaken and fondly hugged.  The sleepers, meanwhile, hearing
+unusual sounds of revelry, woke up to see a wild-looking animal seeking
+another victim, and thinking that Bostock's menagerie had broken loose,
+rose from their couches and stampeded for the mess-deck.
+
+The bear then waddled aft in search of further recreation, and seeing
+the curtained doorway of one of the upper deck cabins, promptly elbowed
+his way in.  Inside was an officer fast asleep on the bunk, who,
+hearing the sound of heavy breathing, opened his eyes to see the shaggy
+bulk of his huge visitor interposed between him and the doorway.  For a
+moment he was non-plussed, and, keeping quite still, endeavoured to
+mesmerise the animal by looking him full in the eyes.  But the
+ferocious look on the bear's face, a pair of fierce twinkling eyes, an
+open mouth with its rows of sharp teeth, and a long red tongue dripping
+with saliva, warned him that mere mesmerism would be useless if he were
+to avoid a tussle.  There was only one other exit besides the door, so
+without further ado he sprang for ... the open scuttle.  He wormed his
+way successfully through the small orifice with some loss of dignity
+and greatly to the detriment of his Sunday trousers, flopped gracefully
+into the water with a splash, and, swimming to the gangway, clambered
+back on board again.  Then, rushing to his cabin, he slammed the door
+and imprisoned his unwelcome visitor inside.
+
+Next, seeking out the sentry, he desired him to eject the intruder.
+But the marine, a wise man, firmly but politely intimated that he had
+joined his corps to fight the King's enemies, not bears of unknown
+origin and ferocious aspect, and added that the only conditions on
+which he would undertake the job was with the assistance of his rifle,
+a fixed bayonet, and some ball ammunition.  The bear, meanwhile, locked
+in the cabin, was thoroughly enjoying himself in clawing and tearing to
+ribbons everything within reach, and by the time his breathless keeper
+from the other ship arrived upon the scene to conduct his charge home
+in disgrace, the cabin was in a state of utter desolation.  A bull in a
+china shop is nothing to an unwieldy brute of a bear in a small
+apartment measuring ten feet by eight.  All's well that ends well, but
+the officer's best trousers were completely ruined, and he himself
+never heard the end of his Sabbath afternoon adventure.  The bear
+received six strokes with a cane for his share in the proceedings.
+
+The last escapade of his that I heard of was when he hugged and removed
+most of the clothes from a low class Spanish workman from the dockyard
+at Gibraltar.  The man had baited him, eventually releasing the
+terrified, half-naked wretch, and chasing him at full speed for nearly
+half a mile.  A crowd of excited, laughing blue-jackets went in pursuit
+of the bear, but the faster they ran, the faster went the animal and
+his quarry.  Bruin enjoyed it hugely.  Not so the Spanish workman.
+
+Dogs and cats are as common in the Navy as they are elsewhere, and it
+is surprising how soon they become accustomed to naval routine.  The
+cats never go ashore unless their ship happens to be lying alongside a
+dockyard wall, when they usually desert _en bloc_ and attach themselves
+to some other ship, a fresh detachment coming on board in their stead.
+The dogs are more faithful, and their wisdom becomes positively
+uncanny, for always at the routine times for boats going ashore they
+will be found waiting ready at the top of the gangway.
+
+"Ginger" was an Irish terrier of plebeian origin belonging to a
+battleship.  He invariably landed in the postman's boat at 6.45 a.m.,
+and once ashore went off on his own business.  Nobody ever took the
+trouble to discover what he did, but punctually at eight o'clock he
+used to reappear at the landing place and return to the ship in the
+boat which took off the married officers.  On one occasion, however, he
+was badly sold, for though the postman landed at the usual time, the
+ship sailed at 7.30 to carry out target practice.  Half an hour later,
+therefore, there was no boat for Ginger, and his ship was a mere speck
+on the horizon; but nothing daunted, the wise hound proceeded to the
+Sailors' Home and spent the day there.  He was discovered the same
+afternoon when the ship returned into harbour, and his admirers always
+averred that his temporary absence was the result of a carefully
+thought out plan to avoid the sounds of gunfire, which he detested.
+
+There must be many officers and men in the Navy who remember "North
+Corner Bob," another red-haired Irish terrier, who used to frequent the
+landing place at North Corner in Portsmouth dockyard.  He was not a
+large dog, as terriers go, but was a ferocious creature of wild and
+bedraggled appearance, who seemed to regard North Corner as his own
+especial domain.  He fought every other animal who dared to venture
+near the place, and many a naval dog bore the marks of Bob's teeth to
+his dying day.
+
+He even boarded strange ships lying alongside and carried on his
+campaign of frightfulness there.  In fact he terrorised all the dogs in
+Portsmouth dockyard, including two spaniels belonging to the Admiral
+Superintendent.  But an officer in a certain ship whose wire-haired
+terrier Cuthbert had been badly beaten by Bob some days before,
+conceived a brilliant idea for having his revenge.  Early one morning,
+at Bob's usual time for passing by the ship on his way to North Corner,
+Cuthbert, wearing a brand new muzzle, was taking his morning
+constitutional on deck.  Bob, punctual to the minute, came trotting by
+in his usual don't-care-a-damn-for-anyone manner, but the sight of
+Cuthbert putting on an equal amount of side on board his own ship was
+too much for him, and rushing up the brow connecting the ship with the
+shore he came on board licking his lips in joyful anticipation and the
+lust of battle shining in his eye.
+
+Cuthbert, a naturally good-natured dog, hurried forward to meet him,
+but Bob, spurning his friendly advances, circled round on tip-toe, with
+his teeth bared and hair bristling.  Cuthbert, seeing that a fight was
+inevitable, adopted similar tactics, and for some moments the two
+animals padded softly round and round nosing each other and preparing
+to spring in to the attack.  Then, quite suddenly and for no apparent
+reason, there came a shrill yelp of pain from Bob, and before anyone
+realised what had happened his tail went down, he rushed madly over the
+gangway, and shot along the jetty like a flash of greased lightning.
+
+"What the devil's the matter with him?" queried the officer of the
+watch, staring in amazement after the rapidly disappearing figure of
+the well-known fighter.
+
+"Matter!"  spluttered  Cuthbert's  owner, weak with laughter.  "Lord!
+I've never seen anything like it!  Did you see the way he skipped?"
+
+"Did I not!" answered the O.O.W., laughing himself.  "But what on earth
+made him streak off like that?"
+
+"Come here, Cuthbert," said his master.
+
+The dog came forward, wagging his tail, and had his muzzle removed.
+
+"D'you see that?" asked his owner, pointing to the end of it.  'That'
+was a long and very sharp-pointed pin firmly soldered to the business
+end of Cuthbert's headgear.
+
+North Corner Bob never visited that particular ship again.
+
+
+
+
+THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS
+
+She was a member of that gallant and distinguished corps after which
+this article is named.  You will not find her regiment mentioned in any
+British Army List, nor, so far as I am aware, and for all the foreign
+sound of it, in the Army List of His Imperial Majesty the Czar of All
+the Russias.  The name does not appear in any Army List at all, for the
+Hussars to which she belonged are a sea regiment, pure and simple.
+
+Her uniform of dull grey, with no facings or trimmings of any sort or
+description, was strictly in keeping with her surroundings, for her
+favourite habitat was anywhere in the wild waste of waters lying
+between Greenland, the North Cape, the Naze, and the Orkneys.
+
+Some people with a libellous sense of humour referred to her as a
+member of "Harry Tate's Own," while others, most unkindly, said she
+belonged to the "Ragtime Navy."  But she did not seem to mind.  She
+knew in her heart of hearts that her work was of paramount importance,
+and, complacent in the knowledge, smiled sweetly as a well-conducted
+lady should when jibes and insults are hurled at her long-suffering
+head.
+
+She had a great deal to put up with in one way and another.  Thanks to
+her enormous fuel capacity she spent a long time at sea and had very
+brief spells in harbour.  Her work, though important, was always dull
+and monotonous, while in bad weather it was even worse.  She had no
+prospect of sharing in the excitement of a big sea battle like her more
+warlike sisters, though, with them, she ran the chance of encountering
+hostile submarines and of having an altercation with an armed raider.
+But, taking it all round, she had comparatively little to hope for in
+the way of honour and glory; she merely had to be at sea for many weeks
+at a time to prevent money-grabbing neutrals from reaping a rich
+harvest by supplying munitions of war and articles of contraband to an
+impoverished Hun who could not be trusted to put those commodities to
+any gentlemanly purpose.
+
+Muckle Flugga, I believe, is a remote headland in the Shetlands, and
+she, a member of the corps called after it, flew the White Ensign of
+the British Navy and was an armed merchant cruiser.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Before the war she was a crack passenger liner.  On her upper deck, and
+expressly designed for the use of potentates and plutocrats, she had
+regular suites of apartments.  Gorgeous suites they were, furnished
+like the rooms in a mansion ashore.  The sleeping cabins had white
+enamelled panels and comfortable brass bedsteads.  The day cabins or
+sitting-rooms, panelled in bird's-eye maple, oak, walnut, or mahogany,
+had large square windows, regular fireplaces, and were fresh with
+flowered chintzes, while the tiled bathrooms were fitted with all the
+different appliances for hot baths, tepid baths, cold baths, needle
+baths, shower baths, and douches.  One simply turned a handle and the
+water came.  A telephone in each sitting-room communicated with a
+central exchange somewhere deep down in the bowels of the ship, and one
+could summon a barber to trim one's hair, a manicure expert to attend
+to one's hands, a tobacconist with samples of cigars, cigarettes, and
+tobacco, or the presiding genius of a haberdashery establishment with
+quite the latest things in shirts, collars, socks, and neckties.  In
+fact, living in one of the expensive suites was exactly like being in a
+large and luxurious hotel, except that it was vastly more comfortable.
+
+Lower down in the ship were the single, double, and treble-berthed
+cabins for the first and second-class passengers.  They, though small,
+were very comfortable, and were fitted with telephones through which
+one could summon a stewardess with a basin or a steward with a whisky
+and soda.  Down below, too, were the saloons, huge apartments with
+carved panels, ornamental pillars, glass-pictured domes, coloured
+frescoes, and dozens of small tables.  There was also the Louis XIV.
+restaurant, if one preferred a simple beefsteak to the more formal
+dinner, and smoking-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, drawing-rooms,
+writing-rooms, not to mention the swimming bath and the children's
+nursery.
+
+We can imagine the great liner, spick and span in her spotless paint
+and gleaming brasswork, steaming through a placid summer sea.  Her long
+promenade decks would be plastered with deck-chairs filled with
+recumbent passengers, some dozing, others smoking and talking.  Some
+energetic enthusiast would be passing from group to group to collect
+sufficient people to play deck cricket, quoits, or bull-board, while
+yet another, armed with a notebook and a pencil, would be endeavouring
+to inveigle recalcitrant ladies with strict notions as to the sins of
+gambling into taking tickets for a sweepstake on the next day's mileage.
+
+One would hear the laughter of children as they chased each other round
+the decks, and the sotto-voce remarks of some old gentleman roused from
+his afternoon nap by the sudden impact of a podgy infant of four
+tripping heavily over his outstretched feet.
+
+After dark in some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a
+girl.  They would be sitting very close together, and behaving... well,
+as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the tedium of voyages at
+sea.
+
+Everything would be calm and peaceful.  Everybody would be happy, even
+the young gentleman with no prospects travelling second class, who
+having won the sweepstake on the day's run and suddenly finding himself
+L20 the richer, celebrated his luck with his friends in the
+smoking-room.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But then the war came and changed everything.
+
+The Admiralty requisitioned the ship and armed her with guns.  They
+painted her a dull grey all over, and tore down all her polished
+woodwork to lessen the chances of fire in action, leaving nothing but
+the bare steel walls.  Most of the cabins were stripped of their
+furniture and fittings, only enough being left intact to provide
+accommodation for the officers.
+
+The carved woodwork and most of the tables and chairs in the saloons
+were taken away, and though the painted frescoes and glass domes still
+remained, they were dusty and neglected.
+
+In one corner of the first-class saloon was the wardroom, a space
+partitioned off by painted canvas screens to provide messing
+accommodation for the more senior officers.  Opposite to it was the
+gunroom, a similar enclosure for the juniors.
+
+They manned her with a crew of between three and four hundred Royal
+Navy Reserve men, with a leavening of Royal Navy ratings and a few
+Marines.  They appointed a Captain R.N. in command and two or three
+other naval officers, but by far the greater proportion of officers and
+crew belonged to the Reserve, and excellent fellows they were.
+
+Certain of the men had served on beard in peace-time, and had elected
+to remain on, but the majority came to her for the first time when she
+commissioned as a man-of-war.  Some were Scots fishermen, men from
+trawlers and drifters, excellent, hardy creatures used to small craft,
+bad weather, and boat work.  Others, having served their time in the
+Navy, had taken to some shore employment, and in August 1914 had been
+recalled to their old Service.
+
+Nearly every imaginable trade was represented.  In one of the
+first-class cabins was the barber's shop, presided over by a man who in
+pre-war days had worked in a hair-cutting establishment not far from
+Victoria Station.  Next door lived another man who had been a
+bootmaker, and he, bringing all the appurtenances of his trade to sea
+with him, carried on a roaring business as a "snob."  There was also a
+haberdashery emporium kept by a seaman who had been employed in some
+linen-draper's shop in his native town, while a professional tailor in
+blue-jacket's uniform spent all his spare time in making and repairing
+the garments of his shipmates.  Even the ship's electric laundry was
+manned by folk who were well acquainted with starching and ironing.
+
+Most of the cooks and stewards had left, but sufficient remained to
+provide for the needs of the officers and men.  The catering was still
+run by the company to which the vessel belonged, and, as she had roomy
+kitchens and all manner of labour-saving devices in the way of electric
+dish-washers and potato-peelers, the messing was even better than that
+on board a battleship.
+
+Gone were the troops of laughing children and the passengers.  A pile
+of wicked-looking shell and boxes of cartridges for the guns lay ready
+to hand in the nursery, while the promenade decks resounded to the
+tramp of men being initiated into the mysteries of the squad and rifle
+drill and the work at their guns.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+They have been at it for two years; two years of strenuous naval
+routine and discipline which have transformed the passenger liner into
+no mean man-of-war.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PIRATES"
+
+"It is not possible to prevent the occasional appearance of enemy
+submarines within the range of our shores, but I can give an assurance
+that the measures which have been and will be taken are such as to
+render proceedings of this sort increasingly dangerous to the
+submarines."--DR. MACNAMARA, _Financial Secretary to the Admiralty_.
+
+
+They looked an orderly little squadron of six as they steamed jauntily
+out towards the open sea in single line ahead through the grey-green,
+tide-ripped waters of the most thickly populated river estuary in the
+world.
+
+They were prosaic, snub-nosed-looking little craft, short and squat,
+with high, upstanding bows, prominent wheelhouses, and stumpy
+mizzen-masts abaft all.  They hailed from many ports and still bore the
+letters and numbers of their peace-time vocation: F.D. for Fleetwood,
+G.Y. for Grimsby, B.F. for Banff, and P.D. for Peterhead.  They were
+steam herring drifters in the ordinary, common, or garden, piping times
+of peace; little vessels which went to sea for days on end to pitch,
+wallow, and roll at the end of a mile or a mile and a half of buoyed
+drift-net, in the meshes of which unwary herring, in endeavouring to
+force a way through, presently found themselves caught by the gills.
+
+But now, each one of them flew the tattered, smoke-stained apology for
+a once White Ensign, and they were men-of-war, very much men-of-war.
+They had been at the game for nearly twenty-four months, and, through
+long practice, they elbowed their way in and out of the traffic with
+all the fussy, devil-may-care assertiveness of His Majesty's destroyers.
+
+Their admiral, a Royal Naval Reserve lieutenant, who, in peaceful 1914,
+was still the immaculate third officer of a crack Western Ocean
+passenger liner, looked out of his wheelhouse windows and surveyed the
+potbellied, lumbering cargo carriers steaming by with all the kindly
+tolerance of the regular man-of-war's man.  He, though he did not look
+it, for they had been coaling an hour before and he was still grimy
+about the face, was the only commissioned officer in the squadron,
+fleet, flotilla, or whatever you like to call it.  All the other craft
+were commanded by skippers, ex-peacetime-captains of the fishing craft,
+who were used to the sea and its vicissitudes, and knew the ins and
+cuts of their vessels far better than they could tell you.  The men,
+for the greater part, were also fishermen enrolled in the Reserve, with
+here and there an ex-naval rating in the shape of a seaman gunner or
+signalman.
+
+They may have lacked polish.  They knew little about springing smartly
+to attention and nothing whatsoever about the interior economy of a
+6-inch gun.  Their attire was sketchy, to say the least of it.  Even
+the admiral wore grey flannel trousers, a once white sweater, and
+coloured muffler, and it is to be feared that an officer from a
+battleship might have referred to them collectively as a "something lot
+of pirates."  Pirates they may have been, but at the best of times a
+strict adherence to the uniform regulations is not a fetish of those
+serving on board the vessels of the Auxiliary Patrol.  They are, it is
+perfectly true, granted a sum of money by a paternal Government
+wherewith to purchase their kit, but brass buttons and best serge suits
+do not blend with life on board a herring drifter at sea in all
+weathers.  Sea-boots, oilskins, jerseys, and any old thing in the way
+of trousers and headgear are far more fashionable.  Indeed, one may
+occasionally happen upon a skipper wearing an ancient bowler hat when
+well out in the North Sea and away from the haunts of senior officers
+who might possibly take exception to his battered tile.
+
+But they all took their job seriously, though, like most sailor folk,
+light-heartedly.  They were inured to the sea and its hardships; many
+of them were part owners of their own craft, even the man in the red
+Salvation Army jersey tittivating the six-pounder gun in the last
+little ship of the line.
+
+Exactly how they "strafed" the immoral and ubiquitous Hun submarine it
+is inexpedient to say.  They had their little guns, of course, but were
+full of other 'gilguys' evolved for the same laudable purpose during a
+period of nearly two years of war.  Moreover, the men were experts in
+their use, and that their 'gadgets' often worked to the detriment of
+Fritz may be deduced from that gentleman's extreme unwillingness to be
+seen in their vicinity, and a casual inspection of the records of the
+Auxiliary Patrol probably locked up somewhere in Whitehall.  Some day
+these records may be made public, and then we shall read of happenings
+which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a
+nail-brush.  Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat
+which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a
+coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision
+with a tar brush?
+
+Striving to encompass the destruction of the wily submarine is by no
+means a one-sided game.  Our small craft generally manage to have a
+credit balance on their side, but Fritz is no fool, and is not the sort
+of person to go nosing round an obvious trap, or to walk blindfold into
+a snare.  Sometimes he mounts larger and heavier guns than his
+antagonists, and may come to the surface out of range of their weapons
+and bombard them at his leisure.  In such cases the hunters may become
+the hunted, and may perchance be 'strafed' themselves.  Then there are
+always mines, contact with one of which may pulverise an ordinary
+wooden drifter into mere matchwood.
+
+The work is fraught with risk.  It is every bit as dangerous as that of
+the mine-sweepers, and casualties, both in men and in ships, are simply
+bound to occur.  But little is made of them.  A few more names will
+appear in the Roll of Honour, and in some obscure newspaper paragraph
+we may read that "on Thursday last the armed patrol vessel ------ was
+blown up by a mine" or was "sunk by gunfire from a hostile submarine,"
+and that "-- members of her crew escaped in their small boat and landed
+at ------."  That is all; no details whatsoever, nothing but the bare
+statement.
+
+But the game still goes on.
+
+The men who cheerfully undergo these risks in their anxiety to serve
+their country, were not professional fighters before the war: they are
+now; but in the palmy days of peace they were fishermen, seamen through
+and through, who, year in and year out, fair weather or foul, were at
+sea in their little craft, reaping the ocean's harvest.  Their life was
+ever a hard and a dangerous one, and the hazards and chances of war
+have made it doubly so.
+
+They have none of the excitement of a fight in the open.  Much of their
+work in protecting the coastwise traffic is deadly in its monotony,
+and, as we have become used to it, has come to be looked upon as a
+matter of course.
+
+Their gallant deeds are rarely the subjects of laudatory paragraphs in
+the newspapers, and the great majority go unrewarded.  Even if we do
+happen to meet a man wearing a little strip of blue and white ribbon on
+his coat or jumper and ask him why he was decorated, he merely laughs,
+wags his head, and says ---- nothing.
+
+It is very unsatisfactory of him.
+
+
+
+
+A MINOR AFFAIR
+
+  H.M.S. --------
+    c/o G.P.O., LONDON.
+      June 30th, 1916.
+
+MY DEAR DANIEL,
+
+You ask me for a more elaborate account of a certain little affair
+which took place some time ago.  It was merely an episode of a few
+light cruisers, anything up to a score of destroyers, and some
+seaplanes; quite a minor and a comparatively unimportant little
+business which elicited a brief announcement from the Secretary of the
+Admiralty, and must have proved rather a Godsend to those newspapers
+whose readers were anxious for naval news in any shape or form.
+
+They made a certain amount of fuss about it, and the naval
+correspondents were soon hard at work elaborating the simple statement
+according to their usual habit.  Indeed, the nautical expert of _Earth
+and Sea_, with the very best intentions in the world, even went so far
+as to devote the greater part of a column to the business.  It is to be
+hoped that his readers were duly edified; but we, who had taken part in
+the affair, were merely rather amused.
+
+And so, for perhaps a week, and before being banished to the limbo of
+forgotten and unconsidered trifles, the business was a subject for
+intermittent conversation and a certain amount of conjecture.  Then it
+was forgotten, and it is doubtful if it will ever be resurrected in any
+naval history of the war.
+
+We had quite a good passage across the North Sea, and at dawn on the
+day of the operation we arrived in the vicinity of the Danish coast not
+far from the German frontier.  The weather was good for the time of
+year.  Bitterly cold, of course, besides which there were frequent
+low-lying snow flurries which came sweeping down across the sea and
+made it barely possible to see more than a quarter of a mile; while our
+decks, except where the heat of the engine and boiler rooms melted the
+snow as it fell, were soon covered.  But in between the squalls the sky
+was blue, the sea was flat calm, and there was hardly any wind.
+Moreover, there was not a sign or a vestige of a Hun anywhere, not even
+a Zeppelin; nothing in sight except a few Danish fishing craft.
+
+The seaplanes were soon hoisted out and started off on their job.  They
+all seemed to get away without the slightest hitch, and it was a fine
+sight watching them taxi-ing along the calm water to get up speed, and
+then rising in the air one by one to disappear in the faint haze
+towards the horizon.  What they were to do, exactly, I cannot say, but
+within ten minutes they had all disappeared and the squadron steamed to
+and fro waiting for their return.  They were expected back in about an
+hour.
+
+The full hour passed, and nothing happened.  Another quarter of an
+hour; but still no signs of the 'planes.  On board the ships people
+began to get rather anxious, thinking that they had been brought down
+by the Huns, and everybody with glasses was looking to the
+south-eastward for signs of them.  But at last, when they had almost
+been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow
+squall.  He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole
+covey, except two, had returned.
+
+How their business had gone off was never divulged.  A story did get
+about afterwards,--I saw it mentioned in some of the newspapers,--to
+the effect that one of them had arrived within two hundred feet
+immediately over the object he wanted to drop his bombs on, and then
+found he could not let them go because the releasing gear was clogged
+up with frozen snow.  Whether or not the yarn is true it is impossible
+to say, but imagine the fellow's feelings when, after planing down to
+two hundred feet with all the anti-aircraft guns in the place going
+full blast, he found he could not drop a single egg!  Poor devil!
+
+The seaplanes that did return were soon hoisted in, but in the
+meanwhile eight destroyers and a couple of other craft had been sent on
+to steam down the coast in line abreast to see if by any chance the two
+missing ones had come down on the water.  We were with this lot, and
+after an hour's steaming at 20 knots, by which time the island of Sylt
+was plainly visible about nine or ten miles dead ahead and no trace of
+the lost sheep had been seen, the search had to be abandoned.
+
+It was then that the three destroyers to seaward sighted two steam
+trawlers some way off to the south-westward.  They were flying no
+colours so far as we could see, but seemed to be in single line ahead,
+and as they were going straight for Sylt it was pretty obvious that
+they were mine-sweepers or patrol boats, and not mere fishermen.
+
+The three outer destroyers,--we happened to be one of them,--promptly
+altered course to cut them off from the coast, and before very long we
+were buzzing along at something like 30 knots with an enormous mountain
+of water piled up in our wake, the water being rather shallow.
+
+The trawlers, poor chaps, hadn't a dog's chance of getting away or of
+doing anything; but I must say we all admired them for their pluck.
+They had got into line abreast, and soon, when we were within about
+5,000 yards, our leading craft hoisted some signal.  We had no time to
+look it up in the book, but took it to be a signal asking if they would
+surrender.  But not a bit of it.  They were patrol boats, and each of
+them had a small gun, and presently there came a flash and a little
+cloud of brown smoke from the nearer one of the two.  The shell fell
+some distance short.
+
+We had all held our fire up till then, for it was mere baby killing and
+we did not want to do the dirty on them if it could be avoided, but as
+they started the game of firing on us, we had no alternative but to
+reply.  The sea round about the nearer craft was soon spouting with
+shell splashes, and between the fountains of spray and clouds of dense
+smoke in which she tried to hide herself, we could see the red flashes
+of some of our shell as they hit and burst, and the spurt of flame from
+her own little gun as she fired at us.  Only three or four of her
+projectiles came anywhere near, while the havoc on board her must have
+been indescribable.  It was a hateful business to have to fire at her
+at all, but what else could we do as she would not surrender?
+
+It was all over very soon.  The nearer trawler was almost hidden in
+smoke, and presently, when we got ahead of her and to windward at a
+range of about 1,500 yards, we noticed a white thing fluttering in her
+mizzen rigging.  It was a shirt, as we discovered afterwards, and a
+signal of surrender, so we ceased firing at once and ran down to her to
+pick up the survivors.
+
+The further trawler, meanwhile, had been sunk by the destroyer ahead of
+us, the crew having abandoned her beforehand in two boats.
+
+We steamed fairly close to our fellow and lowered a boat, for we could
+see all the survivors standing up with their hands above their heads.
+The ship herself was in a deplorable state.  Shell seemed to have burst
+everywhere, and one of the first which struck her had cut a steam pipe
+in the engine-room and had stopped the engines.  Clouds of steam were
+coming from aft, her upper deck was a shambles, and she was badly holed
+and on fire.  She was still afloat, though sinking fast.
+
+Our boat went across and brought back those that remained of her crew.
+There were thirteen of them all told, including the skipper, and of the
+men one was badly, and four more slightly, wounded.  Nine had been
+killed outright.
+
+Then occurred rather a pleasing incident.  Our men, a long time before,
+were going to do all sorts of desperate things to any Germans they got
+hold of.  They were full of the Lusitania business, bomb dropping from
+Zeppelins, and the treatment of our prisoners.  But when the time came
+there was a complete revulsion of feeling.  They were kindness itself,
+and when the prisoners came on board the seamen met the seamen and
+escorted them forward like honoured guests, while our stokers did the
+same for their opposite numbers.
+
+We took all necessary precautions, of course, but the Germans were very
+well behaved and gave us no trouble at all.  They were a particularly
+fine and intelligent-looking lot of men, and presently, when the
+wounded had been attended to, our fellows were filling them up with
+food and cocoa on the mess-deck.  They seemed very pleased to get it,
+and judging from what one heard afterwards, they had evidently expected
+to be manacled, leg-ironed, and fed on biscuit and water.  But our men
+did the best they could for them; gave them food, clothes, and
+cigarettes.  The Germans were profoundly grateful, but couldn't quite
+understand it.
+
+Their skipper, a reserve officer who spoke English like a native, had
+served as an officer in British ships, and seemed a good fellow.  He
+was pleased to be congratulated on his plucky fight; but it was rather
+pathetic all the same, for he had been cut off practically at his own
+front door.
+
+"You came upon us so suddenly and so near home," he said, looking at
+Sylt which was only six or seven miles away.  "We had not a chance to
+do anything."
+
+He told us that he had been in the wheelhouse of his trawler when the
+show started.  One of our first shell passed through the glass windows
+within a foot of his head without bursting, and the very next did the
+damage in the engine-room.  He ran down there to see what could be
+done, and this must have saved his life, for while he was away another
+shell burst in the wheelhouse and put about twenty holes in his
+greatcoat which was lying on the settee.  I saw the coat and the holes
+when he came on board, and noticed it had the ribbon of the Iron Cross
+and that of some other decoration in the button-hole.  He showed me his
+Iron Cross and was very proud of it, but what he got it for I did not
+gather.  He seemed rather secretive about it.  The other decoration,
+with a red-and-white ribbon, was the "Hamburg Cross," which is given to
+all officers and men belonging to the town who get the Iron Cross.  I
+believe the other Hansa towns follow the same custom with their braves.
+
+One thing about the skipper which struck me favourably was that he
+seemed very keen on the welfare of his men.  The poor fellow who was
+badly wounded had been hit in the back, and three or four pieces of
+shell were still inside him.  He must have been in terrible agony, but
+was very brave and did not utter a sound.  An operation was quite out
+of the question, and as the poor chap was obviously in great pain our
+Surgeon-Probationer put him in a hammock on the mess-deck and gave him
+morphia.  Soon afterwards the skipper asked to be allowed to visit him,
+and when the Doc. next went forward he found him swabbing the patient's
+brow with icy cold water to bring him to!  The Doc. was rather peevish
+about it.
+
+But to get on with the story of what happened.  The trawler was
+sinking, but not quite fast enough, so we finished her off with a
+couple of lyddite shell on the waterline.  In the meanwhile, as you
+probably know, for it was officially announced at the time, two
+destroyers had been in collision.  The rammer crumpled her bows up a
+bit, but could still steam, but the ship rammed was rather badly
+damaged, and had to be taken in tow.  It was in the middle of this
+operation that many hostile seaplanes, stirred up like a wasps' nest by
+our 'planes earlier in the morning, came out and started dropping
+bombs.  None of them came very close to us,--the bombs, I mean,--but we
+saw a string of five fall and explode practically alongside one
+destroyer, and heard afterwards that there had been a free fight on her
+upper deck to secure as trophies the splinters which dropped on board.
+We were all using our A.-A. guns, and though we did not actually hit
+any of them so far as we could see, we made them keep up to a height
+from which accurate bomb-dropping was an impossibility, so nobody was
+hit.  But nevertheless it was unpleasant, for no sooner had they let go
+one consignment than they went home again, filled up afresh, and came
+back for another go.  They were bombing us off and on for four or five
+hours, so far as I can remember, and we counted seven or eight of the
+blighters in sight at once, so it was "embarras de richesse" so far as
+targets went.
+
+We weren't going very fast, for the damaged destroyer could not be
+towed at a respectable speed on account of her injuries, and at about
+five o'clock in the afternoon the glass had gone down a lot, and the
+wind and sea started to get up from the westward.  The prospect was not
+altogether joyful.  We had heard the two trawlers shouting for help by
+wireless before we sank them, and knew that the German seaplanes had
+probably seen and reported an injured ship being taken in tow.  (This
+afterwards turned out to be the case, though, according to their
+communique, the seaplanes claimed to have bagged her with a bomb, which
+was not so.)  Moreover, Heligoland was a bare sixty miles away under
+our lee, so the chances were L100 to 1/2d. that the Huns would come out
+during the night and try to scupper the lot of us.  It was with some
+joy, then, that we found there was a pretty strong supporting force
+within easy distance.  In fact, we actually sighted them at about 6 p.m.
+
+The weather grew steadily worse, and by sunset there was a pretty big
+sea and a fresh breeze, both of which were increasing every minute.
+The poor old ship in tow was making very heavy weather of it, while
+even we were pretty lively.  But things got worse, for by ten o'clock,
+and a pitch dark night it was, it was blowing nearly a full gale.  The
+sea, too, had got up to such an extent that there was nothing for it
+but to abandon the damaged destroyer.  It was easier said than done,
+for the sea was too big for lowering boats, and the only other
+alternative was for some other craft to go alongside her and to take
+the men on.  I did not see the business myself, but believe another
+destroyer put her stem up against the side of the one sinking and kept
+it there by going slow ahead, while the men hopped out one by one over
+the bows.
+
+It was a most excellent bit of work on the part of the salvor, for with
+the two ships rolling, pitching, and grinding in the sea, and in utter
+darkness, it required a very good head and cool judgment to know how
+much speed was necessary to keep the bows just touching, and no more.
+If they had come into violent contact the rescuing ship might have been
+very badly damaged.  I believe they had to have several shots at it,
+before they got every man away, but though two fell overboard in
+jumping across, they pulled it off all right without losing a single
+life.  The only damage to the rescuing ship was a little bit of a bulge
+on the stem just below the forecastle, but this did not make a leak or
+impair her efficiency in any way, and she went about for months
+afterwards without having it straightened.  They had every right to be
+proud of their honourable scar!
+
+The poor old ship which had to be abandoned was then left to her fate,
+and nobody saw the end of her.
+
+It must have been at about this time, though we did not see it, that
+some hostile destroyers came upon our light cruisers, or rather, our
+cruisers happened upon them.  What took place I don't quite know, but
+the Huns were apparently sighted quite close, and our leading ship,
+jamming her helm over and increasing speed, rammed one full in the
+middle and cut her in halves.  It must have been an awful moment for
+the poor wretches, for the stern portion of the destroyer sank one
+side, and the bow part went rushing on into the darkness at about
+thirty knots.  The men on board her could be heard yelling, but it was
+quite impossible to do anything to save them as other enemy destroyers
+were in the neighbourhood and the sea was far too bad for lowering
+boats.
+
+Nothing else of interest took place during the night, except that the
+weather got worse and worse.  The next morning, when we were steaming
+against it, we were having a terrible doing, and it lasted for about
+twenty-four hours, until we got under the lee of the coast.  The sea
+was one of the worst we had ever experienced, short and very steep, and
+we couldn't steam more than about eight knots against it.  The motion
+was very bad, the ship crashing and bumping about in a most unholy
+manner, and we were all wet through and rather miserable.  No hot food,
+either, for the galley fire had been put out.
+
+The prisoner who had been badly wounded died early next morning.  The
+Doctor said he might have lived if the weather had been good, but the
+motion finished him, poor fellow.  He was buried at sea, the German
+officer reading the burial service.
+
+We eventually got back into harbour and disembarked the prisoners, and
+never was I more pleased to get a decent meal and a little sleep.  Aunt
+Maria, having so many nephews, has just sent me another fountain pen,
+the third since the war started.  Also a pair of crimson socks knitted
+by her cook.  The pen will be useful.
+
+Do you want any more cigarettes?  You never acknowledged the last lot I
+sent, you ungrateful blighter, and at any rate I think it's high time
+you wrote me a letter.  Your last one was a postcard.
+
+Forgive this letter of mine if it is a bit disconnected, but it's the
+best I can do at present.
+
+Well, the best of luck and may you not stop a Hun bullet or a bit of
+shrapnel.
+
+Yours always,
+  T.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOG
+
+The _Rapier_ was an old destroyer, one of the 370-ton "thirty-knotters"
+completed in about 1901.  She burnt coal and was driven by
+reciprocating engines, instead of using oil fuel and being propelled by
+new-fangled turbines, while 23 to 24 knots were all she could be relied
+upon to travel in the best of weather.  She had a low, sharp bow and
+the old-fashioned turtle-back forward instead of the high, weatherly
+forecastle of the later destroyers, and in anything more than a
+moderate breeze or a little popple of a sea she was like a half-tide
+rock in a gale o' wind.  In fact, except in the very calmest weather,
+she was a regular hog, for she rolled, pitched, and wallowed to her
+heart's content, varying the monotony at odd moments by burying herself
+in green seas or deluging herself in masses of spray.
+
+Her small bridge, with its 12-pounder gun, steering wheel, compass, and
+engine-room telegraphs, was placed on the top of the turtle-back and
+about 25 feet from the bows.  It acted as a most excellent breakwater
+and took the brunt of the heavier seas, and how often the _Rapier_ came
+back into harbour with her bridge rails flattened down and her deck
+fittings washed overboard, I really do not know.  It was a fairly
+frequent occurrence, for war is war, and they kept the little ship out
+at sea in practically all weathers.
+
+Even in harbour, when her officers and men were endeavouring to obtain
+a little well-earned sleep, she sometimes had an exasperating habit of
+rolling her rails under and slopping the water over her deck, and then
+it was that Langdon, her lieutenant in command, wedged in the bunk in
+his little cabin in the stern, and driven nearly frantic by the
+irregular thump, thump, crash of the loosely hung rudder swinging from
+side to side as the ship rolled, rose in his wrath and cursed the day
+he was born.
+
+But whatever he thought in his heart of hearts, he would not hear a bad
+word against his old _Rapier_ in public.  She might be ancient; but
+then she had done "a jolly sight more steaming" than any other craft of
+her age and class.  She might burn coal in her furnaces instead of
+oil-fuel, and every ounce of coal had to be shovelled on board from a
+collier by manual labour, whereas, in an oil-driven destroyer, one
+simply went alongside a jetty or an "oiler," connected up a hose, and
+went to bed while a pump did all the work.  But Langdon never could
+endure "the ghastly stink" of crude petroleum, while coal, though
+dirty, was clean dirt.  The _Rapier_ might have old-fashioned engines,
+but with them one ran no chance of developing that affliction of
+turbine craft: water in the casing, the consequent stripping of blades
+off the turbine rotors, and a month or so in a dockyard as a natural
+concomitant.  Moreover, everybody knew that destroyers with
+reciprocating engines were far and away the easiest to handle.
+
+So, from what Langdon said, though it is true that he may have been
+rather prejudiced by the fact that she was his first independent
+command, the fifteen-year-old _Rapier_ was a jewel of fair price.  The
+powers that be perhaps did not regard her with such rose-tinted
+optimism, but for all that, were evidently of the opinion that she was
+still capable of useful work, and kept her constantly at sea
+accordingly.
+
+Exactly what her function was I had better not say, but she always
+seemed to be on the spot when things happened, and had assisted at the
+"strafing" of Hun submarines, and had been under fire a great many more
+times than some of her younger sisters, many of whom were craft at
+least three times her size, eight knots more speed, and infinitely
+better armed and more seaworthy.
+
+So it was not to be imagined that the _Rapier_, ancient though she was,
+suffered from senile decay.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Curse this weather," the Lieutenant muttered, wrinkling his eyes in a
+vain endeavour to see through the murk.  "We've been forty-eight hours
+on patrol, and now we're due to go into harbour this beastly fog comes
+down and delays us.  It IS the limit!"
+
+Pettigrew, the Sub-Lieutenant, agreed.  "We shall have to coal when we
+arrive," he observed mournfully.  "That'll take us two hours, and by
+the time we've finished, made fast to the buoy, had our baths, and made
+ourselves fairly presentable, it'll be two o'clock.  I take it we go to
+sea at the usual time this evening, sir?"
+
+Langdon nodded.  "Bet your life!" he said with a sigh.  "We shall be
+off again at eight p.m.  I was looking forward to having a decent lunch
+ashore for once," he added regretfully, "but now this beastly fog's
+gone and put the hat on it.  Lord!  I'm fed up to the neck with the
+grub on board!"
+
+"Tinned salmon fish-cakes for breakfast," murmured the Sub.  "Curried
+salmon for lunch, and tinned rabbit pie for dinner.  My sainted aunt!
+The Ritz and Carlton aren't in it!"
+
+The skipper laughed.
+
+The fog had come down at dawn, and now, halfway through the forenoon,
+the weather was still as thick as ever; so thick, indeed, that it was
+barely possible to see more than a hundred yards through the white,
+cotton-wool-like pall.  It was one of those breathless, steamy days in
+mid-July.  The sea was glassily calm, while the sun, a mere molten blot
+in the haze overhead, whose heat was unmitigated by the least suspicion
+of a breeze, was still sufficiently powerful to make it most
+uncomfortably warm.  Altogether the torrid clamminess of the
+atmosphere, and its distinct earthy flavour, reminded one irresistibly
+of the interior of a greenhouse.
+
+It was the sun who had been guilty of causing the fog at all.  His rays
+had saturated the earth with warmth the day before, heat which had been
+given off during the cooler hours of darkness in a mass of invisible
+vapour.  Impelled slowly seaward during the night, the heat wave, if
+one can so call it, had eventually come into contact with the colder
+atmosphere over the water, where, following the invariable law of
+nature, it had condensed into an infinite number of tiny particles of
+moisture.  These, mingling and coalescing, had formed the dense masses
+of vapour which hung so impalpably over the dangerous, thickly
+populated sea-areas in the closer vicinity of the coast.  Further
+afield, seven or eight miles away from the shore, there was nothing but
+a haze.  More distant still the sun shone undimmed, and there were no
+signs of fog at all.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Thick weather at sea is always exasperating, and to avoid the chance of
+colliding with something they could not possibly avoid at any greater
+speed, Langdon had been forced to ease to the leisurely speed of eight
+knots, and eight knots to a T.B.D., even a relic of the _Rapier's_ age,
+is just about as irritating as being wedged in a narrow lane in a
+40-horse power Daimler behind a horse pantechnicon.
+
+They had a man on the forecastle keeping a lookout.  The automatic
+sounding machine was being used at regular intervals to give them some
+sort of an idea as to their position by a comparison of the depths
+obtained with those shown on the chart, but even then the eccentricity
+of the tidal currents and, let it be said, the erratic and most
+unladylike behaviour of the _Rapier's_ standard compass, made
+navigation a matter of some conjecture and a good deal of guesswork.
+
+Somewhere ahead, veiled in its pall of fog, lay the coast.  Ahead, and
+to the right, was a large area of shoal water, portions of which
+uncovered at low tide.  It had already proved the graveyard of many
+fine ships whose bones still showed when the water fell, and Langdon
+had no wish to leave his ship there as an everlasting monument to his
+memory, while he, probably court-martialled, and at any rate having
+"incurred their Lordships' severe displeasure," left the destroyer
+service under a cloud which would never disperse.
+
+Added to which there was always the chance of a collision, for the sea
+seemed full of ships.  Time and tide wait for no man, and, Hun
+submarines or not, mines or no mines, fog or no fog, merchant vessels
+must run.  To-day they seemed to be running in battalions and brigades,
+judging from the howling, yelping, and snorting of their steam whistles
+here, there, and everywhere.
+
+But the _Rapier_ managed to avoid them somehow, and, shortly before
+noon, having heard the explosive fog signal on the end of the
+breakwater, she slid slowly past the lighthouse at the entrance and
+groped her way into the harbour.  It was still as thick as it possibly
+could be, but she found the collier, and, after completing with coal,
+secured to her buoy.
+
+Ten minutes later Langdon and the Sub were talking together in the
+little wardroom when there came a knock at the door.
+
+"Signal just come through, sir," the signalman announced with a smile
+on his face.  "_Rapier_ will proceed to Portsmouth at daylight
+to-morrow to refit.  She will not be required for patrol to-night."
+
+The ship was long overdue for the dockyard, but the skipper and
+Pettigrew looked at each other, hardly able to believe their ears.
+
+"Lord!" muttered the former.  "That means a week's leave, Sub.  D'you
+realise that?"
+
+"Do I not, sir!" answered the Sub-Lieutenant, as the signalman retired
+with a grin.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRADERS
+
+We were steaming to the westward, towards the spot where the sun,
+glowing like a disc of molten copper, was slowly nearing the horizon.
+It had been one of those hot, breathless sort of days with no breeze;
+and now, near sunset, nothing but an occasional cat's-paw stole gently
+across the sea to ruffle its glassy surface in irregular-shaped
+patches.  Elsewhere, the water, shining like a mirror, reflected the
+blazing glory of the sky.
+
+Some distance off lay the coast, its familiar outline dim, purple, and
+mysterious in the evening mist.  But it was neither the sunset,
+glorious as it was, nor the scenery which held our imagination.  It was
+the shipping.
+
+All manner of craft there were.  First came the _Spurt_, of Tromso, a
+Norwegian tramp of dissolute and chastened appearance, whose
+deliberate, plodding gait and general air of senility belied her name,
+or at any rate the English meaning of it.  Her rusty black hull was
+decorated with three large squares painted in her national colours,
+red, with a vertical white-edged stripe of blue in the centre.  Next a
+bulbous, prosperous-looking Dutchman, who seemed to waddle in her, or
+his, stride.  She was slightly faster than the ancient _Spurt_, but was
+no flyer, and boasted a canary-yellow hull bearing her name in
+fifteen-foot letters, and enormous painted tricolours striped
+horizontally in red, white, and blue.
+
+Then two Swedes with unpronounceable names who, by their
+embellishments, informed the world that they hailed respectively from
+Goteborg and Helsingborg.  They also sported large rectangles, painted
+in vertical stripes of yellow and blue, while close behind them, a
+Dane, with an absurdly attenuated funnel and long ventilators sticking
+at all angles out of her hull like pins from a pincushion, ambled
+stolidly along like a weary cart-horse.  She, scorning other
+decoration, merely showed the scarlet white-crossed emblem of her
+country.  Some of the neutrals carried signs bearing their names which
+could be illuminated at night, and all seemed equally determined not to
+afford any prowling Hun submarine a legitimate excuse for torpedoing
+them on sight.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But the craft which outnumbered the others by more than four to one
+were the British.  They bore no distinctive marks or colouring on their
+sides, and their travel-stained and weather-beaten appearance, their
+rusty hulls, discoloured funnels, and the generally dingy and
+unpretentious look about them showed that they were kept far too busy
+to trouble about external appearances.  The only token of their
+nationality was the wisp of tattered red bunting fluttering at the
+stern of each; the gallant old Red Ensign which, war or no war, still
+dances triumphantly on practically every sea, except the Baltic.
+
+Many of the passing vessels looked out of date and old-fashioned.  Some
+veterans of the 'eighties or 'nineties, fit only to sail under a
+foreign flag according to pre-war standards, may have been dug out of
+their obscurity to play their part in the war.  And a very important
+part it is.  Ships must run, and, at a time when the Admiralty have
+levied a heavy toll for war purposes upon all classes of ships
+belonging to the Mercantile Marine, every vessel which will float and
+can steam can be utilised many times over for the equally important
+work of carrying cargo.  It is not peaceful work, either, in these days
+of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and
+torpedoes ready to sink without warning.
+
+The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and
+drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes
+need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile Marine proper, what,
+for want of a better term, we may call "the deep sea service," has
+supplied the Royal Navy with many thousands of splendid officers and
+men who are now serving their country in fighting ships as members of
+the Royal Naval Reserve.  Moreover, numbers of its ships of all classes
+are employed for war purposes as armed merchant cruisers, transports,
+oil fuel vessels, colliers, ammunition ships, storeships, and the like.
+But the function of those ships which are left for their legitimate
+purpose of cargo carrying is of equal importance to the country, of
+inestimable value, in fact, since we could not exist without them.
+Their duty is fraught with constant peril.  Submarines may be lurking
+and mines may have been laid upon the routes they have to traverse, but
+never have there been the least signs of unreadiness or unwillingness
+to proceed to sea when ordered to do so.
+
+Most of the officers and men of the Mercantile Marine are not trained
+to war like their comrades of the Royal Navy.  They are not paid, and
+their ships are not built, to fight; but yet, time and time again,
+their natural pluck and intrepidity has shown itself in the face of an
+entirely new danger.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Instances are so numerous that it is impossible to mention them all.
+Remember the gallant fight of the Clan MacTavish, with her single gun,
+against the heavily-armed German raider Moewe.  Take the case of the
+"Blue Funneller" _Laertes_, Captain Probert, which was ordered to stop
+by an enemy submarine, but, disregarding the summons, proceeded at full
+speed, steering a zigzag course, and so escaped, Remember the little
+_Thordis_, Captain Bell, which, after having a torpedo fired at her,
+actually rammed and sank the submarine which fired it.
+
+Again, there was the transport _Mercian_, Captain Walker, which was
+attacked by gunfire from a hostile submarine in the Mediterranean.
+Some of the troops on board were killed, others were wounded, and
+nobody could have blamed the captain if he had surrendered.  But what
+did he do?  He endured a bombardment lasting for an hour and a half,
+and, thanks to the bravery and skill of all on board, the ship escaped.
+
+There was also Captain Palmer, of the _Blue Jacket_, who, though his
+ship had actually been torpedoed, stood by her in his boats, reboarded
+her, and, in spite of her damage, steamed her to a place of safety.
+Recollect Captain Clopert, whose vessel, the _Southport_, was captured
+by a German man-of-war, was taken to the island of Kusaie, and was
+there disabled by the removal of certain important parts of her
+machinery.  She was evidently to be utilised as a collier, but no
+sooner had the enemy left than the master, officers, and men set to
+work to effect repairs.  How they did it with the meagre appliances at
+their disposal only they themselves can say, but the fact remains that
+the ship escaped.
+
+These cases are only typical.  Whole volumes might be written round the
+warlike deeds of our "peaceful" merchantmen, and from the many
+instances of gallantry we read of and the still greater number which do
+not achieve publicity it is evident that on every occasion of
+encountering the enemy the master of the ship, backed up most nobly by
+his officers and crew, has not only done everything possible to save
+his ship from capture in the first instance, but has never hesitated to
+defend his vessel in accordance with the generally accepted tenets of
+International Law, which state that a merchant ship can defend herself
+when attacked.
+
+Courage in the face of the enemy when one can return shot for shot is
+one thing, but heroism of the same kind in an unarmed ship is on rather
+a different plane.
+
+The work of the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine is largely
+interdependent.  The two great sea services of the country must ever
+work hand in hand and side by side, and let us never forget what we owe
+to the latter.
+
+
+
+
+POTVIN OF THE _PUFFIN_
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" ejaculated the first lieutenant, looking up from
+his breakfast as a barefooted signalman held a slate under his nose.
+"Just as I'm in the middle of painting ship!"
+
+The navigator, doctor, and assistant paymaster looked up from their
+plates.  "What's up, Number One?" queried the former.
+
+"Only that the new skipper's arrived in the English mail," said the
+first lieutenant glumly.
+
+"He's coming on board at nine o'clock in the _Spartan's_ steamboat!"
+
+"Good Lord!" protested Cutting, the doctor.  "So soon?  It was only a
+week ago we saw his appointment!"
+
+"Can't help that," No. One growled.  "He's arrived, and he'll be on
+board in exactly three quarters of an hour's time.  Lord help us!
+You'd better put on a clean tunic and your best society manners, Doc.
+You'll want 'em both."
+
+"Why the deuce can't he leave us in peace a bit longer?" complained
+Falland, the lieutenant (N).
+
+"And why the devil does he want to come just at the end of the quarter
+when I'm busy with my accounts?" grumbled Augustus Shilling, the
+assistant paymaster, blinking behind his spectacles.  "I know jolly
+well what it'll be.  For the next week I shan't be able to call my soul
+my own, and he'll be sending for me morning, noon, and night to explain
+things.  The writer's gone sick, too.  Oh, it IS the limit!"
+
+"It is, indeed," echoed the doctor despondently.  "Farewell to a quiet
+life.  By George!  I haven't written up the wine books for the last
+fortnight.  Have I got time to do 'em before he comes?"
+
+The first lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.  "You'd better make an
+effort, old man," he said.  "He's a rabid teetotaler, and he's sure to
+ask to see 'em first thing."
+
+"Heaven help us!" cried the medical officer, rising hastily from his
+chair and disappearing into his cabin.
+
+"What sort of a chap did you say he was, Number One?" Falland queried,
+with traces of anxiety in his voice.
+
+"I only know him by reputation," the first lieutenant answered
+lugubriously.  "But he's got the name of being rather ... er, peculiar.
+At any rate, he hates navigators, so you'd better mind your P's and
+Q's, my giddy young friend."
+
+"And I haven't corrected my charts for three weeks or written up the
+compass journal for a month!" Falland wailed.  "Oh, Lor!"
+
+From all of which it will be understood that the wardroom officers of
+H.M. Gunboat _Puffin_ were not overjoyed at the advent of their new
+Captain.[1]
+
+The date was some time during the last five years of the reign of Queen
+Victoria; the month, September, and though at this season of the year
+the climate of Hong-Kong is far too moist and too steamy to be
+pleasant, the _Puffin's_ officers, adapting themselves to
+circumstances, had had plenty of shore leave and had managed to enjoy
+themselves.  So had the men.
+
+Their ship, an ancient, barque-rigged vessel of 1,000 odd tons;
+auxiliary engines capable of pushing her along at 9.35 knots with the
+safety valves lifting; and armed with I forget how many bottle-nosed,
+5-inch, B.-L. guns and a Nordenfeldt or two, was swinging peacefully
+round her buoy in the harbour.  She had swung there for precisely two
+months without raising steam, ever since her late commander had been
+promoted and had gone home to England, leaving the ship in temporary
+charge of Pardoe, the first lieutenant.
+
+Captain Prato had been an easy-going man of serene disposition who
+allowed little or nothing to worry him, not even the Commander-in-Chief
+himself.  As a consequence the wardroom officers swore by him, and so
+did Mr. Tompion, the gunner, and Mr. Slice, the artificer engineer.
+The ship's company were of the same opinion, so the little _Puffin_ was
+what is generally known as a "happy ship."
+
+But Commander Peter Potvin, R.N., Captain Prato's successor, was the
+direct antithesis of the former commanding officer, for he had the
+reputation in the Service of being a veritable little firebrand, and an
+eccentric little firebrand at that.  He was small and thin, and
+possessed a pair of fierce blue eyes and a short, aggressive red beard,
+and was even reputed to insist on naval discipline being carried on in
+his own house ashore.  At any rate, it is quite certain that his wife
+frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master
+had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had
+discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery,
+while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good
+conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after
+three months' exemplary behaviour.  But only one of them, Tony, aged 18
+months, had ever worn a badge for more than a fortnight.
+
+It was also said, with what truth I do not know, that his servants
+frequently had their leave stopped for not being "dressed in the rig of
+the day," and for omitting to wear hideous caps and aprons of an
+uniform pattern designed by Commander Potvin himself without the
+assistance of his wife.  It was bruited about that the cook, housemaid,
+and parlourmaid,--the nurse alone being excused,--were turned out of
+their beds at the unearthly hour of 5.30 a.m. and that, as a punishment
+for "being found asleep in their hammocks after the hands had been
+called," they were rousted out at 4 a.m. to chop firewood.
+
+The Potvin menage was not a happy one, and as a consequence his
+retainers usually gave notice en masse directly they heard the gallant
+commander was about to come home on leave.  Even the gardener and boot
+boy followed the general example, so it was lucky for Mrs. Potvin that
+she had an uncle at the Admiralty who generally managed to send, "dear
+Peter" to a foreign station.  He was rarely at home, or his wife would
+have been wrought to the verge of lunacy.
+
+No wonder the _Puffin's_ were not pleased at their future prospects,
+for the milk of human kindness evidently did not enter into the
+composition of their new commanding officer.
+
+For twenty-four hours after his arrival on board Commander Potvin was
+too busy paying official calls and unpacking his belongings to make his
+presence really felt.  The fun began the next morning, when, after
+divisions, he sent for Pardoe to come and see him in his cabin.
+
+"You may have heard, First Lieutenant," he began, very pompously, "that
+I am a very observant man, and that I notice everything that goes on
+board my ship?"
+
+"Indeed, sir," said Pardoe politely, wondering what on earth was coming
+next.
+
+"Yes," said the commander.  "I am unnaturally observant, and though
+some people may think I am a faddist, there is very little that escapes
+my notice.  To start with, I always insist that my officers shall wear
+strict uniform, and at the present moment I am grieved to see that you
+are wearing white socks."
+
+"I'm sorry, sir.  I didn't know you would mind.  The officers in the
+flagship wear them with white clothing."
+
+"I was not aware that I had asked you a question, Lieutenant Pardoe,"
+interrupted the skipper, his beard bristling.  "Moreover, what they do
+or do not do in the flagship is no affair of mine.  The uniform
+regulations lay down that socks are to be black or dark blue, and I
+expect my officers to wear them.  I also observed just now that the
+Surgeon was wearing a watch strap across the front of his tunic, which
+is in strict defiance of the regulation which says that watch chains
+and trinkets are not to be worn outside the coat.  I do not wish to
+have to take steps in the matter, but kindly bear it in mind yourself,
+and inform your messmates, that I insist on strict uniform."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+"There are several more matters I wish to discuss," the captain
+resumed, twiddling his moustaches.  "You will doubtless have heard that
+I like to keep my ship's companies happy and contented, eh?"  He looked
+up enquiringly.
+
+"Er--yes, sir.  Of course, sir," said the first lieutenant lamely,
+having heard precisely the opposite.
+
+"Very good.  To keep the men happy and contented one has to keep them
+employed, so in future there will be no leave to either officers or men
+until four o'clock in the afternoon.  We shall doubtless be able to
+find plenty for them to do on board."
+
+Number One opened his mouth to expostulate, but thought better of it.
+"I like the men to feel that their ship is their home," continued the
+skipper, "and to encourage them to stay on board in the afternoons and
+evenings instead of spending their money and their substance in these
+terrible grog shops ashore, these low and vicious haunts of iniquity,"
+he rolled his tongue round the words, "I propose that the officers
+shall prepare and deliver a series of lectures on interesting topics.
+I have," he added, "brought a magic lantern and a good stock of slides
+out from England, and some evening next week I propose to deliver the
+first lecture myself.  The subject is a most instructive one, 'The
+effects of alcohol on the human body and mind,' and to illustrate it I
+have prepared a number of most excellent charts showing the increase in
+the consumption of spirits and malt liquor between 1873 and the present
+time.  The charts, compiled from the most reliable data, are drawn up
+for most of the best known professions, sailors, soldiers, labourers,
+policemen, clergymen, and so on, and I can safely promise you a most
+interesting evening."
+
+Pardoe, quite convinced that he had to deal with a lunatic, gasped and
+began to wonder how on earth he could leave the ship unostentatiously
+without damaging his subsequent career.  "I'm afraid I'm not much of a
+hand at lecturing, sir," he said with a forced smile.  "In fact there's
+hardly a subject I know enough about to----."
+
+"Pooh, pooh," laughed the commander.  "With due diligence in your spare
+time you will be able to learn up quite a lot of subjects, and as for
+the actual lecturing," he shrugged his shoulders, "practice makes
+perfect, and I have no doubt that before very long we shall find you
+quite an orator."  He smiled benignly.
+
+"We will have the lectures once a week, at 8 p.m., say on Thursdays,"
+he went on, "and on Sundays I will conduct an evening service at 6.0.,
+at which, of course, all officers will attend.  You will read the
+lessons and collect the offertory, Mr. Pardoe.  That will leave us five
+clear evenings a week for other harmless occupations, and I propose
+that on one of them we have readings for the men from the works of
+well-known authors.  Something light and amusing from Dickens or Dumas
+to start with, and then, as we get on, we might try the more learned
+writers like Darwin, or--er--Confucius."
+
+The wretched first lieutenant grew red about the face and started to
+breathe heavily.
+
+"Then on another evening we might encourage the men to play progressive
+games like draughts, halma, picture lotto, spillikins, ping-pong, and
+beggar-my-neighbour.  My sole object in doing all this, you will
+understand, is to keep the men amused and instructed, to divert their
+minds and, therefore, to keep them happy and contented.  After a few
+weeks or so they will all be so anxious to come to our entertainments,
+that they will have lost all desire to go ashore at all.  It is a good
+idea, is it not?"
+
+The first lieutenant nodded grimly.  The idea may have been excellent,
+but he could hardly imagine Petty Officer Timothy Carey, the horny
+captain of the forecastle, listening to Confucius; nor Baxter, the
+Sergeant of Marines, sitting down to a quiet game of spillikins with
+Scully, the cook's mate.  In fact, he foresaw that when he informed the
+men of the arrangements about to be made for their welfare, he would
+have all his work cut out to repress the inevitable rebellion.  Darwin,
+Confucius, picture lotto, and beggar-my-neighbour for the hardened
+ship's company of the _Puffin_!  The _Police Gazette_, _Reynolds'
+Weekly_, pots of beer, and the games known as "Shove ha'penny" and
+"Crown and Anchor" were far more to their liking.
+
+"Well," said Commander Potvin, "that is all I have to say at present;
+but I am gratified, very gratified indeed, that you agree with my
+ideas.  I will draw up and issue detailed rules for our evening
+entertainments, but, meanwhile, I should be obliged if you would cause
+these to be distributed amongst the men.  They will pave the way," he
+added, smiling as pleasantly as he was able, and handing Pardoe a neat
+brown paper parcel.  "They will pave the way with good intentions, and
+I have no doubt that within a few weeks we shall have the happiest
+ship's company in the whole of the British Navy."
+
+The first lieutenant, too astonished to reply, clutched the parcel and
+retired to the wardroom, where, flinging his cap on to the settee, he
+relapsed into the one armchair.  "Lord!" he muttered, holding his head,
+"I believe the man's as mad as a hatter!"
+
+He opened the package to find therein a quantity of bound sheets.  He
+selected one of the pamphlets at random and examined it with a sigh.
+"Drink and Depravity," he read.  "Pots of beer cost many a tear.  Be
+warned in time or you'll repine."
+
+"Great Caesar's ghost!" he ejaculated.  "The man IS mad!  To think that
+it should come to this.  Poor, poor old _Puffin_!"
+
+A few minutes later Falland, on his way aft to visit the captain,
+glanced into the wardroom.  Pardoe still sat in the armchair muttering
+softly to himself with his head bowed down between his hands.  The
+floor, the table, and the chair were littered with tracts of all the
+colours of the rainbow.  "Saints preserve us!" the navigator murmured.
+The next really interesting incidents occurred on Sunday morning, when
+the commanding officer made his usual rounds of the ship and inspected
+the men.  So far nothing had officially been said about the new
+_regime_; but, in some mysterious way, the ship's company had an
+inkling of the happy days in store for them, while, through a lavish
+distribution of tracts, literature which, I am sorry to relate, they
+solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new
+captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink.  Accordingly, to
+please him, and to show that they were not the hardened sinners,
+seasoned reprobates, and generally idle and dissolute characters he
+perhaps might take them for, they fell in at divisions on that Sabbath
+morn wearing their most cherubic and innocent expressions, and their
+newest and most immaculate raiment.
+
+The _Puffin_ had always been a clean ship, but on this particular
+occasion she surpassed herself, for all hands and the cook had done
+their very utmost to uphold her reputation.  Her burnished guns and
+freshly scoured brass-work shone dazzingly in the sun; her topmasts and
+blocks had been newly scraped and varnished, while the running rigging,
+boat's falls, and other ropes about the deck were neatly coiled down
+and flemished.  The decks themselves were as white as holystones, sand,
+and much elbow grease could make them, and, with her white hull with
+its encircling green riband and cherry-red waterline, her yellow lower
+masts and funnel, and a brand-new pendant flying from the main-truck
+and large White Ensign flapping lazily from its staff on the poop, the
+_Puffin_ looked more like a yacht than a man-o'-war.  But Commander
+Potvin also had a reputation to keep up, and he would not be Commander
+Potvin if he could not find fault somewhere.
+
+"Seaman's division--'shun!" shouted Falland, the officer in charge, as
+the commander and first lieutenant made their appearance from under the
+poop.  "Off--caps!"
+
+The men clicked their heels punctiliously and removed their headgear,
+and the captain, passing down the front rank with his sword trailing on
+the deck behind him, began his inspection.
+
+"What is your name, my man?" he inquired condescendingly, halting
+opposite to a burly bearded able seaman.
+
+"Joseph Smith, sir."
+
+"I seem to remember your face," said the commander.
+
+"Yes, sir.  I served along 'o you in th' _Bulldorg_ five year ago."
+
+"Indeed.  That is most interesting.  Well, Smith," eyeing him up and
+down, "I am always most pleased to see my old shipmates again."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the burly one, trying hard to look pleased
+himself, and turning rather red in the effort.  As a matter of fact he
+was wondering if his commanding officer was blessed, or cursed, with a
+good memory, and if, by any chance, he remembered the occasion when
+he--Joseph Smith--had last stood before him on the quarterdeck of
+H.M.S. _Bulldog_.  He had stood there as a defaulter, to be punished
+with ten days' cells and the loss of a hardly-earned good conduct
+badge, for returning from leave in a state of partial insobriety, and
+for having indulged in a heated and more than acrimonious discussion
+with the local constabulary.  It had happened several years before, and
+since then he had turned over a new leaf, but he grew quite nervous at
+the recollection.
+
+But the skipper, apparently, had quite forgotten it, for he went on
+speaking.  "I am sorry to see, Smith, that, although you have served
+with me before, you have forgotten what I must have taken the greatest
+pains to teach you.  Your hair is too long, and your beard is not
+trimmed in the proper service manner.  Your trousers are at least two
+inches too tight round the knee, and six inches too slack round the
+ankle, while the rows of tape on your collar are too close together.
+It will not do," he added, glaring unpleasantly.  "The uniform
+regulations are made to be strictly adhered to.  Mr. Falland!"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"Have this man's bag inspected in the dinner hour every day for a
+fortnight.  See that his hair is properly cut by next Sunday, and see
+that he either shaves himself clean, or that he does not use a razor at
+all, according to the regulations.  I am surprised that you should have
+allowed him to come to divisions in this condition."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The Commander passed on, leaving the delinquent with his mouth wide
+open in astonishment and righteous indignation.  Smith was firmly of
+the opinion that his beard was everything that a beard should be,
+while, quite rightly, he had always prided himself on being one of the
+best dressed men in the ship.  Any little irregularities in his attire,
+irregularities not countenanced by the regulations, were merely
+introduced for the purpose of making himself smarter than ever.  It was
+a sad blow to his pride.
+
+But many others suffered in the same way, for hardly a man in the
+division was dressed according to the strict letter of the law.  Some
+had the tapes on their jumpers too high or too low; others had the
+V-shaped openings in front a trifle too deep; many, in their endeavours
+to make their loose trousers still more rakish, wore them in too
+flowing a manner over their feet, and still more, in their anxiety not
+to spoil the set of their jumpers, carried no 'pusser's daggers,' or
+knives, attached to their lanyards.  Altogether the first Sunday was a
+regular debacle for the _Puffin's_ but an undoubted triumph for
+Commander Potvin.
+
+"Mr. Falland," he said, having walked round the ranks.  "I am sorry to
+find all this laxity in the important matter of dress, and I rely upon
+you to take immediate steps to have it rectified."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+"And," the skipper continued, "I notice that you fall your men in
+according to size.  I know that some commanding officers like to
+inspect the men in this way, but personally I prefer to have them
+grouped according to appearance.  For instance, tall men together,
+short men together, and the same thing with the fat and the thin, the
+bearded and the clean-shaven."
+
+"Very good, sir.  But--" the navigator hesitated.
+
+"But what, Mr. Falland?"
+
+"Suppose a man is tall, thin, and bearded, sir?" asked Falland, in
+utter perplexity.
+
+"Seize upon his predominant feature, Mr. Falland, and use your own
+discretion in the matter," said the Captain, half suspecting that his
+subordinate was trying to make fun of him, but knowing full well that,
+whatever the navigator did, he could always find fault with it.
+
+He marched forward to continue his rounds, leaving the astonished
+divisional officer wondering if he was also to form special detachments
+of red-faced sailors, white-faced sailors, snub-nosed sailors, and
+bandy-legged sailors.
+
+The inspection of the upper-deck and mess-deck passed without much
+comment, the Captain even saying that he was glad to see that the ship
+was 'quite clean,' a term which made the zealous Pardoe writhe with
+annoyance; but the next thing which caught his attention was a small
+hencoop containing eight or nine miserable, bedraggled-looking fowls.
+
+"Bless my soul, First Lieutenant!" said he.  "Look at these fowls!"
+They were sorry looking birds, it is true, but Chinese chickens are not
+renowned for their beauty and sprightliness of appearance at the best
+of times.
+
+"They seem quite healthy, sir," the First Lieutenant answered, putting
+his head on one side in a most judicial manner.
+
+"Yes, yes," murmured the Commander.  "But they are all the colours of
+the rainbow.  White, yellow, brown, grey, and black."
+
+"So they are, sir," said Pardoe, as if he had observed the astounding
+fact for the first time.
+
+"Who do they belong to?"
+
+"They're yours, sir.  Your steward looks after them."
+
+"Does he, indeed?" said the skipper, rather nonplussed.  "Well, send
+for my steward."
+
+The portly and dignified Ah Fong presently appeared.
+
+"Is it not possible for you to buy fowls of all the same colour?" the
+"Owner" wanted to know.
+
+Ah Fong stared in hopeless bewilderment, trying to grasp his master's
+meaning.  "My no savvy, sah," he said, shaking his head.
+
+"Can you not buy your chickens, or my chickens, rather, all one colour?
+White, for preference, as the weather is hot."
+
+"I savvy, sah," exclaimed the Chinaman, with a beatific smile slowly
+spreading over his countenance.  "You no likee black piecee hen, sah?"
+
+"No, no, that's not what I mean at all," said Potvin, going off into a
+long explanation.
+
+At last Ah Fong began to understand what was wanted.  "No can do, sah!"
+he expostulated.  "S'pose I go 'shore catch piecee hen.  I say to one
+man, I wanchee plentee fat piecee hen, no wanchee olo piecee, wanchee
+young plenty big piecee hen for capten...."
+
+"I really cannot waste my time listening to this senseless
+conversation!" interrupted the Captain, with some petulance.  "Mr.
+Pardoe, you will kindly explain to him that in future all the fowls on
+board are to be white in the summer, and blue... 'er, I mean black, in
+the winter.  I will have them in the proper dress of the day like the
+ship's company, do you understand?"
+
+"I do, sir," said the wretched Pardoe with an inaudible sigh, as the
+little procession moved on.
+
+He did explain to the steward what was required, and Ah Fong was
+confronted with a dilemma.  However, he had his wits about him, and the
+next Sunday morning, to Number One's intense astonishment, every
+wretched fowl in the coop, black, grey, or brown, had been freshly
+whitewashed.  Their feathers were all plastered together, and they
+looked supremely unhappy and more bedraggled than ever, but the
+captain's aesthetic eye was apparently satisfied, for he passed them by
+with a glance and made no adverse remarks.
+
+After the ordeal of divisions the mess-stools, chairs for the officers,
+and reading desk were brought up and placed on desk under the awnings,
+and at 10.30, when church had been "rigged," the tolling of the bell
+summoned the officers and ship's company to divine service.  Pardoe,
+after satisfying himself that everything was ready, went aft to report
+to the Captain, and, somewhat to the surprise of everyone, Commander
+Potvin presently appeared without his tunic, advanced to the reading
+desk, and started the service.
+
+At first people thought that he had discarded his jacket merely for the
+sake of coolness, and, as the day was unusually hot, some of the other
+officers were half inclined to follow his sensible example.  But when
+at last church was over and Pardoe had occasion to see the Captain
+again, he discovered the real reason for the "Owner's" removal of his
+outer garment.
+
+"You may have noticed, Lieutenant Pardoe, that I took the precaution to
+remove my tunic before reading the Church service," said the skipper.
+
+"I did, sir," answered the First Lieutenant.  "In fact, it was so hot,
+that I nearly followed your example."
+
+Potvin glared.  "I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Pardoe?" he
+said with asperity.  "The fact of its being hot or cold does not effect
+my religious ideas."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir.  I thought that..."
+
+"Kindly do not impute these motives to me," the Commander went on to
+say.  "I consider that we should all attend divine service in a state
+of the utmost humility, and I removed my tunic so that I should appear
+before the Almighty in the same simple garb as the men, not as their
+commanding officer!"  He puffed out his chest with importance.
+
+Pardoe merely gasped, for the idea that the Almighty might be unduly
+influenced by the sight of the three gold stripes and curl on his
+captain's shoulder-straps was quite beyond his comprehension.
+Nevertheless, Commander Potvin was quite serious, and on leaving his
+presence Pardoe repaired to his cabin, and wrote a fervent appeal to a
+former captain of his, asking that officer to use his influence to have
+him removed from his present appointment.  He loved his little
+_Puffin_, it is true.  He would be very sorry to leave her; but
+anything was better than serving in a ship commanded by a lunatic.
+
+For a week the gunboat's officers and men endured the new routine with
+what fortitude they could muster.  On Monday they had their progressive
+games, when the watch on board,--the watch whose turn it was to go on
+leave had gone ashore to a man,--were compelled, much to their disgust,
+to squat round on the upper deck with draughts, halma, and
+picture-lotto boards spread out before them.  The proceedings were not
+exactly jovial, for the men looked, and were, frankly bored, while a
+party of four able seamen, finding the innocent attractions of Happy
+Families hardly exciting enough, were subsequently brought up before
+the First Lieutenant on a charge of gambling.
+
+Half an hour after the games started, moreover, two other men, one a
+marine and the other the ship's steward's assistant, fell in to see him.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked.
+
+"Well, sir," the marine explained.  "It's like this 'ere.  I was told
+off to play draughts along o' this man, an' all goes well until I makes
+two o' my men kings an' starts takin' all 'is.  Then 'e says as 'ow
+I've been cheatin', so I says to 'im, polite like, as 'ow I 'adn't done
+no such thing, an' wi' that 'e ups an' 'its me in the eye, sir, which
+isn't fair."
+
+"He hit you in the eye?" asked Number One.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the sea-soldier, exhibiting a rapidly swelling cheek.
+
+"What have you to say?" the First Lieutenant asked the alleged
+assailant.
+
+"What he says isn't true, sir.  I did say he had been cheatin', becos
+he had, becos he was movin' all his other pieces over the board how he
+liked.  I says he mustn't do that, becos it isn't the game, but he says
+that as he's been told off to play, he'll play how he bloomin' well
+likes.  I says it's cheatin', and he hits me on the nose, so I hits him
+back, and we has a bit of a dust up."  He exhibited a gory handkerchief
+as proof of his injuries.
+
+"Do either of you men bear any grudge against the other?" asked Pardoe,
+knowing that they had often been ashore together.
+
+"No, sir," came the immediate reply.
+
+"Well, go away, and don't make such fools of yourselves again.  We
+can't have all this bickering and fighting over a simple game of
+draughts."
+
+The two combatants retired grinning, and Pardoe, sighing deeply, walked
+up and down the deck wrapped in thought.  One fact was quite patent,
+and that was that if the innocent amusements for the ship's company
+were suffered to continue, he would require the wisdom and patience of
+a Solomon to arbitrate between the disputants.
+
+On Tuesday they had a reading from Shakespeare, conducted by the
+Captain, and, to judge from the _sotto-voce_ remarks of the audience,
+they were neither amused nor instructed.
+
+"'E must be wet if 'e thinks we liken listenin' to this 'ere stuff!"
+muttered Able Seaman McSweeny dismally.  "'E talks abart 'is ruddy
+merchant o' Venice, but I doesn't want to 'ear nothin' abart a....
+Eyetalian shopkeeper.  I expec's 'e was one o' these 'ere blokes wot
+wheeled an ice-cream barrer.  S'welp me I do!"
+
+A loud titter greeted his utterance, and Commander Potvin stopped
+reading for a moment, and glanced round with a fierce expression,
+without being able to see whence the sounds of merriment emanated.
+
+No, judging from the trite remarks from the men, the reading from the
+works of England's most famous poet and playwright was not an
+unqualified success.
+
+On Thursday came the Captain's lecture on the effects of alcohol, at
+which, to Pardoe's great astonishment, there was an unusually full
+attendance.  Even men belonging to the watch ashore were present, some
+of them bringing friends from other ships with them.
+
+The audience, suspicious at first, eventually became strangely
+enthusiastic, loud cheering, much stamping on the deck, and even
+shrieks and cat-calls completely drowning the lecturer's voice for
+moments at a time.  The applause became more vociferous still when the
+man attending the magic lantern inadvertently placed his hand on its
+almost red-hot top, and interrupted the proceedings with a loud and
+very startled: "Ow!  The bloomin' thing's burnt me!"
+
+Anyone but the Commander might have detected something sarcastic and
+ironical in the excessive applause, but he, the possessor of a skin
+like unto that of an armadillo, was very pleased with the reception of
+his discourse.
+
+"I told you I had an interesting subject," he said afterwards to the
+First Lieutenant.  "The hearty applause was very gratifying, and it is
+wonderful how a little straight talk goes down with the men."
+
+"I only hope my lecture will be an equal success, sir," answered
+Pardoe, rather at a loss what to say.
+
+His subject was "Cities of Ancient Greece."
+
+But at last came the time when the _Puffin_ was ordered to sea, and at
+8.30 on that fateful morning the gunboat, with her gallant commander
+standing on the poop in the attitude of Sir Francis Drake starting on
+his circumnavigation of the world, paddled gently down the crowded
+harbour and out through the Lye-mun pass.  It was in this narrow
+passage that they had their altercation with a lumbering Chinese junk
+tacking slowly to and fro against the tide.
+
+"Hard a-port!" ordered Falland, who was conning the ship.
+
+"Hard a-starboard!" contradicted the Commander excitedly.  "What are
+you thinking about, Mr. Falland?"
+
+The Navigator's order would have taken the ship well clear, but the
+helmsman, perplexed by having two diametrically opposite commands
+hurled at his head simultaneously, and not knowing which to obey, did
+nothing.
+
+There came a howl from the gunboat's forecastle and a frantic,
+blasphemous yelling from a party of Chinamen clustered on the junk's
+high poop.
+
+"Full speed astern!" roared Potvin.
+
+But it was too late, for a moment afterwards the _Puffin's_ flying
+jib-boom slid neatly through the very centre of the matting sail on the
+junk's mizzen mast.  More shrill cursing and strident execration from
+the junk, followed by a series of bumps and crashes as the two vessels
+collided, bow to stern.  A large pig, suspended, according to the
+pleasant habit of the Chinese, in a wicker-work basket over the junk's
+quarter, also two similar baskets filled with fowls, became detached
+from their moorings and fell overboard.  Then the junk's mizzen-mast
+began to bend ominously, and before long, amidst more shrieks and
+yells, it snapped off short and collapsed on the poop, knocking one
+elderly Chinaman and two children into the water as it fell.  It was
+followed almost immediately afterwards by the _Puffin's_ flying
+jib-boom.
+
+The gunboat's engines were stopped and the two vessels drifted together
+side by side, while a party with axes set to work to clear away the
+wreckage.
+
+"Why on earth don't you look where you're going?" the Commander bawled
+at the junkmaster.
+
+"Yah me ping wi taow!" howled the Chinaman, which, being interpreted,
+means, "You tailless son of a devil," the greatest possible insult.
+
+It was followed by more mutual abuse and recrimination, but the
+gentleman in the junk, since Commander Potvin could not understand a
+word he said, was popularly supposed to have got the best of the wordy
+encounter.
+
+But the skipper was quite determined to have somebody's blood, and
+seeing he could make no impression on the junk, vented his spleen on
+the Navigator.
+
+"Mr. Falland!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing and his heart full of
+rage.  "The collision was entirely your fault.  I shall report the
+matter to the Admiral, and meanwhile you will remain in your cabin
+under arrest!"
+
+"But, sir.  I really----"
+
+"I require no explanations, sir.  You are guilty of gross neglect and
+carelessness!"
+
+Falland left the poop.
+
+The damage was not sufficiently serious to delay the ship, and, having
+chopped herself free, she proceeded on her journey, her Commander
+taking upon himself the duties of the deposed Navigator.
+
+It was unfortunate that, in calculating the course to be steered, he
+applied 3 deg. deviation the wrong way.  It was equally unfortunate that he
+miscalculated the set of the current, since it was these two things
+which, at 11.53 a.m. precisely, caused the gunboat to come into violent
+contact with a ledge of rocks with barely six feet of water over them
+at high water.
+
+"Good heavens!  What's that?" shouted the skipper, as there came a
+series of muffled, grinding crashes under water and the ship stopped
+dead.
+
+"We've hit something, sir," said Pardoe, who was on the poop.  They
+had, and for some hours remained stuck fast.  In fact, the _Puffin's_
+bones would have been there to this day if she had not been steaming at
+her leisurely, economical speed of 7 1/2 knots, and it was only by
+sheer good luck, and with the assistance of salvage tugs and appliances
+from Hong-Kong, that she was ever got off at all.  As it was she was
+merely badly damaged, and came back into harbour in tow of one tug,
+while a couple of others, with their pumps working at full speed and
+gushing forth streams of water, were lashed alongside her.
+
+Falland was not court-martialled, but a week later Commander Potvin,
+after an interview with the Admiral and certain medical officers, found
+that the climate of Hong-Kong was too rigorous for his constitution,
+and embarked on board a P. and O. steamer for passage home to England
+_en route_ for Yarmouth.
+
+The gunboat's officers watched her until she was out of sight, and then
+repaired to the wardroom and indulged in cocktails.
+
+"I'm sorry for him," said No. One, lifting his glass with a grin.
+
+"Here's luck to him, and to us."
+
+"Salve," nodded the doctor, swallowing his potion at a gulp.
+
+The Royal Naval Hospital for mental cases is situated at Yarmouth.
+
+
+
+[1] The commanding officer of a man-of-war, whatever his rank, is
+always "the captain."  More familiarly he may be referred to "the
+owner," "skipper," or "old man."
+
+
+
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