"Where shall we go?" asked Standish, smiling, during a lull when the crew sat panting and flushed with exertion, grinning at each other over the tops of the thwarts.

"Any blooming where," shouted Thorogood. "As long as it is out of sight of the Fleet. I feel I've seen enough of the Silent Navy for an hour or two." Then raising his voice he chanted:

"Put me upon an island where the girls are few..."

"Right," retorted the Indian-rubber Man. "We'll go round this little headland. Ready about! Check the fore sheet! Come aft out of the bows, Pills, you clown, unless you want us to miss stays."

"I don't want to go to an island," cried the Surgeon plaintively, "where the girls are few." He surveyed the heather-crowned islets surrounding them on all sides, the lonely haunts of cormorants and black-backed gulls. "I'm all for houris and sirens and whatnots——"

The foresail swung across and knocked him into the bottom of the boat.

"You frail Ulysses!" exclaimed Thorogood, as they set sail on the new course. "You aren't to be trusted in these populous parts. We must lash you to the mast!"

"And stop his ears with cotton-wool," said a Midshipman whose acquaintance with the classics was still a recent, if sketchy acquisition.

A party set off into the bows to put the proposal into immediate execution, but the imminence of land and a shout from the helmsman arrested them in their purpose:

"Down foresail. Top up mainsail!" The cutter, with the skiff towing peacefully astern, glided into a little bay where miniature cliffs, some twenty feet in height, rose from a narrow shale-strewn beach. The anchor plashed overboard.

"Here we are, here we are, here we are again!" carolled the Surgeon lustily. "Come alongside, skiff! The landing of the Lancashire Fusiliers is about to commence under a withering fire!"

A letter received that morning from a soldier brother who had taken part in that epic of human gallantry had apparently inspired the Young Doctor. He pointed ahead with a dramatic gesture at the cliffs. "Yonder are the Turks! See, they fly, they fly!" A pair of agitated cormorants, sunning themselves on the rocks, flew seaward with outstretched necks. "Lead on, brave lads, and I will follow!"

The skiff came bumping alongside, and Mouldy Jakes, galvanised into wakefulness by the confusion and laughter, found himself inextricably entangled in the fishing-line, holding a kettle that someone had thrust upon him in one hand and a frying-pan in the other. Half a dozen partly clad forms, followed by the Doctor, flung themselves headlong into the skiff and made for the shore. The bows grated on the shingle and they sprang out.

"For drill purposes only," explained the Surgeon breathlessly, "we are Turks!"

Under his direction they proceeded to collect pebbles. "A withering volley will accordingly be opened on the Lancashire Fusiliers."

Despite a heavy fire of pebbles, the landing was ultimately effected; the invaders abandoned their trousers and floundered gallantly through the bullet-torn shallows. Ensued a complete rout of the Turks, who were pursued inland across the heather with triumphant shouts and the corpse of a seagull, found on the beach, hurled after them from the point of a piece of driftwood.

The evicted snipers eventually returned with their caps full of plovers' eggs, to find a fire of bleached twigs blazing and sausages frizzling in the frying-pan. They were handed mugs of hot tea.

In the phraseology of chroniclers of Sunday-school treats, "ample justice was done to the varied repast." Then it was discovered that the tide was falling, and a hasty re-embarkation followed.

Sails were hoisted, the anchor weighed, and the cutter, with the empty skiff in tow, headed for the West, where the sun was already setting in a great glory of gold.

The brief warmth of a Northern spring day had passed, and, as they rounded the promontory and the Fleet hove in sight once more, duffle coats and mufflers were donned and a bottle of sloe-gin uncorked.

"Mug-up!" cried the Sub. "Mug-up, and let's get 'appy and chatty." They crowded together in the stern-sheets for warmth, and presently Thorogood started "John Brown's Body Lies A-mouldering in the Grave," without which no properly conducted picnic can come to a fitting conclusion. The purple shadows deepened in the far-off valleys ashore, and anon stole out across the water, enfolding the anchored Fleet into the bosom of another night of a thousand vigils.

It was dusk when they reached the outlying Cruisers, and nearly dark when the first ship in the Battle Fleet hailed them. Then hail answered hail as one Battleship after another rose towering above them into the darkling sky, and one by one passed into silence astern.

Silence also had fallen on the singers. Seen thus from an open boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something awe-inspiring—even to these who lived onboard them—in the stupendous fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. Complete darkness reigned on board, but once a dog barked, and the strains of an accordion drifted across the water as reminders that each of these menacing mysteries was the habitation of their fellow-men. A tiny pin-point of light winked from a yard-arm near by to another pin-point in the Cruiser line: Somebody was answering an invitation to dinner at 7.45 p.m., with many thanks; then, reminder of sterner things, a searchlight leaped out spluttering over their heads, and swept to and fro across the sky like the paint-brush of a giant.

A half-drowsy Midshipman in the bows of the cutter watched the message of hospitality blinking through space; he consulted the luminous dial on his wrist. "H'm," he observed to his companion, "I thought it was getting on for dinner-time. Funny how quickly one gets hungry again."

A hail challenged them from the darkness, and a towering outline loomed familiarly ahead.

"Aye, aye!" shouted the voice of the India-rubber Man from the stern, adding in lower tones, "Boathook up forward. Fore halliards in hand...."

"Home again!" said another voice in the darkness. "And so the long day wears on..."

* * * * *

Dinner in the Gunroom was over. One by one the occupants became engrossed in their wonted evening occupations and amusements.

"Mordaunt," said the sandy-haired Midshipman, rising and opening the gramophone, "would you like to hear George Robey?"

The officer addressed, who was sitting at the table apparently in the throes of literary composition, raised his head. "No," he replied, "I wouldn't; I'm writing a letter. 'Sides I've heard that record at least seven hundred and eighty-one times already."

"Can't help it," retorted the musical enthusiast, winding the handle of the instrument. "I think he's perfectly priceless!" He set the needle, stepped back a pace and stood beaming appreciatively into the vociferous trumpet while the song blared forth.

"Reminds me," said Harcourt, laying down a novel and rising from the corner of the settee where he had curled himself, "I must write to my young sister for her birthday. Lend me a bit of your notepaper, Billy."

His friend complied with the request without raising his eyes. "How d'you spell 'afford'?" he enquired.

"Two f's," replied Harcourt. "'Least I think so. Can I have a dip at your ink?"

"I thought it was two, but it doesn't look right, somehow." The two pens scratched in unison.

Matthews, the Midshipman of the previous Night Patrol, had stretched himself on an adjacent settee and fallen asleep immediately after dinner.

Lettigne, otherwise known as "Bosh," amused himself by juggling with a banana, two oranges and a walnut, relics of his dessert. His performance was being lazily watched by the Sub from the depths of the arm-chair which he had drawn as near to the glowing stove as the heat would allow. It presently attracted the notice of two other Midshipmen who had finished a game of picquet and were casting about them for a fresh distraction. This conversion of edible objects into juggling paraphernalia presently moved one to protest.

"Why don't you eat that banana, Bosh, instead of chucking it about?" he enquired.

"'Cause I can't," said the exponent of legerdemain.

"Why not?" queried the other.

"Too full already," was the graceful response. "I'm just waiting—waiting till the clouds roll by, so to speak."

The two interlocutors eyed each other speculatively.

"Did you have any dessert?" asked one.

"No," was the sorrowful reply. "My extra-bill's up."

Thereupon they rose together and fell straightway upon the juggler. An equal division of the spoil was made while they sat upon his prostrate form, and eaten to the accompaniment of searching prods into their victim's anatomy.

"Bosh, you ought to be jolly grateful to us, really. You'd probably have appendicitis if we let you eat all this—phew! Mally, just feel here.... Isn't he a hog! ..."

"Just like a blooming drum," replied the other, prodding judicially.

Over their heads the tireless voice of the gramophone trumpeted forth its song. The Sub who had kept the Middle Watch the night before, slept the sleep of the tired just. The door opened and a Junior Midshipman entered hot-foot. "Letters," he shouted. "Any letters to be censored? The mail's closing tomorrow morning."

"Yes," replied the two correspondents at the table, simultaneously bringing their letters to a close.

"Hurry up, then," said the messenger. "The Padre's waiting to censor them. He sent me along to see if there were any more."

Mordaunt folded his letter and placed it in an envelope. "Got a stamp, Harcourt? I've run out." He extended a penny.

Harcourt looked up, pen in mouth, thumping his wet sheet with the blotting paper. "In my locker—I'll get you one in a second."

"Oh, do buck up," wailed the messenger. "I want to turn in, an' the Padre's waiting."

"All right," retorted Harcourt. He rose to his feet. "I forgot: little boys lose their roses if they don't get to bed early. Billy, shove that letter in an envelope for me, to save time, while I get the stamp." His friend complied with the request and picked up his pen to address his own epistle. As he did so the prostrate juggler, with a sudden, spasmodic recrudescence of energy, flung his two assailants off him and struggled to a sitting position. They were on him again like wolves, but as they bore him prostrate to the deck he clutched wildly at a corner of the table-cloth.

The next moment the conflict was inextricably involved with the table-cloth, letters, note-paper, envelopes and ink descending upon the combatants in a cascade.

"You clumsy owls," roared Harcourt, returning from his locker. "Now, where's my letter...." He searched among the debris.

"I say, do buck up," wailed the sleepy voice on the threshold.

"Buck up?" echoed Harcourt. "Buck up! How the devil can I buck up—ah, here we are." He picked up an envelope, glanced carelessly under the still open flap and sat down to address it. "Got yours, Billy? Here's the stamp."

"Yes," replied the other, grovelling in the darkness under the table. "This is it." He reappeared with a letter in his hand.

"The Padre——" again began the impatient envoy.

"All right—all right!" Mordaunt hurriedly affixed the stamp and addressed the envelope without looking at the contents. "Here you are," he said, holding it out. The messenger departed hastily.

The bang of the door awoke the Sub.

"Now, then," he said. "Enough of this. Switch off that cursed gramophone. Get up off the deck. Mop that ink up and square off the table-cloth. Knock off scrapping, you three hooligans."

The hooligans obeyed reluctantly, and sat panting and dishevelled on the settee. By degrees the Mess resumed its tranquillity.

Harcourt stretched his slim form and yawned sleepily. "I'm going to turn in now. And to-morrow know all men that I start training."

"That's right," said Lettigne, still panting and adjusting his disordered garments. "Nothing like being really fit—ready to go anywhere an' do anything—that's my motto." He rang the bell and ordered a bottle of ginger beer.



[1] Tinned sausages. A delicacy peculiar to Gunrooms of the Fleet.



CHAPTER V

UNCLE BILL

Sir William Thorogood rose from the table on which lay a confusion of papers, drawings and charts. He walked across the cabin to the tiled fireplace, selected a cigar from his case, and lit it with precise care.

"You're right," he said. "You've put your finger on the weak spot. No one in Whitehall saw it, and they're seamen. I didn't see it, and—and I'm called a scientist." He made an imperceptible inclination of his head towards his companion as if to convey a compliment.

The other occupant of the broad cabin smiled a little grimly. "It's a question of actual experience," he said. "Experience of this particular form of warfare, and the means of meeting it hitherto at our disposal."

He pencilled some figures on a piece of paper and studied them with knitted brows.

"It's a pity," he said presently. "You're on the brink of the most stupendous discovery of our day. The submarine was a wonderful invention, and there's no limit to the possibilities of its development—or abuse. Until an effective counter can be devised it remains a very terrible menace to civilisation in the hands of an unscrupulous belligerent."

Sir William smoked in silence. His thin, aristocratic face, and his level grey eyes, had a look of fatigue. "I was particularly glad to avail myself of your invitation," he said. "I wanted practical experience of the conditions in the North Sea—weather and visibility. And, later on, in the North Atlantic. I'm going over to Ireland next month." His tired eyes followed the blue smoke curling upwards. "Of course, the experiments we tried down South answered all right for short distances. That's what rather deceived us. They were harbour trials, no more. We want something more exhaustive than that. And, as you say, there's the pull of the tides to consider.... Confound the tide!"

His companion smiled. "That's what Canute said. Or words to that effect. But it didn't help matters much."

"Quite," replied Sir William dryly. "Well, I should like to take a patrol boat and one of our submarines for a day or two and test that new theory—to-morrow if I may. And—while I think of it—I have promised a young nephew of mine to dine with him to-night in his ship, if it in no way inconveniences you?"

The other nodded, and, reaching out his hand, pressed the button of an electric bell beside his desk.

* * * * *

It was the hour preceding dinner, and the majority of the members of the Wardroom had congregated in the ante-room to discuss sherry and the day's affairs before descending to their cabins to change. It was a cheerful gathering, as the hour and the place betokened, and the usual mild chaff flowed to and fro in its mysteriously appointed channels.

In Naval communities, as in most others where men are segregated from wider intercourse by a common mode of life and purpose, each one occupies the place designed for him by Destiny for the smooth working of the whole. These types are peculiar to no trade or profession. A gathering of farmers or elders of the Church, or even Christy Minstrels, would, if thrown together for a sufficient period of time, and utterly dependent on one another for daily intercourse, fall into the places allotted to each by temperament and heredity. Each little community would own a wit and a butt; the sentimentalist and the cynic. The churl by nature would appear through some veneer of manner, if only to bring into relief the finer qualities of his fellows; lastly, and most surely, one other would jingle a merciful cap and bells, and mingle motley with the rest.

The First Lieutenant had just come down from the upper-deck, and stood warming his hands by the fire. Big-boned, blue-eyed, health and vitality seemed to radiate from his kindly, forceful personality. Of all the officers on board "Jimmy the One" was, with perhaps the exception of the Captain, most beloved by the men. A seaman to the fingertips, slow to wrath and clean of speech, he had the knack of getting the last ounce out of tired men without driving or raising his voice. Working cables on the forecastle in the cold and snowy darkness, when men's faculties grow torpid with cold, and their safety among the grinding cables depends more upon the alert supervision of the First Lieutenant than the mere instinct for self-preservation, "Jimmy the One" was credited with powers allied to those of the high Gods. "'Tween decks," where the comfort and cleanliness of close on eleven hundred men was mainly his affair, they abused, loved and feared him with whole-hearted affection. His large football-damaged nose smelt out dirt as a Zulu witch-doctor smells out magic. The majority of the vast ship's company—seamen ratings, at all events—he knew by name. He also presided over certain of the lower-deck amusements, and, at the bi-weekly cinema shows, studied their tastes in the matter of Charlie Chaplin and the Wild West with the discrimination of a lover choosing flowers for his mistress.

His own personal amusements were few. He admitted possessing three books which he read and re-read in rotation: "Peter Simple," "Alice in Wonderland," and a more recent discovery, Owen Wister's "Virginian." A widowed mother in a Yorkshire dower house was the only relative he was ever heard to refer to, and for her benefit every Sunday afternoon he sat down for an hour, as he had since schooldays, and wrote a boyish, detailed chronicle of his doings during the past week.

The two watch-keeping Lieutenants sat one on each arm of the deep-seated chesterfield opposite the fire. They were the Inseparables of the Mess, knit together in that curious blend of antagonistic and sympathetic traits of character which binds young men in an austere affection passing the love of woman. One was short and stout, the other tall and lean; an illustration in the First Lieutenant's edition of "Alice in Wonderland" supplied them with their nicknames, which they accepted from the first without criticism or demur.

The Fleet Surgeon sat between them cleaning a pipe with a collection of seagull's feather gathered for the purpose on the golf links ashore. He was thin, a grey-haired, silent man. His face, in repose, was that of a deliberate thinker whose thoughts had not led him to an entirely happy goal. Yet his smile when amused had a quality of gratitude to the jester, not altogether without pathos. He had a slightly cynical demeanour, a bitter tongue, and a curiously sympathetic, almost tender manner with the sick. He was professedly a fierce woman-hater, and when ashore passed children quickly with averted eyes.

Of a different type was the Paymaster, sunny as a schoolboy, irresponsible in leisure hours as the youngest member of the Mess. Perhaps there had been a time when he had not found life an altogether laughing matter. He had an invalid wife; his means were small, and most of his life had been spent at sea. But misfortune seemed to have but tossed a challenge to his unquenchable optimism and faith in the mercy of God. He had picked up the gage with a smile, flung it back with a laugh, and with drawn blade joined the gallant band of those who strive eternally to defend the beleaguered Citadel of Human Happiness.

Others came and went among the gathering; the Engineer Commander, fiercely bearded and moustached, who cherished an inexplicable belief that a studied soldierly accent and bearing helped him in his path through life. The Major, clean-shaven and philosophic; the Gunnery Lieutenant, preoccupied with his vast responsibilities, a seaman-scientist with a reputation in the football-field. The Torpedo Lieutenant, quiet, gentle-mannered, fastidious in his dress and not given to overmuch speech. The Engineer-Lieutenant, whose outlook on life alternated between moods of fierce hilarity and brooding melancholy, according to the tenour of a correspondence with a distracting Red Cross nursing sister exposed to the perils of caring for good-looking military officers in the plains of Flanders. Lastly, the Captain of Marines; he was the musician of the Mess, much in demand at sing-songs; editor, moreover, of the Wardroom magazine, a periodical whose humour was of a turn mercifully obscure to maiden aunts. A first-class cricketer and racquet-player, a student of human nature with a tolerance for the failings of others that suggested a strain of Latin blood, and a Marine with an almost passionate pride in the great traditions of his Corps.

Such were among the occupants of the anteroom when Thorogood entered the crowded room and crossed over to the door leading to the Wardroom where the Marine waiters were laying the table.

"Tell the Messman I've got a guest to dinner," said Thorogood to the Corporal of the Wardroom servants.

The Young Doctor, who was leaning against the overmantel of the stove warming himself, crossed over to Thorogood with an expression of portentous solemnity on his face.

"James," he said, and laid a hand on the other's shoulder, "before you get busy on the wassail-bowl, my lad, I should like to remind you that the boat's crew will commence training for the Regatta at 7 A.M. to-morrow. No fatheads wanted. Enough said."

The Gunnery Lieutenant looked up from a game of draughts with Double-O Gerrard, the Assistant Paymaster. "Who've you got dining with you, Jimmy?" he asked. The introduction of "new blood" into a Mess, even for the evening, is generally a matter of interest to the inmates.

"An old uncle of mine," was the reply. "He signalled from the Flagship that he was coming to dinner. I don't know what he's doing up here."

Mouldy Jakes, who was sitting on an arm of the sofa watching the game of draughts, looked across at Thorogood.

"Sir William?" he asked. "Is that man of mystery up here? What's he up to?"

"Don't know," replied Thorogood. "Dirty work, I suppose."

The Young Doctor assumed an expression of rapture. "What!" he cried, "my old college chum Sir William!" Then with a swift change of mimicry he bent into a senile pose with nodding head and shaking fingers, mumbling at his lips:

"Ah! Ah!" he wheezed, "how time flies! I mind the day when he and I were lads together—hee-hee—brave lads ... Eton and Christ Church together——" He broke off into a decrepit chuckle.

"Dry up, Pills, you ass," cried the Torpedo Lieutenant, laughing. "You aren't a bit funny—in fact, I'm not sure you aren't rather bad form."

"Bad form?" echoed the First Lieutenant. "Let us see now. What's the penalty for bad form, Pay? I've forgotten."

"To be devoured by lions," said the Paymaster calmly, with an eye on the sofa where Garm, the bull-terrier, sprawled as usual.

"That's right," said the First Lieutenant, "so it is: devoured of lions."

The next moment the Doctor was tripped up into the depths of the sofa, the bull-terrier, thus rudely awakened from slumber, dumped on top of him, and his struggles stifled by the bodies of the Paymaster and First Lieutenant. "Eat him, Garm—Hi! good beastie! Chew his nose, lick his collar...!"

The great bull-terrier, accustomed to being the instrument of such summary execution, entered into the game with zest, and sprawling across the Surgeon's chest with one massive paw on his face, nuzzled and slavered in an abandonment of affectionate gusto.

"Oh!—oh!—oh!—pah!—phew!" The victim writhed and spluttered protests. "Dry up—Garm, you great donkey! Piff!—you're—smothering—me—beast! Ugh! my collar—clean—no offence—Jimmy, I 'pologise—lemme get up ... Faugh!"

In the midst of the uproar the door opened and the Midshipman of the Watch appeared.

"Mr. Thorogood, sir," he called. "Someone to see you."

The group on the sofa broke up. The Surgeon sat up panting and wiping his face. The dog jumped to the deck and accompanied Thorogood across to the door, wagging a friendly tail.

Sir William Thorogood, hat in hand, with his cloak over his arm, entered the ante-room. His eyeglass fell from his eye.

"Hullo, Uncle Bill," exclaimed his nephew. "You're early—nice and early—we've just started training for the Regatta and we're straffing the coxswain by way of a start! Er—Staff Surgeon Tucker, Sir William Thorogood."

The Surgeon advanced with a rather embarrassed grin and shook hands with the eminent scientist.

"I fancy I knew your father once," said the latter smiling. "He held the chair of Comparative Anatomy—we were at college together—bless me!—a good many years ago now." He stood smiling down at Pills from his lean height.

The Mess chortled at the Surgeon's discomfiture. Thorogood turned to the Commander who had just then entered. "This is Commander Hornby," he said, and introduced the two men. "There's Mouldy—you remember him?" Mouldy Jakes came over and shook hands gravely. "And this is the rest of the Mess." He included the remainder with a wave of his hand, and Sir William acknowledged the informal general introduction with the grave, smiling self-possession of the perfectly bred Englishman.

"Now," said his nephew, "what about a cocktail, Uncle Bill?"

"Yes," said Mouldy Jakes, sharing with his friend the responsibility of entertaining this eminent guest. "We've got rather a good brand—fizzy ones. Do you a power of good, sir!"

Sir William laughed. "Thank you," he said, "but fizzy cocktails and I came to the parting of the ways more years ago than I care to remember. Perhaps I may be allowed to join you in a glass of sherry....?"

"Rather," said his host, and gave the order. "Well, Uncle Bill," he said, "what brings you up to Ultima Thule and on board the Flagship?"

The Scientist helped himself to a biscuit from the tray on a little table near the door. "I'm staying with—with an old friend for a few days, for a change of air," he said. He took the proffered glass of sherry and sipped it appreciatively. "May I congratulate you on your excellent sherry?"

"It's not bad," said Mouldy Jakes. "I'm the wine caterer," he added modestly.

At this juncture dinner was announced and they passed through into the long Wardroom.

Shaded electric lights hung down above the table that traversed the length of the Mess. A number of ornamental pieces of silver and trophies adorned the centre of the table and winked and glistened against the dark mahogany. Slips of white napery ran down on either side, on which the glasses, silver and cutlery lay. They took their places, the presidential hammer tapped, and the Chaplain, rising, offered brief thanks. Immediately after a buzz of conversation broke out generally.

Sir William, on the right of the President, indicated the glittering trophies. "I see you keep your plate on board," he said, smiling, "even in war."

The Commander laughed. "Well," he said, "all these things we actually won ourselves. There's a lot more stuff—the things that belong to the ship itself, one commission as much as another, and those we landed. Then, if we get sunk, successive ships bearing our name will carry them, you see ... yes, half a glass, please. But all you see here we won at battle practice just before the war, boat-racing and so on.... Incidentally we hope to win the Squadron Regatta this year. That big one over there was from the passengers of a burning ship we rescued.... If we're sunk they may as well go down with us; at least, that's how we look at it. It is only in keeping with our motto, after all."

He pushed across a silver menu-holder, bearing the ship's crest and motto on a scroll beneath it. The guest picked it up and examined it. "What we hold we hold," he read. "Yes, I see. It's not a bad interpretation."

Sir William looked round the table at the laughing, animated faces—many of them little more than boys seen through the long perspective of his own years.

The Chaplain was having "his leg hauled." The joke was obscure, and concerned an episode of bygone days which appeared to be within the intimate recollection of at least half the number seated round the table.

The other half were demanding enlightenment, and in the laughter and friendly mischief on certain faces Sir William read an affectionate, mysterious freemasonry apparently shared by all.

For a moment he leaned back, contemplating in imagination the scores of great ships surrounding them on all sides, invisible in the night: in each Wardroom there was doubtless a similar cheerful gathering beneath the shaded electric lights. Musing thus, glancing from face to face, and listening, half uncomprehending, to the laughing jargon, he glimpsed for an instant the indefinable Spirit of the Fleet. Each of these communities, separated by steel and darkness from the other, shared it. It stretched back into a past of unforgotten memories, linking one and all in a brotherhood that compassed the waters of the earth, and bore their traditions with unfailing hands across the hazard of the future.

The meal drew to a close and the decanters went slowly round. Mouldy Jakes, from his seat opposite the President, was attempting to catch Sir William's eye. His nephew intercepted and interpreted the gesticulations. "Mouldy's recommending the Madeira, Uncle Bill," said his nephew; "he evidently feels that his reputation as wine caterer is at stake after your comments on the sherry!"

Sir William laughed and filled his glass accordingly.

Obedient to a signal conveyed to the Bandmaster by a Marine waiter, the band in the flat outside came suddenly to a stop.

Down came the President's hammer, and the name of the King preceded the raising of glasses. Then the violins outside resumed their whimpering melody; coffee followed a second circulation of the decanters, and presently the smoke of cigars and cigarettes began to eddy across the polished mahogany.

A few minutes later the Master-at-Arms entered the Wardroom, and stepping up to the Commander's chair, reported something in a low voice. The Commander turned sideways to the guest of the evening. "Will you excuse me if I leave you?" he said. "I have to go the rounds." And rising from the table left a gap at Sir William's side. Intimate conversation between uncle and nephew, hitherto impracticable, was now possible.

"How's Cecily, Uncle Bill?" asked James. "Which reminds me," he added, "that I met Armitage when I was coming back from leave."

Sir William removed his cigar and contemplated the pale ash with inscrutable eyes.

"I heard from Armitage," he replied. "Did you by any chance meet his companion on the journey up?"

James shook his head. "No, I only saw Armitage for a moment, and that was in the darkness at the rail-head. But you haven't told me how Cecily is."

"She wants to go to America," replied his uncle.

"America!" echoed his nephew. "Why?"

"To stay with an old school friend. It seems she wants to go over for a Newport season."

"But," said James and paused, "are you going to let her go, Uncle Bill?"

"She says she's going," was her guardian's reply.

James smoked in silence for a moment.

"But Newport," he said. "Where on earth did Cecily develop a taste for that sort of life?"

"Read about it in a book, I fancy," said Sir William.

"But it isn't the sort of thing I can imagine appealing to Cecily in the least," objected her cousin. "I know what Cecily likes—pottering about in old tweeds with a dog, sketching and fishing. I can't see her at Bailey's Beach surf-bathing with millionaires in the family diamonds. Besides, what about her war work—her Hospital Supply Depot?"

Sir William made no answer.

"Is she unhappy about anything?" pursued James. "Has Armitage been making love to her? I know he used to follow her about like a sick dog, but I didn't know it upset her."

Sir William smiled. "No," he said, "I shouldn't have said so either. But I don't claim any profound insight into the feminine mind. All I know is that she looks rather pale, and she has grown uncommonly quiet. At times she has restless moods of rather forced gaiety. But the reason for it all, I'm afraid, is beyond me."

"Do you remember d'Auvergne?" asked his nephew suddenly. "Podgie d'Auvergne. He spent a summer leave with us once, and he used to come up to town a good deal from Whale Island when he was there. Do you think Cecily is in love with him?"

"Bless me," said Sir William helplessly, "I don't know. I never remember her saying so. Do you think that would account for—for her present mood? Women are such curious beings——"

"I know he's fearfully gone on her," said James, "but he lost a foot early in the war. He hasn't been near her since."

"Why not?" asked the Scientist vaguely.

"Oh, because—because he's fearfully sensitive about it. And he's frightfully in love with her. You see, a thing like that tells enormously when a fellow's in love."

"Does it?" enquired Sir William. "Well, granted that your theory is correct, I fail to see what I am to do. I can't kidnap this young man and carry him to my house like the alien visitor you once brought to disturb my peaceful slumbers."

"Ah," said James, "Crabpots!" He chuckled retrospectively.

"If he has really developed a neurotic view of his injury, as you imply," continued the older man, "it's no use my inviting him, because he would only refuse to come."

"You'll have to work it somehow," replied his nephew. "Sea voyages aren't safe enough just now—we'd never forgive ourselves if we let Cecily go and anything happened to her—or Podgie either," he added grimly.

By twos and threes the members of the Mess had risen from the table and drifted into the ante-room to play bridge, or to their cabins, there to write letters, read, or occupy themselves in wood-carving and kindred pursuits. At a small table in the comer of the long Mess the officers of the Second Dog Watch had finished a belated meal, and were yarning in low voices over their port.

James and his uncle alone remained seated at the long table.

"Well," said the former, "let's move on, Uncle Bill. Would you like a rubber of bridge?"

"I can play bridge in London," replied his guest, rising. "No, Jim, I think I'd like to take this opportunity of paying a visit to the Gunroom. When you are my age you'll find a peculiar fascination about youth and its affairs. Do you think they'd object to my intrusion?"

"They'd be awfully bucked," said James. "Come along." As they passed out of the door they met the Marine postman entering with his arms full of letters and papers. "Hullo," he continued, "here's the mail—you'll see a Gunroom devouring its letters: rather like a visit to the Zoo about feeding-time!"

They came to the door of the Gunroom, and James, opening it, motioned his guest to enter. One end of the table resembled a bee swarm: a babel of voices sounded as those nearest the pile of letters shouted the names of the addressees and tossed the missives back over their heads.

The two men stood smiling and unobserved in the doorway until the distribution was complete. Then they were seen, and the Sub advanced to extend the hospitality of his realm.

"Kedgeree," said James, "this is my uncle. He's getting bored with the Wardroom and I've brought him along here." The Sub laughingly shook hands, and the inmates in his immediate vicinity gathered round with the polite air of a community of whom something startling was expected.

"Won't you sit down, sir?" asked one, drawing forward the battered wicker arm-chair. "It's all right as long as you don't lean back—but if you do we must prop it against the table." He suited the action to the words, and the guest sat down rather gingerly.

"Won't you have something to drink?" queried Kedgeree. "Whisky and soda or something?"

Sir William smilingly declined.

"Would you care to hear the gramophone?" queried the champion of that particular form of entertainment. "We've got some perfectly priceless George Robey ones—have you ever heard 'What there was, was Good?'" He moved towards the instrument.

"Never," said Sir William, taking advantage of the support afforded by the table and leaning back, "but nothing would give me greater pleasure."

The disk had no sooner commenced to revolve when Lettigne advanced with a soda-water bottle, a corkscrew and half a lemon, collected at random from the sideboard.

"I don't know if you like watching a bit of juggling," he said shyly, and began to throw into the air and catch his miscellany, while the trumpet of the gramophone proclaimed that "What there was, was Good," in stentorian, brazen shouts.

Sir William screwed his eyeglass tighter into his eye. "Remarkable!" he said warmly. "A remarkably deft performance! Capital! Capital!"

The Gunroom eyed one another anxiously. It was only a question of moments before the perspiring Bosh smashed something; the gramophone record was palpably cracked; their powers of entertainment were rapidly reaching their climax. Then came a diversion. The door opened and the Midshipman of the Watch entered.

"The Flagship's barge has called for you, sir," he said.

The gramophone stopped as if by magic, and the overheated juggler caught and retained the soda-water bottle, the corkscrew and the half lemon with a gasp of relief.

Sir William rose regretfully and held out his hand. "I have to thank you all for a very delightful quarter of an hour," he said, smiling, and took his departure amid polite murmurs of farewell, followed by James. Proof of his appreciation of the entertainment reached them a week later in the form of an enormous plum cake, and was followed thereafter at regular intervals by similar bounty.

Lettigne sat down and wiped his forehead. "Phew!" he said when the door had closed behind the visitors. "Who was that old comic? I didn't catch his name."

"Sir William Thorogood," replied another. "He's full of grey-matter." He tapped his forehead, and stepping across to the common bookshelf indicated the back of a text book on advanced mechanics. "That's one of his little efforts," he said.

Lettigne followed the other's finger. "Good night!" he ejaculated. "Have I been giving a display of my unequalled talents for the benefit of the man who has caused me more sleepless nights than Euclid himself? Here is poor old George Robey been shouting himself hoarse too——"

"And I haven't even looked at my mail yet," said Harcourt, drawing an unopened letter from his pocket. He slit the envelope and sat down in the vacated arm-chair. It was from his sister at school in Eastbourne, and enclosed another written in a vaguely familiar hand. Boy like he read the enclosure first:

DEAR FATHER [it ran],—I have just put my name down for the boxing championship, and I'll do my best to win, because I know how awfully keen you are. All the same, I think it's a pity you took up that bet with Harcourt's father at the club. He probably can afford to lose and you can't. There are lots of things that Mother wants that ten pounds would buy. Besides, Harcourt is my best friend, and if we both get into the finals it would be beastly and like fighting for money. I wish you hadn't told me. I must end now. With love to Mother and Dick. In haste. Your loving son,

BILLY.

Harcourt, grown suddenly rather pale, picked up his sister's letter and read with puzzled brows:

DEAR HARRY,—When I opened your last letter I found the enclosed. It had evidently been put in by mistake, because the envelope was in your handwriting. I am sending it back....

Harcourt pursed up his lips into a whistling shape and refolded the enclosure. It was in Mordaunt's handwriting. But how did it get into the envelope he himself had addressed to his sister?

At that moment Mordaunt came across the mess holding out a letter.

"Harcourt," he said, "my father has just sent me this letter. Isn't it your handwriting?"

Harcourt took the sheet of paper and glanced at it. "Yes," he said, "it's one I wrote to my sister for her birthday. And here's one that she has just sent back to me. Is it yours by any chance?"

He carelessly extended the folded missive, and summoning all his self-possession, looked his friend in the eyes and smiled wanly. "I've only just read my sister's letter," he went on. "She seemed rather puzzled..."

Mordaunt took the proffered letter and nodded. "Yes," he said, "it's mine." He, too, paled a little. "I think I know what's happened. Do you remember that scrap just as we were finishing our letters the other night? Bosh pulled the table-cloth down and capsized everything. Our letters got mixed up, and we must have addressed each other's envelopes."

He stood turning the letter to his father over and over in his fingers.

"Well," said Harcourt reassuringly, "it doesn't matter much, old thing, does it? I'm just going to put this in another envelope and send it off to my sister, with a note to explain. There's no harm done! I don't suppose your letter was a matter of vast importance either, was it, Billy?" He spoke lightly, in a tone of amused indifference, and turned to the locker where he kept his writing materials.

The other walked over to the stove, slowly tearing his letter into pieces.

"No," he said. "Oh, no ... none at all."



CHAPTER VI

WET BOBS

A flurry of sleet came out of the east where a broad band of light was slowly widening into day.

The tarpaulin cover to the after hatchway was drawn aside as if by a cautious hand, and the rather sleepy countenance of the Young Doctor peered out into the dawning. An expression of profound distaste spread over it, and its owner emerged to the quarterdeck. There he stood shivering, looking about him as if he found the universe at this hour a grossly over-rated place. After a few minutes' contemplation of it thus, he turned up the collar of his great coat, pulled his cap down until it gave him the appearance of a sort of Naval "Artful Dodger," and walked gloomily to the port gangway. The Officer of the Watch, who was partaking of hot cocoa in the shelter of the after superstructure, sighted this forlorn object.

"Morning, Pills!" he shouted. "She's called away: won't be long now." He wiped his mouth and came across the deck to where the other was standing. "Fine morning for a pull," he observed, throwing his nose into the air and sniffing like a pointer. "Smell the heather? Lor'! it does me good to see all you young fellow-me-lads turning up here bright and early with the roses in your cheeks."

The Young Doctor turned a gamboge-tinted eye on the speaker.

"Dry up," he said acidly.

The Officer of the Watch was moved to unseemly mirth. "Where's your crew, Pills? I don't like to see this hanging-on-to-the-slack the first morning of the training season. You're too easy going for a cox, by a long chalk, my lad. You ought to be going round their cabins now with a wet sponge, shouting 'Wet Bobs!' and 'Tally Ho!' and the rest of it."

"Dry up!" was the reply.

"An even temper, boundless tact, a firm manner and an extensive vocabulary—those were the essentials of the cox of a racing boat when I was a lad at College. Why did they make you cox, Pills?"

"'Cos I'm light," retorted the Doctor. "'Cos I'm a damn fool," he added with a sudden access of bitterness. "Look here, Tweedledee, what about this bloomin' boat? Here I've been standing for the last five minutes—ah, there she is."

He gazed distastefully at the lower boom, where two members of the galley's crew were casting off the painter that secured the boat to the Jacob's ladder.

"Now, then," said a loud and cheerful voice at their elbows, "where's this boat we've been hearing such a lot about?" A tall, athletic figure in football shorts and swathed about with many sweaters, with a bright red cushion under his arm, stood gazing in the direction of the lower boom. "Well, I'm blowed," he said, "not alongside yet? You're a nice person, Pills, to leave the organisation of a racing boat's crew to." He looked round the quarterdeck. "Where're all the others? Lazy hogs! Here we are with the sun half over the foreyard and the boat not even manned."

The Surgeon eyed him severely. "You're none too smart on it yourself, Bunje. Where's Thorogood? Where's Number One? Where's Gerrard? Where's—ah, now they're coming."

A sleepy-eyed procession, athletically clad, but not otherwise conveying an impression of vast enthusiasm in the venture, trooped up the hatchway and congregated in a shivering group at the gangway.

"When I go away pulling," said the First Lieutenant, apparently addressing a watchful-eyed gull volplaning past with outstretched wings, "when I go away pulling, I like to get straight into the boat, shove off and start right in. It's this hanging about——"

"It's Tweedledee's fault," protested the coxswain bitterly. "I wrote it down last night on the slate. He's too busy guzzling cocoa to attend to his job, that's the truth of the matter. Are we all here now, anyway...?" He scanned the faces of his little band of heroes. "Derreck!" he said suddenly. "Now, where's Derreck? Really, this is just about the pink limit. How could anyone——"

"Hullo, hullo, hullo!" The form of the Engineer Lieutenant emerged from the superstructure and came skipping towards them. "Sorry, everybody! Am I late? My perishing servant forgot to call me. And then I couldn't find my little short pants. Tweedledee, I've just been having a lap at your cocoa: the Quartermaster said it was getting cold."

"Not mine," replied the Officer of the Watch. "I've finished mine. You've probably drunk the Commander's. He put it down for a minute——"

The face of the Engineer Lieutenant grew suddenly anxious. "Well, what about getting into the boat and shoving off? What are we all standing about getting cold for? I vote we have a jolly good pull, too. Stay away for half-an-hour or so—eh?"

The long, slim galley came at length alongside under the manipulation of the two rather apathetic members of the galley's crew, and the officers' racing crew descended the gangway and took possession of her.

"Now then," said the Young Doctor, "sort yourselves out: Number One stroke, Gerrard bow, Bunje——"

"I'm going bow," said the Engineer Lieutenant. "I pulled bow at Keyham for two years, and in China——"

"If you stand there kagging[1] we'll never get away," interposed the coxswain, "and the Commander will want to know who drank his cocoa. Bunje second stroke, James third stroke. Derreck, you're second bow, and Tweedledum third bow, and for heaven's sake sit down and stop gassing, all of you."

Thorogood leaned forward and extended a stretcher for inspection.

"How the devil am I to pull with a stretcher like this, Pills?" he demanded. "It'll smash before we've gone a yard."

"When I was at Keyham," said the Engineer Lieutenant, slopping water over the canvas parcelling on his oar in a professional manner, "we used to have stretchers made with——"

"We don't want to hear about Keyham," said the First Lieutenant, "we want to get to work. Shove the perishing thing away, James, and stop chawing your fat. If it's good for Nelson it's good enough for you."

"Do we start training in earnest to-day?" demanded the India-rubber Man, gloomily rubbing his calves. "Because I don't mind admitting that I like to start gradually. 'Another-Little-Drink-Won't-Do-Us-Any-Harm' sort of spirit."

"We shan't start at all if Double-O Gerrard doesn't find that blessed boat-hook an' shove her off soon," retorted the long, lean third bow, speaking for the first time.

"I can't see without my glasses," complained the bow, fumbling among the blades of the oars. "Where is the bloomin' thing? Ah, here we are!"

"Shove off forward!" bellowed the voice of the coxswain for the third time.

The bow leaned his weight behind the boathook against the ship's side, and the bows of the galley sheered off slowly.

"We're awa'," said the India-rubber Man, "we're awa'! Lord, 'ow lovely!"

They paddled desultorily for a few strokes. Then the bow "bucketed" and sent a shower of icy spray over the backs of the two after oarsmen. Their loud expostulations were followed by protests from Tweedledum.

"My oar's got a kink!" he announced lugubriously.

"Oars!" said the coxswain. "Now," he said grimly, with the air of a man who had reached the limit of human patience, "I'll give you all a minute. Ease up your belts, tie your feet down, have a wash and brush up, say your prayers, spit on your hands, and get comfortable once and for all. It's the last stand-easy you'll get. We're going to pull round the head of the line if it breaks blood-vessels."

The minute passed in invective directed chiefly against the oars, the stretchers, the crutches, the boat generally and the helmsman in particular. At the expiration of that time, however, they all sat up facing aft, with their hands expectantly gripping the looms of their oars and profound gloom on every countenance.

The coxswain contemplated them dispassionately.

"You're a cheerful-looking lot to start out with to win the cup back!" was his comment. "Oars ready! 'Way together!"

The crew, like a child that suddenly tires of being naughty, bent to their oars, and the boat slid through the water under long, swinging strokes....

* * * * *

Regatta-day broke calm and clear. The hands were piped to breakfast, and the Quartermaster of the Morning Watch, as the latest authority on the vagaries of the barometer, entered the Petty Officers' mess with the air of one in the intimate confidence of the High Gods.

"Glass 'igh an' steady," he announced, helping himself to sausage and mashed potatoes. "We'll 'ave it calm till mebbe five o'clock, then it'll blow from the south'ard. That's down the course. But we won't 'ave no rain to-day."

The Captain of the Forecastle, who read his "Old Moore's Almanac," and was susceptible to signs and portents, confirmed the optimism of the Quartermaster.

"I 'ad a dream last night," he said. "I was a-walkin' with my missus alongside the Serpentine—in London, that is. There was swans sailin' on it, an' we was 'eavin' bits of bread to 'em. 'Fred,' she says, 'you'll 'ave it beautiful for your regatta. You'll win,' she says, 'the Stokers' Cutters, the Vet'rans' Skiff's, the Orficers' Gigs, an' the All-comers.'"

"That's along of you eatin' lobster for supper last night," said the Ship's Painter, a sceptic who had a sovereign on a race not mentioned by the Captain of the Forecastle's wife. "Wot about the perishin' Boys' Cutters? Didn't your old Dutch say nothin' about them?"

The seer shook his head and performed intricate evolutions with a pin in the cavernous recesses of his mouth.

"Mebbe she would 'ave if she'd 'ad the chanst," was the reply. "But she didn't 'ave time to say no more afore the Reveille interrupted 'er, an' I 'ad to turn out."

The Quartermaster of the Morning Watch concluded his repast. "Well," he said, "Mebbe she'll tell you the rest to-night. Then we'll know 'oo's 'oo, as the sayin' is. But there's one crew as I'll put my shirt on, an' that's the Orficers' Gigs."

"'Ow about the Boys' Cutters?" demanded the Ship's Painter whose sovereign was in jeopardy.

"An' the Vet'rans' Skiffs," echoed the Captain of the Forecastle, "what my wife mentioned? 'Fred,' she says——"

"An' the All-comers," interrupted the Captain of the Side, "wiv the Chief Buffer[2] coxin' the launch?"

The Quartermaster of the Morning Watch made a motion with an enormous freckled paw as if stroking an invisible kitten. "I ain't sayin' nothin' against 'em. Nothin' at all. What I says is, 'Wait an' see.' I ain't a bettin' man, not meself. But if anyone was to fancy an even 'arf quid——"

The shrill whistle of the call-boy's pipe clove the babel of the crowded mess-deck.

"A-a-away Racing Whaler's Crew!"

shouted the cracked high tenor. "Man your boat!"

"There you are!" said the Blacksmith, a silent, bearded man. "What are we all 'angin' on to the slack for? Come on deck. That's the first race."

Regatta-day, even in War-time, was a day of high carnival. The dozen or so of Battleships concerned, each with its crew of over a thousand men, looked forward to the event much in the same spirit as a Derby crowd that gathers overnight on Epsom Downs. The other Squadrons of the vast Battle-fleet were disposed to ignore the affair; they had their own regattas to think about, either in retrospection or as an event to come. But in the Squadron immediately concerned it was, next to the annihilation of the German Fleet, the chief consideration of their lives, and had been for some weeks past.

For weeks, and in some cases months, the racing crews of launches, cutters, gigs, and whalers, officers and men alike, had carried through an arduous training interrupted only by attentions to the King's enemies and the inclemencies of the Northern spring. And now that the day had come, both spectators and crews moved in an atmosphere of holiday and genial excitement heated by intership rivalry to fever-point.

A regatta is one of the safety valves through which the ships' companies of the silent Fleet in the North can rid themselves of a little superfluous steam. Only those who have shared the repressed monotony of their unceasing vigil can appreciate what such a day means. To be spared for a few brief hours the irksome round of routine, to smoke Woodbines the livelong day; to share, in the grateful sunlight, some vantage point with a "Raggie," and join in the full-throated, rapturous roars of excitement that sweep down the mile-long lane of ships abreast the sweating crews. This is to taste something of the fierce exhilaration of the Day that the Fleet is waiting for, and has awaited throughout the weary years.

A Dockyard tug, capable of accommodating several hundred men, lay alongside. The ship had swung on the tide at an angle to the course that obscured full view of the start. Those of the ship's company who desired a full complete spectacle from start to finish were to go away and anchor at some convenient point in the line, from which an uninterrupted panorama could be obtained. The device had other advantages: by anchoring midway down the course a flagging crew could be spurred on to mightier efforts by shouts and execrations, the beating of gongs, hooting syren and fog-horns, whistles and impassioned entreaties.

Accordingly the more ardent supporters of the various crews, armed with all the implements of noise and encouragement that their ingenuity could devise, embarked. They swarmed like bees over the deck and bridge-house, they clung to the rigging and funnel stays, and perched like monkeys on the mast and derrick. Thus freighted the craft moved off amid deafening cheers, and took up a position midway between two Battleships moored in the centre of the line. The anchor was dropped, and the closely packed spectators, producing mouth-organs and cigarettes, prepared to while away the time until the commencement of the first race.

They belonged to a West-country ship—that is to say, one manned from the Dockyard Port of Plymouth. The master of the tug, whose interest in such matters was, to say the least of it, cosmopolitan, had anchored between two Portsmouth-manned Battleships. The position he had selected commanded a full view of the course, and there his responsibilities in the affair ended. On the other hand, the crews of the two Battleships in question, assembled in full strength on their respective forecastles in anticipation of the forthcoming race, regarded the arrival of the tug in the light of a diversion sent straight from Heaven.

The tug's cable had scarcely ceased to rattle through the hawse-pipe when the opening shots, delivered through a megaphone, rang out across the water.

"'Ullo! Web-feet!" bellowed a raucous voice. "Yeer! Where be tu?" A roar of laughter followed this sally.

The occupants of the tug were taken by surprise. Their interests had hitherto been concentrated in the string of whalers being towed down to the distant starting-point by a picket boat. Before they could rally their forces a cross-fire of rude chaff, winged by uproarious laughter, had opened on either side. Catch-word and jest, counter and repartee utterly unintelligible to anyone outside Lower-deck circles were hurled to and fro like snowballs. Every discreditable incident of their joint careers as units of that vast fighting force, personalities that would have brought blushes to the cheeks of a Smithfield porter, the whole couched in the obscure jargon of Catwater and Landport taverns, rang backwards and forwards across the water, and withal the utmost good humour and enjoyment wreathing their faces with smiles.

The distant report of a gun sounded and a far-off roar of voices announced that the first race had started; straight-way the tumult subsided, and an expectant hush awaited the approach of the line of boats moving towards them like a row of furious water-beetles.

The race drew nearer, and ship after ship of the line took up the deep-toned roar. The names of the ships, invoked by their respective ship's companies as might the ancients have called upon their Gods, blended in one great volume of sound. The more passionately interested supporters of the crews followed the strung-out competitors in steam-boats, and added their invocations to the rest.

A rifle cracked on board the end ship of the line, and the crew of the leading boat collapsed in crumpled heaps above their oars. The race was over. On board a ship half-way down the line a frantic outburst of cheering suddenly predominated above all other sounds, and continued unabated as the rifle cracked twice more in quick succession, announcing that the second and third boats had ended the race.

A hoist of flags at the masthead of the Flagship proclaimed the names of the first three crews, dipped, and was succeeded by the number of the next race. Again the gun in the bows of the Umpire's steam-boat sped the next race upon its way, and once more the tumult of men's voices rose and swelled to a gale of sound that swept along the line, and died to the tumultuous cheering of a single ship.

A couple of hours passed thus, and there remained one race before dinner, the Officers' Gigs. The events of the forenoon had considerably enhanced the reputation of the Captain of the Forecastle as a prophet. Furthermore, the result of the Boys' Race had enriched the Ship's Painter to the extent of a sovereign. It needed but the victory of the Officers' Gigs to place the ship well in sight of the Silver Cock, which was the Squadron Trophy for the largest number of points obtained by any individual ship.

The starting-point was the rallying-place for every available steam- and motor-boat in the Squadron, crowded with enthusiastic supporters of the different crews. The Dockyard tug, with its freight of hoarse yet still vociferous sailor-men, had weighed her anchor, and moved down to the end of the line preparatory to steaming in the wake of the last race.

The Umpire, in the stern of an officious picket-boat, was apparently the only dispassionate participator in the animated scene. The long, graceful-looking boats, each with its crew of six, their anxious-faced coxswains crouched in the sterns, and tin flags bearing the numbers of their ships in the bows, were being shepherded into position. A tense silence was closing down on the spectators. It deepened as the line straightened out, and the motionless boats awaited the signal with their oars poised in readiness for the first stroke.

"Up a little, number seven!" shouted the starter wearily through his megaphone. Two hours of this sort of thing robs even the Officers' Gigs of much outstanding interest to the starter.

"Goo-o-o!" whispered one of the watching men. "'E don't 'arf know 'is job, the coxswain of that boat."

The boat in question with a single slow stroke moved up obediently.

"Stand by!" sang the metallic voice again. Then—

Bang! They were off.

As if released by the concussion, a wild pandemonium burst from the waiting spectators' throats. The light boats sprang forward like things alive, and in their churning wakes came the crowded steam-boats.

For perhaps two minutes the racing boats travelled as if drawn by invisible threads of equal length. Then first one and then another dropped a little. The bow of one of the outside boats broke an oar, and before the oarsman could get the spare one into the crutch the boat slipped to the tail of the race. The spare oar shipped, however, she maintained her position, and her crew continued pulling against hopeless odds with pretty gallantry.

Half-way down the mile course there were only four boats in it. The Flagship's boat led by perhaps a yard, with a rival on either side of her pulling stroke for stroke. Away to the right and well clear, the Young Doctor urged his crew on with sidelong glances out of the corner of his eye at the other boats.

"You've got 'em!" he said. "You've got 'em cold. Steady does it! Quicken a fraction, Number One. Stick it, Bow, stick it, lad!"

The Flagship's boat had increased her lead to half a length ahead of her two consorts: the Young Doctor's crew held her neck and neck. Then the Young Doctor cleared his dry throat and spoke with the tongues of men and fallen angels. He coaxed and encouraged, he adjured and abused them stroke by stroke towards their goal. The crew, with set, white faces and staring eyes fixed on each other's backs, responded like heroes, but Double-O Gerrard was obviously tiring and the First Lieutenant's breath was coming in sobs. They were pulling themselves out.

The roar of voices on either side of the course surged in their ears like the sound of a waterfall. Astern of them was the picket-boat, a graceful feather of spray falling away on either side of the stem-piece. A concourse of Wardroom and Gunroom officers had crowded into her bows, and the Commander, purple with emotion, bellowed incoherencies through a megaphone.

Then, with one keen glance at the Flagship's crew and one at the rapidly approaching finishing line, the Young Doctor chose the psychological moment.

"Stand by!" he croaked. "Now, all together—spurt!"

His crew responded with the last ounce of energy in their exhausted frames. They were blind, deaf and dumb, straining, gasping, forcing "heart and nerve and sinew" to drive the leaden boat through those last few yards. Suddenly, far above their heads, rang out the crack of a rifle, and the next instant another. The crew collapsed as if shot.

For a moment none was capable of speech. Then the First Lieutenant raised his head from his hands.

"Which is it," he asked, "us or them?"

The Young Doctor was staring up at the masthead of the Flagship. A tangle of flags appeared above the bridge-screen.

"I can't read 'em," he said. "Which is it? Translate, someone, for pity's sake."

The crew of the Flagship's boat, lying abreast of them a few yards away, answered the question. They turned towards their late adversaries and began clapping. The next moment the Dockyard tug burst into a triumphant frenzy, and the picket-boat, full of cheering, clapping mess-mates, slid alongside to take the painter.

The First Lieutenant stretched out a large, blistered hand. "Shake, Pills," he said.

* * * * *

One race is, after all, very much like another. Yet the afternoon wore on without any appreciable abatement in the popular enthusiasm. And it was not without its memorable features. The Bandsmen's Race crowned one of the participators in undying fame. This popular hero broke an oar half-way through the race, and rising to his feet promptly sprang overboard.

His spectacular action plunged the remainder of the crew in hopeless confusion, and he himself was rescued with difficulty in a half-drowned state of collapse by the Umpire's boat. Yet for some occult reason no feat of gallantry in action would have won him such universal commendation on the Lower-deck. "Nobby Clark—'im as jumped overboard in the Bandsmen's Race" was thereafter his designation among his fellows.

The last race—the All-comers—did not justify universal expectation. The treble-banked launch was indeed coxed by the Chief Boatswain's Mate. A "Funny-party" in the stern, composed of a clown, a nigger and a stout seaman in female attire, added their exhortations to the "Chief Buffer's" impassioned utterances. But the Flagship's galley, pulling eight oars, with the coxswain perched hazardously out over the stern, won the three-mile tussle, and won it well.

As the Quartermaster of the Morning Watch had foretold, a breeze sprang up towards the close of the day. It blew from the southward and carried down the lines a medley of hilarious sounds.

A drifter hove in sight, shaping course for the Fleet Flagship. She was crowded to suffocation with singing, cheering sailor-men, and secured to her stumpy bowsprit was a silver cock. As she approached the stern of the Flagship, however, the uproar subsided, and the densely thronged drifter was white with upturned, expectant faces.

A solitary figure was walking up and down the quarterdeck of the Battleship. He paused a moment, suddenly stepped right aft to the rail, and smilingly clapped his hands, applauding the trophy in the bows of the drifter. The last rays of the setting sun caught on the broad gold bands that ringed his sleeve almost from cuff to elbow.

A wild tumult of frantic cheering burst out almost like an explosion from every throat still capable of emitting sound. There was gratitude and passionate loyalty in the demonstration, and it continued long after the figure on the quarterdeck had turned away and the drifter had resumed her noisy, triumphant tour of the Fleet.

"That's what I likes about 'im," whispered a bearded seaman hoarsely, as they swung off on their new course. "'E's that 'Uman!" He jerked his head astern in the direction of the mighty Battleship on whose vast quarterdeck the man who bore a share of the Destiny of Europe on his shoulders was still pacing thoughtfully up and down.



[1] Arguing.

[2] Chief Boatswain's Mate.



CHAPTER VII

CARRYING ON

The fresh Northern breeze sent the waves steeplechasing across the surface of the harbour, and lapping over the hull of a British Submarine as she moved slowly past the anchored lines of the Battle-fleet towards the entrance.

Her Commanding Officer stood beside the helmsman, holding a soiled chart in his hands; further aft on the elliptical railed platform of the conning tower a tall, angular, grey-haired man, clad in civilian garb, stood talking to the First Lieutenant. A Yeoman of Signals, his glass tucked into his left arm-pit, was securing the halliards to the telescopic mast, at which fluttered a frayed White Ensign. A couple of figures in sea-boots and duffle coats were still coiling down ropes and securing fenders, crawling like flies about the whale-backed hull. A hundred and fifty feet astern of the conning-tower the unseen propellers threw the water into vortices that went curling away down the long wake.

"We'll pick up the trawler outside," said the Lieutenant-Commander, folding up the chart and sticking it into the breast of his monkey-jacket. "Deep water out there, and we can play about." His face was burned by the sun to the colour of an old brick wall; the tanned skin somehow made his eyes look bluer and his hair fairer than was actually the case; it accentuated the whiteness of his teeth, and gave his quick smile an oddly arresting charm.

The elderly civilian considered him with grave interest before replying. "Thank you," he said. "That's just what I want to do—play about!"

"The other experts are all in the trawler, with the apparatus," supplemented the Lieutenant-Commander. "We're under your orders, sir, for these experiments."

"Thank you," said Sir William Thorogood, Scientist; he drew a cigar case out of his pocket. "I feel rather like a man accepting another's hospitality and spending the day trying to pick his brains."

The Submarine-Commander smiled rather grimly. "You mean you're trying to find a way of cutting our claws and making us harmless?" he said.

"Well—Fritz's claws," amended Sir William.

"Same thing," replied the Lieutenant-Commander. "What's ours to-day is theirs tomorrow—figuratively speakin', that is. If it's sauce for the goose it's sauce for the gander—just tit for tat, this game."

"That," said Sir William, "is rather a novel point of view. It's not exactly one that is taken by the bulk of people ashore."

The figure beside the helmsman crinkled up his eyes as he stared ahead and gave a low-voiced order to the helmsman. "Oh?" he said. "I don't know much about what people ashore think, except that they're all rattled over this so-called Submarine menace. Anyone that's scared is apt to cling to one point of view."

"That is so," replied the Scientist. "But I chose to come out with you to-day for these experiments on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief."

"That's sound," said the Submarine expert. "Because, you know, in the Navy we all look at life from different points of view, according to our jobs. No, thanks, I won't smoke till we get outside. Now, those fellows"—the speaker jerked his head astern to the great grey Battleships—"those big-ship wallahs—they're only just beginning to take Us seriously. I put in my big-ship time at the beginning of the war—we do a year in a big ship, you know, for our sins—and the fellows in the Mess used to jeer at Us. They talked about their rams...." He laughed. "Rams!" he repeated. "They called us pirates. P'raps we were, but we didn't carry bathrooms in those early boats—nor yet manicure sets.... Port ten! ... Ease to five—steady!"

The speaker was silent for a moment, musing. "I don't know that I altogether blame 'em." He turned to his First Lieutenant, a youth some years his junior with preposterously long eyelashes. "'Member the manoeuvres before the War?" The other laughed and nodded. "I torpedoed my revered parent's Battleship," continued the speaker, "at two hundred yards in broad daylight and a flat calm." He chuckled. "Lor' bless me! It's like a fairy tale, lookin' back on it after two years of war."

"Haven't they rather altered their tune since, though?" asked the visitor.

"A bit, yes. They don't quite know how to take us nowadays. We come in from patrol and tie up alongside them to give the men the run of the canteen; they ask us to dinner and give cinema shows for the sailors, bless 'em. We're beginning to feel quite the giddy heroes when we find ourselves among the Battle-fleet."

"Cold feet," interposed the First Lieutenant. "That's what's behind it all. We're It...."

Sir William laughed. "Well," he said, "what about those craft yonder? There I suppose you have yet another point of view?"

A division of Armed Trawlers lumbered out of their path, the bow gun on each blunt forecastle rising and dipping as they plunged in the incoming swell.

"Ah!" said the Lieutenant-Commander, "they're different. They never had any preconceived notions about us or their own invulnerability. The boot's on the other foot there. We used to jeer at them once; but now I'm not so certain...."

"You never know what the hell they'll do next," explained the Lieutenant with the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek-bone. "That's the trouble. 'They knows nothin' an' they fears nothin','" he quoted, smiling.

"The personal element comes in more, I suppose, in those craft," said Sir William musingly. He focused his glasses on a turf cabin ashore. "The Admiral was telling me that a London brain specialist was born in one of those crofter's huts."

The Submarine Commander nodded. "It's not unlikely," he said. "These Northern fishermen are a fine breed. But this patrol work has developed a new type of seaman altogether. We've got a fellow up here huntin' Fritzes—he's a merchant seaman with a commission in the Naval Reserve.... There are times when he makes me frightened, that sportsman. It's a blessing the Hun can't reproduce his type: anyhow, I haven't met any over the other side, or up the Baltic."

"Name of Gedge?" enquired Sir William dryly.

"That's the lad," was the reply. "D'you know him, sir?"

"No, but I've heard of him."

"You'll see him presently," said the other. "He's waiting for us outside onboard his trawler. If you go onboard, have a look at the beam of his fore-hatch: rather interestin'."

"What about it?" asked Sir William.

"A little row of notches—that's all. He adds another from time to time, and I feel sort of sorry for Fritz when he's about."

"Like rats' tails hanging on a stable door," supplemented the First Lieutenant in explanation.

"I see," said Sir William. "This is going to be interesting." He pitched the stump of his cigar overboard and turned up the collar of his ulster as the spray began to drift past their heads.

"We work together sometimes," said the Submarine Officer, "Gedge and I. Little stunts, you know.... It's part of my job, of course, huntin' Fritzes, but it's more than a job with him: it's a holy mission. That's why I'm a bit frightened of him really." The speaker searched the visitor's face with his guileless blue eyes. "I'm afraid of meeting him one day, unexpectedly, before I can establish our identity!" His quick smile flashed across his sunburnt face and was gone again.

The Submarine was passing under frowning walls of cliff, and the murmur of the surf thundering about the caverns and buttresses of that rock-bound coast almost drowned the throb of the engines beneath their feet. Far out to seaward a formation of Mine-sweeping Sloops crept away to the west. Close inshore, where the gulls circled vociferously, an insignificant trawler with a rusty funnel lay rolling in the swell. A wisp of bunting jerked to the stumpy foremast, and a pair of hand-flags zigzagged above the trawler's wheel-house. The Yeoman of Signals on the Submarine's conning tower stiffened like a statue as he read the message.

"Says, 'Will Sir William Thor-r-ogood come aboar-r-d, sir? If so, he'll send a boat.'" His speech placed him at home in these Northern latitudes.

"Reply, 'Yes. Please send boat.'"

A quarter of an hour later Sir William was climbing out of a tubby dinghy over the trawler's bulwarks. A big bronzed man in a jersey and sea-boots, wearing the monkey-jacket of a Lieutenant of the Reserve and a uniform cap slightly askew, came forward, one enormous hand outstretched in greeting. "Pleased to meet you, sir," he said. "My name's Gedge."

Sir William shook hands and winced.

"I've heard of you," he said, "and I was anxious to meet you. What d'you think of that toy?"

He nodded aft at a web of wire-coils, vulcanite levers and brass keys, standing beneath a wooden shelter in the stern. Three or four officers from the Fleet were gathered round it with note-books in their hands testing and adjusting amid its intricacies.

"I've been lookin' at it," admitted the big man non-committally. "It sounds like a cinch, but I understand it ain't perfect yet?"

"Not by what you might call a long chalk," was the dry reply.

The big man looked relieved. "That's all right," he said. "Because when it is I guess I can go right along and get to bed. That little outfit's going to finish the war, sir."

"Hardly," said Sir William. "But it's intended to help things in that direction. Unfortunately, you see, there's still a factor—what we call an unknown quantity——" He lapsed into technical explanations. The other listened for a while and then shook his head.

"Maybe you're right," he said, "but I couldn't say. I'm no scholar—ran away from school too young. But it seems to me——" He lifted a booted foot and rested it on the low gunwale, "Workin' at long distances, there's the pull of the tides...."

Sir William's eyeglass dropped. He recovered it and screwed it home.

"Am I right, sir?" asked the big man.

"You are," said the Scientist. "You've studied tides, too, have you?"

The Submarine Hunter chuckled. "I've learned to respect 'em," he replied dryly. "Down the Malay Archipelago I learned something about tides, spittin' overboard from salvage craft...." He stood upright. "Well, sir, we'd better get to business. These gentlemen here are the brains of the party"—he nodded at the group aft. "I'm only in the picture to put them wise as to certain practical conditions of the game...." He dropped his voice to a confidential undertone as they walked aft. "The Navy scares me. It's so damned big, and there's so much gold lace—and it's so almighty efficient...."

Half an hour's discussion settled the modus operandi for the experiment. The Submarine Commander rose from the gunwale and tossed away his cigarette-end, then he grinned at the Submarine Hunter who stood with one shoulder against the structure aft, shredding tobacco into the palm of his hand.

"Gardez-vous, Old Sport!" he said, as he began to climb down into the dinghy, where Sir William joined him.

"That's French, ain't it?" said the Submarine Hunter. "Don't speak the lingo."

One of the Naval officers standing by the apparatus laughed. "It's a challenge," he said. "Means 'Mind your eye!'"

The Hunter jerked his clasp knife in the direction of the fore-hatch. "I can mind it all right," he replied grimly, and laughed with a sudden disconcerting bark of amusement.

* * * * *

"Now," said the Submarine Commander as the pointed bows swung round for the open sea, "we'll get away out of it. Must keep on the surface for a while—too many short-tempered little patrol boats close in to let us cruise with only a periscope showing." He waved his hand in the direction of countless smudges of smoke ringing the clear horizon. "But once we're clear of those we'll dive and hide somewhere for a while. Give old man Gedge something to scratch his head about, lookin' for us. Then we'll play round and test the apparatus.... You'll be able to observe the compass all the time, and I'll give you the distances. There's a young flood making ..."

For the space of a couple of hours the boat slid swiftly through the waves and successive cordons of patrols passed them onwards with flickering signals. The men onboard a line of rusty drifters leaned over the sides of their plunging craft and waved as the jaws of their baleful traps opened to let them pass through. Above their heads a gull circled inquisitively, shrilling the high, thin Song of the Seventh Sea: astern the peaks of Ultima Thule faded like opals into the blue.

A little cluster of rocky islands rose at length out of the sea ahead; the Submarine Commander took a swift bearing and rolled up the chart.

"That'll do," he said; "now we'll dive. There's a shoal patch hereabouts, and we'll sit on the bottom and have lunch while old man Gedge starts looking for us. After lunch we'll let him get near and try a bit of daylight stalking." He glanced at the sun overhead. "Bit early, yet awhile," he added.

One by one, led by Sir William, they descended the steel-runged ladder into the electric-lit depths of the Submarine. A hatch closed with a muffled clang: a few curt orders were followed by a succession of gurgles like those of the tide flooding through a cavern; the Commanding Officer moved from the eyepiece of the periscope, and gravely contemplated a needle creeping slowly round the face of a large dial. A Petty Officer, with an expression emotionless as that of a traveller in a railway tunnel, sat by the dial manipulating a brass wheel; a few feet away sat a Leading Seaman similarly employed. The eyes of both men were fixed on the hesitating needle as it shivered round. Finally the needle wavered, crept on another inch and paused, trembling. The Lieutenant-Commander glanced fore and aft, stripped off a pair of soiled gauntlets and made a low-voiced observation. The two men, as if released from a spell, turned away from their dials.

"There we are," said the Captain cheerfully, "sitting snug on a nice sandy bottom in ten fathoms of water. What's for lunch?" He led the way forward to a folding table between the polished mahogany bunks. "Fried chops, ain't it?" he enquired, sniffing.

They took their seats on camp stools while a bluejacket dealt out tin plates like playing cards. Sir William turned from a scrutiny of the tiny book-shelf over the port bunk. At the head of the bunk was nailed the photograph of a girlish face, and in close proximity to it one of a lusty baby exploring a fur rug apparently in search of clothes.

"Not much of a library, I'm afraid," said the host, seating himself. "I'm not much of a reader myself. The Sub's the bookworm of this boat."

The First Lieutenant of the Submarine shot a swift glance of suspicion at his Commanding Officer as he helped himself to a chop. The look, however, appeared to pass unnoticed.

"Some months ago," continued his Captain, speaking with his mouth full, "we were caught in shallow water over the other side——" he jerked his head upwards and to the South East. "We were sitting on the bottom waiting for it to get dark before we came up and charged batteries. I was having a stretch-off on my bunk here, and the Sub, of course, had his nose in a book as usual. From subsequent developments it appears that a Hun seaplane saw us and proceeded to bomb us with great good will but indifferent success."

"We ought never to have been there," interrupted the First Lieutenant coldly. "Bad navigation on the Captain's part."

"Granted," said the Lieutenant-Commander. "The first bomb was rather wide of the mark, but it woke me, and I saw the Sub's eyelids flicker. After that I watched him. The Hun bombed us steadily for a quarter of an hour (missing every time, of course), and the Sub never raised his eyes from his book."

"I was interested," said the First Lieutenant shortly; his eyes, in one swift glance captain-wards, said more.

"Quite. I was only trying to prove you were a book-worm."

"What was the book?" enquired Sir William.

"Oh, Meredith, sir. Richard something-or-another. Topping yarn."

The guest steered the conversation out of literary channels.

"Were you over the other side much?" he asked blandly.

"Pretty well all the war, till we came up North," was the Lieutenant-Commander's reply. "You'll have to use the same knife for the butter; hope you don't mind. We get into piggish ways here, I'm afraid.... Amusin' work at times, but nothing to the Dardanelles; we never got out there, though; spent all our time nuzzling sandbanks off the Ems and thereabouts. Of course, one sees more of Fritz in that way, but I can't say it exactly heightens one's opinion of him. We used to think at the beginning of the war that Fritz was a sportsman—for a German, you know. But he's really just a dirty dog taking very kindly to the teaching of bigger and dirtier dogs than himself."

Sir William pondered this intelligence. "That's the generally accepted theory," he said.

"They may have had some white men in their submarines at one time, but we've either downed them or they've got Prussianised. They've disgraced the very word submarine to all eternity." The speaker shook his head over the besmirched escutcheon of his young profession.

"They're cowards, all right," added the Lieutenant. "'Member that Fritz we chased all the way to Heligoland on the surface?"

"Yep. Signalled to him with a flashing lamp to stop and fight: called him every dirty name we could lay our tongues on. Think he'd turn and have it out? Not much! ... Yet he had the bigger gun and the higher speed. Signalled back, 'Not to-day, thank you!' and legged it inside gun-range of the forts. Phew! That made us pretty hot, didn't it, Sub?"

"Nerves," said the Lieutenant. "Their nerves are just putrid. There was another night once——" he talked quickly between spoonfuls of rice pudding. "In a fog ... we were making a lightship off the Dutch coast to verify our position.... Approached submerged, steering by sound of their submarine bell, and then came to the surface to get a bearing. There must have been half a dozen Fritzes round that light, all lost and fluttering like moths round a candle. We bagged one, sitting, and blew him to hell.... The rest plopped under like a lot of seals and simply scattered. Fight? 'Not to-day, thank you.' They're only good for tackling unarmed merchantmen and leaving women in open boats." The speaker wiped his mouth with his napkin. "By God! I wouldn't be a Hun when the war's over. They're having a nice little drop of leave now to what they'll get if they ever dare put their noses outside their own filthy country."

"Amen," said Sir William.

The Captain of the boat rose from his seat, glancing at his watch. "Now then," he said to the Scientist, "Come to the periscope and let's have a look round. Gedge ought to be over the horizon by now."

The men moved quietly to their stations and the tanks were blown. Slowly the gauge needles crept back on their appointed paths. The Submarine Commander motioned his guest to the periscope and gave him a glimpse of flying spray and sun-kissed wave tops. A mile or so away lay the group of islands they had seen before lunch, and close inshore a mass of floating debris bobbed among the waves.

"Baskets, I think—jettison of sorts. I'm going to get amongst it and go down with the tide, keeping the periscope hidden: it's an old dodge. You can just see the smoke of Gedge's bus coming over the horizon. We'll give him a little game of Peep-bo!"

Sir William drew his watch from his pocket and walked over to the compass. "In four minutes' time," he said, "I shall start making observations: according to our arrangements Gedge should start the experiment then."

"That's right," said the Lieutenant-Commander with his eyes pressed against the eye-piece of the periscope. "Oh, good! It's bales of hay floating, not baskets. Better still: no chance of damaging the periscope. There's Gedge——!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Hee! I see you, but you can't see me!"

He slewed the periscope through a few points and back to the original position. "Hullo!" he said presently, "what's he up to? He's altered course.... Thinks he sees something, I suppose. You're wrong, my lad. We're not in that direction."

The minutes passed in silence. Forward in the bow compartment a man was softly whistling a tune to himself. The feet of the figure at the periscope moved with a shuffle on the steel plating.

"How's the time?" he asked presently.

"He ought to have started the apparatus," said Sir William, standing, watch in hand, by the compass. "What's he doing?"

"Legging it to the Northward at the rate of knots—eight points off his course, if he thinks he's going to get anywhere near us ... Ah! Now he's coming round.... Humph! You're getting warm, my lad!" Another prolonged silence followed, and suddenly the Lieutenant-Commander spoke again.

"Sub," he said in a curiously restrained tone, "just come here a minute."

The Lieutenant moved obediently to his side and applied his eye to the periscope.

"Well?" said the Captain after a pause. "Well, Sister Anne?"

The Lieutenant turned his head swiftly for an instant and looked at his Commanding Officer. "Have we got any boat out on this patrol to-day?" he asked.

The other shook his head. "Not within thirty miles of this. 'Sides, he wouldn't come through here submerged, with only his periscope dipping."

"It's a Fritz, then," said the Lieutenant, an ominous calm in his voice. He stepped aside and relinquished the eye-piece.

"It is," said the other. "It's a naughty, disobedient Fritz. He's coming through in broad daylight, which he's been told not to do. He hasn't seen us yet—he's watching old man Gedge. Gedge thinks it's us and is pretending he hasn't seen him.... Lord! It's like a French musical comedy."

Sir William put his watch back in his pocket and stood looking from one speaker to the other. Finally he removed his eye-glass and began to polish it with scrupulous care.

"Do I understand——" he began.

The voice of the Lieutenant-Commander at the periscope cut him short. "Stand by the tubes!" he shouted.

There was a swift bustle of men's footsteps down the electric-lit perspective of glistening machinery.

"Fritz must be in a tearing hurry to get home," commented the First Lieutenant. "P'raps they've all got plague or running short of food ... or just tired of life?"

"P'raps," conceded the Lieutenant-Commander. "Anyhow, that's as may be.... The beam torpedo tube will just bear nicely in a minute." The white teeth beneath the rubber eye-piece of the periscope showed for an instant in a broad grin. "Won't old man Gedge jump!"

"Starboard beam tube ready!"

Sir William replaced his eye-glass. A sudden bead of perspiration ran down and vanished into his left eyebrow.

"The Lord," said the Lieutenant in a low voice, "has placed the enemy upon our lee bow, Sir William."

"Has he?" said Sir William dryly. "Then I hope He'll have mercy on their souls."

The motionless figure at the periscope gave a couple of low-voiced orders, and in the ensuing silence Sir William felt the artery in his throat quicken and beat like a piston. Then—

"Fire!"

The boat rolled to port, and all her framework shook like the body of a man shaken by a sudden sob. Back she came to her original trim, and the Lieutenant, standing by the beam tube, raised his wrist watch and studied it intently. The seconds passed, throbbing, intolerable, and merged into Eternity. A sudden concussion seemed to strike the boat from bow to stern, and as she steadied the motionless figures, standing expressionless at their stations, suddenly sprang into life and action.

There was the metallic sound of metal striking metal as the hatchway opened, a rush of cool, sweet air, and the Scientist found himself beside the two officers, without the slightest recollection of how he got there, standing in the wind and sunlight on the streaming platform of the conning-tower. The boat was heading with the waves tumbling away on either side of them in the direction of a cloud of grey smoke that still hung over the water, slowly dissolving in the wind. As they approached a dark patch of oil spread outwards from a miniature maelstrom where vast bubbles heaved themselves up and broke; the air was sickly with the smell of benzoline, and mingled with it were the acrid fumes of gas and burnt clothing. A dark scum gathered in widening circles, with here and there the white belly of a dead fish catching the sun: a few scraps of wreckage went by, but no sign of a man or what had once been a man.

"Pretty shot," said the First Lieutenant approvingly, and leaned over the rail to superintend the dropping of a sinker and buoy. The Commanding Officer said nothing. Beneath the tan his face was white, and his hand, as he raised his glasses to sweep the horizon, trembled slightly.

The Yeoman of Signals turned to Sir William and jerked his thumb at the water. "Eh!" he said soberly, "yon had a quick call!"

"I ask for no other when my hour strikes," replied the Scientist.

"Maybe juist yeer hands are clean," said the Yeoman, and turned to level his telescope at the trawler which was rapidly approaching with a cloud of smoke reeling from her funnel and the waves breaking white across her high bows.

"Here comes Gedge," observed the Lieutenant-Commander, speaking for the first time, "foaming at the mouth and suffering from the reaction of fright. Hark! He's started talking...."

Amid the cluster of figures in the trawler's bow stood a big man with a megaphone to his mouth. The wind carried scraps of sentences across the water.

"... Darned bunch of tricks aft.... How was I to know.... Scared blue ... torpedo ... prisoners.... Blamed inventors...."

"Translate," said Sir William. The Lieutenant-Commander coughed apologetically. "He's peevish," he said. "Thought it was us blowing up at first. Wants to know why we wasted a torpedo: thinks he could have captured her and taken the crew prisoners if we'd left it to him."

"Silly ass!" from the First Lieutenant. "How could we let him know he was playing round with a Fritz? If we'd shown ourselves Fritz would have torpedoed us!"

"I appreciate the compliment," began Sir William, "that he implies to my device, but, as a matter of fact, I hardly think the apparatus is sufficiently perfect yet——"

The Lieutenant-Commander laughed rather brutally. "He isn't paying compliments. He went on to say he didn't want the assistance of—er—new inventions to bag a Fritz once he's sighted him."