The First Lieutenant came quickly to the rescue. "Of course," he said, "that's all rot. We're only too grateful to—to Science for trying to invent a new gadget.... Only, you see, sir, in the meanwhile, until you hit on it we feel we aren't doing so badly—er—just carrying on."



CHAPTER VIII

"ARMA VIRUMQUE ..."

The Flagship's Wardroom and the smoking-room beyond were packed to suffocation by a dense throng of officers. The Flagship was "At-Home" to the Fleet that afternoon on the occasion of the Junior Officers' Boxing Tournament which was being held onboard, and a lull in the proceedings had been the signal for a general move below in quest for tea.

Hosts and guests were gathered round the long table, standing in pairs or small groups, and talking with extraordinary gusto. Opportunities of intercourse between ships are rare in War-time. Save for an occasional visitor to lunch or dinner, or a haphazard meeting on the golf-links, each ship or flotilla dwelt a little community apart. On occasions such as this, however, the vast Fleet came together; Light Cruiser met Destroyer with a sidelong jerk of the head and a "Hullo, Old Thing..." that spanned the years at a single leap; Submarine laughed across the room at Seaplane-carrier; Mine-sweeper and Mine-layer shared a plate of sandwiches with a couple of Sloops and discussed the boxing; but they were no more than a leavening amid the throng of "big-ship folk" who reckoned horse-power by the half hundred thousand and spoke of guns in terms of the 15-inch.

Almost every rank of Naval officer was represented, from Commander to Sub-Lieutenant and their equivalent ranks in other branches; yet the vast majority shared a curious resemblance. It was elusive and quite apart from the affinity of race. The high physical standard demanded of each on entry, the athletic training of their early years, the stern rigour of life afloat, perhaps accounted for it. But in many of the tanned, clean-shaven faces there was something more definite than that; a strain that might have been transmitted by the symbolic Mother of the Race, clear-eyed and straight of limb, who still sits and watches beneath stern calm brows the heritage of her sons.

A few there were among the gathering with more than youth's unwisdom marring mouth and brow; eyes tired with seeing over-much looked out here and there from the face of Youth. Yet amid the wholesome, virile cheerfulness of that assembly they were but transient impressions, lingering on the mind of an observer with no more permanency than the shadows of leaves flickering on a sunny wall.

A Lieutenant-Commander, on whose left breast the gaudy ribbons of Russian decorations hinted at the nature of his employment during the War, was talking animatedly to a Lieutenant with the eagle of the Navy-that-Flies above the distinction lace on his cuff. A grave-faced Navigating Commander, scenting the possibility of an interesting discussion between these exponents of submarine and aerial warfare, pushed his way towards them through the crush.

"... I remember her quite well," the Flying Man was saying as he stirred his tea. "Nice little thing ... married, is she? Well, well..."

"You're a nice pair," said the Commander, smiling. "I came over here expecting to hear you both discussing the bursting area of a submarine bomb, and find you're talking scandal."

"It's a year old at that," said the be-ribboned one, with a laugh. "I've just come back from the White Sea, but I seem to know more about what Timmin's lady friends have been doing in the meanwhile than he does himself!"

He bit firmly into a sardine sandwich and laughed again. A great hum of men's voices filled the room. Scraps of home gossip exchanged between more intimate friends, and comments on the afternoon's boxing mingled with tag-ends of narratives from distant seas and far-off shores. It was nearly all war, of course, Naval war in some guise or other, and it covered most of the navigable globe.

A general conversation of this nature cannot be satisfactorily reproduced. A person slowly elbowing his way from the big tea-urns at one end of the mess to the smoking-room at the other, would, in his passage, cut off, as it were, segments of talk such as the following:

"... Ripping little boxer, isn't he? I had his term at Osborne College, but he's learnt a good deal since then...."

* * * *

"... Jess? Poor little dog: she was killed by a 4-inch shell in that Dogger Bank show. I've got an Aberdeen terrier now."

* * * *

"... Bit of a change up here, isn't it, after being under double awnings for so long? But the Persian Gulf was getting rather boring ... were you invalided too?"

* * * *

"... Not they! They won't come out—unless their bloomin' Emperor sends them out to commit a sort of hari-kiri at the end of the war.... That's what makes it so boring up here...."

* * * *

"As a matter of fact we caught the Turk who laid most of the mines in the Tigris. He conned us up the river—we put him in a basket and slung him on the bowsprit: just in case he got careless, what? ..."

* * * *

"... Beer? My dear old lad, the Japs had scoffed all the beer in Kiao-Chau before I got into the main street...."

* * * *

"... I had a Midshipman up with me as observer—aged 16 and 4 months precisely.... Those machines scared the Arabs badly...."

* * * *

"... Just a sharpened bayonet. You slung it round your neck when you were swimming.... Only had to use it once ... nasty sticky job. No joke either, crawling about naked on your belly in the dark...."

* * * *

"... We had a fellow chipping the ice away from the conning-tower hatch all the time we were on the surface, 'case we had to close down quick. I tell you, it was Hell, that cold! ..."

* * * *

"... Five seconds after we had fired our torpedo a shell hit the tube and blew it to smithereens. A near thing, I give you my word...."

* * * *

A Lieutenant-Commander appeared at the doorway from the smoking-room.

"There will be an exhibition bout next," he shouted, "and then the final of the Light-weights!" A general move ensued on to the upper deck.

The raised ring was in amidships before the after superstructure. The officers occupied tiers of chairs round three sides of the platform. The Admirals and their staffs in front, and the Post-captains of the ships that had entered competitors, just behind. On the forward side, extending the whole breadth of the ship, was the dense array of the ship's company. The majority were in tiers on planks, but a number had found their way to other points of vantage, and were clustered about the funnel casings and turrets and even astride the great guns themselves. A murmur of men's voices, punctuated by the splutter of matches as hundreds of pipes were lit and relit, went up on all sides. The judges were taking their seats at the little tables on either side of the ring, and the referee, an athletic-looking Commander, was leaning over from his chair talking to the Chaplain who was acting as time-keeper.

The Physical Training Officer of the Flagship stepped into the empty ring and raised his hand for silence. The hum of voices died away instantly, and in the stillness the thin, querulous crying of the gulls somewhere astern alone was audible.

"Lieutenant Adams, Welter-weight Champion of the Navy, and Seaman Hands, ex-Middle-weight Champion of England, have kindly consented to give an exhibition of sparring," he proclaimed, and withdrew.

During the applause that greeted the announcement a youthful figure, clad in a white singlet and football shorts, with a sweater thrown over his shoulders, ducked under the ropes and walked rather shyly to his corner of the ring. His appearance was the signal for a vociferous outburst of applause. He sat down, holding the sweater about his shoulders with his gloved hands, and thoughtfully rubbing the sole of his left boot in the powdered resin.

The clapping suddenly redoubled, and a broad, bull-necked man of about forty vaulted lightly into the ring and took his place in the opposite corner. He was stripped to the waist; his jaws moved mechanically about a piece of chewing gum, and an expression of benign good-humour and enjoyment lit his battered, kindly countenance.

It was not until the gong sounded and the two men rose from their chairs that the contrast between the toughened ex-professional and the lithe, graceful amateur brought forth a little murmur of delight from the vast audience.

In the sordid surroundings of the prize ring there might have been a suggestion of brutality about the older man. The great hairy chest, the knotted arms covered with barbaric tattooing, the low-crowned skull and projecting lower jaw gave him an aspect of almost savage, remorseless strength softened only by the gentleness of his eyes. He moved as lightly as a cat, and from shoulder to thigh the muscles stirred obedient to every motion.

The Lieutenant was perhaps fifteen years the junior. The playing fields or racquet-courts of any university would recognise his type as nothing out of the common. Deep-chested, lean-flanked, perfectly proportioned, and perhaps a shade "fine-drawn"—England and America carelessly produce and maintain the standard of this perfection of physical beauty as no other white race can.

The two men met in the centre of the ring, and as they shook hands the old pugilist grinned almost affectionately. The lack of several front teeth incidental to his late profession was momentarily apparent, and an enthralled Ordinary Seaman, perched insecurely on the lower funnel casing, drew his breath in relief.

"'E won't 'urt 'im," he said in a whisper, as if to reassure himself.

"Course 'e won't!" replied a companion, expelling a cloud of tobacco smoke between his lips. "'S only a bit o' skylarkin'.... Gawd!" he added in awed tones. "That one 'ud kill a donkey if 'e started 'ittin'."

The two boxers had slipped into their habitual poses and were quietly moving round each other. The graceful activity of the amateur was somewhat characteristic of his school, while the ex-professional contented himself with almost imperceptible movements of his feet, watching with a nonchalant yet wary caution for the coming attack. With the suddenness of a flash the Lieutenant led with his left and was back out of harm's way again.

True and quick was the blow, but the veteran's defence was even quicker. Without raising either glove he appeared to have swayed backwards from the hips. His adversary's glove should have landed full in his face; but so perfectly was his defence timed that it just reached him and no more. The battered face, with its amiable, reassuring smile and slowly moving jaws, had not winked an eyelid.

Then for three short rounds there followed a completely enthralling display. On one side was perfectly trained orthodox, amateur boxing. On the other every clean trick and subterfuge of irreproachable ring-craft. Timing, footwork, feints, guarding and ducking; each subtlety of the art of defence was demonstrated in turn.

In the last few seconds of the final round, however, a little out of breath with his defensive display, the older man changed his tactics. With lowered head and ferocious face he advanced, a whirling bulk of might and action, upon the amateur. Tap—tap—tap! Left—right, over and under, through the guard and round the guard of the outfought youngster the unclenched gloves totted up a score of points. There was a careful restraint behind each blow, yet, when the gong sounded and they smilingly shook hands amid tumults of enthusiasm, a thin red stream was trickling from the right eyebrow of the amateur champion....

As they left the ring two boyish forms slipped through the ropes and made their way to their respective corners. They both wore the orthodox white singlet and blue shorts, and round each waist was twisted the distinguishing coloured sash, one red and the other green. They sat down with their gloved hands resting on their thin knees and gravely surveyed the sea of expectant faces. Both bore traces of previous conflicts on their features, and their united ages aggregated something just over thirty.

The Physical Training Officer again advanced to the ropes. "Final of the Junior Officers' Light-weights!" he announced. "Midshipman Harcourt on the left—green; Midshipman Mordaunt on my right—red," and added the name of their ship. He looked from one to the other interrogatively, and they nodded in turn. Stepping back he resumed his seat amid a tense silence.

"Seconds out of the ring!"

Then the gong rang, and the two wiry figures rose to their feet and stepped briskly to meet each other. The wearer of the green colours was smiling, but his slim adversary looked grave and rather pale with compressed lips.

Their gloves met for an instant, and the fight started. There was little or no preliminary sparring. Each knew the other's tactics by heart. It was just grim, dogged, ding-dong fighting. In height and weight they were singularly evenly matched, but Harcourt soon gave evidences of being unquestionably the better boxer. He boxed coolly and scientifically, but what his opponent lacked in style he made up in determination. Twice his furious attacks drove Harcourt to the ropes, and twice the latter extricated himself nimbly and good-humouredly. Between the thud of gloves and the patter of their feet on the canvas-covered boards their breathing was audible in the tense hush of the ring-side.

Ding! went the gong, and the first round was over. They walked to their corners amid a tempest of appreciative applause, and were instantly pounced upon by their anxious seconds.

In one of the chairs just below the ring, Thorogood removed his pipe from his mouth and turned his head to speak to Mouldy Jakes, who sat beside him.

"Good fight, eh?" he said, smiling. "Harcourt ought to win, of course, but Mordaunt's fighting like a young tiger. He's no boxer, either. I'm bothered if I know how he got into the finals."

"Guts!" said the other. "Sheer guts! He won't last, though. Harcourt'll start piling up the points in the next round."

But when the second round started, Mordaunt developed unexpected skill in defence. Harcourt led off with an offensive, but his opponent dodged and ducked and guarded until the first fury of the onslaught abated, and then a savage bout of in-fighting quickly equalised matters, until as the end of the round approached disaster very nearly overtook the red colours. Mordaunt swung rather wildly with his right and missed. Harcourt's watchful left landed on the side of his opponent's head as he lost his equilibrium, and Billy Mordaunt went down with a thud.

He was on his feet again the next instant, his eyes fairly alight with battle, and his lip curled back savagely. In a whirlwind of smashing blows he drove Harcourt to the ropes again, until a straight left between the eyes sobered him.

Ding! went the gong again, and again the applause burst out. The seconds fell upon their men with furious energy. The water in the basins was assuming a pinkish tinge, and they sponged and massaged and flapped their towels as if striving to impart something of their own vigour to their tired principals. The two combatants, breathing hard, were leaning back with outstretched arms and legs, every muscle in their resting bodies relaxed.

"Harcourt ought to win, you know," said Thorogood again. "He's just as fit and a better boxer. But he seems to be tiring.... He had a pretty tough time in the heats, I fancy."

"Seconds out of the ring! Last round!" came the Chaplain's voice. Then the gong brought them to their feet.

They shook hands unsmiling, and began to circle cautiously, sparring for an opening. Then Harcourt led. It was a stinging blow and it landed fair enough. Billy took it, and several more; for a moment it looked as if he had shot his bolt. Then he seemed suddenly to gather all his tiring strength. He feinted and hit lightly with his left. Harcourt blocked it, then unexpectedly lowered his guard; a little mocking smile flitted over his blood-smeared face. Billy's right came in with every ounce of muscle and sinew in his body to back the jolt, and it landed fair on the point of that flaunting chin so temptingly offered.

It seemed to Billy that Harcourt disappeared into a mist. There was a thud and a great roar of voices and the sounds of clapping.

"Stand back!" said a warning voice at the ring-side, and somewhere, apparently in the distance, another voice was counting the deliberate seconds:

"... Five! Six! Seven!"

The angry mist cleared away and revealed Harcourt sprawling on the ground. He was leaning over on both hands, striving gallantly to rise.

"... Eight! Nine!"

The white figure with the green sash was on hands and knees, swaying——

The gong rang. Down and out!

The referee glanced from one judge to the other and raised a little red flag from the table.

"Red wins!" he shouted.

Unconscious of the deafening applause Billy bent down and slipped an arm under his friend's shoulders. All the savage fighting blood in him had suddenly cooled, and there was only pity and love for Harcourt in his heart as he helped him to his feet.

Harcourt's seconds had rushed into the ring as the gong rang, and they now supported him to his corner. At his feeble request one unlaced the glove from his right hand, which he extended to his late adversary with a wan smile.

"That was a good 'un, Billy," he said faintly. "My—head's—still singing ... like a top! And—I taught it to you! ..."

* * * *

The distribution of prizes to the winners of the different weights followed, and then the great gathering broke up. The Admirals departed with their staffs in their respective barges, the Captains in their galleys, Wardroom and Gunroom officers in the picket-boats. Figures paced up and down the quarterdeck talking together in pairs; farewells sounded at the gangways, and the hoot of the steamboats' syrens astern mingled with the ceaseless calling of the gulls overhead.

Harcourt and Mordaunt, descending the accommodation ladder in the rear of the remainder of their party, were greeted by Morton, at the wheel of the picket-boat, with a broad grin.

"Come on," he ejaculated impatiently. "Hop in! We've got to get back and be hoisted in. Who won the Light-weights by the same token?"

"Billy did," replied Harcourt. He settled himself comfortably on top of the cabin of the picket boat and pulled up the collar of his greatcoat about his face.

Morton jerked the engine-room telegraph and the boat moved off.

"Why are we in such a hurry?" queried Harcourt. "Are we going out?"

The boyish figure at the helm glanced aft to see his stern was clear, and put the wheel over, heading the boat in the direction of their ship.

"Yes," he said. "At least a signal has just come through ordering us to raise steam for working cables at seven p.m."

Lettigne, perched beside Mordaunt on the other side of the cabin-top, leaned across. The crowded excitements of the afternoon had lapsed into oblivion.

"D'you mean the whole Fleet, or only just us?" he asked.

"The whole Fleet," replied Morton, staring ahead between the twin funnels of his boat. "I suppose it's the usual weary stunt; go out and steam about trailing the tail of our coat for a couple of days, and then come back again." The speaker gripped the spokes of the wheel almost savagely. "Lord!" he added, "if only they'd come out...."

Mordaunt fingered his nose gingerly. "They do come out occasionally, I believe. You'd think their women 'ud boo them out.... They sneak about behind their minefields and do exercises, and they cover their Battle-cruisers when they nip out for a tip-and-run bombardment of one of our watering-places. But we'll never catch 'em, although we can stop them from being of the smallest use to Germany by just being where we are."

"We could catch them if they didn't know we were coming South," said another Midshipman perched beside Mordaunt with his knees under his chin.

"But they always do know," said Harcourt over his shoulder. "Their Zepps always see us coming and give them the tip to nip off home!"

"Fog..." said Mordaunt musingly.

"Yes," said another who had not hitherto spoken. "That 'ud do it all right. But then you couldn't see to hit 'em. 'Sides, you can't count on a fog coming on just when you want it."

"Well," said Morton, with the air of one who was wearied by profitless discussion. "Fog or no fog, I only hope they come out this time."

He rang down "Slow" to the tiny engine-room underneath his feet, and spun the wheel to bring the crowded boat alongside the port gangway.

A Fleet proceeds to sea in War-time with little or no outward circumstance. There was no apparent increase of activity onboard the the great fighting "townships" even on the eve of departure. As the late afternoon wore on the Signal Department onboard the Fleet Flagship was busy for a space, and the daylight signalling searchlights splashed and spluttered while hoist after hoist of flags leaped from the signal platform to yardarm or masthead; and ever as they descended fresh successive tangles climbed to take their place. But after a while even this ceased, and the Flagships of the squadrons, who had been taking it all in, nodded sagely, as it were, and turned round to repeat for the benefit of the ships of their individual squadrons such portions as they required for their guidance.

Then from their hidden anchorage the Destroyers moved past on their way out, flotilla after flotilla in a dark, snake-like procession, swift, silent, mysterious, and a little later the Cruisers and Light Cruisers crept out in the failing light to take up their distant positions. On each high forecastle the minute figures of men were visible moving about the crawling cables, and from the funnels a slight increased haze of smoke trembled upwards like the breath of war-horses in a frosty landscape.

One by one the dripping anchors hove in sight. The water under the sterns of the Battleships was convulsed by whirling vortices as the great steel-shod bulks turned cautiously towards the entrance, like partners revolving in some solemn gigantic minuet. The dusk was fast closing down, but a saffron bar of light in the West still limned the dark outlines of the far-off hills. One by one the majestic fighting ships moved into their allotted places in the line, and presently

"Enormous, certain, slow...."

the lines began to move in succession towards the entrance and the open sea.

The light died out of the western sky altogether, and like great grey shadows the last of the Battle-squadrons melted into the mystery of the night.



CHAPTER IX

"SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES"

Betty finished her breakfast very slowly; she had dawdled over it, not because there was anything wrong with her appetite, but because the days were long and meals made a sort of break in the monotony. She rose from the table at length and walked to the open casement window; a cat, curled up on the rug in front of the small wood fire, opened one eye and blinked contemplatively at the slim figure in the silk shirt, the short brown tweed skirt above the brown-stockinged ankles, and finally at the neat brogues, one of which was tapping meditatively on the carpet. Then he closed his eyes again.

"Would it be to-day?" wondered Betty for about the thousandth time in the last eight days. She stared out across the little garden, the broad stretch of pasture beyond the dusty road that ended in a confused fringe of trees bordering the blue waters of the Firth. A flotilla of Destroyers that had been lying at anchor overnight had slipped from their buoys and were slowly circling towards the distant entrance to the harbour. Beyond the Firth the hills rose again, vividly green and crowned with trees.

A thrush in the unseen kitchen garden round a corner of the cottage rehearsed a few bars of his spring song.

"It might be to-day," he sang. "It might, it might, it might—or it mightn't!" He stopped abruptly.

Eight days had passed somehow since an enigmatic telegram from the India-rubber Man had brought Betty flying up to Scotland with hastily packed trunks and a singing heart.

Somehow she had expected him to meet her at the little station she reached about noon after an all-night journey of incredible discomforts. But no India-rubber Man had been there to welcome her; instead a pretty girl with hair of a rusty gold, a year or two her senior, had come forward rather shyly and greeted her.

"Are you Mrs. Standish?" she asked, smiling.

Despite the six-months-old wedding ring on her hand, Betty experienced a faint jolt of surprise at hearing herself thus addressed.

"Yes," she said, and glanced half-expectantly up and down the platform. "I hoped my husband would be here ..."

The stranger shook her head. "I'm afraid his squadron hasn't come in yet," she said, and added reassuringly, "But it won't be long now. Your sister wrote and told me you were coming up. My name's Etta Clavering...."

"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "You got me rooms, didn't you—and I'm so grateful to you."

"Not at all," said the other. "It's rather a job getting them as a rule, but these just happened to be vacant. Rather nice ones: nice woman, too. No bath, of course, but up here you get used to tubbing in your basin, and—and little things like that. But everything's nice and clean, and that's more than some of the places are." They had sorted out Betty's luggage while Mrs. Clavering was talking, and left it with the porter to bring on. "We can walk," said Betty's guide. "It's quite close, and I expect you won't be sorry to stretch your legs."

They skirted a little village of grey stone cottages straggling on either side of a broad street towards a wooded glen, down which a river wound brawling to join the waters of the Firth. Cottages and little shops alternated, and half-way up the street a rather more pretentious hotel of quarried stone rose above the level of the roofs. Hills formed a background to the whole, with clumps of dark fir clinging to their steep slopes, and in the far distance snow-capped mountains stood like pale opals against the blue sky. The air was keen and invigorating, and little clouds like a flock of sheep drifted overhead.

Mrs. Clavering led the way past the village towards a neat row of cottages on the brow of a little hill about a quarter of a mile behind it, and as they ascended a steep lane she turned and pointed with her ashplant. A confusion of chimneys, cranes and wharves were shrouded in a haze of smoke and the kindly distance.

"You see," she said, "you can almost see the harbour from your house. That's where the ships lie when they come in here. This is your abode. They'll send your luggage up presently. I hope you'll be comfortable. No, I won't come in now. I expect you're tired after travelling all night. You must come and have tea with me, and meet some of the others." She laughed and turned to descend the hill, stopping again a few paces down to wave a friendly stick.

Etta Clavering occupied a low-ceilinged room above a baker's shop in the village, and had strewn it about with books and photographs and nick-nacks until the drab surroundings seemed to reflect a little of her dainty personality. Thither, later in the day, she took Betty off to tea and introduced her to a tall fair girl with abundant hair and a gentle, rippling laugh that had in it the quality of running water.

"We belong to the same squadron," she said. "I'm glad we've met now, because directly our husbands' ships come in we shall never see each other!" She turned to Etta Clavering. "It's like that up here, isn't it? We sit in each other's laps all day till our husbands arrive, and then we simply can't waste a minute to be civil ...!"

She laughed her soft ripple of amusement, cut short by the entrance of another visitor. She was older than the other three: a sweet, rather grave-faced woman with patient eyes that looked as if they had watched and waited through a great many lonelinesses. There was something tender, almost protecting, in her smile as she greeted Betty.

"You have only just come North, haven't you?" she asked. "The latest recruit to our army of—waiters, I was going to say, but it sounds silly. Waitresses hardly seems right either, does it? Anyhow, I hope you won't have to wait for very long."

"I hope not," said Betty, a trifle forlornly.

"So do I," said the tall fair girl whose name was Eileen Cavendish. "I am developing an actual liver out of sheer jealousy of some of these women whose husbands are on leave. When Bill comes I shall hang on his arm in my best 'clinging-ivy-and-the-oak' style, and walk him up and down outside the hateful creatures' windows! It'll be their turn to gnash their teeth then!"

Betty joined in the laughter. "Are there many of—of Us up here?" she asked.

"There are as many as the village will hold, and every farm and byre and cow-shed for about six miles round," replied Mrs. Gascoigne, the new-comer. "And, of course, the little town, about four miles from here, near where the ships anchor, simply couldn't hold another wife if you tried to lever one in with a shoe-horn!"

"And then," continued their hostess, measuring out the tea into the pot, "of course, there are some selfish brutes who stay on all the time—I'm one of them," she added pathetically. "But it's no use being a hypocrite about it. I'd stay on if they all put me in Coventry and I had to pawn my wedding ring to pay for my rooms. One feels nearer, somehow.... Do sit down all of you. There's nothing to eat except scones and jam, but the tea is nice and hot, and considering I bought it at that little shop near the manse, it looks and smells very like real tea."

"I suppose, then, all the rooms are dreadfully expensive," said Betty.

"Expensive!" echoed the fair girl, consuming her buttered scone with frank enjoyment. "You could live at the Ritz or Waldorf a good deal cheaper than in some of these crofter's cottages. You see, until the War began they never let anything in their lives. No one ever wanted to come and live here. Of course, there are nice women—like your Miss McCallum, for example—who won't take advantage of the enormous demand, and stick to reasonable prices. More honour to them! But if you could see some of the hovels for which they are demanding six and seven guineas a week—and, what's more, getting it...."

"I'm afraid we are giving Mrs. Standish an altogether rather gloomy picture of the place," said Mrs. Gascoigne. She turned to Betty with a reassuring smile. "You don't have to pay anything to be out of doors," she said. "That much is free, even here; it's perfectly delightful country, and when the weather improves a bit we have picnics and walks and even do a little fishing in an amateurish sort of way. It all helps to pass the time...."

"But it's not only the prices that turn one's hair grey up here," continued Mrs. Cavendish. "That little Mrs. Thatcher—her husband is in a Destroyer or something—told me that her landlady has false teeth...." The speaker extended a slender forefinger, to which she imparted a little wriggling motion. "They wobble ... like that—when she talks. She always talks when she brings in meals.... I suppose it's funny, really——" She lapsed into her liquid giggle. "But poor Mrs. Thatcher nearly cried when she told me about it. Imagine! Week in, week out. Every meal.... and trying not to look...! She said it made her want to scream."

"I should certainly scream," said Mrs. Gascoigne, who had finished her tea and was preparing to take her departure. "Now I must be off. I've promised to go and sit with Mrs. Daubney. She's laid up, poor thing, and it's so dull for her all alone in those stuffy rooms." She held out her hand to Betty. "I hope we shall see a lot more of each other," she said prettily. "We're going to show you some of the walks round here, and we'll take our tea out to the woods.... I hope you'll be happy up here."

The door closed behind her, and Eileen Cavendish explored the room in search of cigarettes. "Sybil Gascoigne is a dear," she observed.

"On the little table, there," said the hostess. "In that box. Do you smoke, Mrs. Standish?" Mrs. Standish, it appeared, did not. "Throw me one, Eileen." She caught and lit it with an almost masculine neatness. "Yes," she continued, "she's perfectly sweet. Her husband is a senior Post-captain, and there isn't an atom of 'side' or snobbishness in her composition. She is just as sweet to that hopelessly dull and dreary Daubney woman as she is to—well, to charming and well-bred attractions like ourselves!" The speaker laughingly blew a cloud of smoke and turned to Betty. "In a sense, this war has done us good. You've never lived in a Dockyard Port, though. You don't know the insane snobberies and the ludicrous little castes that flourished in pre-war days."

"I dare say you're right," said Eileen Cavendish. She moved idly about the room examining photographs and puffing her cigarette. "But even the War isn't going to make me fall on the neck of a woman I don't like. But I'm talking like a cat. It's not seeing Bill for so long...."

Mrs. Clavering smiled. "No," she said, "I agree there are limits. But up here, what does it matter if a woman's husband is an Engineer or a Paymaster or a Commander or only an impecunious Lieutenant like mine—as long as she is nice? Yet if it weren't for people like Sybil Gascoigne we should all be clinging to our ridiculous little pre-war sets, and talking of branches and seniority till we died of loneliness and boredom with our aristocratic noses in the air.... As it is, I don't believe even Sybil Gascoigne could have done it if she hadn't been the Honourable Mrs. Gascoigne. That carried her over some pretty rough ground, childish though it sounds."

"Bong Song!" interposed Mrs. Cavendish flippantly. "As——" She broke off abruptly. "There I go again! There's no doubt about it: I have got a liver ... I think I'll go home and write to Bill. That always does me good."

That tea-party was the first of many similar informal gatherings of grass-widows in poky rooms and cottage parlours. They were quite young for the most part, and many were pretty. They drank each other's tea and talked about their husbands and the price of things, and occasionally of happenings in an incredibly remote past when one hunted and went to dances and bought pretty frocks.

It was Etta Clavering who conducted Betty round the village shops on the morning after her arrival, where she was introduced to the small Scottish shopkeeper getting rich quick, and the unedifying revelation of naked greed cringing behind every tiny counter.

Through Eileen Cavendish, moreover, she secured the goodwill of a washerwoman.

"My dear," said her benefactress, "money won't tempt them. They've got beyond that. They've got to like you before they will wring out a stocking for you. But I'll take you to the Widow Twankey; I'm one of her protegees, and she shows her affection for me by feeling for my ribs with her first two fingers to punctuate her remarks with prods. It always makes me hysterical. She has only got two teeth, and they don't meet."

So the Widow Twankey was sought out, and Betty stood and looked appealingly humble while Etta Cavendish suffered her ribs to be prodded in a good cause, and the Widow agreed to "wash for" Betty at rates that would have brought blushes to the cheeks of a Parisian blanchisseuse de fin.

With Mrs. Gascoigne, Betty explored the heathery moors where the distraught pee-wits were already nesting, and the cool, clean air blew down from the snowy Grampians, bracing the walkers like a draught of iced wine. They even climbed some of the nearer hills, forcing their way through the tangled spruce-branches and undergrowth to the summit, from where the distant North Sea itself was visible, lying like a grey menace to their peace.

They would return from these expeditions by the path down the glen that wound close to the brawling river; here, in the evenings, sometimes with an unexpectedness embarrassing to both parties, they met some of the reunited couples whom Eileen Cavendish found it hard to contemplate unmoved; occasionally the fingers of such couples were interlaced, and they talked very earnestly as they walked.

On fine days the husbandless wives organised picnics and boiled the kettle over a fire of twigs. On these occasions the arrangements were generally in the hands of a fat, jolly woman everyone called "Mrs. Pat." She it was who chose the site, built the fire with gipsy cunning, and cut the forked sticks on which the kettle hung. The meal over, Mrs. Pat would produce a blackened cigarette holder and sit and smoke with reflective enjoyment while she translated the rustling, furtive sounds of life in brake and hedge-row around them for the benefit of anyone who cared to listen. No one knew whence she had acquired such mysterious completeness of knowledge. It was as if an invisible side of her walked hand in hand with Nature; sap oozing from a bursting bud, laden bee or fallen feather, each was to Mrs. Pat the chapter of a vast romance: and if she bored anyone with her interpretation of it, they had only got to get up and go for a walk.

She had a niece staying with her, the fiancee of a Lieutenant in her husband's ship, a slim thing with blue eyes and a hint of the Overseas in the lazy, unstudied grace of her movements. She spoke sparingly, and listened to the conversation of the others with her eyes always on the distant grey shadow that was the sea. Thus the days passed.

In the evenings Betty read or knitted and inveigled her stout, kindly landlady into gossip on the threshold while she cleared away the evening meal, and so the morning of the ninth day found Betty staring out of her window, listening for the thrush to begin again its haunting, unfinished song.

An object moving rapidly along the top of the hedge that skirted the lane leading to the cottage caught her eye; she watched it until the hedge terminated, when it resolved itself into the top of Eileen Cavendish's hat. Her pretty face was pink with exertion and excitement, and she moved at a gait suggestive of both running and walking.

Betty greeted her at the gateway of her little garden, and her heart quickened as she ran to meet the bearer of tidings.

"My dear," gasped Mrs. Cavendish, "they're coming in this morning. Mrs. Monro—that's my landlady—has a brother in the town: I forget what he does there, but he always knows."

For an instant the colour ebbed from Betty's cheeks, and then her beating heart sent it surging back again.

"But——" she said. "Does that mean that our squadron is coming in?"

"Of course it does, silly! Get your hat quick, and we'll climb up to the top of the hill and see if we can get a glimpse of them coming in. You'll have plenty of time to get down again and powder your nose before your Bunje-man, or whatever you call him, can get ashore. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Together they toiled up the hill to the high stretch of moorland from which a view of the entrance to the Firth could be obtained.

"This is where I always come," said Eileen Cavendish. She stopped and panted for breath. "Ouf! I'm getting fat and short-winded. How long is it since you've seen your husband?"

Betty considered. "Three months and seventeen days," was the reply.

Her companion nodded.

"It's rotten, isn't it? But now—at times like this, I almost feel as if it's—worth it, I was going to say; but I suppose it's hardly that. I always vowed I'd never marry a sailor, and ever since I did I've felt sorry for all the women with other kinds of husbands.... Bill is such a dear!"

They found seats in the lee of a stack of peat and sat down side by side to watch the distant entrance. A faint grey haze beyond the headlands on either side of the mouth of the harbour held the outer sea in mystery.

"There's nothing in sight," said Betty.

"No," said the other, "but there will be, presently. You wait." She put her elbows on her knees and rested her face in the cup of her two hands. "You haven't got used to waiting yet," she continued. "It seems to have made up half my life since I met Bill. I had a little daughter once, and it didn't matter so much then.... But she died, the mite..."

No Battleships had emerged from the blue-grey curtain of the mist when lunch-time came; nothing moved across the surface of the empty harbour, and they descended the hill to share the meal in Betty's room.

"Perhaps they won't be in till after tea," suggested Betty. "Perhaps the fog has delayed them."

"Perhaps," said the other.

So they put tea in a Thermos flask, and bread-and-butter and a slice of cake apiece in a little basket, and climbed again to their vantage point in the lee of the peat stack. They read novels and talked in desultory snatches through the afternoon. Then they had tea and told each other about the books they were reading. But as their shadows lengthened across the blaeberry and heather, the silences grew longer, and Betty, striving to concentrate her interest on her book, found the page grow suddenly blurred and incomprehensible....

"It's getting chilly," said the elder girl at length. She rose to her feet with a little involuntary shiver, and stood for a moment staring out towards the sea. "I wonder..." she began, and her voice trailed off into silence. Betty began slowly to repack the basket. "Sometimes I pray," said Eileen Cavendish, "when I want things to happen very much. And sometimes I just hold my thumbs like a pagan. Sometimes I do both. Let's do both now."

So they sat silent side by side; one held her breath and the other held her thumbs, but only the dusk crept in from the sea.



CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF THE MIST

Thorogood, Lieutenant of the Afternoon Watch, climbed the ladder to the upper bridge as the bell struck the half-hour after noon. A blue worsted muffler, gift and handiwork of an aunt on the outbreak of war, enfolded his neck. He wore a pair of glasses in a case slung over one shoulder and black leather gauntlet-gloves.

The Officer of the Forenoon Watch, known among his messmates as Tweedledee, was focusing the range-finder on the ship ahead of them in the line; he looked round as the new-comer appeared, and greeted him with a grin.

"Hullo, James," he said. "Your afternoon watch? Well, here you are." He made a comprehensive gesture embracing the vast Fleet that was spread out over the waters as far as the eye could reach.

"Divisions in line ahead, columns disposed abeam, course S.E. Speed, 15 knots. Glass low and steady. The Cruisers are ahead there, beyond the Destroyers," he nodded ahead. "But you can't see them because of the mist. The Battle-cruisers are somewhere beyond them again, with their Light Cruisers and Destroyers—about thirty miles to the southward. The hands are at dinner and all is peace. She's keeping station quite well now." The speaker moved to the range-finder again and peered into it at the next ahead. "Right to a yard, James."

Thorogood nodded. "Thank you: I hope I'll succeed in keeping her there. Any news?"

"News?" The other laughed. "What about?"

"Well," replied Thorogood, "the perishing Hun, let's say."

The Navigator, thoughtfully biting the end of a pencil, came out of the chart-house with a note-book in his hand, in which he had been working out the noon reckoning.

"Pilot," said the departing Officer of the Forenoon Watch, "James is thirsting for news of the enemy."

"Optimist!" replied the Navigator composedly. "News, indeed! This isn't Wolff's Agency, my lad. This is a Cook's tour of the North Sea." He sniffed the damp, salt breeze. "Bracing air, change of scenery: no undue excitement—sort of rest cure, in fact. And you come along exhibiting a morbid craving for excitement."

"I know," said Thorogood meekly. "It's the effect of going to the cinematograph. All the magistrates are talking about it. They say Charlie Chaplin's got something to do with it. I suppose, though, there's no objection to my asking what the disposition of our Light Cruisers happens to be, is there? It's prompted more by a healthy desire to improve my knowledge before I take over the afternoon watch than anything else."

"They're out on the starboard quarter," replied the late Officer of the Watch. "You can't see them because of this cursed mist, but they're there."

"Strikes me this afternoon watch is going to be more of a faith cure than a rest cure as the Pilot suggests," grumbled Thorogood. "Battle-cruisers somewhere ahead, Cruisers invisible in the mist, Light Cruisers——"

The report of a gun, followed almost instantly by a loud explosion, came from far away on the port bow. A Destroyer that had altered course was resuming her position in the Destroyer line on the outskirts of the Fleet. A distant column of smoke and spray was slowly dissolving into the North Sea haze.

At the report of the gun the three men raised their glasses to stare in the direction of the sound. "Only one of the Huns' floating mines," said the Navigator. "She exploded it with her 8-pounder. Pretty shot."

"Well," said Tweedledee, "I can't stay here all day. Anything else you want to know, James? What's for lunch? I'm devilish hungry."

"Boiled beef and carrots," replied Thorogood. "Mit apple tart and cream: the Messman can't be well. Pills says its squando-mania. No, I don't think I want to know any more. I suppose the log's written up?"

"It is. Now for the boiled beef, and this afternoon Little Bright-eyes is going to get his head down and have a nice sleep."

The speaker prepared to depart.

"Hold on," said the Navigator. "I'm coming with you. I've just got to give the noon position to the Owner on the way."

They descended the ladder together, and left Thorogood alone on the platform.

The Battle-fleet was steaming in parallel lines about a mile apart, each Squadron in the wake of its Flagship. The Destroyers, strung out on either flank of the Battle-fleet, were rolling steadily in the long, smooth swell, leaving a smear of smoke in their trail. Far away in the mist astern flickered a very bright light: the invisible Light Cruisers must be there, reflected Thorogood, and presently from the Fleet Flagship came a succession of answering blinks. The light stopped flickering out of the mist.

The speed at which the Fleet was travelling sent the wind thrumming through the halliards and funnel stays and past Thorogood's ears with a little whistling noise; otherwise few sounds reached him at the altitude at which he stood. On the signal-platform below, a number of signalmen were grouped round the flag-lockers with the halliards in their hands in instant readiness to hoist a signal. The Signal Boatswain had steadied his glass against a semaphore, and was studying something on the misty outskirts of the Fleet. The Quartermaster at the wheel was watching the compass card with a silent intensity that made his face look as if it had been carved in bronze. The telegraph-men maintained a conversation that was pitched in a low, deep note inaudible two yards away. It concerned the photograph of a mutual lady acquaintance, and has no place in this narrative.

Thorogood moved to the rail and looked down at the familiar forecastle and teeming upper-deck, thirty feet below. Seen thus from above, the grey, sloping shields of the turrets, each with its great twin guns, looked like gigantic mythical tortoises with two heads and disproportionately long necks. It was the dinner hour, and men were moving about, walking up and down, or sitting about in little groups smoking. Some were playing cards in places sheltered from the wind and spray; near the blacksmith's forge a man was stooping patiently over a small black object: Thorogood raised his glasses for a moment and recognised the ship's cat, reluctantly undergoing instruction in jumping through the man's hands.

The cooks of the Messes were wending their way in procession to the chutes at the ship's sides, carrying mess-kettles containing scraps and slops from the mess-deck dinner. For an instant the Officer of the Watch, looking down from that altitude and cut off from all sounds but that of the wind, experienced a feeling of unfamiliar detachment from the pulsating mass of metal beneath his feet. He had a vision of the electric-lit interior of the great ship, deck beneath deck, with men everywhere. Men rolled up in coats and oilskins, snatching half-an-hour's sleep along the crowded gun-batteries, men writing letters to sweethearts and wives, men laughing and quarrelling, or singing low-toned, melancholy ditties as they mended worn garments: hundreds and hundreds of reasoning human entities were crowded in those steel-walled spaces, each with his boundless hopes and affections, his separate fears and vices and conceptions of the Deity, and his small, incommunicable distresses....

Beneath all that again, far below the surface of the grey North Sea, were men, moving about purring turbines and dynamos and webs of stupendous machinery, silently oiling, testing and adjusting a thousand moving joints of metal. There were adjoining caverns lit by the glare of furnaces that shone red on the glistening faces of men, silent vaults and passages where the projectiles were ranged in sinister array, and chilly spaces in which the electric light was reflected from the burnished and oiled torpedoes that hung in readiness above the submerged tubes.

Thorogood raised his eyes and stared out across the vast array of the Battle-fleet. Obedient to the message flashed from the Flagship a few minutes earlier, the Light Cruisers that had been invisible on the quarter now emerged from behind the curtain of the mist and were rapidly moving up to a new position. Presently the same mysterious, soundless voice spoke again:

YOU ARE MAKING TOO MUCH SMOKE

blinked the glittering searchlight, and anon in the stokeholds of the end ship of the lee line there was the stokehold equivalent for weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth....

For a couple of hours the Fleet surged onwards in silence and unchanged formation. The swift Light Cruisers had overtaken the advancing Battle-fleet, and vanished like wraiths into the haze ahead. The Captain and the Navigator had joined Thorogood on the bridge, and were poring over the chart and talking in low voices. The Midshipman of the Watch stood with eyes glued to the range-finder, turning his head at intervals to report the distance of the next ahead to the Officer of the Watch.

A messenger from the Coding Officer tumbled pell-mell up the ladder and handed a piece of folded paper to the Captain, saluted, turned on his heel and descended the ladder again. The Captain unfolded the signal and read with knitted brows. Then he turned quickly to the chart again.

For a moment he was busy with dividers and parallel-rulers; when he raised his head his eyes were alight with a curiously restrained excitement.

"Rather interesting," he said, and passed the paper to the Navigator who read it in turn and grinned like a schoolboy.

"They have probably caught a raiding party in the mist, sir," he said, and bent over the chart.

Thorogood picked up the message and pursed his lips up in a short, soundless whistle.

"It's too much to hope that their main fleet's out," he said.

"Their main fleet's sure to be in support somewhere," replied the Captain. "It's a question whether they realise we're all down on top of 'em, though, and nip for home before we catch them."

A second messenger flung himself, panting, up the ladder, and handed in a second message.

"Intercepted wireless to Flag, sir."

The Captain read it and took a breath that was like a sigh of relief. "At last!" he said.

The Navigator turned from the chart.

"Der Tag, sir?" he asked interrogatively with a smile.

The Captain nodded ahead at the haze curtaining all the horizon. "If we catch 'em," he replied.

The signal platform was awhirl with bunting; the voice of the Chief Yeoman repeating hoists rose above the stamp of feet and the flapping of flags in the wind.

Thorogood turned to the Navigator. "Will you take on now?" he asked in a low voice. "If the balloon's really going up this time I'd better get along to my battery."

As he descended the ladder the upper-deck was ringing with bugle-calls, and the turrets' crews were already swarming round their guns. From the hatchways leading to the lower-deck came a great roar of cheering. Men poured up on their way to their action stations in a laughing, rejoicing throng. Mouldy Jakes, with the ever-faithful Midshipman of his turret at his side, was hurrying to his beloved guns, and greeted Thorogood as he passed with a sidelong jerk of the head and the first whole-souled smile of enjoyment a mess-mate had ever surprised on his face. Further aft the Captain of Marines was standing on the roof of his slowly revolving turret:

"Buck up, James," he shouted merrily. "'Johnnie, get your gun, there's a cat in the garden'—We're going to see Life in a minute, my lad!"

He was right, but they were also destined to see Death, holding red carnival.

Thorogood waved his arm and shouted an inarticulate reply as he ran aft to the hatchway leading to the cabin flat. Officers were rushing past on their way to their posts, exchanging chaff and conjecture as they went. Thorogood descended to the cabin flat, jerked back the curtain of his cabin, and hurriedly entered the familiar apartment. Opening a drawer he snatched up a gas-mask and a packet containing first-aid appliances which he thrust into the pocket of his swimming waistcoat, together with a flask and a small tin of compressed meat lozenges. Once before, earlier in the war, he had fought for life clinging to a floating spar. Then succour had come in a comparatively short time, but the experience had not been without its lesson.

He made for the door again and then paused on the threshold hesitatingly. "Might as well," he said, and turning back picked up a small photograph in a folding morocco frame and thrust it half-shamefacedly into an inside pocket.

As he emerged into the flat again he met Gerrard, the Assistant Paymaster, struggling into a thick coat outside the door of his cabin.

"Hullo!" laughed the A.P. "Having a last look at the old home, James?"

Thorogood patted his pockets. "Just taking in provisions in case I have to spend the week-end on a raft. What's your action station?"

"Fore-top," was the reply. "Taking notes of the action. Now, have I got everything? Thermos flask—watch—note-book—glasses—right! En avant, mon brave!"

Thorogood reached the 6-inch battery breathless, and found the guns' crews busy tricing up their mess-tables overhead. The Gunner was passing along the crowded deck ahead of him. He stopped opposite the after gun:

"They're out, lads!" he said grimly. "Give 'em hell, this time. Clear away and close up round your guns—smartly then, my hearties!"

From the other side of the deck came the voice of Tweedledee giving orders to his battery, raised above the clatter of the ammunition hoists, the thud of projectiles as they were placed in the rear of each gun, the snap and clang of the breech as the guns were loaded....

Fire and wreckage parties stood in little groups along the main-deck, and first-aid parties were gathered at the hatchways; two Midshipmen, pale and bright-eyed with excitement, talked in low voices by the foremost gun: gradually a tense hush closed down upon the main deck; the crews stood silent round their guns, waiting in their steel-walled casemates for the signal that would galvanise them into death-dealing activity against the invisible foe.

Ultimate victory no man doubted: death might sweep, swift and shattering, along these electric-lit enclosed spaces where they stood waiting; the great ship was being driven head-long by unseen forces towards an unseen foe. But of that foe, none of the hundreds of men between decks save the straining gunlayers with their eyes at the sighting-telescopes would ever catch a single glimpse.

The silence was riven by a roaring concussion that seemed to shake the framework of the ship. The great turret guns on the upper deck had opened fire with a salvo, and, as if released by the explosion, a burst of frantic cheering leaped from every throat and echoed and reverberated along the decks. Somewhere in the outside world of mist and sea, under the grey Northern sky, the Battle-Fleet action had begun.

* * * * *

The fore-top was a semi-circular eyrie, roofed and walled with steel, that projected from the fore topmast some distance above the giant tripod. It was reached by iron rungs let into the mast, and here Gerrard, with the din of bugles and the cheering still ringing in his ears, joined the assembled officers and men whose station it was in action.

From that dizzy elevation it was possible to take in the disposition of the vast Fleet at a single glance. It was like looking down on model ships spread out over a grey carpet preparatory to a children's game. A white flicker of foam at each blunt ram and the wind singing past the hooded top alone gave any indication of the speed at which the ships were advancing. It was an immense monochrome of grey. Grey ships with the White Ensign flying free on each: grey sea flecked here and there by the diverging bow-waves breaking as they met: a grey sky along which the smoke trailed sullenly and gathered in a dense, low-lying cloud that mingled with the haze astern.

The Lieutenant in the top drew Gerrard to his side. "Put your head down here," he said, "out of the wind ... can you hear?" There was a queer ring of exultation in his voice. "Guns!"

Gerrard bent down and strained all his faculties to listen. For a moment he heard nothing but the hum of the wind and the vibration of the engines transmitted by the mast. Then, faint and intermittent, like the far-off grumble of a gathering thunderstorm, his ear caught a sound that sent all his pulses hammering.

"Thank God I've lived to hear that noise!" muttered the Lieutenant. He straightened up, staring ahead through his glasses in the direction of the invisible fight.

For a while no one spoke. The tense minutes dragged by as the sounds of firing grew momentarily more distinct. The uncertain outline of the near horizon was punctuated by vivid flashes of flame from the guns of the approaching enemy. They were still hidden by the mist and apparently unconscious of the Battle-Fleet bearing down upon them like some vast, implacable instrument of doom. The target of their guns suddenly became visible as the Battle-cruisers appeared on the starboard bow, moving rapidly across the limit of vision like a line of grey phantoms spitting fire and destruction as they went. Misty columns of foam that leaped up from the water all about them showed that they were under heavy fire.

The Battle-Fleet was deploying into Line of Battle, Squadron forming up astern of Squadron in a single line of mailed monsters extending far into the haze that was momentarily closing in upon them. The curtain ahead was again pierced by a retreating force of Cruisers beaten back on the protection of the Battle-Fleet and ringed by leaping waterspouts as the enemy's salvos pursued them.

As yet the enemy were invisible, but when the last ship swung into deployment the mist cleared for a moment and disclosed them amid a cloud of smoke and the furious flashes of guns. The moment had come, and all along the extended British battle-line the turret guns opened fire with a roar of angry sound that seemed to split the grey vault of heaven. As if to mock them in that supreme instant the mist swirled across again and hid the German Fleet wheeling round in panic flight.

The gases belched from the muzzles of the guns, together with the smoke of hundreds of funnels caught and held by the encircling mist, reeled to and fro across the spouting water and mingled with the grey clouds from bursting shell. Through it all the two Fleets, the pursuing and the pursued, grappled in blindfold headlong fury.

Thorogood's battery was on the disengaged side of the ship during the earlier phases of the action. Across the deck they heard the guns of Tweedledee's battery open fire with a roar, and then the cheering of the crews, mingled with the cordite fumes, was drowned by an ear-splitting detonation in the confined spaces of the mess deck, followed by a blinding flash of light.

Tweedledee was flung from where he was standing to pitch brokenly at the foot of the hatchway, like a rag doll flung down by a child in a passion. He lay outstretched, face downwards, with his head resting on his forearm as if asleep. Most of the lights had been extinguished by the explosion, but a pile of cartridges in the rear of one of the guns had caught fire and burned fiercely, illuminating everything with a yellow glare.

Lettigne, Midshipman of the battery, was untouched; deafened and deathly sick he took command of the remaining guns. He, who ten seconds before had never even seen death, was slithering about dimly lit decks, slippery with what he dared not look at, encouraging and steadying the crews, and helping to extinguish the burning cordite. In darkened corners, where they had been thrown by the explosion, men were groaning and dying....

That shell had been one of several that had struck the ship simultaneously. Mouldy Jakes opened his eyes to see a streak of light showing through a jagged rip in a bulkhead. The light was red and hurt his eyes: he passed his hand across his face, and it was wet with a warm stickiness. His vision cleared, however, and for a few moments he studied the drops of water that were dripping from the gash in the plating. "Crying!" he said stupidly. The shells that pitched short had deluged the fore-part of the ship with water, and it was still dripping into the interior of the turret. Mouldy Jakes raised his head, and a yard or two away saw Morton. The breech of one of the guns was open, and Morton was lying limply over the huge breech-block. The machinery was smashed and twisted, and mixed up with it were dead men and bits of men....

A little while later the Fleet Surgeon, splashed with red to the elbows, glanced up from his work in the fore-distributing station and saw a strange figure descending the hatchway. It was Mouldy Jakes: his scalp was torn so that a red triangular patch hung rakishly over one eye. Flung over his shoulder was the limp form of an unconscious Midshipman. For a moment he stood swaying, steadying himself with outstretched hand against the rail of the ladder.

"Thought I'd better bring him along," he gasped. "Turret's knocked to hell.... He's still alive, but he's broken all to little bits inside ... I can feel him... Morton, snottie of my turret ..."

Sickberth Stewards relieved him of his burden, and Mouldy Jakes sat down on the bottom rung of the ladder and began to whimper like a distraught child. "It's my hand..." he said plaintively, and extended a trembling, shattered palm. "I've only just noticed it."

With his eye glued to the periscope of his turret the India-rubber Man was fidgeting and swearing softly under his breath at the exasperating treachery of the fog. The great guns under his control roared at intervals, but before the effect of the shell-burst could be observed the enemy would be swallowed from sight. Once, at the commencement of the action, he thought of Betty; he thought of her tenderly and reverently, and then put her out of his mind....

Lanes of unexpected visibility opened while an eye-lid winked, and disclosed a score of desperate fights passing and reappearing like scenes upon a screen. A German Battleship, near and quite distinct, was in sight for a moment, listing slowly over with her guns pointing upwards like the fingers of a distraught hand, and as she sank the mist closed down again as it were a merciful curtain drawn to hide a horror. An enemy Cruiser dropped down the engaged side of the line like an exhausted participator in a Bacchanal of Furies. Her sides were riven and gaping, with a red glare showing through the rents. Her decks were a ruined shambles of blackened, twisted metal, but she still spat defiance from a solitary gun, and sank firing as the fight swept past.

Hither and thither rolled the fog, blotting out the enemy at one moment, at another disclosing swift and awful cataclysms. A British Cruiser, dodging and zigzagging through a tempest of shells, blew up. She changed on the instant into a column of black smoke and wreckage that leaped up into the outraged sky; it trembled there like a dark monument to the futile hate of man for his brother man and slowly dissolved into the mist. A German Destroyer attack crumpled up in the blast of the 6-inch batteries of the British Fleet, and the British Destroyers dashed to meet their crippled onslaught as vultures might swoop on blinded wolves. They fought at point-blank range, asking no quarter, expecting none; they fought over decks ravaged by shrapnel and piled with dead. The sea was thick with floating corpses and shattered wreckage, and darkened with patches of oil that marked the grave of a rammed Submarine or sunken Destroyer. Maimed and bleeding men dragged themselves on to rafts and cheered their comrades as they left them to their death.

Through that witches' cauldron of fog and shell-smoke the British Battle-Fleet groped for its elusive foe. One minute of perfect visibility, one little minute of clear range beyond the fog-masked sights, was all they asked to deal the death-blow that would end the fight—men prayed God for it and died with the prayer in their teeth.

But the minute never came. The firing died away down the line; the dumb guns moved blindly towards the shifting sounds of strife like monsters mouthing for the prey that was denied them, but the fog held and the merciful dusk closed down and covered the flight of the stricken German Fleet for the shelter of its protecting mine-fields.

It was not until night fell that the British Destroyers began their savage work in earnest. Flotilla after flotilla was detached from the Fleet and swallowed by the short summer night, moving swiftly and relentlessly to their appointed tasks like black panthers on the trail.

Cut off from their base by the British Fleet the scattered German squadrons dodged and doubled through the darkness, striving to elude the cordon drawn across their path. They can be pictured as towering black shadows rushing headlong through the night, with the wounded groaning between their wreckage-strewn decks; and on each bridge, high above them in the windy darkness, men talked in guttural mono-syllables, peering through high-power glasses for the menace that stalked them.... On the trigger of every gun there would be a twitching finger, and all the while the blackness round them would be pierced and rent by distant spurts of flame....

The wind and sea had risen, and over an area of several hundred square miles of stormy sea swept the Terror by Night. Bursting star-shell and questioning searchlight fought with the darkness, betraying to the guns the sinister black hulls driving through clouds of silver spray, the loaded tubes and streaming decks, the oilskin-clad figures on each bridge forcing the attack home against the devastating blast of the shrapnel. Death was abroad, berserk and blindfold. A fleeing German Cruiser fell among a flotilla of Destroyers and altered her helm, with every gun and searchlight blazing, to ram the leading boat. The Destroyer had time to alter course sufficiently to bring the two ships bow to bow before the impact came. Then there was a grinding crash: forecastle, bridge and foremost gun a pile of wreckage and struggling figures. The blast of the German guns swept the funnels, boats, cowls and men away as a gale blows dead leaves before it. Then the Cruiser swung clear and vanished into the darkness, pursued by the remainder of the Flotilla, and leaving the Destroyer reeling among the waves like a man that has been struck in the face with a knuckle-duster by a runaway thief. In the direction where the Cruiser had disappeared five minutes later a column of flame leaped skyward, and the Flotilla, vengeance accomplished, swung off through the darkness in search of a fresh quarry.

All night long the disabled Destroyer rolled helplessly in the trough of the sea. The dawn came slowly across the sky, as if apprehensive of what it might behold on the face of the troubled waters; in the growing light the survivors of the Destroyer's crew saw a crippled German Cruiser trailing south at slow speed. Only one gun remained in action onboard the Destroyer, and round that gathered the bandaged remnant of what had once been a ship's company. They shook hands grimly among themselves and spat and girded their loins for their last fight.

The German Cruiser turned slowly over and sank while they trained the gun....

A dismasted Destroyer, with riddled funnels and a foot of water swilling across the floor plates in the engine-room, bore down upon them about noon and took her crippled sister in tow. They passed slowly away to the westward, leaving the circle of grey, tumbling sea to the floating wreckage of a hundred fights and the thin keening of the gulls.

The afternoon wore on: five drenched, haggard men were laboriously propelling a life-saving raft by means of paddles in the direction of the English coast that lay some hundred odd miles to the west. The waves washed over their numbed bodies, and imparted an almost lifelike air of animation to the corpse of a companion that lay between them, staring at the sullen sky.

Suddenly one of the paddlers stopped and pointed ahead. A boat manned by four men appeared on the crest of a wave and slid down a grey-back towards them. The oarsmen were rowing with slow strokes, and eventually the two craft passed each other within hailing distance. The men on the raft stared hard.

"'Uns!" said one. "Bloody 'Uns.... Strictly speakin', we did ought to fight 'em.... Best look t'other way, lads!"

His companions followed his example and continued their futile mechanical paddling with averted heads.

The bow-oar of the German boat, who had a blood-stained bandage round his head, also stared.

"Englaender!" he said. "Verdammte Schweine!" and added, "Fuenf! ..." whereupon he and his companions also averted their heads, because they were four.

They passed each other thus. The waves that washed over the raft rolled the dead man's head to and fro, as if he found the situation rather preposterous.



CHAPTER XI

THE AFTERMATH

Such was the Battle of the Mist, a triumphant assertion after nearly two years of vigil and waiting, of British Sea Power. It commenced with a cloud of smoke on the horizon no larger than a man's hand. Its consequences and effects spread out in widening ripples through space and time, changing the vast policies of nations, engulfing thousands of humble lives and hopes and destinies. Centuries hence the ripples will still be washing up the flotsam of that fight on the shores of human life. Long after the last survivor has passed to dust the echo of the British and German guns will rumble in ears not yet conceived. Princes will hear it in the chimes of their marriage bells; it will accompany the scratching of diplomatists' pens and the creaking wheels of the pioneer's ox-wagon. It will sound above the clatter of Baltic ship-yards and in the silence of the desert where the caravan routes stretch white beneath the moon. The Afghan, bending knife in hand over a whetstone, and the Chinese coolie knee-deep in his wet paddy-fields, will pause in their work to listen to the sound, uncomprehending, even while the dust is gathering on the labours of the historian and the novelist....

But this tale does not aspire to deal with the wide issues or significances of the war. It is an endeavour to trace the threads of certain lives a little way through a loosely-woven fabric of great events. At the conclusion there will be ends unfinished; the colours of some will have changed to grey and others will have vanished into the warp; but the design is so vast and the loom so near that we, in our day and generation, can hope to glimpse but a very little of the whole.

* * * * *

The India-rubber Man sat on the edge of the Wardroom table with his cap tilted on the back of his head, eating bread and cold bacon. The mess was illuminated by three or four candles stuck in empty saucers and placed along the table amid the debris of a meal. The dim light shone on the forms of a dozen or so of officers; some were seated at the table eating, others wandered restlessly about with food in one hand and a cup in the other. The tall, thin Lieutenant known as Tweedledum was pacing thoughtfully to and fro with a pipe in his mouth and his hands deep in his trousers pockets.

There had been little conversation. When anyone spoke it was in the dull, emotionless tones of profound fatigue. One, just out of the circle of candle-light, had pushed his plate from him on the completion of his meal, and had fallen asleep with his head resting on his outstretched arms. The remaining faces lit by the yellow candle-light were drawn, streaked with dirt and ornamented by a twenty-four hours' growth of stubble. All wore an air of utter weariness, as of men who had passed through some soul-shaking experience.

The door opened to admit the First Lieutenant. He clumped in hastily, wearing huge leather sea-boots. Beneath his cap his head was swathed in the neat folds of bandages whose whiteness contrasted with his smoke-blackened faced and singed, begrimed uniform.

"Hullo!" he said, "circuits gone here, too?" He peered round the table. "My word!" he exclaimed. "Hot tea! Who made it? The galley's a heap of wreckage." He poured himself out a cup and drank thirstily. "A-A-ah! That's grateful and comforting."

"I made it," said the Paymaster. "With my own fair hands I boiled the kettle and made tea for you all. Greater love than this has no man."

"Reminds me," said a voice out of the shadows, "that Mouldy got rather badly cut about the head and lost the best part of his left hand. He went reeling past me during the action yesterday evening with young Morton slung over his shoulder: he was staring in front of him like a man walking in his sleep."

"He was," confirmed the Paymaster. "In the execution of my office as leading hand of the first-aid party, I gave him chloroform while the P.M.O. carved bits off him." The speaker rested his head on his hand and closed his eyes. "Next time we go into action," he continued, as if speaking to himself, "someone else can take that job on."

"What job?" asked the India-rubber Man, suddenly turning his head and speaking with his mouth full.

"Fore medical distributing station. I've done a meat-course at Smithfield market ... slaughter-houses before breakfast, don't you know? I thought I could stick a good deal——" The Paymaster opened his eyes suddenly. "I tell you, it was what the sailor calls bloody ... just bloody."

"How is young Morton?" asked the First Lieutenant.

No one appeared to know, for the enquiry went unanswered. The tall figure pacing restlessly to and fro stopped and eyed the First Lieutenant.

"Tweedledee's killed," he said dully. "Dead..." He resumed his thoughtful walk and a moment later repeated the last word in a low voice, reflectively. "Dead ..."

"I know," said the First Lieutenant.

Tweedledum halted again. "I wouldn't care if we had absolutely wiped them off the face of the earth—sunk every one of them, I mean. We ought to have, with just such a very little luck.... And now they've slipped through our fingers, in the night." Tweedledum extended a thin, nervous hand, opening and clenching the fingers. "Like slimy eels."

"Some did," said the India-rubber Man musingly, filling a pipe. "Some didn't. I only saw our guns actually sink one German Battleship; but the visibility was awful, and we weren't the only pebble on the beach; our line was miles long, remember."

"I saw one of their Battle-cruisers on fire and sinking," said Gerrard. "I was in the top. And all night long our Destroyers were attacking them. Two big ships blew up during the night." He cut a hunk of bread and spread it thickly with marmalade. "We must have knocked seven-bells out of 'em. And we didn't lose a single Battleship."

"Must have lost a Battle-cruiser or two, though," said the Engineer Lieutenant, sitting with his head between his hands and his forefingers propping open his eyelids. "Damn it, they fought the whole German Fleet single-handed till we arrived! Must have..." His voice trailed off and his fingers released his eyelids which closed instantly. His chin dropped on to his chest, and he slept.

"Any other officer scuppered besides Tweedledee?" asked the Major of Marines. "What's up with your head, Number One?"

"Only scratched by a splinter. A nearish thing. I haven't heard of anybody else. We really got off very lightly considering they found our range." The First Lieutenant clumped off towards the door. "Now I must go and see about clearing up the mess. I reckon it's all over bar the shouting."

As he went out Thorogood entered the Wardroom. "Would anyone like a nice beef lozenge?" he enquired, removing a packet from his pocket. "Owner having no further use for same."

"Where are we going?" asked the Paymaster. "I should like to go home, I think, if it could be arranged conveniently, James?"

"Not to-day," was the reply. "We're looking for the lame ducks on the scene of yesterday's action. It's very rough and blowing like blue blazes, so I don't suppose there are many lame ducks left afloat—poor devils.... With any luck we ought to get in to-morrow morning, though."

The sleeping figure with the outstretched arms suddenly raised his head and blinked at Thorogood. "Where's the elusive Hun?" he demanded.

"'Opped it," was the reply. "Otherwise vamoosed——"

"Singing 'I'm afraid to go home in the dark,'" interposed the India-rubber Man dryly. He got down off the table and stretched his arms. "Well, I shan't be sorry to get some sleep."

"Sleep!" echoed Thorogood. "You ought to see the stokers' mess-deck. The watch-off have just come up from below after sixteen hours in the stokeholds. They're lying sprawling all over the deck like a lot of black corpses—just all-in."

Tweedledum sat down on the corner of the table vacated by the India-rubber Man.

"I wish I knew exactly how many of them we did sink before the Commander-in-Chief called off the Destroyers this morning," he said plaintively.

"So would a lot of people," replied Thorogood. "We're three hundred miles from home, and there's every reason to suppose there are one or two submarines and mines on the way. Those of us who get back will probably find out all we want to know in time. I shouldn't worry, Tweedledum. In fact, I don't see why you shouldn't get a bit of sleep while you can."

"By Jove!" said Gerrard as a sudden thought struck him. "I wonder if they know all about it at home yet. Won't our people be bucked!"

"And the papers," added the Captain of Marines. "Can't you hear the paper-boys yelling, 'Speshul Edition! Great Naval Victory!' My word, I'd like to be in town when the news comes out." He considered the mental picture his imagination had conjured up. "I think I should get tight...!" he said.

* * * * *

The village street had a curiously deserted air when Betty walked up it on her way to the post office. The mail train had passed through about an hour before, and as a rule about this time the tenants of the rooms and cottages on the hill-side made their way to the post office at the corner to collect their letters and chat in twos and threes round the windows of the little shops.

In the distance Betty saw a little group gathered in front of the boards that displayed the contents bill of the morning paper before the windows of the village stationer's. Recognising Eileen Cavendish, Betty quickened her pace, but as she drew near the group dispersed and Mrs. Cavendish entered the shop. Betty stopped for an instant as the flaring letters on the poster became visible, stared, took a couple of paces and stopped again opposite the boards; then she gave a little gasp, and with a thumping heart entered the low doorway of the little shop. The next moment she collided with Eileen Cavendish who was blundering out, holding an open newspaper in front of her. Her face was white under the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat, and her blue eyes like those of a terrified child.

"Have you heard?" she said, and thrust the sheet under Betty's eyes. "There's been a big action.... Our losses are published, but no details."

"Names?" cried Betty. "Oh, let me see!"

"Only the ships that have gone down. Our husbands' ships aren't mentioned."

"Wait while I get a paper," said Betty. "I shan't be a second. What are you going to do?"

The other considered a moment. "I shall go and see Mrs. Gascoigne," she replied. "Will you come too? She may have heard something."

Betty bought her paper and rejoined Eileen Cavendish in the street.

"Poor Mrs. Thatcher..." she said. "Did you see? Her husband's Destroyer——"

"I know. And there are others, too. There must be five or six wives up here whose ships have gone—— Oh, it's too dreadful ..." She was silent a moment while her merciless imagination ran riot. "I couldn't bear it!" she said piteously. "I couldn't bear it! I didn't whine when Barbara was taken. I thought I might have another baby.... But I couldn't have another Bill."

"Hush," said Betty, as if soothing a child. "We don't know yet. We mustn't take the worst for granted till we know. I expect we should have heard by now if—if——" She couldn't finish the sentence.

They reached the door of Mrs. Gascoigne's lodgings and the landlady opened the door. Her round, good-natured face wore an air of concern.

"She's just awa' to Mrs. Thatcher, west yonder. Will ye no' step inside and bide a wee? She'll no' be long, a'm thinkin'."

She preceded them into the low-ceilinged parlour, with the horsehair-covered sofa and the Family Bible on the little table in the window, that had been a haven to so many faint-hearted ones during the past two years.

"Ye'll have heard the news?" she asked. "There's been an action. Mrs. Thatcher's man's gone down, and Mrs. Gascoigne, she's awa' to bring her a bit comfort like." She surveyed the visitors sympathetically. "A've nae doot there's mair than Mrs. Thatcher'll be needin' comfort the morn, puir lambs."

"Oh," cried Mrs. Cavendish, "don't—don't! Please don't——" She regained her self-control with an effort and turned to the window with her lip between her teeth.

"Will I bring ye a cup of tea?" queried the landlady. "I have the kettle boilin'."

"No thank you," said Betty. "It's very kind of you, but I think we'll just sit down and wait quietly, if we may, till Mrs. Gascoigne comes in. I don't expect she'll be long."

The landlady departed a little reluctantly, and Eileen Cavendish turned from the window.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a coward to go to pieces like this. You're a dear.... And it's every bit as bad for you as it is for me, I know. But I'm not a coward really. Bill would just hate me to be a coward. It's only because—because..." She met Betty's eyes, and for the first time the shadow of a smile hovered about her mouth.

Betty stepped forward impulsively and kissed her. "Then you're all right—whatever happens. You won't be quite alone," she said. They sat down side by side on the horsehair-covered sofa and Eileen Cavendish half-shyly rested her hand on Betty's as it lay in her lap.

"I'm a poor creature," said the elder girl. "I wish I had something—something in me that other women have. You have it, Mrs. Gascoigne has it, and Etta Clavering. It's a sort of—strength. Something inside you all that nothing can shake or make waver." Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks. "It's Faith," she said, and her voice trembled. "It's just believing that God can't hurt you..." She fumbled blindly for her tiny handkerchief.

Betty's eyes were wet too. "Ah!" she said gently. "But you believe that too—really: deep down inside. Everybody does. It's in everything—God's mercy...." Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.