NAVAL OCCASIONS (continued 2)

"An' I nearly shot the damn thing," sighed the Young Doctor at the close of the recital.

"What did you shoot, by the way?" asked the Junior Watch-keeper loftily.

"Nothing," was the curt reply, and his cup of happiness ran over.

* * * * *

The principal guest of the evening eyed a generous helping of salmon that was placed in front of him, and turned to his neighbour. "Pardon me," he said courteously, "but does this fish happen to have been caught in any of the local rivers?"

All eyes turned to the Junior Watchkeeper, who, prevented by a mouthful from replying, sat breathing heavily through his nose. "Because if it was," went on the Russian, "I think I ought to warn you—at the risk of giving you offence—that local salmon are poisonous. That is, unfit for human consumption."

Followed an awful silence. The Young Doctor broke it. "How interesting," he observed feebly; "but why?"

The Russian shook his head. "I don't really know. And I hope you will forgive me for assuring you that they are dangerous to the health."

"Oh," said the captor faintly, "I've eaten my whack!"

The remainder of the dinner was not, gastronomically speaking, a success. The Mess and their guests eyed one another at intervals with furtive apprehension, much as Cleopatra's poisoned slaves must have awaited the appearance of each other's symptoms. But it was not until some hours later that the Young Doctor was awakened by some one calling his name aloud. He sat up in his bunk and listened, and presently it was borne upon him that somewhere, in the stillness of the night, watches, the Junior Watch-keeper was dreeing his weird.

XII.

THAT WHICH REMAINED.

Oddly enough, no record exists of the origin of his nickname. "Periwinkle" he had been all through crammer and Britannia days. As senior Signal Midshipman of the Mediterranean Flagship, he was still "The Periwinkle," small for his years, skinny as a weasel, with straight black hair, and grey eyes set wide apart in a brown face; the eyelashes, black and short, grew very close together, which gave him the perpetual appearance of having recently coaled ship and neglected to clean the dust from his eyes.

The Signal Midshipmen of a fleet, especially the Mediterranean Fleet of those days, were essentially keen on their "job." The nature of the work and inter-ship rivalry provided for that. But with the Periwinkle, Signals were more than a mere "job." They formed his creed and recreation: the flag-lockers were tarpaulin-covered shrines; the semaphores spoke oracles by day as did the flashing lamps by night. And the high priest of these mysteries was the Flag-Lieutenant, a Rugby International and right good fellow withal, but, to the Periwinkle, a very god who walked among men.

To understand something of his hero-worship you would need to have been on the bridge when the Fleet put out to sea for tactics. It was sufficient for the Periwinkle to watch this immaculate, imperturbable being snap out a string of signals apparently from memory, as he so often did, while hoist after hoist of flags leaped from the lockers and sped skywards, and the bridge was a whirl of bunting. Even the Admiral, who spoke so little and saw so much, was in danger of becoming a mere puppet in the boy's sight.

But there was more than this to encourage his ardour. The Flag-Lieutenant, recognising the material of a signalman of unusual promise, would invite the Periwinkle to his cabin after dinner and unfold, with the aid of printed diagrams and little brass oblongs representing ships, the tactical and strategical mysteries of his craft. There was one unforgettable evening, too, when the Periwinkle was bidden to dinner ashore at the Malta Club. The dinner was followed by a dance, whereat, in further token of esteem, the Flag-Lieutenant introduced him to a lady of surpassing loveliness—The Fairest (the Periwinkle was given to understand) of All the Pippins.

The spring gave place to summer, and the island became a glaring wilderness of sun-baked rock. For obscure reasons of policy the Fleet remained at Malta instead of departing on its usual cruise, and week after week the sun blazed pitilessly down on the awnings of the anchored ships. Week by week the Periwinkle grew more brown and angular, and lost a little more of his wiry activity. The frequent stampedes up and down ladders with signals for the Admiral sent him into a lather like a nervous horse; at the end of a watch his hair was wet with perspiration and his whites hung clammily on his meagre limbs. After a while, too, he began to find the glare tell, and to ease the aching of his eyes, had sometimes to shift the telescope from one eye to the other in the middle of a signal. As a matter of fact, there was no necessity for him to read signals at all: that was part of the signalman's duty. And if he had chosen to be more leisurely in his ascent and descent of ladders, no one would have called him to account. But his zeal was a flame within him, and terror lest he earned a rebuke from the Flag-Lieutenant for lack of smartness, lent wings to his tired heels.

It was August when the Flag-Lieutenant sought out the Fleet Surgeon in the Wardroom after dinner, and broached the subject of the Periwinkle.

"P.M.O., I wish you'd have a look at that shrimp; he's knocking himself up in this heat. He swears he's all right, but he looks fit for nothing but hospital."

So the Periwinkle was summoned to the Fleet Surgeon's cabin. Vehemently he asserted that he had never felt better in his life, and the most the fatherly old Irishman could extort from him was the admission that he had not been sleeping particularly well. As a matter of fact he had not slept for three nights past; but fear lest he should be "put on the list" forbade his admitting either this or the shooting pain behind his eyes, which by now was almost continual. The outcome of the interview, however, was an order to turn in forthwith. Next morning the Periwinkle was ignominiously hoisted over the side in a cot—loudly protesting at the indignity of not even being allowed to walk—en route for Bighi Hospital as a fever patient.

II.

The news of the world is transmitted to Naval Stations abroad by cable, and promulgated by means of Wireless Telegraphy to ships cruising or out of reach of visual signalling. At Malta the news is distributed to ships present in harbour by semaphore from the Castile, an eminence above the town of Valletta, commanding the Grand Harbour and nearly opposite the Naval Hospital.

One morning a group of convalescents were sunning themselves on the balcony of the hospital, and one, watching the life of the harbour through a telescope, suddenly exclaimed, "Stand by! They're going to make the Reuter Telegram. I wonder how the Navy got on at Lords."

"It's hopeless trying to read it," said another, "they make it at such a beastly rate."

The Periwinkle, fuming in bed in an adjacent ward, overheard the speaker. In a second he was on his feet and at the open window, a tousled-haired object in striped pyjamas, crinkling his eyes in the glare. "I can read it, sir; lend me the glass."

"You ought to be in bed, my son. Haven't you got Malta Fever?"

"It's very slight," replied the Periwinkle—as indeed it was,—"and I'm quite as warm out here as in bed. May I borrow your glass?"

He took the telescope and steadied it against a pillar. The distant semaphore began waving, and the group of convalescents settled down to listen. But no sound came from the boy. He was standing with the eye-piece held to his right eye, motionless as a statue. A light wind fluttered the gaudy pyjamas, and their owner lowered the glass with a little frown, half-puzzled, half-irritated.

"I—it's—there's something wrong—" he began, and abruptly put the glass to his left eye. "Ah, that's better...." He commenced reading, but in a minute or two his voice faltered and trailed off into silence. He changed the glass to his right, and back to his left eye. Then, lowering it, turned a white scared face to the seated group. "I'm afraid I can't read any more," he said in a curiously dry voice; "I—it hurts my eyes."

He returned the glass to its owner and hopped back into bed, where he sat with the clothes drawn up under his chin, sweating lightly.

After a while he closed his left eye and looked cautiously round the room. The tops of objects appeared indistinctly out of a grey mist. It was like looking at a partly fogged negative. He closed his right eye and repeated the process with the other. His field of vision was clear then, except for a speck of grey fog that hung threateningly in the upper left-hand corner.

By dinner-time he could see nothing with the right eye, and the fog had closed on half the left eye's vision.

At tea-time he called the Sister on duty—

"My eyes—hurt ... frightfully." Thus the Periwinkle, striving to hedge with Destiny.

"Do they?" sympathised the Sister. "I'll tell the Surgeon when he comes round to-night, and he'll give you something for them. I shouldn't read for the present if I were you."

The Periwinkle smiled grimly, as if she had made a joke, and lay back, every nerve in his body strung to breaking-point.

"Can't see, eh?" The visiting Surgeon who leaned over his bed a few hours later looked at him from under puzzled brows. "Can't see—d'you mean...." He picked up an illustrated paper, holding it about a yard away, and pointed to a word in block type: "What's this word?"

The Periwinkle stared past him with a face like a flint. "I can't see the paper. I can't see you ... or the room, or—or—anything.... I'm blind." His voice trembled.

To the terror by night that followed was added physical pain past anything he had experienced or imagined in his short life. It almost amazed him that anything could hurt so much and not rob him of consciousness. The next room held a sufferer who raved in delirium: cursing, praying, and shrieking alternately. The tortured voice rose in the stillness of the night to a howl, and the Periwinkle set his teeth grimly. He was not alone in torment, but his was still the power to meet it like a man.

By the end of a week the pain had left him. At intervals during this period he was guided to a dark room—for the matter of that, all rooms were dark to him—and unseen beings bandied strange technicalities about his ears. "Optic neuritis ... retrobulbar ... atrophy." The words meant nothing to the boy, and their meaning mattered less. For nothing, they told him, could give him back his sight. After that they left him alone, to wait with what patience he might until the next P. & O. steamer passed through.

His first visitor was the Chaplain, the most well-meaning of men, whose voice quavered with pity as he spoke at some length of resignation and the beauty of cheerfulness in affliction. On his departure, the Periwinkle caught the rustle of the Sister's dress.

"Sister," said the boy, "will you please go away for a few minutes. I'm afraid I have to swear—out loud."

"But you mustn't," she expostulated, slightly taken aback. "It's—it's very wicked."

"Can't help that," replied the Periwinkle austerely. "Please go at once; I'm going to begin."

Scandalised and offended—as well she might be—she left the Periwinkle to his godless self, and he swore aloud—satisfying, unintelligible, senseless lower-deckese. But when she brought him his tea an hour later she found he had the grace to look ashamed of himself, and forgave him. They subsequently became great friends, and at the Periwinkle's dictation she wrote long cheerful letters that began: "My dear Mother," and generally ended in suspicious-looking smudges.

Every one visited the Periwinkle. His brethren from the Fleet arrived, bearing as gifts strange and awful delicacies that usually had to be confiscated, sympathising with the queer, clumsy tenderness of boyhood. The Flag-Lieutenant came often, always cheerful and optimistic, forbearing to voice a word of pity: for this the Periwinkle was inexpressibly grateful. He even brought the Fairest of All the Pippins, but the boy shrank a little from the tell-tale tremor she could never quite keep out of her voice. Her parting gift was an armful of roses, and on leaving she bent over till he could smell the faint scent of her hair. "Good-bye," she whispered; "go on being brave," and, to his wrathful astonishment, kissed him lightly on the mouth.

There was the Admiral's wife too—childless herself—who, from long dealings with men, had acquired a brusque, almost masculine manner. As soon as he had satisfied himself that she evinced no outward desire to "slobber," the Periwinkle admitted her to his friendship. He subsequently confessed to the Sister that, for a woman, she read aloud extremely well. "Well, I must be goin'," she said one day at parting. "I'll bring John up to see you to-morrow." When she had gone, the Periwinkle smote his pillow. "John!" he gasped.

"John" was the Admiral.

Even the crew of his cutter—just the ordinary rapscallion duty-crew of the boat he had commanded—trudged up one sweltering Sunday afternoon, and were ushered with creaking boots and moist, shiny faces into his ward.

"Bein' as we 'ad an arfternoon orf, sir," began the spokesman, who was also the Coxswain of the boat. But at the sight of the wavering, sightless eyes, although prompted by nudges and husky whispers, he forgot his carefully-prepared sentences.

"We reckoned we'd come an' give you a chuck-up, like, sir," concluded another, and instead of the elaborate speech they had deemed the occasion demanded, they told him of their victory in a three-mile race over a rival cutter. How afterwards they had generously fraternised with the vanquished crew,—so generously that the port stroke—"'im as we calls 'Nobby' Clark, sir, if you remembers"—was at that moment languishing in a cell, as a result of the lavish hospitality that had prevailed. Finally, the Periwinkle extended a thin hand to the darkness, to be gripped in turn by fourteen leathery fists, ere their owners tiptoed out of the room and out of his life.

III.

The Periwinkle found blindness an easier matter to bear in the ward of a hospital than on board the P. & O. Liner by which he was invalided home. A Naval Sick-berth Steward attended to his wants, helped him to dress, and looked after him generally. But every familiar smell and sound of ship-life awoke poignant memories of the ship-life of former days, and filled him with bitter woe. He was morbidly sensitive of his blindness, too, and for days moped in his cabin alone, fiercely repelling any attempt at sympathy or companionship. Then, by degrees, the ship's doctor coaxed him up into a deck-chair, and sat beside him, warding off intruders and telling stories with the inimitable drollery that is the heritage of the surgeons of P. & O. Liners. And at night, when the decks were clear, and every throb of the propellers was a reminder of the home they were drawing near to, he would link his arm loosely within the boy's and together they would walk to and fro. During these promenades he invariably treated the Periwinkle as a man of advanced years and experience, whereby was no little balm in Gilead.

Many people tried to make a fuss of the boy with the sullen mouth, whose cheek-bones looked as if they were coming through the skin, and who had such a sad story. Wealthy globe-trotters, Anglo-Indians, missionaries, and ladies of singular charm and beauty, all strove according to their lights to comfort him. But by degrees they realised he never wanted to play cat's-cradle or even discuss his mother, and so left him in peace.

But the boy had a friend beside the doctor, a grizzled major from an Indian Frontier regiment, returning home on furlough with a V.C. tacked on to his unpretentious name. At first the Periwinkle rather shrank from a fresh acquaintance—it is a terrible thing to have to shake hands with an unknown voice. But he was an incorrigible little hero-worshipper, and this man with the deep steady voice had done and seen wonderful things. Further, he didn't mind talking about them—to the Periwinkle; so that the boy, as he sat clasping his ankles and staring out to sea with sightless eyes, was told stories which, a week later, the newspaper reporters of the Kingdom desired to hear in vain.

He was a philosopher too, this bronzed, grey-haired, warrior with the sun-puckered eyes: teaching how, if you only take the trouble to look for it, a golden thread of humour runs through all the sombre warp and woof of life; and of "Hope which ... outwears the accidents of life and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and death."

This is the nicest sort of philosophy.

But for all that it was a weary voyage, and the Periwinkle was a brown-faced ghost, all knees and elbows and angularities by the time Tilbury was reached. The first to board the ship was a lady, pale and sweetly dignified, whom the doctor met at the gangway and piloted to the Periwinkle's cabin. He opened the door before he turned and fled, and so heard, in her greeting of the Periwinkle, the infinite love and compassion that can thrill a woman's voice.

* * * * *

In a corner of the railway carriage that carried them home, the Periwinkle—that maimed and battered knight—still clung to the haft of his broken sword. "I meant to do so jolly well. Oh, mother, I meant you to be so jolly proud of me. The Flag-Lieutenant said I might have been ... if only it had been an arm or a leg—deaf or dumb ... but there's nothing left in all the world ... it's empty—nothing remains."

She waited till the storms of self-pity and rebellion passed, leaving him biting his fingers and breathing hard. Then little by little, with mysterious tenderness, she drew out the iron that had entered the boyish soul. And, at the last, he turned to her with a little fluttering sigh, as a very tired child abandons a puzzle. She bent her head low—

"This remains," she whispered.

XIII.

THE TIZZY-SNATCHER.

In the beginning he was an Assistant Clerk—which is a very small potato indeed; his attainments in this lowly rank were limited to an extensive and intimate knowledge of the various flavours of gum employed in the composition of envelopes. Passing straight from a private school, he began life in the Gunroom of a sea-going ship, and was afraid with a great amazement.

The new conditions amid which in future he was to have his being unfolded themselves in a succession of crude disillusionments. He found himself surrounded by Midshipmen: contemporaries, but, as they took care to remind him, men in authority—beings with vast, dimly conceived responsibilities: barbarous in their manners, incomprehensive of speech. To the pain of countless indignities was added the fear of personal chastisement (had he not read of such things?), and, having been delicately nurtured, it is to be feared that the days of his earlier service were not without unhappiness.

With the experience of a commission abroad, however, things began to assume their proper perspective. He became a Clerk, R.N., and blossomed into the dignity of a frock-coat and sword at Sunday morning Divisions, whereby was no small balm in Gilead.

Your Midshipman differs but little in point of thoughtless cruelty from his brethren of "Quad" and school bench. But the mess-mates who (obedient to the boyish dictates of inhumanity, and for the good of his immortal soul) had chaffed and snubbed him into maturity, now appreciated him for the even temper and dry sense of humour he acquired in the process.

Having mastered the queer sea-oaths and jargon of a Gunroom, he learned to handle an oar and sail a boat without discredit. The Sub. took him on deck in the dog-watches, and punched into him the rudiments of the art of self-defence; and, lastly, under the tutorship of a kindly Paymaster, he came to understand dimly the inner workings of that vast and complex organisation that has its seat in Whitehall, by whose mouths speak the Lords of Admiralty.

His twenty-first birthday confronted him with the ordeal of an examination, which, successfully passed, entitled him to a commission in His Majesty's Fleet with the rank of Assistant Paymaster.

For the next four years he continued to live in the Gunroom, where, by reason of an alleged unholy intimacy with the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, his advice was commonly sought on questions pertaining to the Service. His mode of speech had become precise—as befitted a wielder of the pen in life's battle, and one versed in the mysteries of Naval Correspondence. The ship's Office was his kingdom, where he was Lord of the Ledgers, with a lack of tan on face and hands that told of a sedentary life in confined spaces: not infrequently he wore glasses.

Some day he will become a Paymaster, warden of the money-chest, and answerable for the pay, victualling, and clothing of every man on board. The years will bring three gold rings to his cuff, a Fleet Paymaster's grey hairs, and a nice perception between the digestible and otherwise in matters of diet.

* * * * *

The A.P. leaned back in his chair and threw down his pen: in the glare of the electric light his face looked white and tired. Beside him the Chief Writer sat totalling a column of figures: on deck a bell struck midnight.

"What d'you make it?" asked the A.P. wearily. The Writer named a sum.

"Penny out," replied the A.P. laconically, picking up his pen again. Outside the Office door, where the hammocks of the guard were slung, a Marine muttered in his sleep.

The two great ledgers that lay open on the desk contained the names of every man on board. They were duplicates, worked independently, and by a comparison of the two mistakes could be detected and rectified. Opposite the names were noted the credits of pay and allowances, adjusted for different charges, the period borne, and all particulars affecting the victualling of each man.

"Ah!" The missing penny had been found. "It's in the account of that confounded Ordinary Seaman who broke his leave and got seven days cells," said the A.P. "No. 215." He gave a sigh of relief and closed the ledger. Perhaps he experienced something of the satisfaction an author might feel on writing the magic word "Finis." It was his creation, every word and figure of it, working as irrevocably as Destiny towards its appointed end: and on the morrow eight hundred men would file past the pay tables, and in less than twenty minutes have received, in coin or postal orders, the balance of pay due to them.

"I'm going to turn in now," said the A.P. "We'll coin to-morrow."

Now the coins on a Paymaster's charge are of certain denominations—usually sovereigns, half-sovereigns, florins, shillings, and sixpenny bits. Each man is paid, as a rule, to the nearest shilling, and the odd pence, if any, are carried forward to the succeeding quarter. Thus the pay due to a man is, say, £3, 19s. 4d. He receives three sovereigns, a half-sovereign, four florins, and a shilling; the four pence are brought on to the next ledger. A Paymaster is thus enabled to foretell with some degree of accuracy the number of coins that he must demand from time to time.

Having coined the total amount to be paid out in wages, and ascertained the number of coins of each denomination required, the pay-trays were laid on the desk in the Office. Each tray was made up of compartments large enough to hold a man's pay.

The Paymaster divested himself of his coat, lit a pipe, and arranged side by side the two bags containing sovereigns and half-sovereigns. The A.P. similarly disposed of the florins and shillings, so that he could reach them easily. They contained the exact total amount required for the payment in the requisite coins.

"Ready, sir?" he asked.

"Right," said the Paymaster.

The Chief Writer read out the amount due to the first man. Quick as a flash the amount had clinked into the first division of the tray, both officers making mental calculations as to the coins required. For the next half-hour the only sounds in the Office were the voice of the Chief Writer and the tinkle of the coins as each one was slipped into its compartment. In an incredibly short time the piles of gold and silver had melted away; as a tray was filled it was placed in a box and locked up in readiness for the payment. The three faces grew anxious as the piles dwindled and the number of empty compartments lessened.... The last total was reached: the Paymaster threw down two sovereigns; the A.P. added a florin and a shilling. The bags were empty: would it "pan out"?

"Two pounds three," read out the Chief Writer, craning his neck to see the result.

"Thank the Lord," murmured the A.P.

* * * * *

On the quarter-deck, facing aft, the ship's company were mustered: seamen, stokers, artisans, cooks, and police, one after another, as their names were called by the A.P., stepped briskly up to the pay table, where the Captain and the Commander stood, scooped their wages into their caps and hurried away. The Marines followed, receiving their pay in their hands, with a click of the heels and a swinging salute.

At the break of the forecastle an Ordinary Seaman stood regarding a few silver coins in his grimy palm. Having broken his leave during the month and been awarded cells in consequence, he had received considerably less pay than usual—a penalty he had not foreseen and did not understand.

"Bloomin' tizzy-snatcher," he muttered, slipping the coins into his trousers-pocket.

He referred to the A.P.

XIV.

"C/O G.P.O."

The bell above the door of the village post-office tinkled and the Postmistress looked up over her spectacles.

"Is it yourself, Biddy?"

A barefooted country girl with a shawl over her head entered and shyly tendered an envelope across the counter.

"Can you tell me how much it will be, Mrs Malone?" she queried. There was anxiety in the dark-blue eyes.

The Postmistress glanced at the address. "Sure, it'll go for a penny," she said reassuringly.

"That's a terrible long way for a penny," said the girl. "Sure, it's a terrible long way."

From under her shawl she produced a coin and stamped the envelope. It took some time to do this, because a good deal depended on the exact angle at which the stamp was affixed. In itself it carried a message to the recipient.

"It's grand writin' ye've got," said the Postmistress, her Celtic sympathy aroused. "An' himself will be houldin' it in his hands a month from now."

The girl blushed. "Father Denis is after learnin' me; an' please for a bit o' stamp-paper, Mrs Malone," she pleaded softly, "the way no one will be after opening it an' readin' it in them outlandish parts." It was the seal of the poor, a small square of stamp-paper gummed over the flap of the envelope.

As she was concluding this final rite the bell tinkled again. A fair-haired girl in tweeds, carrying a walking-stick, entered with a spaniel at her heels.

She smiled a greeting to both women. "A penny stamp, please, Mrs Malone." She stamped a letter she carried in her hand, and turned the face of the envelope towards the Postmistress. "How long is this going to take getting to its destination?"

The Postmistress beamed. "Sure, himself—" she began, and recollected herself. "A month, me lady—no more." Outside, the girl with the shawl over her head was standing before the slit of the post-box; the other girl came out the next moment, and the two letters started on their long journey side by side. As the two women turned to go, their eyes met for an instant: the country girl blushed. They went their way, each with a little smile on her lips.

* * * * *

The Destroyer, that for three hours had been slamming through a head sea, rounded the headland and came in sight of the anchored Fleet.

The Yeoman of Signals on the Flagship's bridge closed his glass with a snap. "She's got mails for the Fleet," he called to the Leading Signalman. "I'll report to the Flag-Lieutenant." As he descended to the quarterdeck he met the Officer of the Watch.

"Destroyer coming in with mails, sir." The Lieutenant's face brightened; he called an order to the Boatswain's Mate, who ran forward piping shrilly. "A-wa-a-ay picket-boat!" he bawled.

The Flag-Lieutenant was reading in his cabin when the Yeoman made his report. Snatching up his cap, he hastened in to the Admiral's apartments. "Destroyer arriving with mails for the Fleet, sir." The Admiral glanced at the calendar. "Ah! Eight days since we had the last. Thank you."

The Flag-Lieutenant poked his head inside the Secretary's Office. "Now you fellows will have something to do—the mail's coming in!"

"Thank you," replied the Secretary's Clerk. "But, Flags, try not to look quite so inanely pleased about it. She's probably forgotten all about you by now."

The Destroyer with rime-crusted funnels drew near, and men working on the upper decks of the Fleet ceased their labours to watch her approach. One of the side-party, working over the side in a bowline, jerked his paint-brush in her direction. "If I don't get no letter this mail—so 'elp me I stops me 'arf pay," he confided grimly to a "Raggie," and spat sententiously. In the Wardroom the married officers awoke from their afternoon siesta and began to harass the Officer of the Watch with inquiries. The news spread even to the Midshipmen's Schoolplace, and the Naval Instructor found straightway that to all intents and purposes he was lecturing on Spherical Trigonometry to deaf adders.

With the eyes of the Fleet upon her, the Destroyer anchored at last, and the Flagship's picket-boat slid alongside to embark the piles of bloated mail-bags. As she swung round on her return journey the Yeoman on the Flagship's bridge glanced down at a signal-boy standing beside the flag-lockers, and nodded. Two flags leaped from the lockers and sped to the masthead. Instantly an answering flutter of bunting appeared on each ship.

"Send boats for mails." The Flagship had spoken.

* * * * *

In Wardroom and Gunroom a rustling silence prevailed. Each new-comer as he entered rushed to the letter-rack and hurriedly grabbed his pile of letters: there is a poignant joy in seeing one's name on an envelope twelve thousand watery miles away from home, no matter whose hand penned the address. In some cases, though, it mattered a good deal.

The Flag-Lieutenant retired to his cabin like a dog with a bone, and became engrossed with closely-written sheets that enclosed several amateur snapshots. One or two portrayed a slim, fair-haired girl in tweeds; others a black spaniel. The Flag-Lieutenant studied them through a magnifying-glass, smiling.

The Admiral, busy over his private correspondence, was also smiling. He had been offered another group of letters to tack after his name (he had five already). The agent of his estate at home had a lot to say about the pheasants.... His wife sprawled an account of life at Aix across eight pages. He had been invited to be the executor of one man's will and godfather to another's child. But a series of impressionist sketches by his youngest daughter (ætat. 5), inspired by a visit to the Zoo, was what he was actually smiling over.

Up on the after-bridge the Yeoman of the Watch leaned over the rail and whistled to the signal-boy. "Nip down to my mess an' see if there's a letter for me."

The boy fled down the ladder and presently returned with a letter. The Yeoman took it from him and turned it over in his hands, scanning it almost hungrily.

The stamp was cryptically askew and the flap of the envelope ornamented by a fragment of stamp-paper.

"An' what the 'ell are you grinnin' at?" he began. The boy turned and scampered down the ladder into safety. The Yeoman of Signals stood looking after him, the letter held in his hand, when a bell rang outside the signal-house. He put his ear to the voice-pipe. The Flag-Lieutenant was speaking.

"Yes, sir?"

"Make the following signal to the Destroyer that brought our mails—

"To Commanding Officer. Admiral requests the pleasure of your company to dinner to-night at eight o'clock."

"Aye, aye, sir." He turned away from the voice-pipe. "An' 'e could 'ave my tot on top o' that for the askin'."

XV.

THE "LOOK-SEE."

SOUTHEND, AUGUST 1909.

A bunting-draped paddle-steamer, listed over with a dense crowd of trippers, thrashed her leisurely way down the lines. On the quarterdeck of one of the Battleships the Midshipman of the Afternoon Watch rubbed the lense of his telescope with his jacket cuff, adjusted the focus against a stanchion, and prepared to make the most of this heaven-sent diversion. Over the water came a hoarse roar of cheering, and, as she drew near, handkerchiefs and flags fluttered along the steamer's rail. The Lieutenant of the Watch, in frock-coat and sword-belt, paused beside the Midshipman and raised his glass, a dry smile creasing the corners of his eyes.

"What's up with them all, sir?" murmured the boy delightedly. "My Aunt! What a Banzai!"

"Ever seen kids cheer a passing train? Same sort of thing."

"But look at the girl in white; she's half off her chump—look at her waving her arms.... Friend of yours, sir?"

"No—only hysterical. The man with her is trying to make her stop." The sailor laughed. "He's given it up ... now he's waving too—what at?" He closed his glass. "Curious, isn't it?"

The steamer passed on, and a confused burr of cheering announced that she had reached the next silent warship. "It's all-same 'Maffick,'" he continued presently, "Entente—Banzai—anything you like to call it. An' when we've gone they'll come to their senses and feel hot all over—like a fellow who wakes up and finds his hat on the gas-bracket and his boots in the water-jug!"

The Midshipman nodded: "I saw some kids dancing round a policeman once. Made the bobby look rather an ass—though as a matter of fact I believe he rather liked it. Bad for discipline, though," he added with the austere judgment of eighteen summers.

A launch bumped alongside, and a stout man in the stern-sheets shouted for permission to come on board.

"Do," said the Lieutenant gravely. The stout man took a valedictory pull at a black bottle in the stern-locker, pocketed a handful of shrimps for future consumption, and, accompanied by three feminine acquaintances, laboriously ascended the ladder. They gazed stolidly and all uncomprehending at the sleek barbette guns, the snowy planking underfoot, over which flickered the shadow of the White Ensign, and finally wandered forward through the screen-doors, where they were lost to view among the throngs of sightseers.

The afternoon wore on; every few minutes a launch or steamer swirled past, gay with bunting and parasols. Many carried bands, and in the lulls of cheering the light breeze bore the notes of martial, if not strictly appropriate, music across the line. An Able Seaman paused in his occupation of burnishing the top of the after-capstan, and passed the back of his hand across his forehead.

"Proper dizzy, ain't they?" he remarked in an undertone to a companion. "Wot's the toon?"

"Sons of the Muvverland," replied the other. He sucked his teeth appreciatively, after the manner of sailor-men, and added, "Gawd! Look at them women!..."

A launch with a crimson banner, bearing the name of a widely-circulated halfpenny paper, fussed under the stern. A man in a dingy white waistcoat hailed the quarter-deck in the vernacular through a megaphone.

"No, thank you," came the clear-cut reply; "we have to-day's papers." The Lieutenant hitched his glass under his arm and resumed his measured walk. "I'm no snob, Lord knows," he confided to the other, "but it bores me stiff to be patted on the head by the halfpenny press— Sideboy! pick up those shrimps' heads that gentleman dropped."

By degrees the more adventurous spirits found their way down between decks, where, in a short time, the doorway of each officer's cabin framed a cluster of inquisitive heads. In one or two cases daring sightseers had invaded the interiors, and were examining with naïve interest the photographs, Rugby caps, dented cups, and all the lares atque penates of a Naval Officer.

"'Ere, Florrie!" called a flushed maiden of Hebraic mien, obtruding her head into the flat, "come an' look!" She extended a silver photograph frame,—"Phyllis Dare—signed an' all!"

The other sighed rapturously and examined it with round-eyed interest. Then she gazed round the tiny apartment. "Ain't 'e a one! Look at 'is barf 'anging on the roof!..."

The harassed sentry evicted them with difficulty.

"Better'n Earl's Court, this is," opined a stout lady, who, accompanied by a meek-looking husband and three children, had subsided on to a Midshipman's sea-chest. She opened the mouth of a string-bag. "Come on, 'Orace—you just set down this minute, an' you shall 'ave 'arf a banana."

A very small Midshipman approached the chest. "I hate disturbing you, and Horace," he ventured, "but I want to go ashore, and all my things are in that box you're sitting on—would you mind...?"

"Ma!" shrilled a small boy, indicating the modest brass plate on the lid of the chest they had vacated. "Look—" he extended a small, grubby forefinger, "'e's a Viscount!"

"Garn," snapped his father, "that's swank, that is. Viscounts don' go sailorin'—they stops ashore an' grinds the faces of the poor, an' don' forget what I'm tellin' of you."

The Marine Sentry overheard. "Pity they don' wash 'em as well," he observed witheringly. His duties included that of servant to the Midshipman in question, and he resented the scepticism of a stranger who sat on the lid of his master's chest eating cold currant pudding out of a string-bag.

* * * * *

On the pier-head a dense perspiring crowd surged through gates and barriers, swarmed outward into all the available space, and slowly congested into a packed throng of over-heated, over-tired humanity. Those nearest the rails levelled cheap opera-glasses at the distant line of men-of-war stretching away into the haze, each ship with her attendant steamer circling round her. An excursion steamer alongside hooted deafeningly, and a man in a peaked cap on her bridge raised his voice above the babel, bellowing hoarse incoherencies. A gaitered Lieutenant clanked through the crowd, four patrol-men at his heels, moving as men do who are accustomed to cramped surroundings.

At the landing-stages, where the crowd surged thickest, the picket-boats from the Fleet swung hooting alongside, rocking in the swell. As each went astern and checked her way, the front of the excited throng of sightseers bellied outward, broke, and poured across the boats in a wild stampede for seats. They swayed on the edge of the gunwales, floundered hobnailed over enamelled casings, were clutched and steadied on the heaving decks by barefooted, half-contemptuous men. The Midshipmen raised their voices in indignant protest: drunk and riotous liberty-men they understood: one "swung-off" at them in unfettered language of the sea, or employed the butt-end of a tiller to back an ignored command on which their safety depended. But here was a people that had never known discipline—had scorned the necessity for it in their own unordered lives. The Midshipman of the inside pinnace jerked the lanyard of the syren savagely. "Look at my priceless paintwork! look at—That's enough—no more in this boat—it's not safe! Please stand back, it's—oh, d——!"

A man, in utter disregard of the request, had picked up a child in his arms and jumped on board, steadying himself by the funnel guys. "Orl right, my son, don't bust yerself," he replied pleasantly.

* * * * *

An old woman forced her way through the crush towards the Lieutenant of the Patrol, who with knotted brows was trying to grasp the gist of a signal handed to him by a coastguard.

"I want to see my 'usband's nephew," she explained breathlessly; "'e's in 39 Mess." The Lieutenant smiled gravely. "What ship?" She named the ship, and stood expectant, a look of confidence on her heated features, as if awaiting some sleight-of-hand trick. There was something dimly prophetic in the simple faith with which she voiced her need.

"I see. Will you excuse me a minute while I answer this signal, and I'll send some one to help you find the right boat."

A Petty Officer guided her eventually to the landing-place and saw her safely embarked; he returned to find his Lieutenant comforting with clumsy tenderness a small and lacrymose boy who had lost his parents, turning from him to receive the reproaches of a lady whose purse had been stolen. The two men exchanged a little smile, and the Petty Officer edged a little nearer—

"'Arf an hour on the parade-ground at Whale Island,[#] sir, I'd like to 'ave with some of 'em," he confided behind a horny palm. The jostling throng surged round him, calling high heaven to witness the might of its possessions.

[#] The hotbed of Naval Discipline.

"I'd make 'em 'op..." he murmured dreamily.

XVI.

"WATCH THERE, WATCH!"

Dinner in the long, antler-hung mess-room of the Naval Barracks had come to an end. Here and there along the table, where the shaded lights glinted on silver loving-cups and trophies, a few officers lingered in pairs over their coffee. Presently the band moved down from the gallery that overlooked one end of the Mess, and began playing in the hall. This was the signal for a general move to the smoking-room, where a score of figures in mess undress uniform were grouped round the fire, lighting pipes and cigars and exchanging mild, after-dinner chaff.

A few couples of dancing enthusiasts were solemnly revolving in the hall. Others made their way up the broad staircase to the billiard-room, or settled down at the bridge tables.

"Come on," shouted a tall Commander seated on the "club" fender in the smoking-room, "what about a game of skill or chance? Come up to the billiard-room, and bring your pennies!" He stirred a form recumbent in an arm-chair with the toe of his boot. "What about you, young feller? Are you going to play pool?"

The young Lieutenant shook his head. "Not to-night, sir, thanks. I'm going to bed early: I've got the Night Guard trip."

Gradually the room emptied. The figure in the arm-chair finished the paper he was reading, glanced at the clock and rose, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Call me at 1.15," he said to the hall porter as he passed him on his way to his room.

An officer, immaculate in evening dress, who was putting his overcoat in the hall, overheard the speaker, and laughed. "That's the spirit! Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise!"

"More'n you'll ever be, my sprig o' fashion," grumbled the Lieutenant, and passed on.

* * * * *

The Lieutenant of the Night Guard went cautiously down the wooden steps of the Barracks' Pier that led to the landing-place. Cautiously, because the tide was low, and experience had taught him that the steps would be slippery with weed. Also the night was very dark, and the lights of the steamboat alongside showed but indistinctly through the surrounding fog. At the bottom of the steps one of the boat's crew was waiting with a lantern. Its rays lit for a minute the faces of the two men, and gleamed on the steel guard of the cutlass at the bearer's hip.

"Infernal night!" said the Lieutenant from the depths of his overcoat collar. He had just turned out, and there was an exceeding bitterness in his voice. The lantern-bearer also had views on the night—possibly stronger views—but refrained from any reply. Perhaps he realised that none was expected. The other swung himself down into the sternsheets of the boat, and, as he did so, the Coxswain came aft, blowing on his hands.

"Carry on, sir?"

"Please. Usual rounds: go alongside a Destroyer and any ship that doesn't hail. Fog's very thick: got a compass?"

"There's a compass in the boat, sir." The Coxswain moved forward again to the wheel, wearing a slightly ruffled expression which, owing to the darkness and the fact that there was no one to see it, was rather wasted. For thirty years he'd known that harbour, man and boy, fair or foul, and his father a waterman before him.... He jerked the telegraph bell twice, gave a half-contemptuous turn to the wheel, and spat overside.

"Compass!" he observed to the night.

The boat slid away on its mission, and the shore lights glimmered wan and vanished in the fog astern. A clock ashore struck the hour, and from all sides came the answering ships' bells—some near, some far, all muffled by the moisture in the heavy atmosphere.

Ding-ding! Ding! Half-past one.

He who had borne the lantern deposited it in the tiny cabin aft, and with a thoughtful expression removed a frayed halfpenny paper from the inside of the breast of his jumper. To carry simultaneously a cutlass and a comic paper did not apparently accord with his views on the fitness of things, for he carefully refolded the latter and placed it under the cushions of the locker. Then he unhooked a small megaphone from the bulkhead, and came out, closing the sliding-door behind him. Finally he passed forward into the bows of the boat, where he remained visible in the glare of the steaming light, his arms crossed on his chest, hands tucked for warmth one under each arm-pit, peering stolidly into the blackness ahead.

Once in mid-stream the fog lessened. Sickly patches of light waxed out of indistinctness and gleamed yellow. Anon as they brightened, a human voice, thin and lonely as a wraith's, came abruptly out of the night.

"Boat ahoy!" The voice from nowhere sounded like an alarm. It was as if the darkness were suddenly suspicious of this swiftly-moving, palpitating thing from across the water. The figure in the bows removed his hands from his arm-pits, picked up the megaphone, and sent a reassuring bellow in the direction of the hail.

"Guard Boat!" he answered, and as he did so a vast towering shape had loomed up over them. "Answer's, 'Guard Boat!' sir," said the faint voice somewhere above their heads, addressing an unseen third person. A dark wall appeared, surmounted by a shadowy superstructure and a giant tripod mast that was swallowed, long before the eye could reach its apex, in vapour and darkness. The sleek flanks of guns at rest showed for an instant.... A sleeping "Super-Dreadnought." It faded into the darkness astern; then nothing but the mist again, and the throb of the boat's engines.

Another, and another, and yet another watchful Presence loomed up out of the night, hailed suspiciously, and, at the megaphone's answering bellow, merged again into the silent darkness. A figure stepped aft in the Guard Boat and adjusted the tarpaulin that covered the rifles lying on top of the cabin: moisture had collected among the folds in little pools. Then the engine-room gong rang, and a voice quite near hailed them. A long black shadow appeared abreast, and the Guard Boat slid alongside a Destroyer at anchor. The dark water between the two hulls churned into foam as the boat reversed her engines. A tall figure holding a lantern leaned over the Destroyer's rail.

"Night Guard," said the Lieutenant curtly. As he came forward, three men climbed silently up from below and stood awaiting orders at his side. The lantern shone unsteadily on their impassive faces.

"Are you the Quartermaster?"

"Yessir." The tall man in oilskins leaning over the Destroyer's rail lowered his lantern.

"All right, I won't come inboard. All correct?"

"All correct, sir."

"Right. Put it in the log that I've visited you. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

The gong clanged, and the Guard Boat slid away into the mist again. The figure in the bows was relieved by a comrade, and together with the remaining two vanished down the foremost hatch. The faint reek of Navy tobacco drifted aft to the stern-sheets, where the Lieutenant of the Night Guard had resumed his position, leaning against an angle of the cabin with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. He was reflecting on the strangeness of a profession that dragged a man from his bed at one o'clock in the morning, to steam round a foggy harbour in the company of armed men, these times of piping peace.

Once a night throughout the year, in every Dockyard Port in the kingdom, a launch slid away from the Depot jetty, slipped in and out among the anchored ships, and returned to her moorings when the patrol was completed. Why? Some grim significance surely lay in the duty, in the abrupt hails that stabbed the stillness, greeting the throb of her engines: in the figure of the armed man in the bows with the megaphone, ready to fling back the reassuring answer....

He shifted his position and glanced forward. The bowman was chewing tobacco, and every now and again turned his head to spit overside. Each time he did so the port bow-light lit his features with a ruddy glare. It was a stolid countenance, slightly bored.

The Lieutenant smiled gravely. Did the figure wonder why he wore a cutlass in peace time? Did he realise the warning it embodied—the message they conveyed night by night to the anchored ships? His thoughts took a more sombre turn. Would the night ever come—just such a night as this—and under the fog a Menace glide in among the blindfold Fleet? To the first hail of alarm answer with a lever released, a silvery shadow that left a trail of bubbles on the surface.... And then—the fog and silence riven to the dark vault of heaven.

He raised his head. "All right, Coxswain, enough for to-night. Carry on back." Over went the helm: the boat swung round on a new course, heading whence she had come an hour before.

Carry on back! It was so easy to say.

His thoughts reverted to the grim picture his imagination had created. How would that shadowy Terror, her mission fulfilled, "carry on back"? Wheel wrenched over, funnels spouting flame, desperate men clinging to the rail as she reeled under the concussion, racing blindly through the outraged night for safety.

Thus had a warring Nation written a lesson across the map of Manchuria for all the world to read—and, if they might, remember.

Where did he come in, then—this figure leaning thoughtfully against the angle of the steamboat's cabin? What was his mission, and that of the steamboat with its armed crew, night after night, in fog and by starlight, winter and summer...?

A chord of memory vibrated faintly in his mind. There was a phrase that summed it up, learned long ago.... He was a cadet again on the seamanship-deck of the old Britannia, at instruction in a now obsolete method of sounding with the Deep-Sea Lead and Line. They were shown how, in order to obtain a sounding, a number of men were stationed along the ship's side, each holding a coil of the long line. As the heavy lead sank and the line tautened from hand to hand, each man flung his coil overboard. As he did so he called to warn the next—

"Watch there, watch!"

The steamboat, slowed as she passed close under the stern of a battleship. The fog had lifted, and the Officer of the Middle Watch was leaning over the quarter-deck rail. The Lieutenant of the Night Guard raised his head, and in the gleam of the ship's stern light the two officers recognised each other. They had been in the Britannia, together. The former laughed a greeting.

"Go back to bed, you noisy blighter!"

The cloaked figure in the boat chuckled. "That's where I am going," he called back.

XVII.

"FAREWELL AND ADIEU!"

The Junior Watch-keeper paused at the corner of the street and smote the pavement with the ferrule of his stick.

"Lord!" he ejaculated, "to think this is the last night! Look at it all...." Dusk had fallen, and with it a wet mist closed down on the town. The lights from the shop windows threw out a warm orange glow that was reflected off the wet pavements and puddles in the street. The shrill voice of a paper-boy, hawking the evening paper, dominated all other sounds for a moment. "Eve ... nin' Er-r-rald!" he called. Then, seeing the two figures standing irresolute on the kerb, ran towards them.

"Evenin' 'Erald! sir? Naval 'Pointments, sir ... To-night's Naval 'Point——"

The Lieutenant shook his head half impatiently, then added as if speaking to himself, "No—not yet." It was such a familiar evening feature of life ashore in a Dockyard Port, that hoarse, "jodelling" cry. One bought the paper and glanced through the columns over a gin-and-bitters at the Club. But this was the last night: every familiar sensation and experience should be flavoured in their turn—ere they two went hence and were no more seen!

The Young Doctor at his elbow gave a curt laugh: "We shan't be very interested in the Appointments to-morrow night, Jerry!" An itinerant seller of violets drifted down the pavement and thrust his fragrant merchandise upon them.

"What shall we do first?" asked the Junior Watch-keeper. "Let's go and have our hair cut and a shampoo."

"I hate having my hair cut," pleaded the Surgeon.

"Never mind: it's all part of the show. You won't get another chance of talking football to a barber for years.... And that awful green stuff that he rubs in with a bit of sponge—oh, come on!"

Together they drifted up the familiar street, pausing to stare into shop windows with a sudden renewal of interest that was half pathetic. A jeweller's shop, throwing a glittering white arc of light across the pavement arrested their progress.

"I never realised before," mused the Surgeon, "how these fellows cater for the love-lorn Naval Officer. Look at those brooches: naval crowns; hat-pins made of uniform buttons, bracelets with flags done in enamel—D-E-A-R-E-S—" he spelt out, and broke off abruptly, "Pouf! What tosh!"

The other was fumbling with the door-latch. "Half a minute, Peter, there's something I've just remembered..." and vanished inside muttering. The Young Doctor caught the words "some little thing," and waited outside. The traffic of the street, a fashionable shopping street in a Dockyard town at 6 P.M., streamed past him as he stood there waiting. Girls in furs, with trim ankles, carrying parcels or Badminton raquets, hurried along, pausing every now and again to glance into an attractive shop window. Several tweed-clad figures, shouldering golf clubs, passed in the direction of the railway station; one or two nodded a salutation as they recognised him. Little pigtailed girls with tight skirts enclosing immature figures, of a class known technically as the "Flapper," drifted by with lingering, precocious stares. The horns of the motors that whizzed along the muddy street sounded far and near. They, together with the clang and rumble of tram-cars a few streets away, and the voices of the paper-boys, dominated in turn all other sounds in the mirky night air. The man with the basket of violets shuffled past again, and left a faint trail of fragrance lingering. Long after that night, in the uttermost parts of the earth he remembered it, and the half-caught scent of violets, drifting from a perfume shop in Saigon, was destined to conjure up for the Surgeon a vision of that glittering street, with its greasy pavement and hurrying passers-by, and of a pair of grey eyes that glanced back for an instant over their owner's furs....

The Junior Watch-keeper reappeared, buttoning up his coat. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, Peter," and fell into step beside his companion.

Half an hour later they emerged from the hairdresser's establishment, clipped and anointed as to the head.

"Now," breathed the Lieutenant, "where to?"

"Sawdust Club!" said the Surgeon. They crossed the road and turned up a narrow passage-way. As they quitted the street, a diminutive boy, with an old, wizened face and an unnaturally husky voice, wormed his way in under the Young Doctor's elbow, "'Erald, sir? Latest, sir! Naval—" The Surgeon slipped a sixpenny bit into his hand and took the proffered paper, still damp from the press. They entered a long vault-like apartment, its floor strewn with sawdust and long counters and a row of wooden stools extending down each side. Behind the counters rose tiers of barrels, and in one corner was a sandwich buffet, with innumerable neat piles of sandwiches in a glass case. The place was crowded with customers: a bull-dog sauntered about the floor, nosing among the sawdust for pieces of biscuit. As the new-comers entered several of the inmates, perched on their wooden stools, looked round and smiled a greeting.

"Ah-ha! Last night in England, eh?"

"Yes," replied the Junior Watch-keeper, "the last night." He sniffed the mingled aroma of sawdust, tobacco-smoke, and the faint pungent smell of alcohol. "Good old pot-house! Good old Sawdust Club! Dear, dear, curried egg sandwiches! ... And a drop of sherry white-wine 'what the orficers drinks'—yes, in a dock-glass, and may the Lord ha' mercy on us!"

* * * * *

"And now," said the Young Doctor, "a 'chop-and-chips,' I think."

"A mixed-grill," substituted the other. "Kidney and sausage and tomato and all the rest of it. Oh yes, a 'mixed-grill.'"

They entered swing-doors, past a massive Commissionaire, who saluted with a broad smile. "They're askin' for you inside, sir," he whispered jocularly to the Junior Watch-keeper. "Wonderin' when you was comin' along.... Sailin' to-morrow, ain't you, sir?"

Together the "last-nighters" descended a flight of carpeted stairs and entered a subterranean, electric-lit lounge bar. A dozen or more of Naval men were standing about the fireplace and sitting in more or less graceful attitudes in big saddle-bag arm-chairs. The majority were conducting a lively badinage with a pretty, fair-haired girl who leaned over the bar at one end of the room. She smiled a greeting as the new-comers entered, and emerged from her retreat. The Junior Watch-keeper doffed his hat with a low bow and hung it on the stand. Then he bent down, swung her into his arms, and handed her like a doll to the Young Doctor, who in turn deposited her on the lap of a seated Officer reading the evening paper. "Look what I've found."

With a squeal she twisted herself to her feet and retreated behind the bar again, her hands busy with the mysteries of hair-pins.

"Hullo! hullo!" Greetings sounded on all sides. A tall broad-shouldered figure with a brown beard elbowed his way through the crush and smote the Junior Watch-keeper on the breast-bone.

"Dear sakes! Where have you sprung from? I just come from the Persian Gulf, and it's a treat to see a familiar face!"

"We're off to China again to-morrow," said the other, a half-suppressed note of exultation in his voice—"China-side again! Do you remember...?"

The bearded one nodded wistfully. "Do I not! ... You lucky devils.... Oh, you lucky devils! Here, Molly——"

* * * * *

The waiter sought them presently with the time-honoured formula: "Your grill's spoilin', gentlemen, please," and they took their places in the mirror-walled grill-room, where the violins were whimpering some pizzicato melody. A girl with dark eyes set a shade obliquely in a pale face, seated at the grand piano, looked across as they entered and smiled a faint greeting to the Young Doctor.

"I think we're entitled to a voluntary from the pianist to-night," said the other presently, his mouth full of mixed-grill. "What shall we ask for?"

The other thought for a moment. "There's a thing ... I don't know what it's called ... it's like wind in the leaves—she knows." He beckoned a waiter and whispered. The girl with the pale face looked across the room and for an instant met the eyes of the Young Doctor; then she ran her fingers lightly over the keys and drifted into Sinding's Frühlingsrauschen.

The Surgeon nodded delightedly. "That's the thing.... Good girl. I don't know what it's called, but it reminds me of things." He munched cheerfully, pausing anon to bury his face in a tankard of beer, and they fell to discussing prospects of sport up the Yangtse. Once or twice as she played, the girl behind the piano allowed her dark eyes to travel across the crowded grill-room over the heads of the diners, and her glance lingered a moment at the table where the two "last-nighters" were seated. The first violin, who was also a musician, sat with a rapt expression, holding his fiddle across his knees. When the piece was over he started abruptly—so abruptly it was evident that for him a spell had broken. He looked up at the pianist with a queer, puzzled expression, as if half-resentful of something.

The Young Doctor was arranging forks and a cruet-stand in a diagram on the table-cloth. "There was a joss-house here, if you remember, and the guns were here ... the pigeon came over that clump of bamboo...." The other, leaning across the table, nodded with absorbed interest.

/TB

The Lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Come along; we must be moving if we're going to the 'Palace.'" They paid their bill, tipped the waiter in a manner that appeared to threaten him with instant dislocation of the spine, and walked up the tiled passage that led past the open door of the lounge. From her vantage behind the bar inside, the girl some one had addressed as "Molly" caught a glimpse of their retreating figures. She slipped out through the throng of customers, most of whom had dined, and were talking to each other over their port and liqueurs, into the quiet of the corridor.

"Jerry!" she called; "Mr——"

"Lord!" ejaculated the Junior Watch-keeper, "I'd forgotten—" He turned quickly on his heel. "Hullo, Molly! We're coming back presently. But that reminds me..." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and the Surgeon strolled slowly on up the steps, round a bend, and was lost to view.

The girl gave a little breathless laugh. "That's what you all say, you boys. And you never do come back.... You weren't going without saying good-bye to me, were you?"

"No, no, Molly, of course I wasn't: and look here, old lady, here's a gadget I got for you—" he fumbled with the tissue paper enclosing a little leather case.

The girl stood with one hand on the lapel of his coat, twisted a button backwards, and forwards. "Jerry, I—I wanted to thank you ... you were a real brick to me, that time. It saved my life, goin' to the Sanatorium, an' I couldn't never have afforded it...." Her careful grammar became a shade confused.

The man gave a little, deep laugh of embarrassment. "Rot! Molly, that's all over and forgotten. No more nasty coughs now, eh?" He patted her shoulder clumsily.

"An' mind you drop me a line when that fathom of trouble of yours comes up to the scratch, and send me a bit of wedding-cake—here, hang on to this thing.... No, it's nothing; only a little brooch.... Good-bye, old lady—good-bye. Good luck to you, and don't forget to——"

The girl raised her pretty, flushed face and gave a quick glance up and down the deserted corridor. "Ain't you—aren't you going to—say good-bye ... properly—Jerry?"

The Junior Watch-keeper bent down. "'Course ... and another for luck...! Good-bye, dear; good-bye...!"

The Young Doctor was waiting with his nose flattened against the darkened window of a gunsmith's opposite when the Lieutenant joined him. His silence held a vague hint of disapproval as they fell into step. "That girl," he ventured presently, "isn't she a bit fond of you, old thing?"

The Junior Watch-keeper paused to light a pipe. "I—I don't think so, Peter. Not more than she is of a dozen others." He glanced at his companion: "You don't think I've been up to any rotten games, do you?" The other shook his head with quick protest. "But I like her awfully, and she's a jolly good little sport. They all are, taking them all round, in a Naval Port. It's a rotten life when you think of it ... cooped up there in that beastly atmosphere, year in, year out, listening to everlasting Service shop, or being made love to by half-tight fools. Their only refuge from it is in marriage—if they care to take advantage of some young ass. Who else do they meet...? The marvel of it is not that a few come to grief, but that so many are so jolly straight. That girl to-night—Molly—I suppose she has refused half a dozen N.O.'s. Prefers to wait till some scallywag in her own class can afford to take her away out of it. And I've heard her talking like a Mother to a rorty Midshipman—a silly young ass who was drinking like a fish and wasting his money and health pub-crawling. She shook him to the core. Lord knows, I don't want to idealise barmaids—p'raps I'd be a better man if I'd seen less of them myself—but——"

The Surgeon gripped his elbow soothingly. "I know—I know, old son. Don't get in a stew! And as for seeing less of them ... it's hard to say. Unless a man knows people ashore, and is prepared to put on his 'superfine suitings' and pay asinine calls when he might be playing golf or cricket, where else is he to speak to a woman all the days of his life? Dances...? I can't dance."

They had turned into the main thoroughfare, and the traffic that thronged the pavements and roadway made conversation difficult. The liberty men from scores of ships in the port streamed to and fro: some arm-in-arm with quietly-dressed servant girls and shop girls; others uproarious in the company of befeathered women. At short intervals along the street a flaring gin-palace or cinema-theatre flung smudges of apricot-coloured light on to the greasy pavements and the faces of passers-by. Trams clanged past, and every now and again a blue-jacket or military foot-patrol, belted and gaitered, moved with watchful eyes and measured gait along the kerb.

As they neared the music-hall the throng grew denser. On all sides the West Country burr filled the night, softening even the half-caught oath with its broad, kindly inflection. Men from the garrison regiments mingled with the stream of blue-clad sailors. A woman hawking oranges from the kerb raised her shrill voice, thrusting the cheap fruit under the noses of passers-by. A group of young Stokers, lounging round a vendor of hot chestnuts, were skylarking with two brazen-voiced girls. At the doorway of the music-hall, a few yards away, a huge man in livery began to bawl into the night, hoarsely incoherent.

The two officers mounted the steps together, and, as one obtained tickets from the booking-office, the other turned with a little smile to look down the mile-long vista of lights and roaring humanity. The scintillant tram-cars came swaying up the street from the direction of the Dockyard: on either side the gleaming windows of the shops that still remained open—the tattooists, the barbers, tobacconists, the fried-fish and faggot shops, and the host of humbler tradesmen who plied most of their trade at this hour—grew fainter and duller, until they dwindled away to a point under the dark converging house-tops. A girl, shouting some shameless jest, broke away from the horse-play round the chestnut-oven, and thrust herself, reeling with laughter, through the passing crowd. A burly Marine caught her by the waist as she wriggled past, and kissed her dexterously without stopping in his stride. His companion smirked appreciation of the feat, and glanced back over his shoulder....

The watcher on the steps turned and followed the other up the broad stairway.

* * * * *

A man with a red nose and baggy trousers was singing a song about his mother-in-law and a lodger. His accents were harshly North Country, and out of the paint-streaked countenance, his eyes—pathetic, brown monkey-eyes—roamed anxiously over the audience, as if even he had little enough confidence in the humour of his song.

The Lieutenant leaned back in his seat and refilled his pipe. "Isn't it wonderful to think that when we come home again in three years' time that chap with the baggy trousers and red nose—or his twin-brother, anyhow—will still be singing about the same old mother-in-law!"

Presently a stout, under-clad woman skipped before the footlights and commenced some broadly suggestive patter. The audience, composed for the most part of blue-jackets and Tommies, roared delight at each doubtful sally. She ended with a song that had a catchy, popular refrain, and the house took it up with a great burst of song.

"Hark at 'em!" whispered the Surgeon. "Don't they love it all! Yet her voice is nothing short of awful, her song means nothing on earth, and her anatomy—every line of it—ought to be in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.... Let's go and have a drink."

They ascended the stairway to the promenade, and passed under a curtain-hung archway into a long bar. The atmosphere was clouded with tobacco smoke, and reeked of spirits and cheap, clinging scent. From a recess in one corner a gramophone blared forth a modern rag-time, and a few women, clasped by very callow-looking youths, were swaying to a "One-step" in the middle of the carpeted space. Behind the bar two tired-looking girls scurried to and fro, jerking beer handles as if for a wager, and mechanically repeating orders. Settees ran the length of the walls under rows of sporting prints, and here more women, with painted lips and over-bright, watchful eyes, were seated at little tables. Most of them were accompanied by young men in lounge or tweed suits.

"Phew," grunted the Junior Watch-keeper, "what an atmosphere! Look at those young asses.... Kümmel at this time of night.... And we did it once, Peter! Lord! it makes me feel a hundred."

A panting woman disengaged herself from her youthful partner, and linked her arm within that of the Young Doctor. "Ouf!" she gasped, "I'm that 'ot, dearie. Stand us a drop of wot killed auntie!"

With a gallant bow the Young Doctor led her to the bar. "My dear madam," he murmured—"a privilege! And if you will allow me to prescribe for you—as a Medical Man—I suggest——"

"Port an' lemon," prompted the lady. She fanned herself with a sickly-scented and not over-clean scrap of lace. "Ain't it 'ot, Doctor! ... Glad I lef me furs at 'ome. Ain't you goin' to have nothin'...?"

* * * * *

The Junior Watch-keeper drew a deep breath as they reached the open street.

"Thank God for fresh air again!" He filled and refilled his lungs.

"'And so to bed,'" quoted the other. The taverns and places of amusement were emptying their patrons into the murky street. Raucous laughter and farewells filled the night.

"Yes." The Junior Watch-keeper yawned, and they walked on in silence, each busy with his own long thoughts. By degrees the traffic lessened, until, nearing the Dockyard, the two were alone in deserted thoroughfares with no sound but the echo of their steps. They were threading the maze of dimly-lit, cobbled streets that still lay before them, when a draggle-skirted girl, standing in the shelter of a doorway, plucked at their sleeves. They walked on almost unheeding, when suddenly the Young Doctor hesitated and stopped. The woman paused irresolute for a moment, and then came towards them, with the light from a gas-lamp playing round her tawdry garments. She murmured something in a mechanical tone, and smiled terribly. The Young Doctor emptied his pockets of the loose silver and coppers they contained, and thrust the coins into her palm: with his disengaged hand he tilted her face up to the light. It was a pathetically young, pathetically painted face. "Wish me good luck," he said, and turned abruptly to overtake his companion.

The woman stood staring after them, her hand clenched upon her suddenly acquired riches. An itinerant fried-fish and potato merchant, homeward bound, trundled his barrow suddenly round a distant corner. The girl wheeled in the direction of the sound.

"'Ere!" she called imperiously, "'ere!..."

The echo of her voice died away, and the Young Doctor linked his arm within the other's.

"There is a poem by some one[#] I read the other day—d'you know it?—

"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.'"

[#] John Masefield.

He mused for a moment in silence as they strode along. "I forget how it goes on: something about a 'vagrant gypsy life,' and the wind 'like a whetted knife'—

"'And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.'

"That's how it ends, I know."

The Junior Watch-keeper nodded soberly. "Yes.... But it's the star we need the most, Peter—you and I."

* * * * *

It was early in the morning, and thin columns of smoke were rising from the funnels of a cruiser lying alongside one of the Dockyard jetties. On her decks there was a bustle of preparation: steaming covers were being laced to yards and topmasts: the Boatswain, "full of strange oaths" and of apoplectic countenance, moved forward in the wake of a depressed part of the watch. On the booms the Carpenter was superintending the stowage of some baulks of timber. Packing-cases were coming in at the gangway; barefooted messengers darted to and fro. There was a frequent shrilling of pipes, and the hoarse voice of the Boatswain's Mate bellowing orders.

Presently there came a lull, and the ship's company were mustered aft as a bell began to toll. Then over the bared heads the familiar words of the Navy Prayer drifted outward into space.

"... That we may return to enjoy ... the fruits of our labours." In the course of the next three years, the words, by reason of their frequent repetition, would come to mean to them no more than the droning of the Chaplain's voice; yet that morning their significance was plain enough to the ranks of silent men. A minute later, with the notes of a bugle, the ship boiled into activity again.

Out on the straw-littered jetty a gradually-increasing crowd had gathered. It was composed for the most part of women, poorly clad, with pinched, anxious faces. Some had babies in their arms; others carried little newspaper parcels tucked under their shawls: parting gifts for some one. A thin drizzle swept in from the sea, as a recovered deserter, slightly intoxicated, was brought down between an escort and vanished over the gangway amid sympathetic murmurs from the onlookers. A telegram boy pushed his way through the crowd, delivered his message of God-speed in its orange-coloured envelope, and departed again, whistling jauntily.

The men drifted out into the jetty to bid farewell, with forced nonchalance and frequent expectoration. Each man was the centre of a little group of relatives, discussing trivialities with laughter that did not ring quite true. Here and there a woman had broken down, crying quietly; but for the most part they stood dry-eyed and smiling, as befitted the women of a Nation that must be ever bidding "Vale" to its sons.

"All aboard!" The voices of the Ship's Police rose above the murmur of the crowd. Farewells were over.

A hoist of flags crept to the masthead, and an answering speck of colour appeared at the signal halliards over Admiralty House.

"Askin' permission to proceed," said some one. The gang-planks rattled on to the jetty, and a knot of workmen began casting off wires from the bollards.

"Stand clear!" shouted a warning voice. The ropes slid across the tarred planking and fell with a sullen splash. Beneath the stern the water began to churn and boil. The ship was under way at last, gliding farther every minute from the watching crowd. The jetty was a sea of faces and waving handkerchiefs: the band on board struck up a popular tune.

In a few minutes she was too far off to distinguish faces. On the fore bridge the Captain raised his cap by the peak and waved it. Somewhere near the turf-scarped fort ashore an answering gleam of white appeared and fluttered for a moment. The lines of men along the upper deck, the guard paraded aft, the cluster of officers on the bridge, slowly faded into an indistinct blur as the mist closed round them. For a while longer the band was still audible, very far off and faint.

After a while the watchers turned and straggled slowly towards the Dockyard Gates.

XVIII.

THE SEVENTH DAY.

The Sub-Lieutenant clanked into the Gunroom and surveyed the apartment critically. The Junior Midshipmen stationed at each scuttle fell to burnishing the brass butterfly nuts with sudden and anxious renewal of energy.

"Stinks of beer a bit," observed the Sub., "but otherwise it's all right. Hide that 'Pink 'Un' under the table-cloth, one of you." As he spoke the notes of a bugle drifted down the hatchway. "There you are! Officers' Call! Clear out of it, sharp!" Hastily they tucked away the possible cause of offence to their Captain, bundled their cleaning-rags into a cupboard, snatched their dirks off the rack, and hurried on deck.

On the quarter-deck the remainder of the Officers were assembling in answer to the summons of the bugle. Frock-coated figures clanked to and fro, struggling with refractory white gloves. Under the supervision of a bearded Petty Officer the Quarter-deck men were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to neatly coiled boats' falls and already gleaming metal-work. It was 9 A.M. on a Sunday forenoon, and the ship was without stain or blemish from her gilded truck to her freshly painted water-line. All the working hours of the previous day—what time the citizen ashore donned "pearlies" or broadcloth and shut up shop—the blue-jacket had been burnishing and scrubbing,—a lick of paint here, there a scrap of gold-leaf or a pound of elbow-grease. And pervading the ship was the comfortless atmosphere of an organisation, normally in a high state of adjustment, strained yet a point higher.

The Commander came suddenly out of the Captain's cabin and nodded to the Officer of the Watch.

"Sound off with the bell."

The buglers, drawn up in line at the entrance to the battery, moistened their lips in anticipation and raised their bugles. The Corporal of the Watch stepped to the bell and jerked the clapper.

Ding-ding!

Simultaneously the four bugles blared out, and the hundreds of men forward in the waist of the ship and on the forecastle formed up into their different divisions and stood easy. The divisions were ranged along both sides of the ship—Forecastle, Foretop, Maintop, Quarter-deck men on one side, Stokers, Day-men, and Marines on the other.

The "Rig of the Day" was "Number Ones," which was attended by certain obligations in the matter of polished boots, carefully brushed hair, and shaven faces. To any one unversed in the mysteries of the sailors' garb, the men appeared to be dressed merely in loose, comfortably-fitting blue clothes. But a hundred subtleties in that apparently simple dress received the wearer's attention before he submitted himself to the lynx-eyed inspection of his Divisional Lieutenant that morning. The sit of the blue-jean collar, the spotless flannel, the easy play of the jumper round the hips, the immaculate lines of the bell-bottomed trousers (harder to fit properly than any tail-coat or riding-breeches) all came in for a more critical overhaul than did ever a young girl before her first ball. And the result, in all its pleasing simplicity, was the sailor's unconscious tribute to that one day of the seven wherein his luckier brethren ashore do no manner of work.

The Captain stepped out of his cabin, and the waiting group of officers saluted. The Heads of Departments made their reports, and then, with an attendant retinue of Midshipmen, Aides-de-Camp, messengers, and buglers, followed the Captain down the hatchway for the Rounds.

Along the mess-decks, deserted save for an occasional sweeper or Ship's Corporal standing at attention, swept the procession; halting at a galley or casemate as the Captain paused to ask a question or pass a white-gloved hand along a beam in search of dust. Then aft again, past Gunroom and Wardroom—with a stoppage outside the former. The Captain elevated his nose.

"I think the beer-barrel must be leaking, sir," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "standing the rounds" in the doorway.

"See to it," was the reply, and the cortége swept on, with swords clanking and lanterns throwing arcs of light into dark corners suspected of harbouring a hastily concealed deck-cloth or of being the pet cache for somebody's coaling-suit.

Up in the sunlight of the outer world the band was softly playing selections from "The Pirates of Penzance." The ship's goat, having discovered a white kid glove dropped by the Midshipman of the Maintop, retired with it to the shelter of the boat-hoist engine for a hurried cannibalistic feast. The Officers of Divisions had concluded the preliminary inspection, and were pacing thoughtfully to and fro in front of their men. Suddenly the Captain's head appeared above the after hatchway.

The Lieutenant of the Quarter-deck Division, in the midst of receiving a whispered account of an overnight dance from his Midshipman, wheeled abruptly and called his Division to attention. Then—

"Off hats!"

As if actuated by a single lever each man raised his left hand, whipped off his hat and brought it to his side. The Captain acknowledged the Lieutenant's salute and passed quickly down the ranks, his keen eyes travelling rapidly from each man's face to his boots. Once or twice he paused to ask a question and then passed on to the next waiting Division.

Presently the bugler sounded the "Disperse"; the Divisions turned forward, stepped outward, and broke up. Here and there the Midshipman of a Division remained standing, scribbling hurriedly in his note-book such criticisms as it had pleased his Captain to make. One man's hair had wanted cutting; it was time another had passed for Leading Seaman.... A third had elected to attend Divisions—on this the Sabbath of the Lord his God—without the knife attached to his lanyard.

* * * * *

Half an hour later the normal aspect of the Quarter-deck had changed. Rows of plank benches, resting on capstan bars supported by buckets, filled the available space on each side of the barbette. Chairs for the Officers had been placed further aft, facing the men who were to occupy the benches. In front of the burnished muzzles of the two great 12-inch guns a lectern had been draped with a white flag, and between the guns a 'cello, flute, and violin prepared to augment the strains of a rather wheezy harmonium. Then the bell began to toll, and a flag crept to the peak to inform the rest of the Fleet that the ship was about to commence Divine Service.

The men hurried aft, seamen and marines pouring in a continuous stream through the open doors from the batteries. No sooner had the last man squeezed hurriedly into his place with the slightly hang-dog air seamen assume in the full glare of the public eye, than the Master-at-Arms appeared at the battery door and reported every one aft to the Commander. The Captain took his chair, facing the Ship's Company, and a little in advance of the remainder of the Officers; the Chaplain walked up the hatchway, stepped briskly to the lectern and gave out a hymn. The orchestra played the opening bars, five hundred men swung themselves to their feet, and the service began.

Presently the Captain crossed to the lectern and read the lesson for the day. It dealt with warfare and bloodshed, and there was a suddenly awakened interest in the rows of intent faces opposite—for this was the consummation each man present believed would ultimately come to some day's work, although it might not be amid the welter and crash of shattered chariot and struggling horses, nor the twang of released bow-strings.... And the stern, level voice went on to tell of the establishment of laws, wise and austere as those which regulated the reader's paths and those of his listeners; while under the stern-walk a flock of gulls screeched and quarrelled, and the water lapped with a drowsy, soothing sound against the side of the ship.

After a while the Chaplain gave out the number of another hymn. The Bluejacket's most enthusiastic admirer would hesitate to describe him as a devout man; but when the words and tune are familiar—it may be reminiscent of happier surroundings—the sailor-man will sing a hymn with the fervour of inspiration. And if only for the sake of the half-effaced memories it recalled, the volume of bass harmony that rolled across the sunlit harbour doubtless travelled as far as the thunder of organ and chant from many a cathedral choir.

Then, standing very upright, his fingers linked behind his back, the Chaplain commenced his sermon. He spoke very simply, adorning his periods with no flowery phrase or ornate quotation, suiting the manner of his delivery to the least intelligent of his hearers. There was no fierce denunciation, no sudden gestures nor change in the grave, even voice. He touched on matters not commonly spoken of in pulpits, and his speech was wondrous plain, as indeed was meet for a congregation such as his. And they were no clay under the potter's thumb. Composed for the most part of men indifferent to religion, almost fiercely resentful of interference with their affairs; living on crowded mess-decks afloat, fair game for every crimp and land-shark ashore. But there was that in the sane, temperate discourse that passed beyond creed or dogma, and a tatooed fist suddenly clenched on its owner's hat-brim, or the restless shifting of a foot, told where a shaft passed home.

Here and there, screened by his fellows, a tired man's head nodded drowsily. But the "Padre" had learned twenty years before that it took more than a sermon to keep awake a seated man who had perhaps kept the middle watch, and turned out for the day at 6.15 A.M.; in the five hundred odd pairs of eyes that remained fixed on his face he doubtless read a measure of compensation.

* * * * *

The short-cropped heads bowed as in clear tones the Benediction was pronounced—

"... and remain with you ... always." An instant's pause, and then, Officers and men standing upright and rigid, they sang the National Anthem.

The Captain turned and nodded to the Commander, who was putting on his cap.

"Pipe down."

XIX.

THE PARRICIDE.

"'Ark!" said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over the downs—a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees.

"One of them motor-bikes——" murmured the man and paused. Away in the west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like the framework of a box suspended in mid-air. It drew near, rising and falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound grew louder. "Aeri-o-plane," continued the hedger, again speaking aloud, after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.

As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden from them by the shoulder of the downs.

The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty road before him. "Lawks!" he ejaculated, "'ere's goin's-on!" A ripple from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.

A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little harbour. Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric power station lifted a slender head.

In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms, and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the sound of their voices, the muffled clink of a hammer, and, from an unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical by distance.

The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned over the rail with a smile of greeting.

"Any news?"

The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth: "Enemy's Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen miles to the Sou'-East," he shouted. "Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got troops or Marines on board in marching order.... No, nothing, thanks—I'm going north to warn them. So-long..."

Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed cottages showed up white against the turf.

The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer nodded and put down his clubs.

"Guessed as much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll have a Council of War—Wow, wow!"

* * * * *

The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey, like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky. It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers across the smooth sea.

A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.

Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater. They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake, leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased to trouble the surface—before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished into the fog—the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and another.

* * * * *

A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient to the tangle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly, and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were disembarking troops for a raid.

There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen, a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.

A minute passed; a cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into the water! From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.

Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling hoarsely.

A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the periscope from her 12-pounders.

"Bang! ... Bang! Bang!"

The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.

"They've bagged us, sir."

A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.

"Yes," said the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.

The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of handflags, and commenced to signal.

The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.

"Claim-to-have-put-you-out-of-action," spelt the handflags. The Captain smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sunburnt face of the Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander. "But he needn't have torpedoed his own father," he said, as if in continuation of his last remark. "The penalty for marrying young, I suppose."

The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses clinked, and there was a gurgling silence.