NAVAL OCCASIONS (continued 3)

"Not bad work," said the Sub-Lieutenant, "bagging your Old Man's ship."

"Not so dusty," replied the Lieutenant in command of the Submarine, modestly.

She was a brand-new Battleship, and had cost a million and three-quarters. It was his twenty-fourth birthday.

XX.

THE NIGHT-WATCHES.

"Out pipes! Clear up the upper deck!" The Boatswain Mate moved forward along the lee side of the battery repeating the hoarse call. Slowly the knots of tired men broke up, knocking the ashes out of their pipes, or pinching their cigarette-ends with horny fingers before economically tucking the remnants into their caps. A part of the Watch came aft, sweeping down the deck, coiling down ropes for the night. Then, as the bell struck, the shrill wail of the pipe rose again above the sound of the wind and waves. It grew louder and shriller, and died away: then, rising again, changed to another key and ended abruptly. It was the sailor's Curfew—"Pipe down."

On the crowded mess-decks, where scrubbed canvas hammocks swung with the roll of the ship above the mess-tables, the ship's company was turning in. A struggle with a tight-fitting jumper, which, rolled up in company with a pair of trousers, was tucked under the tiny horse-hair pillow; a pat to the mysterious pockets lining the "cholera-belt," to reassure a man that his last month's pay was still intact, and then, with a steadying hand on the steel beam overhead, one after another they swung themselves into their hammocks and fell a-snoring.

Aft in the Gunroom an extra half-hour's lights had been granted in honour of somebody's birthday, and the inmates of the Mess were still gathered round the piano. It was a war-scarred instrument: but it served its purpose, albeit the hero of the evening—in celebration of his advance into the sere and yellow leaf—had emptied a whisky-and-soda into its long-suffering interior. The musician, his features ornamented by a burnt-cork moustache, thumped valiantly at the keys.

"And then there came the Boatswain's Wife,"

roared the young voices. It was an old, old song, familiar to men who were no longer even memories with the singers and their generation. But its unnumbered verses and quaint, old-world jingle had survived unchanged the passing of "Masts and Yards," and were even then being handed on into the era of the hydroplane and submarine.

"Ten o'clock, gentlemen!" said the voice of the Ship's Corporal at the door. The Sub. eyed him sternly. "You may get yourself a glass of beer, Corporal," and thereby won a five-minutes' respite. Then——

"Out lights, please, gentlemen," again broke in upon the revels.

"Corporal, will you——"

The man shook his head with a grim smile. "Come along, please, gentlemen, or you'll get me 'ung."

Reluctantly the singers withdrew, drifting by twos and threes to the steerage flat where their hammocks swung. The Ship's Corporal switched off the lights and locked the gun-room door. "I likes to see 'igh sperits meself," he admitted to the yawning Steward who accompanied him out of the Mess. The Gunroom Steward's reply was to the effect that you could have too much even of a good thing, and he retired gloomily to the pantry, where, in company with a vast ham and the gunroom crockery, he spent most of his waking hours.

In the nearly deserted Wardroom a rubber of bridge was still in lingering progress; a sea raced frothing past the thick glass of a scuttle, and one of the players raised his eyes from his hand. "Blowing up for a dirty night," he observed. A Lieutenant deep in an arm-chair by the fire lifted his head. "It's sure to—my middle watch." He closed the book he was reading and stood up, stretching himself. Then with a glance at the clock he moved towards the door. As he opened it the Senior Engineer came into the Mess. His face was drawn with tiredness, and there were traces of dust round his eyes. He pulled off a pair of engine-room gloves, and, ordering a drink, thoughtfully rolled a cigarette. At the sound of his voice the Engineer Commander looked up from the game and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question to his subordinate. The Senior Engineer nodded. "Yes, sir, she's all right now; I don't think she'll give any more trouble to-night." He finished his drink and sought his cabin. He had had three hours' sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and hoped, as he undressed, that the infernal scrap-heap would hold together till he'd had a bit more.

The night wore on, and one by one the inmates of the Wardroom drifted to their respective cabins. Outside the Captain's cabin the sentry beguiled the tedium of the vigil by polishing the buckle of his belt. Every now and again he glanced at the clock.

At last the hands pointed to a quarter to twelve. In fifteen minutes his watch would be over. He buckled on his belt and resumed his noiseless beat. Occasionally from some cabin or hammock the snore of a tired sleeper reached his ears. The rifles, stowed upright round the aft-deck, moved in their racks to the measured roll of the ship, with a long-drawn, monotonous rattle, like a boy's stick drawn lightly across area railings.

A tread sounded overhead, and a figure carrying a lantern came lightly down the hatchway. It was the Midshipman of the First Watch, calling the reliefs. He descended to the steerage flat, and bending down under the hammocks of his sleeping brethren, knocked at the door of one of the cabins. There was a lull in the stertorous breathing, in the warm, dim interior.

"Ten minutes to twelve, sir!" The inmate grunted and switched on his light. "All right," he growled.

The boy moved off till he came to a hammock slung by the armoured door. He ranged up beside it and blew lightly into the face of the sleeper.

"Jimmy! Ten to twelve!"

The occupant of the hammock opened one eye.

"'Ll right," he murmured sleepily, and closed it again.

The Midshipman of the First Watch eyed him suspiciously.

"No you don't!" He shook the hammock. "Wake up, you fat-headed blighter, or I'll slip you." Then, changing his tone to a wheedling one: "Come on, Jimmy, it's a lovely night—much more healthy on the bridge than fugging in your beastly hammock."

His relief said something under his breath, and emerged shivering from the blankets, blinking in the light of the lantern. Once his feet were fairly on the deck, the other turned and scampered up the ladder again.

The bell struck eight times as the Lieutenant and Midshipman of the Middle Watch climbed the ladder to the fore bridge. The Fleet was steaming in two divisions, with a flotilla of destroyers stationed on the beam. Beyond them the silhouette of an island was just visible in the pale moonlight.

At the last stroke of the bell the pipe of the Boatswain's Mate shrilled out, calling the Middle Watch. "A-a-all the starboard watch! Seaboats, crews, and reliefs fall in!" Fore and aft the ship the mantle of responsibility changed wearers. Sentries, seamen, stokers, signalmen, their tale of bricks complete for a few hours, turned over to their reliefs and hurried to their hammocks.

On the bridge the two Lieutenants walked up and down for a few minutes, while the newcomer received details of the course and speed of the Fleet and the Captain's orders for the night. Then the Officer of the Watch that was ended unslung his binoculars and turned towards the ladder.

"I think that's all.... She's keeping station very well now, but they had a bit of trouble in the Engine-room earlier in the Watch. Captain wants to be called at daybreak. Good-night."

"Good-night."

The Midshipman of the Watch was already in position on the upper bridge, settling down to his four hours' vigil with a sextant on the lights of the next ship ahead. From the battery below came the voice of the Corporal of the Watch mustering the hands. Overhead the wind thrummed in the shrouds and halliards: the steady throb of the engines beat out an accompaniment—a deep pizzicato accompaniment as if from some mighty bass-viol floating up through the open casings—and, somehow dominating all other sounds, the ceaseless swish and murmur of the waves breaking along the ship's side.

The Officer of the Watch crossed over to the Midshipman's side. "Are we in station all right?"

The boy lowered the sextant: "Yes, sir, quite steady."

"Right: give me the sextant and go and brew some cocoa in the chart-house. There's a spirit-lamp there."

The Midshipman vanished and reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of steaming beverage. They drank together, gulping it hastily to warm themselves.

"A-ah!" sighed the Lieutenant gratefully. "That's better. Now put the cups back, and come and show me Arcturus—if you have shaken off your fat head!"

* * * * *

A couple of hours passed. The Midshipman of the Watch, accompanied by the Corporal with a lantern, had gone his rounds of the mess-decks and cell-flat. The seaboat's crew had gone through an undress rehearsal of "Man overboard!" and were huddled yarning in the lee of the forecastle screen. Twice the ship had crept a shade out of her appointed station in the line, and, when the telegraph had rung the trouble to the Engine-room below, stolen back to her appointed bearing. Once the Fleet altered course majestically to avoid a fishing-fleet as it lay spread over the waters, a confusion of flares and bobbing lights.

The bridge was in darkness, save for the faint glow of the binnacle that threw into relief the rugged features of the Quartermaster at the wheel. The face might have been that of a bronze statue, but for a slight movement of the jaws as he thoughtfully chewed his quid. Suddenly a light at the masthead of the Flagship began to blink hurriedly. A signalman stepped out of the lee of the chart-house and rattled the key of the masthead flashing lamp. On all sides the other ships began blinking in answer to the Admiral's call. Presently the Yeoman spoke: a rocket soared up into the night ahead of them. The Lieutenant put his mouth to the voice-pipe and gave a clear spoken order, which the telegraph-man repeated: somewhere overhead a bell rang in answer from the engine-room.

The Fleet had increased speed.

The breeze freshened, and the men on the bridge ducked their heads as from time to time a shower of spray drifted over the weather-screens. The Midshipman of the Watch lowered his sextant and sniffed longingly, his nose in the air; the off-shore wind had brought with it a hint of heather and moist earth. Then, with a little sigh, he steadied his sextant again on the lights of the next ahead.

* * * * *

The sky was turning pale in the East, and the chilly dawn crept over a grey sea. The faces of the men on the bridge slowly became distinguishable. They were the faces of the Morning Watch, wan in the growing light.

The Lieutenant rubbed the stubble on his chin and turned his glasses on a school of porpoises chasing each other through the waves. The sky astern changed gradually from grey to lilac. Low down on the horizon a little belt of cloud became slowly tinged with pink. Out of a hen-coop on the booms the shrill crow of a newly-awakened cockerel greeted another day. Then from the mess-deck, drifting up hatchway and ventilating cowl, came the hoarse bellow—

"'Eave out, 'eave out, 'eave out! Show a leg there, show a leg! 'Sun's a-scorching your eyes out!..."

The look-out in the foretop watched the antics of a small land-bird balancing itself on the forestay.

"Poor little bloke," he muttered, blowing on his benumbed fingers, "'spect's you wants yer breakfus'—same's me!"

XXI.

A ONE-GUN SALUTE.

"Every person subject to this Act who shall strike ... or lift up any weapon against his superior officer in the execution of his office, shall be punished with Death or such other punishment as is hereinafter mentioned."—Sec. 16, Naval Discipline Act.

In Official eyes—even in eyes anxious to condone—illicit rum and the unreasoning passion of a Celtic temperament were the sole causes of the trouble. Yet a man may fight Destiny in the shape of these evils and still make a very fair show of it. It was the addition of the third factor that in this case overtipped the scales.

Her red, untidy hair was usually screwed into wisps of last night's 'Football Herald.' She had green, provocative eyes that slanted upwards ever so slightly at the corners, and coarse, chapped hands—useful hands, as many an overbold Ordinary Seaman had discovered to his fuddled amazement, but in no wise ornamental. Her speech was partly Lower-deck, partly Barrack-room, softened withal by the broad West Country burr; her home was an alehouse in an obscure back street near Devonport Dockyard.

She was in no sense of the word a "nice" girl; but she was tall, deep-bosomed, and broad of hip, and appealed inordinately to Ivor Jenkins, Stoker 1st Class of His Majesty's Navy, who was dark and undersized, and had lately developed a troublesome cough.

The recreations of a man who, on a daily rate of pay of 2s. 1d., contrives to support a bed-ridden mother and a consumptive sister, cannot perforce partake of the elaborate. Ivor, denied a wider choice, was therefore content to spend as much of his watch ashore as a jealously eked-out pint would allow, at the "Crossed Killicks." For many weeks past, alternate nights had found the little man perched on a three-legged stool in a corner of the bar, raging inwardly at an unnumbered host of rivals, dumbly grateful for such crumbs of recognition as Arabella, from behind the beer handles, was pleased to fling him.

The sailor-man a-wooing usually conducts his financial affairs with an open-handed generosity calculated to make a ministering angel pensive. In consequence, Ivor, who could not afford to back his protestations by invitations to the Hippodrome, whelk-suppers, and the like, dropped by degrees more and more out of the running. At first the girl gave him encouragement—not the vague, nebulous coquetry Mayfair recognises as such, but an intimate familiarity extended to slaps on the nose (boko), and once a dash of swipes down the back of his neck as Ivor stooped to recover a broken pipe. But nothing came of it—not even a penn'orth of fish-and-chips. Accustomed to tribute tendered with a lavish hand, Arabella decided that this must be a "proper stinge,"—one, moreover, niggardly in his consumption of beer, and (since there was the good of the house to be considered) to be dealt a lesson in due season.

"Bella! ... Give us a kiss!"

Save for Ivor and the girl, the squalid bar was deserted. She paused in the act of replacing a bottle on the shelf behind her, and looked over her shoulder, half-surprised, half-contemptuous. A beam of afternoon sunlight slanted through the dusty panes and caught the greenish feline eyes and ruddy hair, innocent for once of curl-papers.

"Wot? ... Me—kiss—yu!" She spoke slowly, and flung each word like a whip-lash at the soul of Ivor Jenkins.

"Ah, yus, Bella—jest one. There ain't——"

"Mai dear laife! Yu ain't 'arf got no neck!" She turned with her hands on her hips and regarded him with a smile on her thin lips, measuring his undersized stature with her eyes. "I only kisses men—yu don' even drink laike no man, yu don'. 'Sides, wot've 'ee done for us tu kiss 'ee? Us laikes men wot does things, yu know."

Ivor winced, but never took his smouldering eyes from the girl. "I'd do anything for you," he said tensely, "so I would," and coughed abruptly.

She laughed and fell to wiping the sloppy counter. "Them as wants mai kisses earns un. Same's Pete Worley: broke out of uns ship, un did, tu take I tu theatre. An' w'en th' escort commed tu fetch un back, Pete un laid un out laike nine-pins! Proper man, un was!" She surveyed Ivor, perched smoking on his stool, and a sudden gleam came into her eyes.

"Yeer!—us knows of a kiss goin' beggin' tu-morrow afternoon." She leaned across the counter with a dangerous tenderness in her rather hoarse voice, "If so be as a man (she laid a slight intonation on the word) as't leave tu go tu Dockyard Bank for'n hour, an' slipped out, laike...."

It was his watch on board, as she knew; but she had also noted the red Good Conduct Badge on his arm, and chose it instead of the accustomed tribute he had denied her. Then her eyes hardened like agates. "Simly yu ain't got no money tu bank, though?"

"Aye," said Ivor slowly; "aye, indeed I have. Three poun'." It was his sheet-anchor, saved (how Heaven and he alone knew) that his mother might eventually be buried with that circumstance which is dearer to the hearts of the Welsh than life itself.

The girl nodded, and laid her hand caressingly on his sleeve. "Tha's right, mai dear. Yu get leave tu go tu bank, an' slip along 'ere. Tu-morrow afternoon 'bout five—will 'ee now?" She looked at him from beneath tawny lashes.

Ivor finished his beer and wiped his mouth musingly on the back of his hand. The girl thought he was considering the Good Conduct Badge: as a matter of fact Ivor was wondering how the Police at the Dockyard Gate might be circumvented.

"'Course," she said indifferently, turning away, "ef yu'm 'feered——"

The man flushed darkly and stood up. "You'll see," he replied, and went out through the swing-doors in a gust of coughing. It had been worrying him a good deal lately, that cough.

II.

The short November afternoon was drawing to a close as Ivor left the Dockyard Bank with a shining sovereign gripped tightly in his trousers pocket. Dusk was settling down on the lines of store-houses, and from the Hamoaze below came the hoot of syrens that told of a fog sweeping in from the Channel. Ivor strolled across the cobbles to where the figurehead of a bygone frigate lifted an impassive countenance, and from the shelter of its plinth he surveyed the gateway. The main entrance was closed, and the narrow door, that only admitted the passage of one person at a time, was guarded by a watchful policeman. It seemed as if nothing short of a miracle would get a man in uniform through without a pass.

Presently a bell in some neighbouring tower struck the hour, and the waiting man turned in the direction of the sound. The ships in the lower yard were invisible, only their top-masts appeared out of a fog that came slowly swirling in from the sea. Higher and higher it crept; then suddenly the policeman at the gate was blotted out, and the wall became a towering blackness that loomed up through the vapour. Still Ivor waited, holding his sovereign tightly, and wrestling with a cough that threatened every minute to betray him. Some parties of liberty-men going on leave tramped past: he heard the gates open and saw for a moment the glare of the streets beyond. A couple of officers in plain clothes appeared suddenly into the blurred circle of his vision and were swallowed again by the blackness. "What a fog!" he heard one say. The other laughed, and grumbled something about being glad he was not Channel groping. Their voices died away, and Ivor emerged to reconnoitre, only to scurry back into shelter as a telegraph boy on a bicycle steered a devious course past him across the cobbles. The little disc of light from his lamp zigzagged to and fro for a minute and was gone. Then Ivor heard the rumble of wheels and the clatter of a horse's hoofs: the lights of a four-wheeler passed him and stopped. The policeman was unbolting the gates.

It was Ivor's chance, and, realising it, he slipped up beside the cab. Inside was a figure muffled in a greatcoat, above which he caught a glimpse of a clean-shaven, impatient face. Presently the inmate lowered the further window and leant out, effectually interposing his body as a screen between Ivor and the guardian of the gate.

"Hurry up," he called; "I've got a train to catch."

The gates swung slowly back, the cab rumbled through, and with it passed Ivor Jenkins. Then for the first time he relinquished his grip on his sovereign, and permitted himself the luxury of a fit of unchecked coughing.

"Bilked 'im," he gasped when he got his breath again, half-awed at the ease with which he found himself in the strangely unfamiliar streets. At the corner of the side-street he turned and looked back at the grim wall. In the signal-tower that loomed above it into the murky sky the yeoman on watch had just tapped the key of the flashing lamp to test the circuit. To Ivor it seemed as if Fate had winked at him, solemnly and portentously.

* * * * *

Ivor pushed through the swing-doors of the "Crossed Killicks" and looked hastily round the bar.

"'Ullo!...." he ejaculated blankly. "W'ere's Bella?"

The girl behind the counter, a short, stout woman in a purple plush bodice, tossed her head. "'Er a'ternoon orf," she explained tartly.

"Aye, but—w'ere's she gorn?"

"Walkin' out with a Blue Marine. 'Ippodrome, I think, they was goin'."

Ivor sat down and fumbled blindly in the lining of his cap for his pipe. Save for a spot of colour on either cheek-bone, his face was an ugly grey.

"Fine upstanding feller, 'e was too," added the barmaid, weighing Ivor in the balance of comparison, and finding him somewhat wanting. Ivor nodded dully, and for a while examined with apparently absorbed interest an advertisement on the wall opposite. Passion surged through him in waves that made the skin of his forehead tingle. So she'd bilked him after all: given him the go-by for a Blue Marine! Ivor knew him too, ... had once even stood him a drink.... The Adam's-apple in his throat worked like a piston.

Presently the girl behind the bar looked up from her occupation of drying glasses and eyed him curiously; but all she saw was a small dark man, who sucked hard at an empty pipe, one fist clenched tightly in his trousers pocket, staring hard at an advertisement for somebody's whisky.

At length, out of the chaos of his thoughts, two courses of action took shape and presented themselves for consideration. One was to bash the Blue Marine into irrecognition; the other was to get mercifully drunk as soon as possible. The Blue Marine, Ivor remembered, scaled a matter of fourteen stone, so he chose the latter alternative, and for thirty-six hours Oblivion, as understood by men of His Majesty's Forces, received him into her arms.

III.

"Did remain absen' over leave thirty-six tours, under haggravated circumstances," declaimed the Master-at-Arms.

It was the first time Ivor had broken his leave for three years. His head ached intolerably: he felt sick, too, and heard as from an infinite distance the cool, crisp tones of the Commander, who spoke sternly of the penalties attached to "not playing the game." Ivor listened sullenly. It was another and an older game he had tried to play,—a game in which Fate seemed to hold most of the trumps. There was a good deal more in the same strain about the abuse of privileges, and it all ended in his being placed in the Captain's Report, to stand over till next day.

At dinner his resentment against the Universe in general swelled into an excited flood of lower-deck jargon. In particular, he poured out invective on the perfidy of Woman, and 43 Mess, with the peculiar understanding vouched in the matter to men who go down to the sea in ships, sucked its teeth in sympathetic encouragement.

"I'd serve 'er to rights," said a youthful Second-Class Stoker darkly. He removed the point of his clasp-knife from his mouth, whither it had conveyed a potato, and illustrated with a gesture an argument certain of his feminine acquaintances in the Mile End Road were supposed to have found conclusive.

"Don't you take on, Taff," said another, pushing over his pannikin of rum. "'Ave a rub at this lot." Ivor finished his sympathiser's tot, and several others that were furtively offered him—for he was a popular little man among his messmates. But spirit—even "three-water" rum—is not the soundest remedy for an alcoholic head. It set him coughing, and deepened the sense of injury that rankled within him.

"Wot you wants," said a Leading Stoker, "is to run about an' bite things, like. You go on deck an' 'ave a smoke." He knew the danger-signals of a mess-deck with the intimacy of seventeen years' experience, and Ivor went sullenly. But it was a dangerous man that stopped at the break of the forecastle to light his pipe.

"Well," he said presently, "what d'you reckon I'll get whateffer?" His "Raggie" considered the situation. "Couldn't rightly say; there's the Jauntie[#] over by the 'atchway—go 'long an' ask 'im." Ivor smoked in silence for a moment, then nodded, and stepping through the wreaths of tobacco smoke, touched the Master-at-Arms on the shoulder. The latter, who was listening to a story related by the Ship's Steward, was a small man, with a grim vinegary face. He turned sharply—

[#] Master-at-Arms.

"Well?" he said curtly.

Now Ivor had stepped across the deck, honestly intending to ask the probable extent of the punishment the Captain would award him for breaking his leave. The suddenness with which the Master-at-Arms turned jarred his jangled nerves; the sour face opposite him was the face of the man who, on the Lower Deck, represented Law, Order, and Justice, things Ivor knew to be perverse and monstrous mockeries. His brain swam with the fumes of the thirty-six hours' debauch, reawakened by his messmate's rum. A sudden insane rage closed down on him like a mist, leaving him conscious only of the Master-at-Arms' face, as in the centre of a partly fogged negative, very distinct, and for an instant imperturbable and maddening.... Yet, as Ivor struck, fair and true between the eyes, he somehow realised that not even now had he got level with Fate.

IV.

A man seated in the foremost cell raised an unshaven face from his hands as the sullen report of a gun reached him through the open scuttle. For a while he speculated dully what it was for; then with curious disinterestedness remembered that it was the court-martial gun, and that he, Ivor Jenkins, was that day to be tried for an offence the extreme penalty for which is Death.

They said he'd slogged the Jauntie. For a while he had been, dazed and incredulous, but as the testimony of innumerable witnesses seemed to leave no doubt about the matter, Ivor accepted the intelligence with stoical unconcern. Personally he had no recollection of anything save a great uproar and a sea of excited faces appearing suddenly on all sides out of a red mist.... However, there were the witnesses, and, moreover, there was still an unexplained tenderness about his knuckles.

"I pleads guilty," was all the prisoner's friend (a puzzled and genuinely sympathetic Engineer Lieutenant) could get out of him.

"Well, I should have thought you were the last man to have done such a thing in the whole of the ship's company."

"Same 'ere, sir," said Ivor, and fell a-coughing.

Subsequent proceedings bewildered and finally bored him. They thrust documents upon him, wherein he found his name coupled to the incomprehensible prefix "For that he," and his misdemeanour described in a style worthy of the 'Police Budget.' The Chaplain visited him and spoke words of reproof in a kindly and mechanical tone. For the rest, he was left to himself throughout the long days; to cough and cough again, to watch the light grow and fade, to count the stars in the barred circle of the scuttle, and to the recollection of green, slanting eyes vexed by dusty sunlight in their depths....

* * * * *

"Have you any objection to any members of this Court?"

Ivor started at the question and looked round the cabin. Till then he had not noticed his surroundings much. A Captain and several Commanders in frock-coats and epaulettes were seated round a baize-covered table; they were enclosed by a rope covered with green cloth, secured breast-high to wooden pillars, also covered with green cloth. It was the Captain's fore-cabin, and the bulkheads were covered with paintings of ships. One of these in particular—a corvette close-hauled—arrested Ivor's attention. The Deputy Judge-Advocate, a Paymaster with a preternaturally grave face and slightly nervous manner, repeated his question.

"Do you object to being tried by any of the Officers present on the Court?" Ivor moistened his lips; why on earth should they expect him to object to them? An unknown Master-at-Arms standing beside him with a drawn sword nudged him in the ribs.

"No, sir."

The Captains and Commanders then rose with a clank of swords, and swore to administer justice without partiality, favour, or affection, in tones that for a moment brought Ivor visions of a stuffy chapel (Ebenezer, they called it) in far away Glamorganshire. Then the Judge-Advocate turned to him again.

"You need not plead either 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty.' But if you wish to plead 'Guilty' you may do so now."

At last: "Guilty," said Ivor Jenkins.

For an instant there was utter silence. The junior Commander stirred slightly and glanced at the clock: he would have time for that round of golf after all.

The Prisoner's Friend then gave evidence, and Ivor experienced his first sensation of interest at hearing himself described as an excellent working hand, who had never given anything but satisfaction to his superiors. A perspiring and obviously embarrassed Chief Stoker followed.

"The last man in the ship I'd 'a' thought 'ud do such a thing," he maintained. Ivor glanced at him indulgently, as one who hears an oft-repeated platitude, and resumed his study of the corvette close-hauled.

"Clear the Court," said the President briskly. Ivor found himself once more in the lobby, sitting between his escort. One, a kindly man, pressed a small, hard object into his hand. Ivor nodded imperceptible thanks, and under cover of a cough, conveyed it to his mouth. It was a plug of Navy tobacco.

A bell rang overhead, and the prisoner was marched back into Court.

"... to be imprisoned with hard labour for the term of twelve calendar months." It was over.

* * * * *

"Now say 'Ah!' ... Again! ... Raise your arms ... H'm." The Surgeon disentangled himself from his stethoscope and looked Ivor in the eyes.

"My lad," he said bluntly, "it's Hospital for you—and too late at that."

In the Wardroom later on he met the Engineer Lieutenant. "I'd make a better Prisoner's Friend than ever you will," he remarked. Pressed for an explanation, he tapped the stethoscope-case in his pocket.

"Consumption—galloping," he said.

Perhaps Ivor had held the Ace of Trumps after all.

XXII.

CONCERNING THE SAILOR-MAN.

"Able Seaman, Seaman Gunner, one Good Conduct Badge." Thus, with a click of unaccustomed boot-heels, he might describe himself at the monthly "Muster by open-list." In less formal surroundings, however, he is wont to refer to himself as a "matlow," a designation not infrequently accompanied by fervid embellishments.

Occasionally he serves to adorn the moral of a temperance tract: a reporter, hard pressed for police court news, may record one of his momentary lapses from the paths of convention ashore. Otherwise Literature knows him not.

Generally speaking, his appearance is familiar enough, though it is to be feared that the world—the unfamiliar world of streets and a shod people, of garish "pubs" and pitfalls innumerable—does not invariably see him at his best. The influence of the Naval Discipline Act relaxes ashore, and not unnatural reaction inspires him with a desire to tilt his cap on the back of his head and a fine indiscrimination in the matter of liquid refreshment.

But to be appreciated he must be seen in his proper sphere. On board ship he is not required to play up to any romantic rôle: no one regards him with curiosity or even interest, and he is in consequence normal. Ashore, aware of observation, he becomes as unnatural as a self-conscious child. A very genuine pride in his appearance is partly the outcome of tradition and partly fostered by a jealous supervision of his Divisional Lieutenant. A score of subtleties go to make up his rig, and never was tide bound by more unswerving laws than those that set a span to the width of his bell-bottomed trousers or the depth of his collar. This collar was instituted by his forebears to protect their jackets from the grease on their queues. The queue has passed away, but the collar remains, and its width is 16 inches, no more, no less. The triple row of tape that adorns its edge commemorates (so runs the legend) the three victories that won for him his heritage; in perpetual mourning for the hero of Trafalgar, the tar of to-day knots a black silk handkerchief beneath it. It is doubtful whether he is aware of the portent of these emblems, for he is not commonly of an inquiring turn of mind, but they are as they were in the beginning, they must be "just so," and that for him suffices.

A number of factors go to make his speech the obscure jargon it has been represented. Recruited from the North, South, East, and West, he brings with him the dialect he spoke in childhood. And it were easier to change the colour of a man's eyes than to take out of his mouth the brogue he lisped in his cradle. A succession of commissions abroad enriches his vocabulary with a smattering of half the tongues of Earth—Arabic, Chinese, Malay, Hindustanee, and Japanese: smatterings truly, and rightly untranslatable, but Pentecostal in their variety. Lastly, and proclaiming his vocation most surely of all, are the undying sea phrases and terms without which no sailor can express himself. Even the objects of everyday life need translation. The floor becomes a deck, stairs a hatchway, the window a scuttle or gun-port. There are others, smacking of masts and yards, and the "Tar-and-Spunyarn" of a bygone Navy; they are obsolete to-day, yet current speech among men who at heart remain unchanged, in spite of Higher Education and the introduction of marmalade and pickles into their scale of rations. The tendency to emphasis that all vigorous forms of life demand, finds outlet in the meaningless oaths that mar the sailor's speech. Lack of culture denies him a wider choice of adjectives: the absence of privacy or refinements in his mode of life, and a great familiarity from earliest youth, would seem an explanation of, if not an excuse for, a habit which remains irradicable in spite of well-meaning efforts to counteract it.

The conditions of Naval Service sever his home ties very soon in life. The isolation from feminine and gentler influences that it demands is responsible for the curiously intimate friendships and loyalty that exist on the mess-deck of a man-of-war. With a friend the blue-jacket is willing to share all his worldly possessions—even to the contents of the mysterious little bag that holds his cleaning-rags, brick, and emery paper. Since the work of polishing a piece of brass make no great demand on his mental activity, the sailor chooses this time to "spin a yarn," and, from the fact that the recipient of these low-voiced quaintly-worded confidences usually shares his cleaning-rags, the tar describes his friend as his "Raggie." To the uninitiated the word signifies little, but to the sailor it represents all in his hard life that "suffereth long and is kind." His love for animals, which is proverbial, affords but another outlet for the springs of affection that exist in all hearts, and, in his case, being barred wider scope, are intensified.

Outside events have for him but little interest. So long as he is not called upon to bear a hand by his divinely appointed superior, while his ration of rum and stand-easy time are not interfered with, the rise and fall of dynasties, battle, murder, and sudden death, leave him imperturbable and unmoved. Only when these are accompanied by sufficiently gruesome pictorial representations in the section of the press he patronises can they be said to be of much import to him. But he dearly loves a funeral.

His attitude towards his officers is commonly that demanded by an austere discipline, and accompanied more often than not by real affection and loyalty. He accepts punishment at the hands of his Superior in the spirit that he accepts rain or toothache. Its justice may be beyond his reasoning, but administered by the Power that rules his paths, it is the Law, as irrevocable as Fate.

Morally he has been portrayed in two lights. Idealists claim for him a guilelessness of soul that would insult an Arcadian shepherd. To his detractors he is merely a godless scoffer, rudely antagonistic to Religion, a brand not even worth snatching from the burning. Somewhere midway between these two extremes is to be found the man as he really is, to whom Religion presents itself (when he considers the matter at all) a form of celestial Naval Discipline tempered by sentimentality.

But these are generalities, and may not apply to even a fraction of the men in the Fleet to-day. Conditions of life and modes of thought on the Lower Deck are even now changing as the desert sand, and those who live among sailor-men would hesitate the most to unite their traits in one comprehensive summary. It is only by glimpses here and there of individuals who represent types that one may glean knowledge of the whole.

In the Ship's Office of a man-of-war are rows of neat brass-bound boxes, and here are stowed the certificates of the Ship's Company, those of each Class—seamen, engine-room ratings, marines, &c., being kept separately. At the first sight there is little enough about these prosaic documents to suggest romance or even human interest to the ordinary individual. Yet if you read between the lines a little, picking out an entry here and there among the hundreds of different handwritings, you can weave with the aid of a little imagination all manner of whimsical fancies. And if, at the end, the study of them leaves you little wiser, it will be with a quickened interest in the inner life of the barefooted, incomprehensible being on whose shoulders will some day perchance fall the burden of your destiny and mine.

The King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, with a flourish of unwonted metaphor, refer to the document as "a man's passport through life." The sailor himself, ever prone to generalities, describes his Certificate as his "Discharge." In Accountant circles in which the thing circulates it is known as a "Parchment."

A Service Certificate—to give its official title—is a double sheet of parchment with printed headings, foolscap size, which is prepared for every man on first entry into the Service. At the outset it is inscribed with his name, previous occupation and description, his religion, the name and address of his next of kin, and the period of service for which he engages.

In due course, when he completes his training and is drafted to sea, his Certificate accompanies him. As he goes from ship to ship, on pages 2 and 3 are entered the records of his service, his rating, the names of his ships, and the period he served in each.

On 31st December in each year his Captain assesses in his own handwriting, on page 4, the character and ability of each man in the ship. These fluctuate between various stages from "Very Good" to "Indifferent" in the former case; "Exceptional" to "Inferior" in the latter. Here, too, appear the history of award and deprivation of Good Conduct Badges; the more severe penalties of wrong-doing, such as cells and imprisonment. Here, too, they must remain (for parchment cannot be tampered with, and an alteration must be sanctioned by the Admiralty) in perpetual appraisement or reproach until the man completes his Engagement and his Certificate becomes his own property.

The heading PREVIOUS OCCUPATION shows plainly enough the trades and classes from which the Navy is recruited, and is interesting, if only for the incongruity of the entries. They are most varied among the Stokers' Certificates, as these men entered the Service later in life than the Seamen.

Labourer suggests little save perhaps a vision of the Thames Embankment at night, and the evidence that some one at least found a solution of the Unemployment problem. But we may be wronging him. Doubtless he had employment enough. Yet I still connect him with the Embankment. At the bidding of the L.C.C. it was here he wielded pick and crowbar until the sudden distant hoot of a syren stirred something dormant within him: the barges sliding down-stream out of a smoky sunset into the Unknown suggested a wider world. So he laid down his tools, and his pay is now 2s. 1d. per diem: from his NEXT OF KIN notation he apparently supports a wife on it.

Farm Hand. Can you say what led him from kine-scented surroundings and the swishing milk-pails to the stokehold of a man-of-war? Did the clatter of the threshing-machine wake an echo of

"... the bucket and clang of the brasses

Working together by perfect degree"?

Perhaps it was the ruddy glow of the hop-ovens by night that he exchanged for the hell-glare of a battleship's furnaces. Or, as a final solution, was it the later product of these same ovens, in liquid form, that helped the Recruiting Officer?

Newspaper Vendor. A pretty conceit, that Vendor! He has changed vastly since he dodged about the Strand, hawking the world's news and exchanging shrill obscenities with the rebuke of policemen and cab-drivers. But the gutter-patois clings to him yet: and of nights you may see him forward, seated on an upturned bucket, wringing discords of unutterable melancholy from a mouth-organ.

Merchant Seaman—Golf Caddie. He spat in the sand-box before making your tee, and looked the other way when you miss your drive, if he was as loyal as caddie as he is a sailor. Errand Boy—Circus Artiste. Of a surety he was the clown, this last. His inability to forget his early training has on more than one occasion introduced him to a cell and the bitter waters of affliction. But he is much in demand at sing-songs and during stand-easy time.

Now here is one with a heavy black line ruled across his record on page 2, and in the margin appears the single letter "K" He is a recovered deserter. He "ran," after eight years' service and stainless record. Was it some red-lipped, tousle-haired siren who lured him from the paths of rectitude? Did the galling monotony and austere discipline suddenly prove too much for him? Was it a meeting with a Yankee tar in some foreign grog-shop that tempted him with tales of a higher pay and greater independence? Hardly the latter, I think, because they caught him, and on page 4 of the tell-tale parchment appears the penalty—90 days' Detention.

Lastly: Porter. Where on earth did he shoulder trunks and bawl "By y'r leave"? Was it amid the echoing vastness of a London terminus, with its smoke and gloom? Or—and this I think the more probable—was it on some sleepy branch-line that he rang a bell or waved a flag, collected tickets, and clattered to and fro with fine effect in enormous hobnail boots? Then one fine day ... but imagination falters here, leaving us no nearer the reason why he exchanged his green corduroys for the jumper and collar. And if we asked him (which we cannot very well), I doubt if he could tell himself.

They make a motley collection, these tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers, but in time they filter through the same mould, and emerge, as a rule, vastly improved. You may sometimes encounter them, in railway stations or tram-cars, returning on leave to visit a home that has become no more than an amiable memory.

And some day, maybe, you will advertise for a caretaker, or one to do odd jobs about the house and garden, whose wife can do plain cooking. Look out then for the man with tattooed wrists, and eyes that meet yours unflinching from a weather-beaten face. He will come to apply in person for the job—being no great scribe or believer in the power of the pen. He will arrange his visit so as to arrive towards evening,—this being, he concludes, your "stand-easy time." He wastes few words, but from the breast-pocket of an obviously ready-made jacket he will produce a creased and soiled sheet of parchment.

It is the record of his life: and after two-and-twenty years through which the frayed passport has brought him, at forty years of age, he turns to you for employment and a life wherein (it is his one stipulation) "there shall be no more sea."

XXIII.

THE GREATER LOVE.

The sun was setting behind a lurid bank of cloud above the hills of Spain, and, as is usual at Gibraltar about that hour, a light breeze sprang up. It eddied round the Rock and scurried across the harbour, leaving dark cat's-paws in its trail: finally it reached the inner mole, alongside which a cruiser was lying.

A long pendant of white bunting, that all day had hung listlessly from the main top-mast, stirred, wavered, and finally bellied out astern, the gilded bladder at the tail bobbing uneasily over the surface of the water.

The Officer of the Watch leaned over the rail and watched the antics of the bladder, round which a flock of querulous gulls circled and screeched. "The paying-off pendant[#] looks as if it were impatient," he said laughingly to an Engineer Lieutenant standing at his side.

[#] A pendant, one-and-a-quarter times the length of the ship, flown by ships homeward bound under orders to pay off.

The other smiled in his slow way and turned seaward, nodding across the bay towards Algeciras. "Not much longer to wait—there's the steamer with the mail coming across now." He took a couple of steps across the deck and turned. "Only another 1200 miles. Isn't it ripping to think of, after three years...?" He rubbed his hands with boyish satisfaction. "All the coal in and stowed—boats turned in, funnels smoking—that's what I like to see! Only the mail to wait for now: and the gauges down below"—he waggled his forefinger in the air, laughing,—"like that...!"

The Lieutenant nodded and hitched his glass under his arm. "Your middle watch, Shortie? Mine too: we start working up for our passage trial then, don't we? Whack her up, lad—for England, Home, and Beauty!"

The Engineer Lieutenant walked towards the hatchway. "What do you think!" and went below humming—

"From Ushant to Scilly...

The Lieutenant on watch turned and looked up at the Rock, towering over the harbour. Above the green-shuttered, pink and yellow houses, and dusty, sun-dried vegetation, the grim pile was flushing rose-colour against the pure sky. How familiar it was, he thought, this great milestone on the road to the East, and mused awhile, wondering how many dawns he had lain under its shadow: how many more sunsets he would watch and marvel at across the purple Bay.

"British as Brixton!" He had read the phrase in a book once, describing Gibraltar. So it was, when you were homeward bound. He resumed his measured pacing to and fro. The ferry steamer had finished her short voyage and had gone alongside the wharf, out of sight behind an arm of the mole. Not much longer to wait now. He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Postie" wouldn't waste much time getting back. Not all the beer in Waterport Street nor all the glamour of the "Ramps" would lure him astray to-night. The Lieutenant paused in his measured stride and beckoned a side-boy. "Tell the signalman to let me know directly the postman is sighted coming along the mole."

He resumed his leisurely promenade, wondering how many letters there would be for him, and who would write. His mother, of course, ... and Ted at Charterhouse. His speculations roamed afield. Any one else? Then he suddenly remembered the Engineer Lieutenant imitating the twitching gauge-needle with his forefinger. Lucky beggar he was. There was some one waiting for him who mattered more than all the Teds in the world. More even than a Mother—at least, he supposed.... His thoughts became abruptly sentimental and tender.

A signalman, coming helter-skelter down the ladder, interrupted them, as the Commander stepped out of his cabin on to the quarter-deck.

"Postman comin' with the mail, sir."

A few minutes later a hoist of flags, whirled hurriedly to the masthead, asking permission to proceed "in execution of previous orders." What those orders were, even the paying-off pendant knew, trailing aft over the stern-walk in the light wind.

* * * * *

The Rock lay far astern like a tinted shadow, an opal set in a blue-grey sea. Once beyond the Straits the wind freshened, and the cruiser began to lift her lean bows to the swell, flinging the spray aft along the forecastle in silver rain. The Marine bugler steered an unsteady course to the quarterdeck hatchway and sounded the Officers' Dinner Call.

"Officers' wives eat puddings and pies,

But sailors' wives eat skilly..."

chanted the Lieutenant of the impending first watch, swaying to the roll of the ship as he adjusted his tie before the mirror. He thumped the bulkhead between his cabin and the adjoining one.

"Buck up, Shortie!" he shouted; "it's Saturday Night at Sea! Your night for a glass of port."

"Sweethearts and wives!" called another voice across the flat. "You'll get drunk to-night, Snatcher, if you try to drink to all——" the voice died away and rose again in expostulation with a Marine servant. "... Well, does it look like a clean shirt...!"

"Give it a shake, Pay, and put it on like a man!" Some one else had joined in from across the flat. The Engineer Lieutenant pushed his head inside his neighbour's cabin: "Come along—come along! You'll be late for dinner. Fresh grub to-night: no more 'Russian Kromeskis' and 'Fanny Adams'!"

"One second.... Right!" They linked arms and entered the Wardroom as the President tapped the table for grace. The Surgeon scanned the menu with interest. "Jasus! Phwat diet!" he ejaculated, quoting from an old Service story. "Listen!" and read out—

"Soup: Clear."

"That's boiled swabs," interposed the Junior Watch-keeper.

"Mr President, sir, I object—this Officer's unladylike conversation."

"Round of port—fine him!" interrupted several laughing voices.

"Go on, Doc.; what next?"

"Fish: 'Mullets.'"

"Main drain loungers," from the Junior Watch-keeper. "Isn't he a little Lord Fauntleroy—two rounds of port!"

"Entree: Russian Kromeskis——" A roar of protest.

"And——?"

"Mutton cutlets."

"Goat, he means. What an orgie! Go on; fain would we hear the worst, fair chirurgeon," blathered the Paymaster. "Joint?"

"Joint; mutton or——"

"Princely munificence," murmured the First Lieutenant. "He's not a messman: he's a—a—what's the word?"

"Philanthropist. What's the awful alternative?"

"There isn't any; it's scratched out." The A.P. and the Junior Watch-keeper clung to each other. "The originality of the creature! And the duff?"

"Rice-pudding."

"Ah me! alack-a-day! alas!" The Paymaster tore his hair. "I must prophesy ... must prophesy,—shut up, every one! Shut up!" He closed his eyes and pawed the air feebly. "I'm a medium. I'm going to prophesy. I feel it coming.... The savoury is ... the savoury is"—there was a moment's tense silence—"sardines on toast." He opened his eyes. "Am I right, sir? Thank you."

The Surgeon leaned forward, and picking up the massive silver shooting trophy that occupied the centre of the table, handed it to a waiter.

"Take that to the Paymaster, please. First prize for divination and second sight. And you, Snatcher—you'll go down for another round of port if you keep on laughing with your mouth full."

So the meal progressed. The "mullets" were disentangled from their paper jackets amid a rustling silence of interrogation. The Worcester sauce aided and abetted the disappearance of the Russian Kromeskis, as it had so often done before. The mutton was voted the limit, and the rice-pudding held evidences that the cook's hair wanted cutting. The Junior Watch-keeper—proud officer of that functionary's division—vowed he'd have it cut in a manner which calls for no description in these pages. There weren't any sardines on toast. The Philanthropist appeared in person, with dusky, upturned palms, to deplore the omission.

"Ow! signor—olla fineesh! I maka mistake! No have got sardines, signor...!"

"Dear old Ah Ying!" sighed the Engineer Lieutenant, "I never really loved him till this minute. Why did we leave him at Hong-Kong and embark this snake-in-the-grass.... No sardines...!"

But for all that every one seemed to have made an admirable meal, and the Chaplain's "For what we have received, thank God!" brought it to a close. The table was cleared, the wine decanters passed round, and once again the President tapped with his ivory mallet. There was a little silence—

"Mr Vice—the King!"

The First Lieutenant raised his glass. "Gentlemen—the King!"

"The King!" murmured the Mess, with faces grown suddenly decorous and grave. At that moment the Corporal of the Watch entered; he glanced down the table, and approaching the Junior Watch-keeper's chair saluted and said something in an undertone. The Junior Watch-keeper nodded, finished his port, and rose, folding his napkin. His neighbour, the Engineer Lieutenant, leaned back in his chair, speaking over his shoulder—

"Your First Watch, James?"

The other nodded.

"Then," with mock solemnity, "may I remind you that our lives are in your hands till twelve o'clock? Don't forget that, will you?"

The Junior Watch-keeper laughed. "I'll bear it in mind." At the doorway he turned with a smile: "It won't be the first time your valuable life has been there."

"Or the last, we'll hope."

"We'll hope not, Shortie."

The buzz of talk and chaff had again begun to ebb and flow round the long table. The First Lieutenant lit a cigarette and began collecting napkin-rings, placing them eventually in a row, after the manner of horses at the starting-post. "Seven to one on the field, bar one—Chief, your ring's disqualified. It would go through the ship's side. Now, wait for the next roll—stand by! Clear that flower-pot——"

"Disqualified be blowed! Why, I turned it myself when I was a student, out of a bit of brass I stole——"

"Can't help that; it weighs a ton—scratched at the post!"

The Commander tapped the table with his little hammer—

"May I remind you all that it's Saturday Night at Sea?" and gave the decanters a little push towards his left-hand neighbour. The First Lieutenant brushed the starters into a heap at his side; the faintest shadow passed across his brow.

"So it is!" echoed several voices.

"Now, Shortie, fill up! Snatcher, you'd better have a bucket.... 'There's a Burmah girl a-settin' an' I know she thinks,'—port, Number One?" The First Lieutenant signed an imperceptible negation and pushed the decanter round, murmuring something about hereditary gout.

It was ten years since he had drunk that toast: since a certain tragic dawn, stealing into the bedroom of a Southsea lodging, found him on his knees at a bedside.... They all knew the story, as men in Naval Messes afloat generally do know each other's tragedies and joys. And yet his right-hand neighbour invariably murmured the same formula as he passed the wine on Saturday nights at sea. In its way it was considered a rather subtle intimation that no one wanted to pry into his sorrow—even to the extent of presuming that he would never drink that health again.

In the same way they all knew that it was the one occasion on which the little Engineer Lieutenant permitted himself the extravagance of wine. He was saving up to get married; and perhaps for the reason that he had never mentioned the fact, every one not only knew it, but loved and chaffed him for it.

The decanters travelled round, and the First Lieutenant leaned across to the Engineer Lieutenant, who was contemplatively watching the smoke of his cigarette. There was a whimsical smile in the grave, level eyes.

"I suppose we shall have to think about rigging a garland[#] before long, eh?"

[#] A garland of evergreens is triced up to the triatic stay between the masts on the occasion of an officer's marriage.

The other laughed half-shyly. "Yes, before long, I hope, Number One."

Down came the ivory hammer—

"Gentlemen—Sweethearts and Wives!"

"And may they never meet!" added the Engineer Commander. In reality the most domesticated and blameless of husbands, it was the ambition of his life to be esteemed a sad dog, and that, men should shake their heads over him crying "Fie!"

The First Lieutenant gathered together his silver rings. "Now then, clear the table. She's rolling like a good 'un. Seven to one on the field, bar——"

"Speech!" broke in the Paymaster. "Speech, Shortie! Few words by a young officer about to embark on the troubled sea of matrimony. Hints on the Home——"

The prospective bridegroom shook his head, laughing, and coloured in a way rather pleasant to see. He rose, pushing in his chair. In the inside pocket of his mess-jacket was an unopened letter, saved up-to read over a pipe in peace,

"My advice to you all is——"

"'Don't,'" from the Engineer Commander.

"Mind your own business," and the Engineer Lieutenant fled from the Mess amid derisive shouts of "Coward!" The voice of the First Lieutenant rose above the hubbub—

"Seven to one on the field—and what about a jump or two? Chuck up the menu-card, Pay. Now, boys, roll, bowl, or pitch ... 'Every time a blood-orange or a good see-gar'...!"

* * * * *

The Officer of the First Watch leaned out over the bridge rails, peering into the darkness that enveloped the forecastle, and listening intently. The breeze had freshened, and the cruiser slammed her way into a rising sea, labouring with the peculiar motion known as a "cork-screw roll": the night was very dark. Presently he turned and walked to the chart-house door: inside, the Navigation Officer was leaning over the chart, wrinkling his brows as he pencilled a faint line.

"Pilot," said the other, "just step out here a second."

The Navigator looked up, pushing his cap from his forehead. "What's up?"

"I think the starboard anchor is 'talking.' I wish you'd come and listen a moment." The Navigator stepped out on to the bridge, closing the chart-house door after him, and paused a moment to accustom his eyes to the darkness. "Dark night, isn't it? Wind's getting up, too...." He walked to the end of the bridge and leaned out. The ship plunged into a hollow with a little shudder and then flung her bows upwards into, a cascade of spray. A dull metallic sound detached itself from the sibilant rushing of water and the beat of waves against the ship's side, repeating faintly with each roll of the ship from the neighbourhood of the anchor-bed. The Navigator nodded: "Yes, ... one of the securing chains wants tautening, I should say. 'Saltash Luck'[#] for some one!" He moved back into the chart-house and picked up the parallel-rulers again.

[#] A thorough wetting.

The Lieutenant of the Watch went to the head of the ladder and called the Boatswain's Mate, who was standing in the lee of the conning-tower yarning with the Corporal of the Watch—

"Pipe the duty sub. of the watch to fall in with oilskins on; when they're present, take them on to the forecastle and set up the securing chain of the starboard bower-anchor. Something's worked loose. See that any one who goes outside the rail has a bowline on."

"Aye, aye, sir." The Boatswain's Mate descended the ladder, giving a few preliminary "cheeps" with his pipe before delivering himself of his tidings of "Saltash Luck" to the duty sub. of the port watch.

The Officer of the Watch gave an order to the telegraph-man on the bridge, and far below in the Engine-room they heard the clang of the telegraph gongs. He turned into the chart-house and opened the ship's log, glancing at the clock as he did so. Then he wrote with a stumpy bit of pencil—

"9.18. Decreased speed to 6 knots. Duty Sub. secured starboard bower-anchor."

He returned to the bridge and leaned over the rail, straining his eyes into the darkness and driving spray towards the indistinct group of men working on the streaming forecastle. In the light of a swaying lantern he could make out a figure getting out on to the anchor-bed; another was turning up with a rope's end; he heard the faint click of a hammer on metal. The ship lurched and plunged abruptly into the trough of a sea. An oath, clear-cut and distinct, tossed aft on the wind, and a quick shout.

He turned aft and rushed to the top of the ladder, bawling down between curved palms with all the strength of his lungs.

* * * * *

The Engineer Lieutenant who left the Wardroom after dinner did not immediately go on deck. He went first to his cabin, where he filled and lit a pipe, and changed his mess-jacket for a comfortable, loose-fitting monkey-jacket. Then he settled down in his armchair, wedged his feet against the bunk to steady himself against the roll of the ship, and read his letter. Often as he read he smiled, and once he blinked a little, misty-eyed. The last sheet he re-read several times.

"... Oh, isn't it good to think of! It was almost worth the pain of separation to have this happiness now—to know that every minute is bringing you nearer. I wake up in the morning with that happy sort of feeling that something nice is going to happen soon—and then I realise: you are coming Home! I jump out of bed and tear another leaf off the calendar,—there are only nine left now, and then comes one marked with a big cross.... Do you know the kind of happiness that hurts? Or is it only a girl who can feel it? ... I pray every night that the days may pass quickly, and that you may come safely."

It was a very ordinary little love-letter, with its shy admixture of love and faith and piety: the sort so few men ever earn, and so many (in Heaven's mercy) are suffered to receive. The recipient folded it carefully, replaced it in its envelope, and put it in his pocket. Then he lifted his head suddenly, listening....

Down below, the Engine-room telegraph gong had clanged, and the steady beat of the engines slowed. With an eye on his wrist-watch he counted the muffled strokes of the piston.... Decreased to 6 knots. What was the matter? Fog? He rose and leaned over his bunk, peering through the scuttle. Quite clear. He decided to light a pipe and go on deck for a "breather" before turning in, and glanced at the little clock ticking on the bulkhead. Twenty past nine; ten minutes walk on the quarter-deck and then to bed. It was his middle watch.

As he left his cabin some one in the Wardroom began softly playing the piano, and the Paymaster's clear baritone joined in, singing a song about somebody's grey eyes watching for somebody else. The Mess was soaking in sentiment to-night: must be the effect of Saturday Night at Sea he reflected.

He reached the quarter-deck and stood looking round, swaying easily with the motion of the ship. The sea was getting up, and the wind blew a stream of tiny sparks from his pipe. Farther aft the sentry on the life-buoys was mechanically walking his beat, now toiling laboriously up a steep incline, now trying to check a too precipitous descent. The Engineer Lieutenant watched him for a moment, listening to the notes of the piano tinkling up through the open skylight from the Wardroom.

"I know of two white arms

Waiting for me ..."

The singer had started another verse; the Engineer Lieutenant smiled faintly, and walked to the ship's side to stare out into the darkness. Why on earth had they slowed down? A sudden impatience filled him. Every minute was precious now. Why——

"MAN OVERBOARD. AWAY LIFEBOAT'S CREW!" Not for nothing had the Officer of the Watch received a "Masts and Yards" upbringing; the wind forward caught the stentorian shout and hurled it along the booms and battery, aft to the quarter-deck where the little Engineer Lieutenant was standing, one hand closed over the glowing bowl of his pipe, the other thrust into his trousers pocket.

The Engine-room telegraph began clanging furiously, the sound passing up the casings and ventilators into the night; then the Boatswain's Mate sent his ear-piercing pipe along the decks, calling away the lifeboat's crew. The sentry on the life-buoys wrenched at the releasing knob of one of his charges and ran across to the other.

The leaden seconds passed, and the Engineer Lieutenant still stood beside the rail, mechanically knocking the ashes from his pipe.... Then something went past on the crest of a wave: something white that might have been a man's face, or broken water showing up in the glare of a scuttle.... A sound out of the darkness that might have been the cry of a low-flying gull.

Now it may be argued that the Engineer Lieutenant ought to have stayed where he was. Going overboard on such a night was too risky for a man whose one idea was to get home as quickly as possible—who, a moment before, had chafed at the delay of reduced speed. Furthermore, he had in his pocket a letter bidding him come home safely; and for three years he had denied himself his little luxuries for love of her who wrote it....

All the same—would she have him stand and wonder if that was a gull he had heard...?

Love of women, Love of life....! Mighty factors—almost supreme. Yet a mortal has stayed in a wrecked stokehold, amid the scalding steam, to find and shut a valve; Leper Settlements have their doctors and pastor; and "A very gallant Gentleman" walks unhesitatingly into an Antarctic blizzard, to show there is a love stronger and higher even than these.

The Engineer Lieutenant was concerned with none of these fine thoughts. For one second he did pause, looking about as if for somewhere to put his pipe. Then he tossed it on to the deck, scrambled over the rail, took a deep breath, and dived.

The Marine sentry ran to the side of the ship.

"Christ!" he gasped, and forsook his post, to cry the tale aloud along the seething battery.

The ship shuddered as the engines were reversed, and the water under the stern began to seethe and churn. The Commander had left his cabin, and was racing up to the bridge, as the Captain reached the quarterdeck. A knot of officers gathered on the after-bridge.

"Pin's out, sir!" shouted the Coxswain of the sea-boat, and added under his breath, "Oars all ready, lads! Stan' by to pull like bloody 'ell—there's two of 'em in the ditch...." The boat was hanging a few feet above the tumbling water.

"Slip!" shouted a voice from the invisible fore-bridge. An instant's pause, and the boat dropped with a crash on to a rising wave, There was a clatter and thud of oars in row-locks; the clanking of the chain-slings, and the boat, with her motley-clad[#] life-belted crew, slid off down the slant of a wave. For a moment the glare of an electric light lit the faces of the men, tugging and straining grimly at their oars; then she vanished, to reappear a moment later on the crest of a sea, and disappeared again into the darkness.

[#] Any one near the boat responds to the call "Away Life-boat's crew!"

The Commander on the fore-bridge snatched up a megaphone, shouting down-wind—

"Pull to starboard, cutter! Make for the life-buoy light!"

The watchers on the after-bridge were peering into the night with binoculars and glasses. The A.P. extended an arm and forefinger: "There's the life-buoy—there! ... Now—there! D'you see it? You can just see the flare when it lifts on a wave.... Ah! That's better!"

The dazzling white beam from a search-light on the fore-bridge leaped suddenly into the night. "Now we can see the cutter—" the beam wavered a moment and finally steadied. "Yes, there they are.... I say, there's a devil of a sea running."

"Ripping sea-boats our Service cutters are," said another, staring through his glasses. "They'll live in almost anything; but this isn't a dangerous sea. The skipper 'll turn in a minute and make a lee for them."

"Think old Shortie reached the buoy?"

"Probably swimming about looking for the other fellow, if I know anything of him; who did he go in after?"

"One of the duty sub.—they were securing the anchor or something forward, and the bowline slipped——"

"By gad! He's got him! There's the buoy—yes, two of them. Good old Shortie.... My God! Good old Shortie!" The speaker executed a sort of war-dance and trod on the Paymaster's toes.

"When you've quite finished, Snatcher.... By the way, what about hot-water bottles—blankets—stimulants.... First aid: come along! 'Assure the patient in a loud voice that he is safe.' ... 'Aspect cheerful but subdued.' ... I learned the whole rigmarole once!"

From the fore upper bridge the Captain was handling his ship like a picket-boat.

"'Midships—steady! Stop both!" He raised his mouth from the voice-pipe to the helmsman, and nodded to the Officer of the Watch. "She'll do now.... The wind 'll take her down."

The Commander leaned over the rail and called the Boatswain's Mate—

"Clear lower deck! Man the falls!"

The ranks of men along the ship's side turned inboard, and passed the ropes aft, in readiness to hoist the boat. There were three hundred men on the falls, standing by to whisk the cutter to the davit-heads like a cockle-shell.

"They've got 'em—got 'em both!" murmured the deep voices: they spat impatiently. "What say, lads? Stamp an' go with 'er?"

"Silence in the battery! Marry!"

The Commander was leaning over the bridge rails; the Surgeon and two Sick-berth Stewards were waiting by the davits. Alongside the cutter was rising and falling on the waves....

"All right, sir!" The voice of the Coxswain came up as if from the deep. They had hooked the plunging boat on somehow, and his thumb-nail was a pulp....

Three hundred pairs of eyes turned towards the fore-bridge.

"Hoist away!"

No need for the Boatswain's Mate to echo the order; no need for the Petty Officers' "With a will, then, lads!" They rushed aft in a wild stampede, hauling with every ounce of beef and strength in their bodies. The cutter, dripping and swaying, her crew fending her off the rolling ship with their stretchers, shot up to the davits.

"High 'nough!"

The rush stopped like one man. Another pull on the after-fall—enough. She was hoisted. "Walk back! ... Lie to!"

A tense silence fell upon the crowded battery: the only sound that of men breathing hard. A limp figure was seen descending the Jacob's ladder out of the boat, assisted by two of the crew. Heady hands were outstretched to help, and the next moment Willie Sparling, Ordinary Seaman, Official Number 13728, was once more on the deck of a man-of-war—a place he never expected to see again.

"Ow!" He winced, "Min' my shoulder—it's 'urted...." He looked round at the familiar faces lit by the electric lights, and jerked his head back at the boat hanging from her davits. "'E saved my life—look after 'im. 'E's a ... e's a—bleedin' 'ero, ..." and Willie Sparling, with a broken collar-bone, collapsed dramatically enough.

The Engineer Lieutenant swung himself down on to the upper deck and stooped to wring the water from his trousers. The Surgeon seized him by the arm—-

"Come along, Shortie—in between the blankets with you!"

The hero of the moment disengaged his arm and shook himself like a terrier. "Blankets be blowed—it's my Middle Watch."

The Surgeon laughed. "Plenty of time for that: it's only just after half-past nine. What about a hot toddy?"

"Lord! I thought I'd been in the water for hours.... Yes, by Jove! a hot toddy——" He paused and looked round, his face suddenly anxious. "By the way, ... 'any one seen a pipe sculling about...?"

Down below the telegraph gongs clanged, and the ship's bows swung round on to her course, heading once more for England, Home, and Beauty.

XXIV.

"A PICTURESQUE CEREMONY."

"S—— Parish Church was, yesterday afternoon, the scene of a picturesque ceremony...."—Local Paper.

The Torpedo Lieutenant (hereinafter known as "Torps") was awakened by the June sunlight streaming in through the open scuttle of his cabin. Overhead the quarterdeck-men were busy scrubbing decks: the grating murmur of the holystones and swish of water from the hoses, all part of each day's familiar routine, sent his eyes round to the clock ticking on the chest of drawers.

For a while he lay musing, watching with thoughtful gaze the disc of blue sky framed by the circle of the scuttle; then, as if in obedience to a sudden resolution, he threw back the bed-clothes and hoisted himself out of his bunk. Slipping his feet into a pair of ragged sandals, he left his cabin and walked along the flat till he came to another a few yards away; this he entered, drawing the curtain noiselessly.

The occupant of the bunk was still asleep, breathing evenly and quietly, one bare forearm, with the faint outline of a snake tattooed upon it, lying along the coverlet. For a few moments the new-comer stood watching the sleeper, the corners of his eyes creased in a little smile. Men sometimes smile at their friends that way, and at their dogs. The face on the pillow looked very boyish, somehow, ... he hadn't changed much since Britannia days, really; and they had been through a good deal between then and now. Wholesome, lean old face it was; no wonder a woman...

The sleeper stirred, sighed a little, and opened his eyes. For a moment they rested, clear and direct as an awakened child's, on Torps' face; then he laughed a greeting—

"Hullo, Torps!" He yawned and stretched, and rising on one elbow, thrust his head out of the scuttle. "Thank Heaven for a fine day! Number One back from leave yet?"

"Yes, he's back: you're quite safe."

The other lay back in the bunk. "Has Phillips brought my tea yet?" He looked round helplessly. "What an awful pot-mess my cabin is in. Those are presents that came last night—they've all got to be packed. What's the time? Why, it's only half-past seven! Torps, you are the limit! I swear I've always read in books that fellows stayed in bed till lunch on these occasions, mugging up the marriage-service. I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night—be blowed if I do!"

Torps lit a cigarette. "That's only in books. We'll have breakfast, and take your gear up to the hotel, and then we'll play nine holes of golf—just to take our minds off frivolous subjects."

"Golf! My dear old ass, I couldn't drive a yard!"

"Well, you're going to have a try, anyway. Everything's arranged that can be: you aren't allowed to drink cocktails; you can't see Her—till two o'clock. You'd fret yourself into a fever here in bed—what else do you think you're going to do?"

The prospective bridegroom stirred his tea in silence. "Well, I suppose there's something in all that; pass me a cigarette—there's a box just there.... Oh, thanks, old bird; don't quite know why I should be treated as if I were an irresponsible and feeble-minded invalid, just because I'm going to be married."

The Best Man laughed. "How d'you feel about it yourself?"

"H'm.... D'you remember one morning at Kao-chu—was that the name of the place? It began to dawn, and we saw those yellow devils coming up, a thousand or so of the blighters: we had a half-company and no maxim, d'you remember? It was dev'lish cold, and we wanted our breakfasts, ... and we were about sixteen?"

Torps smiled recollection. "Bad's that?"

"Very nearly."

"I remember—what they call in the quack advertisements 'That Sickish Feeling'! Never mind, turn out and scrape your face; you'll feel much better after your bath——"

Outside in the flat the voice of some one carolling drew near—

"For ... it is ... my wed—ding MOR- ... ning....!"

The victim groaned. "Oh Lord! Now they're going to start being comic."

"All right; it's only the Indiarubber Man."[#] The curtain was drawn back and a smiling face, surmounted by a shock of ruddy hair, thrust into the cabin—

[#] Lieutenant for Physical Training Duties.

"'Morning, Guns! Many happy returns of the day, and all that sort of thing. Merry and bright?"

The Gunnery Lieutenant forced a wan smile. "Quite—thanks."

"That's right! And our Torps in attendance with smelling salts.... Condemned man suffered Billington to pinion him without Resistance——"

The bridegroom sat up, searching for a missile. "Look here, for goodness' sake.... That 'Condemned man' business 's been done before. All the people who tell funny stories about fellows being married——"

"Tut, tut! Tuts in two places! A pretty business, forsooth! Sense of humour going. Beginning of the end. Fractious. Tongue furred, for all we know.... Where's the Young Doc.? I suggest a thorough medical examination before it's too late——" Another face appeared grinning in the doorway. "Why, here he is! Doc., don't you think a stringent medical examination——"

The Gunnery Lieutenant crawled reluctantly out of his bunk. "You two needn't come scrapping in here. I'm going to shave, and I don't want to cut my face off!"

The visitors helped themselves to cigarettes. "We don't want to scrap: we want to see you shave, Guns. Watch him lathering himself with aspen hand!" They explored the cardboard-boxes and parcels that littered all available space. "Did you ever see such prodigal generosity as the man's friends display! Toast-rack—no home complete without one—Card-case!"—they probed among the tissue wrappings. "Case of pipes.... Handsome ormulu timepiece, suitably inscribed. My Ghost! Guns—almost thou persuadest me ..."

"Yes, those things came last night: people are awfully kind——"

The Torpedo Lieutenant intervened. "Come on, give him a chance—I'll never get him dressed with you two messing about."

The Gunnery Lieutenant grinned above the lather at his reflection in the mirror. "D'you hear that! That's the way he's been going on ever since I woke up. One would think I had G.P.I.!" The visitors prepared to depart. "You have my profound sympathy, Torps," said the Surgeon. "I was Best Man to a fellow once—faith, I kept him under morphia till it was all over. He was practically no trouble."

"Now I'm going to get my bath," said the Torpedo Lieutenant when the well-wishers had taken their departure. "Shove on any old clothes: we'll send your full-dress up to the hotel, and your boxes to the house; and you needn't worry your old head about anything."

Torps left the cabin; there was a tap at the door and a private of Marines entered, surveying the Gunnery Lieutenant with affectionate regard. "I just come in to see if we was turnin' out, sir. Razor all right? Better 'ave a 'ot bath this mornin', sir!" His master's unaccountable predilection for immersing his body in cold water every morning was a custom that not even twelve years of familiarity had robbed of its awfulness. "I strip right down an' 'ad a bath meself, sir, mornin' I was spliced," he admitted, as one who condones generously an inexplicable weakness, "but it were a 'ot one. You'd best 'ave it 'ot, sir!"

His master laughed. "No, thanks, Phillips; it's all right as it is. Will you be up at the house this afternoon and lend a hand, after the ceremony?"

The Private of Marines nodded sorrowfully. "I understands, sir. I bin married meself—I knows all the routine, as you might say." He departed with a sigh that left a faint reminiscence of rum in the morning air, and the Gunnery Lieutenant proceeded with his toilet, humming a little tune under his breath. Half an hour later he entered the Wardroom clad in comfortable grey flannels and an old shooting-coat. The Mess, breakfasting, received him with a queer mixture of chaff and solicitude. The First Lieutenant grinned over a boiled egg: "Guns, sorry I couldn't get back earlier to relieve you, but 'urgent private affairs,' you know."

"All right, Number One! As long as you got back before two o'clock this afternoon, that's all I cared about." He helped himself to bacon and poured out a cup of coffee.

"Marvellous!" The Indiarubber Man opposite feigned breathless interest in his actions, and murmured something into his cup about condemned men partaking of hearty breakfasts.

"Come on, that's enough of the 'Condemned man'! You'd better find out something about a Groomsman's duties," said the Best Man, coming to the rescue of his principal.

"Am I a Groomsman? So I am—I'd forgotten. What do I do? Show people to their seats: 'this way please, madam, second shop through on the right.' ... Have you any rich aunts, Guns? 'Pon my word, I might get off this afternoon—you never know. 'Every nice girl loves a sailor....' Which of the lucky bridesmaids falls to my lot? Do I kiss the bride...?"

"You try it on," retorted the prospective husband grimly.'

"Can't I kiss anybody," inquired the Indiarubber Man plaintively.

"Not if they see you coming, I shouldn't think," cut in the Paymaster from behind his paper.

"Then the head waiter and I will retire behind a screen and get quietly drunk—I don't suppose anybody will want to kiss him either: they never do, somehow. We shall drift together, blighted misogamists...."

The Engineer Commander glowered at the speaker. "Suppose ye reserve a little of this unpar-r-ralleled wit——"

"I will, Chief—beg pardon. But there's something about a wedding morning—don't you know? Screams-of-fun-and-roars-of-laughter sort of atmosphere." He looked round the silent table. "Now I've annoyed everybody. Ah, me! What it is to have to live with mouldy messmates, ..." and the Indiarubber Man drifted away to the smoking-room.

"He ought to keep your little show from getting dull this afternoon," said the First Lieutenant.

The Gunnery Lieutenant laughed. "Yes, it's pleasant to find some one who does regard it as a joke. The only trouble is that his bridesmaid is my young sister, a flapper from school, and I know he'll make her giggle in the middle of the service. She doesn't want much encouragement at any time." The speaker finished a leisurely breakfast and filled his pipe.

"Now then, Torps, I'm ready for you and your nine holes...."

II.

The Gunnery Lieutenant sat down and began laboriously dragging on his Wellington boots. His Best Man stood in front of the glass adjusting the medals on the breast of his full-dress coat. This concluded to his satisfaction, he picked up a prayer-book from the dressing-table—

"Now, then, Guns, a 'dummy-run,'" and read; "N. Wilt thou have this woman——"

"Why 'N'?" objected the prospective bridegroom.

"Dunno, It says 'N' here."

"I've never heard a parson say 'N,'" ventured the other, "but it's years since I saw a wedding—chuck me my braces—Well, go on." The Best Man continued.

"I know that part. That's the 'I will' business,—by the way, where's the ring? Don't, for Heaven's sake, let it out of your sight—are my trousers hitched up too high...?"

"No, they're all right. Then you say: 'I, N, take thee, N——'"

"More N's. We can't both be N—must be a misprint...." He seized the book. "Have I got to learn all that by heart? Why don't they have a Short Course at Greenwich, or Whaley, or somewhere, about these things. "I, 'N,' take thee, 'N'"—he began reading the words feverishly.

"No—that's all right. You repeat it after the parson. And you say, 'I, John Willie,' or whatever your various names might be, 'take thee, Millicent'—d'you see? Here, let me fix that epaulette."

"Give me a cigarette, for Heaven's sake." He hurriedly scanned the pages. "Ass I was to leave it so late.... What awful things they talk about.... Why didn't I insist on a Registry Office? Or can't you get married over a pair of tongs somewhere—what religion's that?"

"Don't know—Gretna Green, or something. It's too late now. Do stand still.... Right! Where's your sword.... Gloves?" He stepped back and surveyed his handiwork, smiling his whimsical, half-grave smile. For a few seconds the two men stood looking at each other, and the thoughts that passed through their minds were long, long thoughts.

"You'll do," said the Torpedo Lieutenant at length, but there was an absent look in his eyes, as though his thoughts had gone a long way beyond the spare, upright figure in blue and gold. In truth they had: back fifteen years or more to a moonlit night in the club garden at Malta. Two midshipmen had finished dinner (roast chicken, rum-omelette, "Scotch-woodcock," and all the rest of it), and were experimenting desperately with two cigars. It was Ladies' Night, and down on the terrace a few officers' wives were dining with their husbands; the Flagship's band was playing softly.

"A fellow must make up his mind, Bill," one of the midshipmen had said. "It's either one thing or the other—either the Service or Women. You can't serve both; and it seems to me that the Service ought to come first." And there and then they had vowed eternal celibacy for the benefit of the Navy, upon which, under the good providence of God, the Honour, Safety, and Welfare of the Nation do most chiefly depend.

Fifteen years ago...!

"You'll do," repeated the Torpedo Lieutenant in a matter-of-fact tone, and rang the bell.

Private Phillips of the Royal Marine Light Infantry entered with a gold-necked bottle and two tumblers. The cork popped and the two officers raised their glasses—

"Happy days!" said Torps.

"Salue!" replied the other, and for a moment his eyes rested on his Best Man with something half-wistful in their regard. "D'you remember Aldershot...? The Middles: you seconded me, and we split a bottle afterwards...?"

Torps nodded, smiling. "But this is 'Just before the battle, mother!'" They moved towards the door, and for a moment he rested his hand on the heavy epaulette beside his. "An' if you make as good a show of this as you did that afternoon, you won't come to no 'arm, old son."

III.

They were greeted at the church door by the beaming Indiarubber Man.

"Come along in—spot or plain?—I mean Bride or Bridegroom? Bride's friends on the left and Bridegroom's on the right—or is it the other way about? I'm getting so rattled.... I've just put the old caretaker in a front pew under the impression that it was your rich aunt, Guns! What a day, what a day! Got the ring, Torps? Here come the Bridesmaids, bless 'em! Go on, you two, get up into your proper billets.... 'The condemned man walked with unfaltering step'—oh, sorry, I forgot...."

The Groomsmen slid into their pew with much rattling of sword-scabbards and nodding of heads and whispering. On their gilded shoulders appeared to lie the responsibility of the whole affair.

The Bridegroom took up his appointed place and stood, his hands linked behind his back, looking down the aisle to where the choir was gathering. The church seemed a sea of faces, glinting uniforms, and women's finery. Who on earth were they all? He had no idea he knew so many people.... Quite sure Millicent didn't.... How awful it must be to have to preach a sermon.... The faint scent of lilies drifted up to where he was standing. At his side Torps shifted his feet, and the ferrule of his scabbard clinked on the aisle. Dear old Torps! ... How he must be hating it all.

There was a faint stir at the entrance. The Bridesmaids' black velvet hats and white feathers were bobbing agitatedly. He caught a glimpse of a white-veiled figure. People were turning round, staring and whispering. Dash it all! It wasn't a circus.... What did they think they were here for?

"There she is," murmured Torps. "Not much longer now."

The clergyman was giving out the number of a hymn from the back of the church somewhere, and the deep, sweet notes of the organ poured out over their heads: then the voices of the choir-boys swelled up, drawing nearer.... Again the scent of lilies.

"Stand by," from Torps, tensely.

The choir-boys filed past, singing; one had on a red tie that peeped above his cassock. They glanced at him indifferently as they went by, their heads on a level with his belt-buckle.... Then the white-veiled figure on the Colonel's arm—Millicent: his, in a few short minutes, for ever and aye.... He drew a deep breath.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God...." Torps touched him lightly on the elbow.

* * * * *

"I, John Mainprice Edgar..."

"I, John Mainprice Edgar:"

"Take thee, Millicent..."

"Take thee, Millicent:"

* * * * *

"To have and to hold..."

This was simple enough—"To have and to hold:"

* * * * *

"And thereto I plight thee my troth."

How warm and steady the small hand was, lying in his: then gently withdrawn. Torps was trying to attract attention—What was his trouble? The ring—Of course, the ring....

* * * * *

"Those whom, God hath joined together let no man put asunder."

* * * * *

Life's haven at last! Or had all life been a cruise within the harbour: and this the beat to open sea ... The Brave Adventure?

* * * * *

"The peace of God which passeth all understanding ... remain with you now and for evermore."

* * * * *

There was a whisper of silken petticoats, and the clink of swords seems to fill the church: then, dominating all other sounds for a moment, the old Colonel blowing his nose vehemently....

Down the aisle again, the organ thundering familiar strains—familiar, yet suddenly imbued with a personal and intimate message,—Millicent's arm resting on his, trembling ever so lightly....

In the warm, bouquet-scented gloom of the vestry they gathered, and Torps wrung the Bridegroom's hand in a hard, unaccustomed grip—Torps with his winning, half-sad smile, and the hair over his temples showing the first trace of grey.... The bride finished signing the register, and rose smiling, with the veil thrown back from her fair face. In later years he found himself recalling a little sadly (as the happiest of bachelors may do at times) the queer, shining gladness in her eyes. He bent and touched the warm cheek with his lips.

Then for a minute every one seemed to fall a-kissing. Father and daughter, Mother and son, newly-made brothers- and sisters-in-law sought each other in turn. The Bridegroom's Lady Mother kissed the Indiarubber Man because no one else seemed to want to, and they were such old friends. The Clergyman kissed two of the Bridesmaids because he was their uncle, and the Colonel (who had stopped blowing his nose and was cheering up) kissed the other two because he wasn't. In the middle of all this pleasant exercise Torps, who had vanished for a minute, reappeared to announce that the Arch of Swords was ready and the carriages were alongside.

So the procession formed up once more: Bride and Bridegroom, the Colonel and the Bridegroom's Lady Mother: Torps leading the Bridegroom's new sister-in-law (and a very pretty sister-in-law she was), the Flapper and the Indiarubber Man, a girl called Etta Someone on the Junior Watch-keeper's arm, and another called Doris Somebody Else under the escort of the A.P. They all passed beneath the arch of naked blades held up by the Bridegroom's messmates and friends, to receive a running fire of chaff and laughing congratulation; to find outside in the golden afternoon sunshine that the horses had been taken from the carriage-traces, and a team of lusty blue-jackets, all very perspiring and serious of mien, waiting to do duty instead.

IV.

Private Phillips, R.M.L.I., in all subsequent narrations of the events of the day—and they were many and varied—was wont to preface each reminiscence with "Me an' the Torpedo Lootenant..." And indeed he did both indefatigable workers bare justice. Whether it was opening carriage doors or bottles of champagne, fetching fresh supplies of glasses or labelling and strapping portmanteaux, Private Phillips laboured with the same indomitable stertorous energy. He accepted orders with an omniscient and vehement nod of the head; usurped the duties of enraptured maid-servants with, "You leave me do it, Miss—I bin married meself. I knows the routine, as you might say...."

And Torps, superintending the distribution of beer to panting blue-jackets (whose panting, in some cases, was almost alarming in its realism); fetching cups of tea for stout dowagers, and ices for giggling schoolgirls; begging a sprig from the bridesmaids' bouquets; tipping policemen; opening telegrams; yet always with an attention ready for the Bridegroom's aunt who remembered Guns as such a little boy.... Helpful even to the ubiquitous reporter of the local paper....

"A picturesque ceremony—if I may say so. A most picturesque ceremony." The reporter would feel for his notebook. "Might I ask who that tall Officer is with the medals...? My Paper——" And Torps, with his gentle manners and quiet smile, would supply the information to the best of his ability, conscious that at a wedding there are harder lots even than the Best Man's....

The Indiarubber Man drifted disconsolately about in the crush, finally coming to a momentary anchorage in a corner beside his Bridesmaid.

"Miss Betty, no one loves me, and I'm going into the garden"—he dropped his voice to a confidential undertone—"to eat worms."

The girl giggled weakly. "Please don't make me laugh any more! Won't you stay here and have an ice instead? I'm sure it would be much better for you."

"Would it, d'you think? I've been watching the sailors drinking beer. Have you ever seen a sailor drink beer, Miss Betty? It's a grim sight."

She shook her head, and there was both laughter and reproach in the young eyes considering him over the bouquet. "You forsook me—and a nice Midshipman had pity on my loneliness and brought me an ice."

The Indiarubber Man eyed her sorrowfully. "I turn my back for a moment to watch sailors drink beer—I am a man of few recreations—and return to find you sighing over the memory of another and making shocking bad puns. Really, Miss Betty—Ah! Now I can understand...."

A small and pink-faced Midshipman approached with two brimming glasses of champagne. The Indiarubber Man faded discreetly away, leaving his charge and her new-found knight pledging each other with sparkling eyes.

The Bride touched her husband's sleeve in a lull in the handshaking and congratulations. "Isn't it rather nice to see people enjoying themselves! Don't you feel as if you wanted everybody to be as happy as we?—Look at Betty and that boy.... Champagne, if you please! How ill the child will be; and she's got to go back to school to-morrow...."