An awfully big adventure (2024)

BY

"BARTIMEUS"

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published 1919

To
A. R. S.

NOTE

The sketch entitled "Unto the Hills" appearedoriginally in Blackwood's Magazine, and isincluded in this book with the Editor's kindpermission.

PREFACE

It was my original intention to gather thismiscellaneous assortment of war sketches and storiestogether under the heading of "A Scran Bag."

The aptness of this title will be apparent when it isexplained that odds and ends of personal possessionsleft lying about the mess decks of a man-of-war areimpounded by the Ship's Police and kept for safecustody in a sack. This receptacle of randomgleanings is called the Scran Bag.

My publishers agreed that the title was admirable—tothe initiated. They opined, however, that thebulk of the public would be left, so to speak, cold.They reminded me that it was no use explaining it ina Preface, since no one reads Prefaces. They intimatedthat life was a sordid business, and we all haveto make our livings—in short, no book with such atitle would sell.

I therefore turned to the classics, and in "PeterPan" found a title which, I think, is comprehensiveof any record, however fragmentary and incomplete,whether bald fact or fact sugared with fiction, of theNavy's share in this War.

"To die," said Peter Pan, "would be an awfullybig adventure." It may be so; but, unhappily, thelips of the adventurer are sealed, and we are lefttheorising, none the wiser.

To wake up in the morning is a better thing thandying, for all the poets may say; and if the day holds,as this book does, somewhat of love, war in arighteous cause, and victory at its close, may not it,too, be called An Awfully Big Adventure?

CONTENTS

I

An Awfully Big Adventure.

1. THE WOOING OF MOULDY JAKES

2. THE NARRATIVE OF COMMANDER WILLIAMDALRYMPLE HORNBY, ROYAL NAVY

II

Behind the Veil: The Story of the Q Boats. (1918)

1. FIRST BLOOD

2. ORDEAL BY FIRE

3. WON BY WAITING

4. THE SPLENDID FAILURE

III

"Not in the Presence of the Enemy." (1918)

1. THE GLEANER

2. THE MILLIONTH CHANCE

3. CHINKS

4. A FORTY-FOOT SETTING

IV

The Action between H.M.S. Prize and GermanSubmarine U93

V

The Forfeit (1916)

VI

Supper Beer (1914)

VII

The Way They Have (1915)

VIII

The Epitaph

IX

The English Way (1917)

X

The Parting of the Ways (1919)

XI

Unto the Hills (1913)

AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE

PART ONE

THE WOOING OF MOULDY JAKES

1

The late afternoon sunlight was slanting across theheather when the "Mantis" came puffing round abend of the river.

Contrary to the established custom and traditionsof British men-of-war, her crew maintained a breathlessand high-spirited dialogue with the Captain, whoseasoned it with shrill invective directed at a routedenemy, invisible and presumed to be in full flightamid the bracken.

At the bend alluded to, the Captain of the"Mantis" turned and shouted encouragement to the"Moth," who, some hundred yards astern, wasnegotiating some rapids and presumably underheavy fire.

"I say, do buck up!" he cried. "The Turks areretreating like anything!"

"I can't buck up," wailed the Captain, officers andship's company of the "Moth." "There's a brambleall caught up in my petticoat."

"Take the beastly thing off then," commanded theSenior Officer, and turned to con his ship through thetortuous shallows of the Upper Reaches.

The fir-clad and boulder-strewn slopes of the valleyhad given place to the open moor, where the streamabandoned its headlong course and broadened intowide pools and shelving beaches of gravel strewn withbleached twigs.

The "Tarantula" was discernible still among thecataracts, while in the far distance the Main Armyclambered deftly from boulder to boulder and fendedoff the onslaughts of flies with a frond of bracken.

Although the fire of the enemy had perceptiblyslackened, the casualties aboard the "Mantis" mountedsteadily. Three times the Commanding Officer quittedhis ship to wallow in his gore on the springy turf,only returning on each occasion to find the Quartermasteron his knees in the shallows, delivering valedictoryrhetoric at his post as his life's blood ebbed.

The barred and speckled trout fled up-stream likebronze flashes as the irresistible advance continued.The shrill bark of the "Mantis's" gun searched thehollows and peat bogs for the possibly lurking rearguardof the rout, and sent the shy kingfisher dartingahead of the bedraggled white ensign in the van ofthe pursuit.

Finally the "Mantis" dropped anchor from sheerlack of breath and prepared to disembark a landingparty. Her Captain, carrying the ensign and armedto the teeth, climbed on to a lichen-scarred boulder inquest of the remainder of the Naval Forces.

"Come on!" he shouted, and the sound of hisvoice was swallowed by the vast solitude of themoor.

The "Moth" had forsaken the waterways and fromdiscreet glimpses afforded by a furze bush borderingthe stream was proceeding in execution of previousorders.

The "Tarantula"—it was useless to disguise theinglorious fact—was engaged in picking blackberriesand sharing them with the Main Army. Far out ofreach of hail or reproach, the advance guard of thathistoric force, hitherto invisible, was alone unquenchedin spirit and energy, and rushed to and fro withwagging tail among the bewildering blend of scents leftby the passage of rabbit, vole and otter.

The Captain of the "Mantis" permitted his nostrilto curl contemptuously.

"Pouf!" he said, and added—for the benefit of theofficers and men of the landing party, desperadoesall—"what can you expect from girls?"

His fellow-desperadoes, presumably from motivesof chivalry or disgust, vouched no reply, and theirleader turned to sweep the path of the retreat througha pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses, suspendedfrom his neck by a piece of string. Then instinctively,like a wild animal surprised, all the supplegrace of his young body stiffened tense and rigid. Notfifty yards up-stream sat a man nursing a rifle acrosshis knees.

He was a youngish man, clean-shaven, and he sat,apparently deep in thought, purring a pipe. Not eventhe tumult of the advance upon Bagdad appeared tohave disturbed his reflections, for he had not turnedhis head.

The Senior Officer of the Naval Forces loweredhis mother-of-pearl opera glasses and scrutinised thestranger with his unimpeded vision for nearly aminute. Finally, casting a glance down-stream,he clambered from his place of vantage andadvanced.

The boy was about ten paces distant when thestranger turned his head. He was of a lean, ratherlantern-jawed cast of countenance, and hisreddish-brown eyes showed not the faintest surprise orcuriosity at being suddenly confronted by a smallsunburnt boy, bare-legged and dripping wet, whowore a brass-hilted sword bayonet (relic of theFranco-Prussian war), cutlass-wise, a leather pistol holster(empty), a soda-water bottle, a bandolier made ofcorks, and the aforementioned opera glasses alldistributed about his person, and who carried a whiteensign on an ash-plant.

"'Evening," said the stranger; the safety catch ofhis rifle went over with a little click.

The boy stood perfectly still, and there was amoment's silence. Then, planting the flagstaff in thesandy margin of the stream, he came closer.

"What's your name?" he inquired.

"Jakes," replied the seated figure. He removedhis pipe from between his teeth and blew meditativelyinto the bowl, contemplating the tendril of smokeissuing from the mouthpiece with the air of analchemist preoccupied with a phenomenon.

"Graeme Jakes," he added in a lower tone, as ifspeaking to himself. "Sometimes called 'Mouldy.'

"Mine's Cornelius James Halliday," volunteeredthe boy. Whatever he read in the stranger's faceapparently banished the lurking fear of ridiculefrom his sensitive and imaginative heart. "I'm the'Mantis,' you know," he continued, "coming up theriver to Bagdad. The 'Moth' and 'Tarantula' areaway back in there——" He jerked his hand towardsthe bend in the stream as if the gesture made theexplanation quite clear and sufficing.

The man evinced no apparent surprise at theinformation; he replaced his pipe between his teeth,took a couple of deep puffs at it and nodded gravely:

"What about the Army?" he asked.

"Oh, she—it's back there too. Miss Mayne's theArmy. She's our governess, and her brother was killedin the retreat from Mons, so we always let her be theArmy. He was in the Guards, and she only criedonce; she'd be here now only Georgie—Georgina,you know, my sister—made her stop and pickblackberries. Georgina swanks rather nowadays when wehave games—she usen't to, but she's getting old.Jane doesn't swank, only she got foul of somebrambles, and she's coming on in her knickerbockerswhen she's got her skirt off."

The dilatory advance of the remainder of theBritish Expeditionary Force having beensatisfactorily explained, Cornelius James sat down andclasped his hands about his small scarred knees. Hiseyes were drawn and held by the magnetism ofthe lethal weapon which lay idly upon the man'sknees.

"Is that loaded?" he queried.

"Yep."

"What do you shoot with it—mostly—hereabouts?"

From his tone the conversation might have beenconducted in a country where tiger predominatedamong the fauna.

"Rabbits," replied the other, adding after a pause:"sitting." He jerked open the breech of the miniaturerifle, picked up the tiny shell that flicked out on to theturf and handed it gravely to his interrogator.

Cornelius James accepted it with equal gravity.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "What's up with yourhand? Why is it all bandaged? Have you beenwounded in the war?"

Graeme Jakes surveyed the grubby folds of lintand the maimed fingers of his left hand. For the firsttime the shadow of a smile played about his mouth.

"Yep. Long time ago. Nothin' much, only itwouldn't heal. Went bad on me. Bit of poison gasshell."

"Oh," said the boy, and contemplated his newacquaintance with renewed interest.

"Are you Army or Navy?"

The man slid a cartridge into his rifle, closed thebolt and raised the weapon to his shoulder, resting hisleft elbow on his knee. A sharp report followed theinstant's silence; the scut of a rabbit flicked white onthe opposite slope and vanished.

"Missed him!" ejacul*ted the sniper. "Generally do."

He lowered the toy on to his knees again. "Navy,"he continued as if nothing had interrupted theconversation.

"Daddy's in the Navy too," exclaimed the boy."Do you know him?—he's an Admiral."

"Know him by name. Don't bump up againstAdmirals much."

"I wish I was old enough to be in the Navy,"sighed Cornelius James. "It's awful not being able todo anything in this war. Even Miss Mayne is goingto do war work soon. She says every woman oughtto do something."

"Who—who's Miss Mayne?"

"I told you. Our governess. She's a perfectripper. She's the third governess we've had. Butthe other two weren't quite——" Cornelius Jameshesitated. "Well's matter of fact, I don't think theywere quite the right sort. They didn't understandhow to play, they hadn't any 'magination, and theywere always afraid of cows and getting sunburnt andtaking off their shoes and stockings when it came toanything wet. Miss Mayne's quite different—because—well,because she's what she is, I suppose. It makesall the difference, doesn't it?"

Graeme Jakes considered the subtlety in silence.

"I don't know," he said finally. He turned hishead and looked at the small snob nursing his bareknees. Again their eyes met in friendly searchingscrutiny.

"I've hardly ever met any ladies," he said. It wasas if he had taken the boy as an equal into a ratherpathetic confidence.

Cornelius James surveyed his new friend with adeliberate interest. It absorbed the frayed deerstalkerspeckled with trout-flies, the flannel shirt open at thethroat, the baggy tweed coat of many pockets, thecorduroy breeches and muddy boots and gaiters. Tothe wearer of these garments he applied in turn allthe standards of his brief experience of life.

"Don't they like you?" he asked.

"Dunno," was the reply. "Never asked 'em." Helooked musingly across the rolling moor. "Onedid once—but she died when I was little."

The splashing of water down-stream interruptedthe speaker.

"Here's Jane," said Cornelius James, looking overhis shoulder. "She's all right," he added, quickly, asthe other made a hasty movement that suggestedfright. "She's really quite sensible for a girl."

Jane drew near, swinging her broad-brimmed hatin her hand and stepping from stone to stone withthe lithe grace of a youthful dryad. She haddiscarded her petticoat and wore only a jersey andknickers.

"Jane," shouted Cornelius James, as sheapproached. "He's in the Navy, but he doesn't knowDaddy." He made a gesture of proprietorship in thedirection of the impassive figure seated in the heather.

Jane waded ashore and extended her hand withfriendly unconsciousness of self.

"How d'you do?" she said, and devoured himwith round grey eyes. "Did you ever knowMr. Standish?" she inquired.

Her brother's protégé nodded smiling. "Bunje?"he said. "Yes, rather—I was shipmates along of Jim."

He lapsed jestingly into the vernacular of thelower deck.

"Jane loves him," interposed Cornelius James."She was going to marry him only he got married tosomeone else. She was awfully sick—weren't you,Jane?"

"Shut up," was the graceful retort of the womanscorned. "And did you know Torps—Mr. Mainwaring?He was killed," she added gravely.

"No, never shipmates with him. Heard abouthim, though. White man by all accounts."

"He was a darling," said Jane, simply. "It'sdreadful to think of him dead. But I don't thinkfrightfully nice people really die, do you?"

"Don't know any," was the solemn reply.

Jane pursed up her mouth and opened her eyeswider. She was standing upright as a lath beforehim, her hands clasped behind her, and the water stillglistened on her slim bare legs.

"Where do you live?" she inquired, compassionately.The stranger jerked his head back acrossthe moor to where the ground rose and the façade of adistant mansion was discernible through a vista in thetrees of a great park.

"Over there," he added in amplification.

"Does that house belong to you?" asked Janeall incredulous. She had decided at the first glimpsethat this was a homeless tramp of the cleanerand rather nice variety, and from the first hadbeen prepared to take him, metaphorically, to herbosom.

"No," said the tramp. "It's my brother-in-law'splace. I stay with him and my step-sister when I'mashore." He eyed the children in turn. "Where doyou live?"

"We live ever so far away," replied CorneliusJames. "But we've all had chicken-pox and we'vecome with Miss Mayne to stay in a farm near here.Glebe Farm it's called. Mummie's up in Scotland——"

"So's to be near Daddy's ship," explained Jane.

"Will you come and have tea with us one day?"added the boy. "You needn't be frightened, 'coswe've stopped peeling and we're out of quarantine.Do you know where Glebe Farm is?"

The other nodded. "Belongs to my brother-in-law,"he said. His eyes as he spoke were on the lowerreaches of the river. Then abruptly he rose to hisfeet. "Now I must be off," he said. "Awfullyimportant engagement."

At the bend of the river Miss Mayne and Georginastood shading their eyes from the sun.

"Oh, don't go!" chorused Jane and her brother."You haven't talked to Miss Mayne yet," addedCornelius James—"or Georgina. She'll run after youwhen she knows you're in the Navy, so it's no usegoing yet——Hallo!" He broke off and stareddownstream. "Now where's Miss Mayne off to?"

"Gone to put her stockings on," explained Jane,with the mysterious comprehension of sex. "She'sshy."

"Pouf!" snorted Cornelius James. "Miss Mayne shy!"

"Must be off," muttered Mr. Jakes with a swiftglance at the far-off clump of gorse that concealedMiss Mayne and her modesty. "Just rememberedmost important engagement——" He extended hishand to each of his small acquaintances, and, turningabruptly, made off across the moor with his shadowstalking jerkily ahead of him.

"Nice man!" was Jane's emphatic conviction.

Cornelius James eyed his sister with suspicion.

"Now look here, Jane," he said, "I found thisman. Just remember that. You bagged the shepherdin the little house on wheels, an' that boy who couldimitate a bullfinch, and the man with the wooden legat the level crossing. I found them first and I foundthis man first. He's mine."

"Here's Miss Mayne," replied his sister.

2

Graeme Jakes found his step-sister in the hall onhis return. He laid his rifle down, and, crossing overto the fireplace, stood eyeing her with his back to theempty hearth.

The evening post had been brought in and thesurface of the sofa not occupied by the lady's angularform was strewn with opened envelopes, charitableappeals, receipted bills, and a sprinkling of letters.Lady Manners was a woman approaching forty, cladin garments of aggressively country cut, and abouther obtrusively brogued feet a collection ofdachshunds squirmed and writhed.

She looked up from her correspondence andscrutinised her brother through tortoiseshell-rimmedspectacles.

"Where have you been all the afternoon?" sheinquired. "The Smedleys were over to tea."

"Those people who bought The Garth?"

"Yes. Mrs. Smedley brought her two girlsexpressly to renew their acquaintance with you. Andyou—you vanish!"

Lady Manners picked up another envelope andslit it open with an action somehow suggestive of ahard-pressed fishmonger gutting herrings.

"I've had some," was the reply.

"Had what—tea?"

"No, Mrs. Smedley's girls. The Misses Smedley."

"I don't know that I quite follow you, Graeme.Do you mind not knocking out your pipe on the cleanhearth?"

The individual addressed ignored the last sentenceand thoughtfully rubbed the bowl of his pipe againstthe side of his sunburnt nose.

"They give me the holy pip," he explained.

"Do they!" said his step-sister icily. "May Iask in what respect they—they fail to meet with yourapproval? You are fond of complaining that younever meet any nice girls—that your life in the Navyrestricts you to the companionship of your own sex;with an alternative the reverse of desirable. I placeopportunities in your way of becoming acquaintedwith the young people of the County and you behavewith rudeness to them, and to me, if you'll let me sayso. Josephine and Alicia Smedley are bothwar-workers, and you should have much in common,making all allowances for your—er, peculiarupbringing."

"Thank 'ee," said her step-brother cheerfully."What particular line of business do they chuck theirweights about in?"

"They are both taking a holiday, but normallyJosephine drives a War Office car——"

"Abnormally, I should say," interposed the soilerof clean hearths. "She's got a laugh like a Klaxonhorn. What's t'other been doing in the Great War,Grannie?"

"Alicia? She places her somewhat exceptionaltalents at the disposal of the woundedsoldiers—officers, of course."

"Course. Don't tell me she nurses 'em?"

"No. Her temperament—sensitive, artistic, fluidas it is—is too refined for the horrors of wards andoperating theatres; she dances to amuse the poorthings when they are convalescing—convalescence isa trying time."

"It is. Did she come over to give a display for mybenefit? I'm only a wounded sailor, though. Don'tcount, I s'pose?"

Lady Manners began to gather her correspondencetogether.

"Graeme," she said, "I am at a loss to know whyyou should adopt this tone. If it is intended to be inkeeping with a pose which your profession requiresof you, I can only say that it ill becomes a guestbefore this hearth."

There was a genuinely hurt tone in the lady'svoice—which, indeed, trembled a little. This note ofunconscious pathos moved Graeme to one of his rareattempts at self-revelation. He knew she was fond ofhim in her preoccupied, hard way, and was moreconcerned about his "lone wolf" attitude towards theamenities of civilised life, as she understood them,than she was capable of putting into words.

"Emily," he said, "'tisn't a pose. 'Fore God it'sno pose. Call me what you like—intolerant, idealistic,or whatever long word meets my case. Fact remains,I can't stick that type of woman. They shock me,Emily, in the way blasphemy and drunkenness shockyou. All my life long—for fifteen years atleast—I've lived in ships with men as my solecompanions—raucous-voiced, hairy-chested, buck men,my dear; every blessed type; selfish men and unselfishones, drunkards, bullies, cranks, wise men and fools.'Tisn't that one doesn't like 'em at heart, most of 'em.Some are lovable; but one gets into the way ofthinking women must be somehow utterly different. WhenI went to sea I thought all women in the world mustbe like what I could remember of Mother—" unconsciouslyhis voice changed. "I went on thinking sofor some years, chiefly because I never met any womento speak to. The more I saw of men the more I feltconvinced that women must be wonderful ... theirvoices..."

The speaker pulled out a ragged tobacco pouchand slowly fell to filling his pipe.

"Course, as time went on I met women—of a sort—butthey didn't disillusion me. They strengthenedmy conviction that the—er—other sort must be allI'd dreamed they were. Trouble was I never met any.I haven't any parlour tricks—too shy——"

For a few moments the lighting of his pipe occupiedthe speaker's attention. He enveloped himself inwreaths of smoke.

"I wonder why—I wonder how girls—ladies, Imean, to use an old-fashioned word—get like thatJosephine Smedley; flicking cigarette ash about andgrimacing when they talk. They don't seem able tosay anything without George Robey's slang to help'em, or to finish a sentence without a laugh like athird-rate barmaid's. I believe subalterns describethem as 'sports.' They aren't men, though they tryto ape men; they aren't women—they aren't—ohGod! how I hate the type!"

Lady Manners rose. There was in her aristocratic,rather narrow face, a suspicion that her relative hadbeen drinking. Once on a previous visit the idealisthad been driven by boredom to seek entertainment inthe village tavern, and, while adding considerablyto his popularity amongst the rustic toss-pots,returned smelling insufferably of beer.

"Don't go, Emily. Don't shove off for a second.I only get wound up like this once in a blue moon,and I'd better get it off my chest now once and forall. Don't imagine I think these Miss Smedleysrepresent women war-workers. I know they're aminority, but they represent a type. I knowsomething about the other sort—the ones who've helped usto bash the Hun, and they make me feel like a pifflingslacker sometimes. How would you like to stand onyour feet for twelve hours a day doing acetylene gaswelding, or ride eighty miles carrying spare parts ona stink-bike through a snow blizzard—not once, but asa daily routine? I was shipmates with a bloke whosesister did that for two consecutive years. How wouldyou like swabbing out a gangrened wound in a partof a man's anatomy polite civilisation makes him hideunder clothes—-? Don't raise your eyebrows,Emily! The point I'm driving at is that thousands ofwomen do these things, and somehow manage toremain women——" He mused reminiscently upon athen recent article in Blackwood's Magazine—"Evenwhen they pull off their petticoats and put on breechesto plough an acre a day."

"I am sorry," said Lady Manners, on the thresholdof the hall. "But I quite fail to see the application ofall this—this rant."

"It applies to Josephine Smedley and her kidney,"replied the seeker-after-ideal-womanhood. "It is my'statement in mitigation.' You, my dear Emily,having donned the black cap and condemned me to atea-party with the lady in question, cannot do lessthan listen to my views." Graeme beamed at her irateladyship, his ill-humour blown away on the winds ofvehemence. "And now here is Malcolm bowed downwith the affairs of the nation."

Sir Malcolm Manners, who wore a preoccupied airand carried a sheaf of letters in his hand, entered asGraeme spoke. He was a meagre individual withabsent blue eyes and a drooping moustache tinted bynicotine. His thin grey hair was parted unsymmetricallydown the centre, and one wisp, perpetually overlookedor rebellious against restraint, stuck up fromthe crown like a co*ck's tail in miniature.

He stopped when he saw his wife and referredfussily to the letters he carried, as if torefresh his mind from notes preparatory to makinga speech.

"We must go up to town for a few days, Emily.These fellows are going to muddle everything withoutsomeone on the spot."

By "someone" he meant himself. The baronetwas Chairman of a Committee charged with the taskof repatriating certain classes of refugees. Therefugees having no wish to be repatriated and theCommittee boasting not a single business man in itscomposition, matters were not progressing as rapidly—sosaid the type-written report in the Chairman'shands—as could be hoped.

"Ha!" said the lady, scenting muddle like a war-horsesniffing battle. There are women who rush tostraighten out other people's affairs with a gusto onlyequalled by the discovery of dust in their own rooms.They make admirable housewives. Then, somehow,into the pleasurable anticipation of good work ahead,of fussy Committee meetings and the rounding up ofexpostulating unintelligibles, there floated therecollection of Graeme into their minds.

"You don't mind if we run away for a few days,Graeme—you can amuse yourself all right till we comeback I dare say? It's a nuisance—but you know whatthese confounded fellows are if you leave them tothemselves."

Sir Malcolm brandished the papers in vagueadmonition of his absent fellow-repatriators.

"Quite," said Graeme, wondering what they wereall talking about. Then, perhaps realising thatsomething more was required of him, added: "I'll be quiteall right alone. Have no end of a time. Don't eitherof you hurry back on my account."

"There are no engagements to bring us back tillthe end of the week, are there Emily?" queried SirMalcolm.

"Not that I can remember." Lady Manners walkedto a bureau and consulted a little tablet of memoranda."Oh, I had forgotten, I wrote this morning to thegoverness in charge of those children staying at GlebeFarm, asking her to bring them to tea the day afterto-morrow. They are the children of AdmiralHalliday; you remember, we met him and his wife atPortsmouth the year before the war—when we stayedwith the Farehams."

"Pretty woman, was she?" inquired Sir Malcolm."Or was it the one who liked boiled eggs with hertea?"

"It's immaterial," said his wife. "The childrenhave had chicken-pox and are convalescing. Iunderstand they are free from infection."

"They've stopped peeling," said the voice ofGraeme.

"Eh?" said Sir Malcolm, wheeling with asurprised expression. He had a way of forgetting hisbrother-in-law's presence and being startled when hespoke. "That needn't bring me back from town,need it?"

"Not at all," said Graeme cheerfully. "They'dprobably start again if they thought they'd draggedyou back."

The baronet looked still more confused. "Startwhat? I don't understand. What have I got to dowith these children and their complaints?"

"Nothing," said his wife, in the tone the keeper ofan imbecile might adopt. "They are only cominghere to tea when we are away. Graeme, of course,would consider it beneath his dignity to entertainchildren"—she smiled rather frostily—"soMrs. Mackworth must give them their tea and show themthe picture gallery, and—er—Baines shall take themround the gardens. That will leave Graeme free fromall responsibilities in our absence."

"Thank you," said the officer referred to."Always grateful for small mercies." He looked athis watch, and lounged off towards the stairway. "I'mgoing to shift for dinner." At the first landing hepaused and looked back. "By the way, Emily," hesaid, "have they accepted?"

"Who?" asked Lady Manners, her head oncemore full of the affairs of the about-to-be-repatriated.

"Those children."

"No. If a letter comes you had better open it,and let Mrs. Mackworth know if they are coming."

"I will," said Graeme. "But, oh, who wouldn'tsell his little farm and go to sea!"

3

Cornelius James claimed the right to be the bearerof the acceptance to Lady Manners' invitation byvirtue of having been the first to discover Graeme.

Georgina, doomed to an hour's violin practice, wasimmured in the stuffy farm parlour amid waxen fruit,daguerreotype portraits and family Bibles. Jane, aftera spirited bid for the post of messenger, soughtconsolation in the region of the sheep-dip, speedilybecoming as excited and almost as wet as the strugglinganimals themselves. Miss Mayne, having borrowedan iron from the farmer's wife, retired to the sitting-room,where, with pretty brows knit in the preoccupationof blanchissage, she was no longer a governess,but a slim priestess before a vestal altar, aloof,mysterious.

Cornelius James, turning his back on thesefeminine activities, pursued a stony lane that climbedthrough sloping fields and presently debouched uponthe main road. The lodge gates of his destinationstood a few hundred yards higher up, but boylike hedisdained so formal an entrance, and nosed along thehigh palisade surrounding the park until a displacedboard gave him access.

The trees grew thick and untended as in a wilderness,with moss clinging to their bark and the verdurewellnigh shutting out the sky. Underfoot the deadleaves of countless autumns' garnering rustled crisplyand, as the boy advanced, twigs snapped at everystep; something startled by his footfall bounded awaythrough the fern unseen. To the ears of boyhood,Pan's pipe has not grown dim, and it was with aheart that thumped responsive that Cornelius Jamescrept forward.

His imagination, acutely vivid and rather childishfor his years, insisted that this was a desperatebusiness, demanding caution and woodcraft of no meanorder. Indians, painted and feathered, slipped likeshadows from bole to hollow; a tiny pool amid thebracken was the nightly drinking-place of beasts ahunter of his experience could recognise from theirspoor.... A squirrel, low down on an overhangingbranch, suddenly sent his heart into his mouth as itbroke into a scolding chatter at his approach.

The trees grew fewer and gave glimpses of greatstretches of lawn, vivid green in the brilliantsunlight. Beyond, entrenched behind flower-beds and astone balustraded terrace, stood the great house. HadCornelius James but known it, romance clusteredthicker round those hoary buildings than any he couldimagine in his woodland transports.

Monks had chanted matins and vespers in thevaulted chapel whose roof caught his eye amid thegreenery. Brave gentlemen had died at the end ofthe alley-way bordered by yew hedges on the right—foughtand died for the light love of a lady. Dawnhad paled candles behind the deep-set oriel windowsand seen a fortune, aye, ten fortunes, change handsacross a little baize-covered table. The births ofgreat men and famous women and their deathshad the old house known for twenty generations,and once (so the chroniclers record) murdermost foul.

But the boy was less concerned with the housethan the gleam of a lake beyond the lawns. Wateralways called him, were it sea or river or puddle bythe roadside.

He emerged from the park, a hot, dishevelled,breathless little figure, and set off at a trot to wherethe ornamental lake was situated. A stream meandereddown to the head of the lake, and following ithe came presently to the stone coping (it had been afish pond in monastic days) and espied a tall figure,lazily whipping the surface of the lake with a troutrod. It was Graeme Jakes, and so intent was heupon his occupation that not until Cornelius Jamespanted to his side did he turn his head.

"Hullo, sprite!" he said. "Where have yousprung from?"

"I've got a letter," gasped Cornelius James,"about our coming to tea with you."

"Oh," said the prospective host, and then in atone of anxiety that would have astonished hisstep-sister: "You are coming, aren't you?"

"Rather," said the boy. "We're all coming." Heheld out the letter. "This is for Lady Manners.Shall I go in and give it to her?"

"That's all right," said Graeme, possessing himselfof the missive. "I'll take it."

He wound in his line and stood staring across thelawns in the direction of the old house.

"We are looking forward to coming," saidCornelius James. "Frightfully. Jane hopes we canplay hide and seek."

"Of course you can," said Graeme. "You cando any blessed thing you like."

"And you'll play, too?"

"I?" Graeme's tone was one of apprehension,but mingled with it was a note of pleased anticipationthe child's ear was quick to catch. "Are you sureyou want me? I'm not much good at games; it'srather a long time since I played hide and seek, youknow."

"Of course you'll have to join in," replied CorneliusJames. They were walking side by side in thedirection of the house. "That's all we're comingfor." He looked up into Graeme's face with a boy'sfrank affection in his gaze.

There are men proof against the blandishments ofwomen, charm they never so wisely, but none entirelyunsusceptible to a child's naïve advances.

Graeme flicked the supple rod to and fro over hisshoulder.

"Right-ho!" he said gruffly, and then after ahalf-awkward pause added: "Would you like apeach?"

The boy signified assent to the proposal, and theyskirted the flower-beds, leaving the house on theirleft and entered the walled garden.

Cornelius James rapidly disposed of two peachesand a pear while Graeme stood watching him with asmile lurking about the corners of his mouth.

"Better take some back for the other sprites," hesaid, and gathered four peaches. "Here you are—twoeach. Shove 'em in your pockets."

Cornelius James gravely accepted the gift, andprepared to depart.

"Thanks awfully," he said, and hesitated. "Isay, would you mind if I took one back for MissMayne? She loves peaches."

"I'd forgotten Miss Mayne," he said. "Of courseshe can have some. Here! Where's your cap?" Heselected and picked the fruit with a preoccupiedair, then suddenly; "Does—does Miss Mayne playhide and seek?"

Cornelius James nodded. "She plays everything,"he said with enthusiasm. "You wait!"

They had regained the terrace and stood lookingout across the smiling countryside.

"You haven't seen Miss Mayne yet, have you?"

"No," said Graeme. He stood motionless for aminute after his visitor had departed, watching thesmall figure dwindling in the distance. Then drawingthe letter from his pocket he opened and read it.It was a formal acceptance of half a dozen lineswritten in a clear, round, rather girlish hand andsigned "Claire Mayne." But the reader scrutinisedit as if it had been a photograph, and re-read it twiceere he replaced it in his pocket and walked slowlyback to the house.

"I wonder what she looks like," he said, musing,and then remembered rather uneasily that he hadomitted to mention to his visitor the absence of themistress of the household. In the hall he encounteredthe housekeeper.

"Oh, Mrs. Mackworth, those children are comingto tea to-morrow. I shall be in, and Iwill—er—entertain them."

Mrs. Mackworth, who had had in contemplation atea-party to two cronies in her own room, lookedrelieved at the intelligence.

"Then you won't require my presence, Mr. Graeme?"

"No, thank you," replied Graeme, with the desperatecalm of a man who had deliberately burned hisboats.

4

The following morning found the children ina glow of pleasurable anticipation which theirlandlady, on learning of the impending visit,cheerfully fanned to fever pitch. She had been ahousemaid "up at the house" in her youth, and heldthe children spellbound with her description ofits glories.

"There's armour there enough for a regiment ofsoldiers," she said with fine disregard of modernmilitary equipment, "and pictures by the mile.Chimney-vases hundreds of years old, worth their weight ingold, standing about in corners like dirt. Mind,too," she added, with a ring of sombre reminiscencein her tones, "they break if you so much as look at'em. Don't forget to see the tapestry that was woveby a queen and her ladies, and if Mr. Graeme'sthere, get him to show you the secret passage—there'sone behind a sliding panel in Sir Malcolm'slibrary."

"Oh!" gasped Jane and Cornelius James in chorus.

"Graeme will be there," cried the latter withdancing eyes.

"And a nice young gentleman he is," said thewoman. "Comes here to get my husband to goferreting and drops in afterwards for a cup of tea.Quiet, you know, and unassuming; happier, theysay, with us farmer folk than with lords and ladiesof the County. That's the gossip in these parts, butI was never one myself for——"

"Did you say we should meet him?" inquiredGeorgina of her brother, with lofty indifference ashade over accentuated.

"Yes," was the reply, "and you needn't put onairs because you are going to have tea with agrown-up man."

"And a silly little boy," retorted Georgina,nettled. She sighted Miss Mayne.

"Corney's frightfully jealous that we're goingto steal his beloved Mr. Jakes from him," shescoffed.

Miss Mayne laughed merrily. "Cheer up,Corney," she said. "We don't want your oldMr. Jakes, whoever he may be." She rumpled his hairaffectionately.

The child slipped his arm through that of thewoman.

"No," he replied, and looked up at her fair facequizzing down at him; a little smile lit his eyes ininnocent roguery. "No, but he may want you!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Mayne. "Why, I dobelieve Georgie was right!"

"How right?"

"I believe you are a silly little boy, after all."

Beneath another roof in the country Graeme Jakesformed the topic of conversation that summermorning. The Misses Smedley were alone in themusic-room of The Garth, where Alicia was practising a"Jazz" waltz on the piano. Josephine, swaying herbody sinuously to the rhythm, smoked a cigarettewhile she stared out of the window.

"He's not what you'd call good looking," shesaid, "exactly."

"No," replied Alicia, turning her music andnodding jerkily as the tune progressed.

"All the same," said Josephine, "there's somethingrather——" she writhed expressively.

The fair Alicia played in silence for some moments."Don't work up a 'pash' over him till you knowmore about him. For all you know, he's marriedalready—or wrapped up in another girl. Sailors aredevils."

Josephine took three "Jazz" steps across theroom and threw the stump of her cigarette into thefireplace. "I like devils," said the supple virgin,"'specially ugly ones."

Her sister stopped playing, wheeled round on themusic-stool, and taking a cigarette out of a box onthe piano, bounced it end-on with merciless violenceagainst her thumbnail before putting it in her mouth.

"I believe you are so dev'lish intrigued with thisman because he snubbed you the other day," shedrawled.

Josephine laughed. "There are some men onewould rather like to be beaten by—— Al, can youthink of an excuse to go over there this afternoon?What about those theatricals at Aldbury—can't weask him to act in them? He won't, of course—thatsort's too self-conscious—but it would be a decentexcuse."

"Obvious," said the more experienced Alicia.

"Rot—be a sport."

"But he leaves me cold," objected the "sport."

"So much the better. Didn't I help you whenyoung Maunder was staying at Norton Hall? Youowe me one over that."

"Oh, all right, then," assented Alicia. "I shallhave to gas to Lady Manners all the afternoon. 'Snice,I don't think."

"Lady Manners is away. Gone to town with oldSir Stick-in-the-mud. But, of course, we shan'tknow that—get all in a flutter——"

Alicia opened her heavy-lidded eyes wide. "Mydear!" she cried, and then, spinning round to thekey-board, vamped the opening bars of Mendelssohn'sWedding March.

"Shur-r-r up!" shrieked Josephine, with a burstof abrupt laughter somehow suggestive of the cry ofthe green woodpecker.

All unconscious of the tremors he had awakenedin the maidenly bosom of Josephine Smedley,Graeme Jakes sallied forth to meet his guests. Hehad mapped out a programme for their amusem*ntwith considerable care, harking back in memory tothe far-off days when as a little boy he was bidden tospend adventurous afternoons at adjoining countryhouses, where there were always swarms of children,and the gardeners locked the doors of thewall-gardens as a precaution——

Well, there would be no doors locked that afternoon.He had seen to that, and the tea, with its pilesof cakes and pyramids of fruit, bowls of cream anddishes of Mrs. Mackworth's famous preserves,materialised the vision of a meal he had alwaysdreamed as a child, and somehow never achievedin waking hours.

He met his guests half-way up the avenue throughthe park, a demure-looking little group from whichfirst Cornelius James and then Jane detachedthemselves and sped to greet him.

"Look," said Jane, extending decorously glovedfingers, "tell Miss Mayne you hate people withgloves. She made us wear them—Georgie and me."

"Did she?" said the host, and advanced towelcome the autocrat who had decreed gloves. Ofcourse, Emily would expect children to weargloves——

He was face to face with Miss Mayne, withGeorgina at her side. The governess had overheardJane's protest, and was laughing as they shook hands.Graeme approved of her laugh; it produced tinywrinkles at the side of her nose, giving her face aningenuous and infectious merriment. Despite thepre-occupation of the apology he was mentallyframing, Graeme noticed that her eyes were grey, andthat there were freckles powdered like gold-dust aboutthe attractive nose.

"I ought to have let you know before," he said."I hope you don't mind, but the fact is, my step-sisteris away. She and her husband have had to goup to town."

The smile faded from Miss Mayne's face. "I'msorry. We didn't know."

Her regard, meeting the man's, somehow remindedhim of the searching look Cornelius Jameshad given him at their first encounter.

"Emily entrusted me with the job of explainingher absence and apologising. I should have doneboth sooner, but, somehow, it never entered my head.I have been looking forward so much to having aparty——" He grinned boyishly and flushed.

Miss Mayne Was sophisticated enough to interpretaright all that quick flush meant. Her smile returnedlike a reassured rabbit sallying forth again from itsburrow.

"It's very brave of you," she said, "and we areever so grateful, because we've been looking forwardto this afternoon, too, haven't we, Georgina?"

Georgina awkwardly confirmed this; she was atthe shy age of girlhood—the age at which youth findsitself a trifle superfluous in Nature's inexorablescheme.

"Very well, then," said their host, "we will proceedaccording to plan, as the Hun said when heretreated," and led the way towards the house.

For the first time in his life he played the host,and the rôle became him. True, the house was nothis, but he knew and loved it, in his shy, unobtrusivefashion, and showed a knowledge of its contents thatmore than once caused Miss Mayne to glance at himwith a half surprised, veiled appreciation. Sheherself spoke little, but, when she did, displayed a loveof the beautiful and no small knowledge of many ofthe arts that beautified the interior of the mansion.The little party had reached the portrait gallery, andat Georgina's request Mouldy Jakes furnished themwith thumb-nail sketches of the life histories of theoriginals. He talked in a dryly humorous fashionthat held the children alternately entranced andconvulsed with laughter, warming to his self-imposedtask as Miss Mayne caught the infectious mirth andechoed the children's gurgles with her own clearsweet laugh.

"And who is that?" inquired Georgina, pointingto a bloodless-looking dame in blue satin holding atoy spaniel in her preposterously tapering hands.

"Ah!" said their host, "now we're gettingto the really interesting ones. I was saving herfor the last. There's a story about her you won'tbelieve."

"Tell," commanded Jane, possessing herself ofhis undamaged hand.

"Well, this particular lady died—or at least theythought she was dead, and they planted—that's tosay, buried her, in the vault attached to the chapel—I'llshow you the place later on. She had a wedding-ringwhich was supposed to carry special luck to itswearer—it was rolled out of a piece of gold lootedfrom a joss-house by some adventurous Manners.Anyhow, she was buried with this ring on, and inthe night, one of the gardeners thought that, beingalive and having use for good luck, he might as wellhave the ring as leave it where it was."

"Oh," said Miss Mayne, "I know the story—nevermind, go on!" She turned and stared curiously atthe impassive features of the lady.

"Well, the gardener got hold of the ring; he'dbeen apprenticed to a burglar as a lad before hetook up gardening, and he had strong nerves aswell. The trouble was that he couldn't separatethe ring from the lady, and he didn't want her.He pulled hard, but he couldn't get it off. Not fornuts."

"I know what I should have done," said CorneliusJames. "I should have cut off her finger."

"Corney!" protested his shocked sisters.

"Well, that was more or less his idea. Thetrouble was he hadn't got a knife—he wasn't a sailor;but he had been the next best thing for thepurpose—a dog-fancier."

"I thought you said he had been a burglar?"interposed Jane severely. Consistency indetails she invariably insisted upon when told astory.

"Oh," gasped Miss Mayne, as the significance ofthe gardener's former pursuit suddenly became plain,"you surely don't mean——"

"He was in a hurry. P'raps the job was gettingon his nerves after all. He started in, and when hewas half-way through the lady sat up. She wasn'tdead—only in a trance."

"What did the gardener do?" asked CorneliusJames feverishly.

"At the time he ran away," replied Mouldy insepulchral tones, "but later on he repented and joinedthe Church."

"And the lady lived happily ever afterwards?"insisted Jane the punctilious.

"Certainly," said Mouldy. "And now, before wehave tea, I'll show you all the ring." He ran up thestairway at the end of the gallery and returned a fewminutes later with a little casket.

"It is supposed to bring luck to any womanwho slips it on her wedding finger," said the host,opening the lid and taking out a heavy plainring.

"Let me put it on," said Georgina. She extendeda slim sunburnt paw, and Mouldy gravely slipped iton the third finger of her left hand.

"What a weight," she said, and turned her handadmiringly, contemplating it after the manner ofwomen, with her head on one side.

"Do you feel all funny?" inquired Jane, withobvious anxiety. "The luck——"

"No, silly," replied her sister. "Here, you put iton." She drew it off and slipped it on Jane's smallfinger. "Now Miss Mayne."

Miss Mayne shook her head laughingly. "No,"she said, "my luck doesn't want any improving. I'mquite content with everything as it is."

Her host glanced at her quizzically. She certainlydid not look as if she had many grounds for complaint,as she stood with her hands behind her backand mirth in her pretty eyes, a gracefully poised,perfectly healthy, happy specimen of young womanhood.

"Oh, Miss Mayne, but you must!" cried hercharges in unison.

"You can never have too much of a good thing,you know," endorsed the host. Without quite knowingwhy, he was aware that his heart was beating ashade fast. He wanted her to put the ring on. Hehad an absurd inexplicable desire to put it on herfinger himself.

"Just put it on the tip," pleaded Jane. "Please."

Miss Mayne was now blushing unaffectedly, andfurious with herself.

"Why not?" asked Graeme with masculine obtuseness.

"You needn't put it right on," said Georginasoothingly. Abruptly Miss Mayne yielded. Theaffair threatened to develop into a scene; she feltself-conscious and embarrassed.

"Very well," she consented, and held out her handto Jane. "Put it on the tip, it's too small for me towear."

Jane complied, but Cornelius James intervenedand pounced on her extended finger. "No, no," hecried, "properly! You must have all the luck!" andthrust the gold circle over her knuckle.

Miss Mayne tugged at it unavailingly. Theblush had gone and a look of annoyance creased herbrows. "It won't come off," she murmured.

"Never mind," said Graeme; "don't worry.We'll have tea, and then Mrs. Mackworth shallbring you some soap and warm water. Tea's readynow."

"I'd rather——" began the girl, and stopped.She had made enough fuss over the wretched thing,she decided. "Very well," she said reluctantly, andthey descended to the dining-room, and the Gargantuanrepast Graeme had prepared.

As the meal progressed, the friendly relationsGraeme had established with the children increasedto something approaching intimacy. Miss Mayne'sannoyance disappeared and her whimsy of a smilereturned. The incident of the ring was forgotten,and no one mentioned it. Only she remainedsomehow conscious of it as she sat with herhand unobtrusively concealed from view uponher lap.

Tea was nearing its conclusion when the butlerentered and approached Graeme's chair.

"The two Miss Smedleys, sir, have called. Isaid her Ladyship was away, but they said, if theymight, they'd like to see you for a minute."

"See me!" groaned the victim. "Oh, whowouldn't sell his little farm and go to sea? Why dothey want to see me?"

"Couldn't say, sir," said the butler, with faintdisapproval in his tone.

Graeme gazed at him with undisguised panic inhis face.

"Look here, Hobbes," he said, "I'm not goingto face those man-eaters alone. You can show'em in here. I suppose they'll have to havetea."

Then to the children, who sat wide-eyed and silentduring this confab, he appealed. "You'll all helpme, won't you?"

"Rather!" exclaimed Cornelius James, all hismartial instincts aroused by the reference toman-eaters, but quite at a loss as to what was expectedof him.

"Course we'll help," echoed Georgina, with somethingnearer comprehension.

"Well, then, you must just pretend I'm yourfather."

"What fun!" cried Jane, and they rose as thedoor opened and the Misses Smedley stood, somewhattaken aback, on the threshold.

"How d'you do," said Graeme advancing. "Ihope you don't mind a schoolroom tea round thedining-table, but the fact is, I—when the children arehere—we always have tea together."

The Misses Smedley bowed confusedly to MissMayne.

"We won't stop, ta fearfully all the same—weonly wanted to ask you to act in some theatricals,"said Josephine; "they're next week, and we're in atearing hurry. Think it over and let us know as soonas you can."

"I," said Graeme. "Do you mean you want meto act?" He turned to the party round the table."Children, can you imagine your father acting inamateur theatricals?"

The response was an outburst of unbridled merriment,in course of which Cornelius James, seated nextto Miss Mayne, upset his teacup.

The Misses Smedley took advantage of theensuing confusion to beat a retreat.

"Well," said Alicia, "we just popped in on theoff-chance you would, don't you know, being next-doorneighbours, and all that kind of thing. Now we mustfly off and beat up someone else." Her insolent eyesroved round the table. She appeared to bepreoccupied with some mental arithmetical calculation.

"Won't you have some tea first?" said MissMayne. The instant she had spoken she regrettedit, but the intimacy of the afternoon, the feeling ofknowing almost as much about the house and itscontents as the owners, perhaps some faint promptingsof loyalty to her sex, produced a spontaneousoffer of hospitality that she knew was not hers tomake.

"No, thanks really," said Josephine, already inretreat. "We haven't time now. Good-bye, and dotry to persuade your husband to help us with thesewretched theatricals."

Graeme and Miss Mayne stared blankly at eachother. Through the open window came the sound ofa car being cranked furiously.

The children's faces were eyeing their elders asif uncertain how to take this unexpected turn ofevents.

"They don't really eat men, do they?" said theawed voice of Cornelius James.

"You don't honestly think——" began MissMayne, her colour once more supplanting her smile."Oh, couldn't you tell them—run out and say I—we——"

Graeme hastened after the visitors with belatedpromptings of conscience and the laws of hospitality,but before he reached the hall the splutter of graveland the hum of the engine told the listeners in thedining-room he was too late.

"He's waving good-bye," said Alicia, as the carswerved and rocked down the avenue, looking backand brandishing her gloves.

"Let him!" snapped Josephine, opening thethrottle. "Some men are the limit. Fancy all thosechildren. Disgusting, I call it. Why, the eldestwas fourteen, if she was a day."

"She looked idiotically young," said Alicia.

"Probably their step-mother. Didn't she lookdaggers when we walked in! I suppose she is hiswife?"

"'Course she is; didn't you see her weddingring? I spotted it when that kid upset his cup andshe started mopping up the mess. 'Course she'shis wife."

"H'm," was the comment of the sporting Alicia.

5

Graeme Jakes accompanied his guests as far as thegateway to Glebe Farm when finally they departed.The sun was dipping behind the hills and rabbits wereshowing themselves along the lane; it was a goldenevening of incredible peacefulness, but in Graeme'smind a shadow of remorse lingered.

"Look here, Miss Mayne," he began awkwardlywhen a temporary absence of the children, who hadrun to greet the farm terrier, made intimate speechpossible. "I'm awfully sorry for the stupid mistakethat Smedley girl made. I feel I am really to blame,although nothing was further from my mind——"

Miss Mayne was silent and Graeme shot a swiftglance at her profile which, beyond enabling him tonote that her eyelashes were long and curved up alittle at the tips, afforded him no comfort. Theywalked a few paces through clouds of jigginggnats.

"Shall we not talk about it any more?" said MissMayne at length.

"I don't want to talk about it. I only wanted toreassure you, in case you might feel any annoyance.You see, they'll have found out the truth by now.They certainly won't waste time makinginquiries——" He smiled grimly. "And if anything morecomes of it, the worst will be a visit of apology to youfrom the pair of 'em."

He crinkled his eyes in the sunset light andscanned the figures of the children ahead ofthem.

"Why!" he murmured. "Of course it's absurd!It's comic! Fancy me——" and stopped on delicateground.

Miss Mayne smiled too. "I hope I shall be sparedapologies. As long as they realise at once—— Asyou say——" She hesitated and drove the pointhome. "The idea is—comic! And," she addedgraciously, "I'm not in the least angry withyou."

So ended Graeme's party. He retraced his steps,puffing furiously at his pipe, jolted out of theaccustomed orbit of his thoughts as completely as a maidenafter her first dance.

On the whole he had enjoyed the afternoonimmensely and found himself wondering why he hadnever done anything of the sort before. They weresuch jolly kids; the brown-faced, impulsive CorneliusJames, aglow with imagination and as affectionate asa puppy; Jane, a feminine edition of him, with thickhair, "bobbed" above the nape of her white neck (hehad discovered for the first time the witchery that liesin the back of a child's neck); and Georgina, shy,long slip of a thing with eyes like a fawn and hints ofa not-distant womanhood in her quick changes ofcolour and the pretty immature curves of her youngbody.

Of Miss Mayne he thought with a queer mixture ofcompunction and pleasure. She so obviously wouldhave enjoyed the afternoon had it not been for thelamentable business of the ring, and the ridiculousremark addressed to her by Josephine Smedley. Herhusband indeed...! Somehow that possibleinterpretation never entered his head when he suggestedtemporarily adopting the children. The ring she wasstill wearing during tea must have been responsiblefor it. He wished they had got it off with soap andwater when she wanted to, instead of leaving it tillafterwards. "Comic!" The intonation in MissMayne's voice came back to him as she echoed theword. After all, why comic——?

He wondered, sailor-like, what manner of man herbrother had been, that dead Guardsman who slept "inFlanders' fields." He realised with an unfamiliarthrill the fearless, frank way she had looked him in theeyes, the poise of her head, the gay quality of herlaugh, and somehow wished he had had that man fora pal; he, who since boyhood had never really openedhis heart to another human being.

He found a letter from his step-sister awaiting himon his return. It was a hurried epistle communicatingthe fact that Sir Malcolm was in bed with influenza,which at that time was raging in London. It postponedtheir return indefinitely and bade Graeme makehimself as comfortable as circ*mstances permitted intheir absence until the end of his leave.

Perhaps nothing more was necessary than thisabsence of Lady Manners from the scene to matureGraeme's friendship with his new acquaintances.

From the formal invitation to a return party atGlebe Farm penned by Georgina and signed by allthree children, they passed by rapid stages to an easycomradeship. In a week the boy and both girls wereas free of the demesne as Graeme was of the noisyteas in the farm parlour. Further, the latterunearthed a governess cart out of the stables, andharnessing a fat pony between the shafts, led them offon long rambling expeditions amongst the thickly-woodedhills, and lanes drowsy with the scent ofhoneysuckle.

It is not for me to attempt any convincingrecord of the imperceptible stages by which, asthe days passed, Graeme fell in love with ClaireMayne.

She obtruded upon his thoughts as sunlight entersa room past curtains waving in the breeze, while withthe dour perversity of his queer nature he tried toshut her out.

There were women about whom no one couldcherish any illusions; with these Graeme Jakes washalf contemptuously, half pityingly at ease. But inClaire Mayne he saw someone who approached soexquisitely to his ideal of womanhood that he dreadeddisillusionment. Thus and thus must his goddess befashioned, and the first word or act of hers thatbetrayed feet of clay would have filled him withbitterness and disappointment.

However, as time went on, one after anotherhe drew forth timidly from the secret hiding-placeof his soul some fresh idealism; draping themabout his conception of her, until the real and theimaginary woman blended into that dear, everlastinglyinaccessible unreality which is all mankind'sfirst love.

Transports of this nature are usually apparentenough in the demeanour; but Graeme Jakes'soriental imperturbability of countenance gave not theslightest betrayal of the turmoil in his thoughts.

Claire Mayne herself remained serenely unconsciousof anything in the air more vibrant than agrave friendliness and a shy, half-reluctantadmiration. She would not have been the normal, healthyyoung woman she was had she not thought about hima good deal. When the children were in bed and thestars made visible the dark outline of the hillsopposite, she sat by her open window, with the tiny roombehind her in darkness; there, chin in hand, she triedto assign him to some known category amongst herlimited male acquaintances, and found the taskdifficult.

Since girlhood her pet character in fiction had beenAlan Breck; not for his swashbuckling gallantry, northe efficient way with him in sword play, but because,as she herself put it, "he wanted looking after sodreadfully."

Graeme Jakes, in some subtle way that eludedanalysis, appealed to her in much the same manner.His clothes lacked buttons at times and his hair wasgenerally dreadfully untidy. She would like, shethought, to brush his hair for him ... in a brisk,sisterly fashion.

The tranquillity of her meditations would havebeen sorely disturbed could she have seen the objectof her thoughts. Half a mile away, from a vantagepoint amid the dewy bracken, stood her devout lover,watching with all a lover's faculty for self-hypnotisma light burning behind a blind in one of the upperwindows of the farm. Fondly he watched its orangeglow through the darkness until it was abruptlyextinguished, and returned home in a mood of exaltedmelancholy. Judge though how greater the melancholyhad he realised the blind screened no otherthan the conjugal chamber of the farmer and hiswife....

The days went by thus to merge into weeks, andthe children's visit was fast drawing to a close.Graeme, too, had received orders to attend at theAdmiralty for medical survey. The halcyon dayswere numbered.

They had planned an expedition to the coast, anall-day affair that was to include sea-bathing for thechildren, for the last day. The sun shone out of acloudless sky, the air was clear and sweet with autumnscents, and the cavalcade set forth on the appointedmorning in wild spirits. Mrs. Mackworth had providedlunch and tea, and the food, together with bathingthings, cameras, and all the impedimenta of aholiday, were piled into the pony cart. Miss Mayneheld the reins and Georgina walked at the pony'shead; Jane and her brother ranged along the hedgerowslike a couple of terriers; while Graeme broughtup the rear, outwardly cheerful, but inwardlyexperiencing the varied sensations of a man who hasdecided to propose ere the going down of the sun toa damsel whose only concern appeared to be to avoidbeing left alone in his company.

They reached the sea about noon; Graeme hadchosen a little bay where the sands were safe forbathing. The coast stretched away on one hand in awaste of dunes and marsh, and on the other rose inindented cliffs from a rock-strewn beach.

On the top of the cliffs they unpacked thebaskets, turned the pony loose to graze, and,when the children had had their longed-for bathe,lunched al fresco as might the gods have eaten uponOlympus.

It was after lunch that Graeme made his firstanxious bid for the company of Miss Mayne alone."Supposing you three go and explore the caves," hesuggested to the children, a clumsy argument which,for its very ingenuousness, roused no suspicions inthat maiden's heart.

"But what about you and Miss Mayne?" inquired Jane.

"Well," said Graeme feebly, "p'raps we'll goand look for seagulls' eggs along the cliffs."

"Gulls don't lay eggs in September," said MissMayne. "Why shouldn't we all go and explorecaves?"

Nothing was further from her mind than the imminenceof the proposal shaping itself on Graeme's lips,but a pretty loyalty to the children's parents forbadeher to let them out of her vision. "A nice business,"said her conscience, "if one of them got hurt. Wherewas Miss Mayne? Philandering somewhere out ofsight with a Naval officer.... Well, not philanderingexactly, but——"

"I thought perhaps you might be tired," broke inthe voice of the Naval officer upon her meditations.

"Not in the least," she replied. "Come along,we'll all go down to the beach."

So off they set and awakened the echoes of theshallow caves with their voices, explored the poolsleft by the tide; built with the aid of pieces ofdriftwood a sand castle that had co*ckle shells for windowsand a tiny green crab as keeper of the gateway, andthrough all the absorption of this light nonsenseGraeme was conscious of Claire Mayne, whether shespoke or was silent, in view or out of sight, as a manis aware of the sunlight and the wind on his cheek.She seemed inevitable—inevitable and indispensable.

The children found him dullish and rather distrait.

Curiously enough it was she who at last gave himhis opportunity to speak his heart. The childrendecreed it was time for their next bathe, and whilethey undressed in the shelter of the rocks, Graeme setabout unpacking the tea-things and boiling the kettle.He watched, kneeling, the three slim forms scamperacross the short stretch of sands in the sunlight tomeet the incoming tide, and suddenly Miss Maynejoined him on the cliff.

"I'll help you," she said; "I can watch the childrenfrom here and cut bread and butter at the same time.They are quite safe."

Her manner was unconcerned; she spoke in theunrestrained note of comradeship, and stood watchingthe children capering in the sunlit waves, with thewind moulding her garments to her long limbs anddrawing loose tendrils of her hair in careless, happydisorder across the curve of her cheek outlined againstthe sky.

Graeme knelt observing her, suddenly tongue-tied.You can invent speeches to a goddess, aye, and deliverthem effectively enough to a silent night of stars,but this radiant, composed girl was flesh and blood;he could almost see the warm vitality glowing throughher skin. She needed no clap-trap speech about lovesuch as fellows deliver in novels.... He rose to hisfeet. The wind and the sunshine and the sound ofthe sea seemed to sing and shout together. "Man!Here's your mate at last!" was the burden of thesong. "Here's the goal of all your heart's desire; thehaven of your soul's adventure! Look at her, shapedfor you by incalculable forces and laws, beautifiedand perfected and handed down through infinite ages,to stand thus within your arms' reach. Yours, man,if you can but win her! Tell her, fool ... tell her."

"I'm glad you came," said the fool, and his voice,husky and unfamiliar, startled him.

A sound, distinct from the noises of wind andshore, obtruded upon his consciousness as he spoke,and the girl heard it too, for she wheeled sharply andstood staring, not at her companion, but back acrossthe sheep-cropped turf.

Two horses were approaching at a canter, nearenough already for their riders' faces to bediscernible. One was Josephine Smedley; the other, avapid-faced young man in extravagant equestrianattire. They drew rein and approached the cliff at awalk, Miss Smedley waving her whip in greeting.Her companion touched his horse with the spur,holding it on the curb while it curveted effectively.

"Topping day!" cried Josephine. "Watchingthe kids bathe, Mrs. Jakes?"

Graeme heard the girl give a little gasp. Shestood quite motionless for a few seconds and then,still staring at the rider, he heard her say in a lowvoice, as if speaking to herself: "This has gone farenough; it's got to stop." Miss Smedley's cavalierhad rather overdone the spur business and washaving considerable difficulty in controlling his horse,which was plunging and pulling some distanceaway.

Graeme stepped forward. "I'll explain," he said."Miss Smedley——"

"No," interrupted Claire Mayne, "leave this tome. You should have explained before this." Shetook a few steps in the direction of the other girl."Miss Smedley," she said in a clear voice, "I thinkit only right I should tell you I am not married. Iam not Mr. Jakes's wife." She paused, apparentlyfrom loss of breath.

In the middle distance the young man, obviouslylosing control of his mount, was shouting somethingover his shoulder. Miss Smedley glanced in hisdirection and then looked Claire Mayne brutally fromhead to toe. "Please don't apologise," she said,"I—we suspected as much." It took the short, hardlaugh that followed the words to drive the insulthome. She flicked her horse sharply on the flank androde after her escort.

The sound of the horses' hoofs had died awaybefore Miss Mayne spoke.

"Did she mean—was that woman trying to——?"she began, and stopped. Mechanically she kneltdown and began setting out the tea-things as if ina trance.

"Why didn't you leave it to me?" expostulatedGraeme, kneeling beside her. "I'd have explainedproperly. She misunderstood ... or pretended to."

The girl raised a face from which all vestige ofcolour had fled. Her eyes were wide and pitiful;she held a sugar basin in one hand, in the other abutter knife.

"But I did explain," she said. "How could Iknow...?"

"You should have left it to me," repeated Graeme.He put out his hand and took the sugar basin fromher. She laid the butter-knife with precisionbeside the cabbage leaf containing the butter. Theiractions were mechanical and inconsequent, as ifthe kneeling figures were two automata actuated bywires.

"I thought I'd left enough to you," she said."You laughed it over the first time, as if it were ajoke. Perhaps it was a joke. One would rather lookat it in that light. But at least you could have madesure there would have been no second misunderstanding.No possibility of my being—beinginsulted." The colour flamed back into her cheeks."And you did nothing—nothing." She bit her lowerlip to control its trembling.

Graeme forced a wan smile. "There wasn't time,then.... But I will do something—and anyhow, itdoesn't matter, really."

"Doesn't matter!" she echoed in frozen tones."Doesn't matter! You put me in odiously falsepositions, you expose me to an outrageous insult ... andyou—you laugh and say it doesn't matter! Oh, thisis intolerable!" Angry tears forced themselves toher eyelashes.

Graeme groped for the hand that fumbled for apreposterous handkerchief (with what care had thatlittle scrap of cambric been selected a few short hoursbefore, and with what unconsciousness of the purposeit would serve!) "Claire! Claire! don't youunderstand, I want you to marry me."

She whipped to her feet. "Oh, don't be absurd!"she cried. "Do you imagine—is this your idea ofdoing something? Of rep—reparation for draggingmy name—my brother's——" She was weepingnow.

From somewhere on the sands below came thevoices of the children returning from their bathe.With a wrung heart Graeme realised his chance hadgone; the children could see them. Miss Mayneturned her face from the sea. "I'm going for awalk for a few minutes," she said; "will you allstart tea?"

"But won't you give me a chance to speak toyou later on?" gasped Graeme, "just for a second.It isn't anything to do with this wretched business.I mean I don't want you to marry me justbecause——"

Miss Mayne turned a tear-wet face towards himfor one instant. "If you are what I once thoughtyou were—if you even remotely resemble what I'vealways heard of Naval officers, you'll never, neverbroach this odious topic again, by word or letter orimplication."

And with that she went off along the cliff, walkingvery fast with her head bent.

Mouldy Jakes fell to buttering a slice of bread.

Dies irae! And the night that followed, littlebetter for most of the participators in that memorablepicnic. Tears wetted two pillows at least; a thirdremained uncreased until the dawn by the head thatought to have lain there.

Cornelius James awoke on the morrow to manifoldperplexities.

To Jane, his confidante in most tribulations, heunburdened himself after an early breakfast, whattime Miss Mayne and Georgina, the formerheavy-lidded and both uncommunicative, were puttingfinishing touches to the packing. The two childrenwere taking a valedictory stroll round thefarm.

"Miss Mayne's been crying," he observedgloomily. He abhorred tears.

Jane confirmed this with a nod that set her curlsbobbing. "So's Georgie."

"I know." Cornelius James's tone was one ofexasperation. "I'm sorry to be leaving Glebe Farm,but I don't cry about it. You're sorry, too, aren'tyou, Jane?"

Jane nodded again, but hesitated before disclosingthe maiden secret of another's breast. "'Tisn'tthat, Georgie wasn't crying 'cos we're leaving,'xactly."

"Then why?" demanded her brother. Hescrambled on to the wall of the pigsty, and satmoodily dropping bits of stone on the porker'sback.

"You see," explained Jane, not without diffidence,"she's in love."

"What next!" gasped her outraged brother."Who's she in love with?"

"Mr. Jakes."

Cornelius James could find no words applicable tothe situation.

"But—but," he finally exclaimed, "even if sheis, what's she got to cry about?"

Jane clambered up beside her brother. "Well,you see," she began, "it was that picnic."

"It was a jolly picnic," maintained the other.

"Yes, but Georgie counted on having Mr. Jakesall to herself on the way back."

"So she jolly well did!" commented her brotherwrathfully.

"Yes, but he never opened his mouth 'cept once,and then he only said something about selling afarm and going to sea, and Georgie thinks hehates her."

Cornelius James pondered over this insight intothe enigma of the feminine heart.

"She's an ass!" was his final comment. "Andwhat about Miss Mayne? Don't tell me she's inlove!" Assuredly the queen could do no wrong norstoop to such folly.

"I don't know," replied Jane, "but last nightI went to her room to borrow a ribbon to tie my hairup with 'cos I'd lost mine, an' she was lying on herbed with her face in her hands. I thought she hada headache, and I was going out again when shejumped up. Her face was all smeary and her eyeswere red, like when her brother was killed. 'Member?I per-tended I didn't notice anything, and asked forthe ribbon and she got it from a drawer and gave itto me without a word, and suddenly she sat downon the window seat and put her arms round meand held me against her so tight I could hardlybreathe."

The mystified eyes of the brother and sister met."But didn't she say anything?" demanded theformer. "Has anybody been killed she's fond of?"

"I don't think so," replied Jane; "she hardly saidanything. Just whispered little soft words like'darling.'"

"She did that when we tried to cheer her up 'cosher brother died," said the boy, as if condoning alapse on Miss Mayne's part.

"Oh, there was one thing," added Jane afterreflection; "she said, 'Oh, Janie, Janie, don't growup!'"

Which left Cornelius James not much the wiser.

To a more sophisticated mind the utterance mighthave meant much or little. For my part I look formy clue to the riddle in a later remark Miss Maynemade aloud to the darkness, from off a crumpledtear-wet pillow.

"He never said he loved me," she pleaded. Thedarkness held no answer.

PART TWO

THE NARRATIVE OF COMMANDER WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
HORNBY, ROYAL NAVY

1

The ship was doing her annual refit at a DockyardPort in the south, and the Captain and I shared whatleave there was going; in my case it amounted toeight days, and I spent them trout fishing inBreconshire. I have tried a good many experiments in theway of how to make the most of a week's leave, andI have come to the conclusion that few things takethe taste of war out of a man's mouth as effectively aswhipping a "mountainy" trout stream.

It was a long and tedious railway journey back;I suppose I am as fond of my ship as mostCommanders: she probably means more to me than aship does to a man with a wife and bairn of his own,but I can't say I looked forward to slipping intoharness again after the week's freedom from routineand responsibility, and the contemplation of returningto another nine months' exile in the North Sea didn'tadd any gaiety to the train journey. I was uncommonlyglad, therefore, when I changed at Bristol andwalked into Frank Milsom on the platform.

He was a "Red" Marine and an old shipmate ofmine in the Mediterranean Flagship 'way back in thedark ages: one of those born leaders of men, possessing(although I believe it doesn't always follow) acuriously magnetic fascination for women. Yet Ibelieve women bored him; I remember he once toldme he would as soon kiss a dog as a woman, unlesshe was drunk. He was full of "parlour-tricks,"too—the things that make a man sought after as amessmate; he could vamp a comic song and do sleight ofhand conjuring tricks, and he had the most infectiouslaugh that ever kept a mouldy wardroom alive. Theonly vice I ever observed in him was a passion forgambling, but he had a peculiarity which is unusualin the Navy: we used to say he was "fey." He hadqueer dreams sometimes that used to come true—thedate for paying off and things like that—and on oneoccasion I recollect drawing back the curtain of hiscabin on my way down from the middle watch, becauseI heard him laughing and wondered who waswith him at that hour. He was sitting up in his bunkwith the moonlight pouring through the open scuttle,and his hand stretched out in gesticulation (a way hehad when animated); otherwise the cabin wasempty. He was wide awake, told me he was talkingto his mother, and cursed me for interrupting.She was at the time about 2,800 miles away as thecrow flies.

He came towards me wheeling a ramshacklemotor-bicycle, with a co*cker spaniel on a chain, anda porter following with his bags and golf clubs."Bill Hornby!" he said, and the years between usand our last meeting seemed to close up like atelescope. We climbed into an empty carriage andsettled down in two corners facing each other, luggingout our pipes and 'baccy pouches preparatory to along yarn when, just as the train was starting, therewas a bit of a commotion outside. A porter jerkedopen the door, pitched a woman's dressing-case onto the seat (we were sitting at the end furthest fromthe door), and fumbled for his tip as the owner ofthe dressing-case followed. She was a long-legged,graceful girl, dressed in tweeds and rather neatlyshod. Milsom swore softly under his breath when thedressing-case appeared and stopped filling his pipe.But presently, when the train had started and ourfellow-passenger had settled down in the corner facingthe engine next to the door and opened a novel,Milsom leaned forward in his seat and asked herpermission to smoke.

Until she was addressed the girl had not shownthat she was aware of our presence in the carriage.She had not even glanced in our direction, and now,hearing herself spoken to, she turned a rather paleface and two almost startled grey eyes towards eachof us in turn.

"D'you mind this?" enquired Milsom, in thekindly tolerant voice in which he spoke to women,and held out his iniquitous looking briar for herinspection.

The girl shook her head unsmiling. "Not at all.I—I——" she glanced swiftly from us to the windowand the obvious

on the glass panel. "I beg your pardon," she said."I didn't notice. I was late and the porter hustledme in——" She turned her eyes on me; she hadwell marked, delicate brows, and a firm chin.Altogether I thought her a remarkable-looking youngwoman (I was sitting with my back to the engine,facing her diagonally), and had it not been for acertain touch of diffidence in her rather shy manner,I should have written her down as decidedlystrong-minded.

For a moment she looked as if she were contemplatingflight to the corridors in search of anothercarriage.

"Train's very full," said Milsom, "but if you likeI'll go and see if there's room in a non-smoker."

She shook her head. "I don't mind smoking—unlessyou mind my staying where I am?"

We both mumbled polite reassurances, and shereturned to her book, obviously dismissing uscompletely from her consciousness.

For all our protestations, neither of us was muchat ease after that; we kept up a desultory conversationfor a bit, but we were unaccustomed to having womennear us, and a man can't talk squarely to another manwith a woman in hearing. So after a bit we gave it upand retired behind our papers. I even dozed for abit, and must have slept for nearly an hour when Iwas awakened by my pipe dropping out of the cornerof my mouth.

My eyes, as they opened, rested first on the girl.She appeared to be sleeping; at all events she wasleaning back with her eyes closed and her book lyingunheeded on her lap. I glanced at Milsom in frontof me, and found him leaning forward with his elbowson his knees, staring across the carriage at the windowbeside the only vacant corner—that is to say, the oneopposite the girl. There was a faintly puzzledexpression on his face, and he kept glancing fromthe window to the girl. Then he looked at me witha queer enigmatic smile. We neither of us spoke, Isuppose with the idea of not waking our fellow-passenger,but Milsom presently drew a pencil-casefrom the pocket of his waistcoat and scribbledsomething on the margin of his newspaper. This hehanded to me:

"Come and sit beside me; don't make a noise."

I obeyed rather curiously, and he continued tostudy the window. We had just emerged from ashort tunnel when he wrote again on his paper:

"Watch that window and tell me if you can seeanyone's reflection in it." He indicated with a nodthe window alongside the vacant seat opposite thegirl.

I stared and could see nothing but the landscapeand the telegraph poles flicking by. Then weplunged into a cutting, and for a moment the sheetof glass became a mirror. I felt Milsom grip my armhard above the elbow. "Well?" he breathed.

I shook my head, and for the third time he drewthe paper on to his knee and scribbled hard.

"Don't tell me you couldn't see that bloke'sreflection?"

I frowned at him in hopeless bewilderment."What bloke?" I mouthed.

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his headwith raised eyebrows, and at that moment the trainbegan to slow and shudder as the brakes wereapplied.

"Get back," he whispered, and I resumed my seatopposite him as the third occupant of the carriagebegan to stir her limbs like one awaking from sleep.

For the life of me I don't know why, but I hadthe feeling that it would be wrong to see her face asshe opened her eyes. I somehow felt it would belike listening if she had talked in her sleep.

Milsom was collecting his impedimenta. "Changehere," he said, yawning, and hauled the reluctantspaniel from under the seat. "This train goes on toLondon. Heigh-ho! Who wouldn't sell his littlefarm and go to sea?"

I was turning to get my rod down from the rackwhen I saw the girl give a little start and shoot aswift interrogatory glance at Milsom over hershoulder. It was the first symptom of interest shehad shown in either of us. But after Milsom and Ihad disembarked on to the platform, and the trainbegan slowly to resume its journey Londonwards, Isaw her knit her handsome brows and stare rathercuriously at Milsom from the window of the movingtrain.

We stood beside our luggage in silence, watchingthe train pass from sight round a distant curve in theline.

Then I turned to Milsom. "Now," I said, "whatdid all those billets doux you wrote me mean?"

He looked at me quizzically. "Sure you saw noone there?"

"What d'you mean—reflected in the window?"

He nodded, with a smile hovering about thecorners of his mouth.

"No, of course I didn't. There were only threeof us in the carriage, and from where we were sitting—allfacing the engine—that window couldn't catchthe reflection of any of us. I've forgotten most ofthe optics I ever learned, but I remember enough tobe sure of that."

Milsom fingered his moustache. "I might haverealised——" he said musingly. He gave animperceptible shrug of the shoulders and laughedsoftly.

I got rather irritated. "Come on, Soldier," I said."For heaven's sake explain, and don't keep on withthis Maskelyne and Devant business." But he shookhis head, still laughing. "No," he said, "it's toogood to waste here. Come and have dinner up atthe Mess to-night and we'll exchange theories. Andnow," he continued, hauling in the slack of thespaniel's chain, "let's buy a pack of cards and playpicquet. Our train's due already."

The carriage was too full for me to broach thesubject again, and Milsom took thirty shillings outof me instead. At our destination we parted: he togo to the Marine Depôt, where he was Adjutant; Iin a musty four wheeler to the dockyard where theship was lying.

2

Milsom greeted me a couple of hours later in the bigoak-panelled hall of the Officers' Mess at the MarineHeadquarters. I had been on board the ship, hadhalf an hour's yarn with the Skipper (who was full ofthe ways of Dockyard Officials and the tale of ourDefect List), shifted, and got up to the Marines' Messas the first dinner bugles were sounding.

Every time I enter that hall, with its tatteredColours hanging from the walls and the portraits ofbygone Commandants staring down over their gorgets,I am struck afresh by the reminders, cherishedhere on all sides, of the proud past of the Corps.Greenwich Hospital excepted, the Navy has noshrines where the emblems of its traditions arepreserved, but the Marine Headquarters always seem toecho with whispers of the Marines' history. In theseconds that it took me to cross the wide floor, I hada blurred vision of the Rock, taken by storm andheld against odds; of haggard, fever-stricken detachmentsin rotting pith helmets, fighting their waythrough swamp and jungle, of the African suncatching the reddened bayonets of a desertsquare....

"co*cktail, I think." Milsom beckoned to awaiter, and, slipping his arm through mine, drew medown beside him on to the high-padded fender ofthe old fireplace that is a miracle of carving. Hehad had a game of squash, he explained, and a tubsince his arrival, and felt that he had decidedly earneda drink. "Plenty of time," he added as he lit acigarette. "Guest night, and the Colonel's waitingfor a guest!" We sipped our co*cktails, and whilewe yarned I studied the gathering all round us onthe look-out for old shipmates and familiar faces.The Commandant I knew well, a grizzled veteran,whose skin had been so baked by tropic suns that ithad the appearance of ancient parchment. He cametowards us for a few minutes' chat, limping slightlyfrom the effects (so it was said) of a mauling bya lion in Somaliland, and sat rolling his cigaretteround and round between his fingers and thumb, hiskeen old eyes watching the door for his guest.Markham was there, upright and groomed to the lasthair, and the sight of his face instantly recalled thevision I always cherish of him astride the wall of aChinese fort, plying his sword like a swashbuckler,and endeavouring to shield the body of anunconscious N.C.O. from the pikes of the Boxer rabblebelow. Ye gods! And we called that war!

The hall was full, and the guests included a fairsprinkling of soldiers from neighbouring camps anda good many N.O.'s from ships in harbour. Atone end of the room clustered a dozen freshly joinedsubalterns: they whispered constrainedly amongstthemselves and eyed the assembly with furtiveinterest. "Straight out of the egg," observedMilsom. "Mammy's darlings, every one of 'em.They shall sing us Songs of Araby after dinner orI'll eat my hat." I had my own ideas how Milsomshould amuse himself after dinner, but I said nothing."Watch them gloating over Markham and hisV.C." Markham, according to his kindly nature,had gone over and was talking to the new-comers.They clustered round him in the unabashed hero-worshipof youth, their shyness perceptibly evaporating:clean, robust striplings with down on theirupper lips and the stamp of the Public School plainupon them.

The swing doors opened and the Commandanttossed away his cigarette and rose as the guest of theMess entered. He was a youthful Colonel of Marineson leave from the Western Front, a tall, lean manwith a scar across his forehead and the look ofwearied habitual alertness you always see in the facesof men fresh from the trenches, and also of our patrolDestroyer Officers. I had never seen him in theflesh, though the illustrated papers have by now madehim a familiar figure enough. For this was HenryHavelock, destined to wear before he died everygallantry award in the gift of England and France.He was a contemporary of Milsom's, and when presentlywe adjourned to the vast arched messroom, Ifound myself sitting between them at theCommandant's end of the table. The talk was war, ofcourse, because war made up every man's experienceof life for the past three years and a half. But therange and variety of the fields which were beingdiscussed down the shining length of the mahoganytable made it unique. In one sector it was Antwerpand the raging inferno that had once been Lierre heldfor a live-long night against the headlong onslaughtof the Hun. In another, Gallipoli held sway, and asthe wine circulated and tongues were loosened, talesof that splendid failure were told that assuredly willnever find their way into any printed history of theGreat War. The hum of voices under the old beamsof the vaulted roof was the echo of strife carried fromSerbia to the Cameroons, with Mesopotamia and thePersian Gulf thrown in. The only man whoappeared disinclined to talk war was Havelock; heand Milsom were exchanging pre-war reminiscencesof a visit paid by the Mediterranean Fleet to MonteCarlo; how a certain lady with an impulsivetemperament lost her heart to the embarrassed Milsom,who was challenged to a duel by an indignanthusband; this worthy Havelock plied with absinthe untilhe (the husband) was all for Havelock running offwith the lady and thus easing a complicated situation;and as the evening wore on and the assiduousCorporal of Marines—brooding behind us with agold-topped bottle gripped in one white cotton glovedfist—redoubled his attentions, Havelock's eyes losttheir weary strained expression, and the stern linesround his mouth relaxed.

We had finished dinner and the port had goneround for the King, and following the secondcirculation the Commandant rose, and after a neat littlespeech, proposed Havelock's health, which wedrank with musical honours. Havelock replied,and in a few brief sentences he sketched thepart played, not by himself but by the Royal MarineUnits at the front under his command. Listening tohis pithy descriptive rendering into prose of the epicof Beaumont Hamel, it was not difficult to understandthe magnetic command of men with which he hasbeen credited, nor the devotion of their willingness tofollow him to the gates of Hell.

The Commandant was for snooker after that."Are you and your guest going to take a cue?" heasked Milsom, but Milsom shook his head. "No.They'll want me at the piano presently. TakeHavelock along and some of the others." So Havelockand his host departed to gather in a party andMilsom beckoned for the cigars.

"Now," he said, "I promised you a yarn, didn'tI? Well"—he clipped and lit a cigar—"I've beenthinking about the whole thing, and what I am goingto tell you is partly theory and the rest ain't fact asyou probably understand the term." He spilt a dropof water from his finger-bowl on to the shiningsurface of the table and sketched an oblong outline withthe end of a burnt match. "This represents thecarriage we were travelling in this afternoon with thatyoung woman:

The arrow indicates the direction in which the trainwas travelling. The blobs are you and me oppositeeach other, and the other's the girl. Got that?Well——"

"What's the cross?" I asked.

"That's an empty seat. The symbol is 'X,'which stands for the unknown. That's the corridoron the right. Now, I was sitting facing the engine—thisis me in the bottom right-hand corner—and frommy seat I could see the window beside X quiteclearly—naturally; and you may have observed that ifsomething dark is placed between the light and asheet of glass, the said sheet of glass becomes to allintents and purposes a mirror. The effect, I think,is increased if the observer is placed at an obliqueangle to the surface of the glass. In other words,from where I was sitting I was better able to see areflection in the glass than you were."

He drained his liqueur glass and puffed reflectivelyat his cigar for a few moments.

"We were running parallel to a goods train—aline of big, closed wagons, when I noticed a reflectionin the window beside the blank seat. I noticedit because it wasn't—as it ought to have been—yourreflection."

I laughed. "Whose was it—the Devil's?"

"No. A stranger's. I bent forward to have abetter look at him because I couldn't see very clearly,when we drew ahead of the goods train and thereflection vanished."

Had it been anyone but Milsom telling the tale Ishould have put it down as pure invention, but as Ihave hinted Milsom possessed peculiar qualities, andI grew still more interested.

"Go on," I said.

"Well, I waited because I knew sooner or later Ishould get another chance; any cutting or tunnel wepassed would do the trick. But up till then I hadn'tsomehow connected the thing with the girl. It didn'toccur to me. I wasn't interested in her and I ain'twell up on the science of these phenomena. However,in a little while we boomed into a tunnel and Igot all I wanted. It was no one I'd ever seen before,a dark, thin, rather lugubrious-looking bloke. Hehad his arm through the leather loop thing and hishand was tied up in bandages."

"But do you mean you saw him?" I interrupted.

"No, no; his reflection only. And while Iwatched he shook his head and smiled (not a verygay effort—sort of twisted) and said something; atleast, his lips moved. Of course I looked instinctivelyat the girl then. She was sitting with her eyesshut and her head leaning back, but what gave methe clue was the fact that her lips moved too. Shewas talking to the fellow."

My cigar had gone out, and I discovered mybrandy was still untouched. I nodded, not becauseI understood any more clearly, but because I felt thatwords would break a spell.

"Now my mater—she died a couple of years ago,bless her dear soul—used to belong to a lot ofsocieties that deal with phenomena of various kinds.I don't mean spiritualistic séances and that sort ofhumbug, but suggestion and telepathy. She used tobelieve in a thing she called Projection; concentratingwill power upon something until the thought becomesmore or less a material object—like blowing tobaccosmoke into a soap bubble—d'you tumble?"

I didn't, but I nodded again.

He was hopelessly out of my depth, but I rememberedspending a few days' leave once with Milsomat his home when we were youngsters, and seeing ablack spot against a white wall upon which hismother used to concentrate her mind entirely by wayof mental exercise for long periods daily. She was acharming, sympathetic woman and, as far as I couldobserve, perfectly normal in other respects.

"Now if my mother had been sitting in thecarriage she'd have seen the actual figure. I couldn'tdo that, but I'm what they call clairvoyant enough tosee the reflection. And then we whisked out of thetunnel, and I got you to come and sit beside her. Iwanted to see if you could see him and recognise hisface. As I've said, it was no one I've ever seenbefore."

I drank my brandy then because I felt I wanted it.

"What's it all mean, Soj? What's projectionand bubbles full of smoke got to do with it? I'ma plain sailorman and I don't understand all thispsychic business."

Milsom chuckled. "I don't understand it either,"he said, "and God knows I don't want to understandtoo much. But this all seems simple enough to me.The girl was thinking desperately hard about somefellow—the hum of the wheels and the telegraphwires have a hypnotic effect upon some temperaments,and she just unconsciously projected the figure ofthe man she was thinking about into the seat oppositeher and in her imagination was having a chat withhim. She was probably in love with the realindividual and possibly wasn't getting much joy out ofit. She didn't look happy."

Voices from the ante-room were shouting Milsom'sname: someone was strumming the piano. Milsompushed back his chair.

"But was he really there, though?" I queried, aswe rose. The long messroom was empty save for thewaiters and ourselves. The hubbub in the ante-roomredoubled, and someone started a song. Milsomlaughed.

"How d'you mean? Of course he wasn't therereally. Just because you think of someone it doesn'tmean they dump themselves down in front of you.Think of someone now."

I obeyed and stared hard at the portrait of anensign of "The Noble Free and Spirited ManchesterCorps of the Marines" hanging opposite.

Milsom followed the direction of my eyes. "Thatwasn't a good choice," he said dryly. "That fellowhas been sitting opposite us for the last half-hour.Ever since Markham vacated that chair!"

It occurred to me that perhaps Milsom had hadall the liqueur brandy to drink that was good for him.

3

It may or may not have been the effect of the oldbrandy, but in all the years Milsom and I wereshipmates I never remember him in a mood of such sheerlight-hearted reckless gaiety as that into which heseemed to slip on the threshold of the antechamber.

A sing-song was in progress round the piano, buton his arrival the group turned and bellowed for "TheTuppeny Tube." "The Tuppeny Tube," it must beexplained, was a song of his own invention,accompanied by a great deal of patter and not a littlehorseplay. In pantomime he herded the Public (the newlyjoined subalterns filled the rôle) into an imaginaryovercrowded tube lift, and with clashing fire-ironsimitated the closing and opening of the gates. Hisstentorian bellow of "'Urry up there, step smartly!Plenty of room in front!" was the gag that presentlyinvolved the Mess and its guests in a furious mêléeamid overturned card-tables and chairs. Little didwe guess as we sprawled gasping, breathless withlaughter and exertion, on the leather upholsteredchesterfields, in what grim surroundings many of uswere to hear again and thrill at that slogan.

The snooker players, wearied of the decorum ofthe billiard room, presently rejoined the remainder,and in five minutes Milsom, like the Pied Piper ofHamelin, had them dancing to his music. I don'tdance: but I leaned over the back of the piano,sucking my pipe and watching his smiling, half-mockingface as he swayed dreamily to the music thattinkled out from underneath his fingers. His eyeswere puckered up in the smoke of the cigar he keptscrewed into the corner of his mouth, and as he playedI saw him watching with a queer inscrutable smilethe dancers revolving round him, Majors, Captainsand Subalterns, aye and a couple of Colonels, forHavelock and Markham were footing it with the bestof them.

"This room has seen some good jamborees in itstime, Hornby," he said after a while, speaking withthe butt end of the cigar between his teeth. "I daresay men have carried worse memories across the Linethan their last night in the old Mess before theysailed." He changed into another air, anold-fashioned valse with a slow haunting melody; theBostoners and bunnyhuggers checked and picked upthe altered step. "I envy you going back to sea," hewent on. "It's a good life, afloat. A clean life....Better'n mucking about ashore with women....But our turn'll come."

"You aren't due for sea yet, are you, Soj?" Iasked.

"I ain't due," he said slowly, nodding his head tothe melody. "The others ain't due, but they'regoing ... some day...."

"When are you going?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and again the tunechanged:

"With me bundle on me shoulder
Sure there's no man could be bolder" ...

He raised his voice in song, and the dancers tookup the words till the great hall rang with men'svoices:

"For I'm off to Philadelphia in the morning."

The player brought down his hands in a crashof bass chords and rose laughing, amid a storm ofprotest.

"No more. Fineesh.... Phew! It's a longship, this."

Havelock approached us, glass in hand."Milsom," he said, "I take that last song as anaugury."

"Why?" asked Milsom, smiling.

"Well, my old governor—he was a Marine, youknow—told me that they sang that on the last guestnight before the Birkenhead sailed. The Marinesdidn't exactly disgrace themselves in the Birkenhead,and we'll hope your playing it to-night means theCorps are going to get another chance to show thesort of stuff they're made of."

It was the first time I'd heard the loss of theBirkenhead mentioned as other than a disaster: butthat was Havelock's way of looking at things.

"They're doing that all day long," said Milsom,"but I'll add 'Amen!'"

4

We sailed two days later, and I did not seeMilsom again before we left. He had walked partof the way back with me when, somewhere in thesma' hours, that hectic guest night drew to a close.We parted at the head of a dry dock, where a LightCruiser was lying shored up in the midst of an abyssof shadows, and for a moment Milsom leaned overthe guard rail and stared down the tiers of smoothmasonry into the darkness beneath us.

"Hornby," he said, "I wish I had my mother'sclearness of vision. I feel somehow that you andI are on the eve of something—an awfully bigadventure of sorts."

"I feel it now," went on Milsom, staring downinto the dock with its flights of giant steps of granite,and speaking in a low voice. "It's a sort of—sortof pricking of the thumbs!" The beam of aninquisitive searchlight on one of the harbour defencesswung round and for an instant dazzled us, paintedthe objects round us ebon and silver, and passed.Milsom straightened up. "Stonework and searchlights..."he said, as if repeating a half-forgottenlesson. "Stonework and searchlights and darknessbeneath.... Oh, I wish I knew! I wish Iknew!"

Then abruptly his mood changed. He broke intoone of his delightful laughs, fetched his right handout of his pocket and slapped me on the shoulderblade."Sleep well!" he cried. "Sleep tight—anddon't let the bogies bite!"

That was the last I saw of him.

5

We had been back at the Grand Fleet Base nearlya fortnight, and leave had slipped into the limbo ofthe past. The usual after-effects of a spell at adockyard were beginning to be apparent: the marriedmen were cheering up and the bachelors were showingfeverish interest in the mails. We had a racing cutterin training and a gunnery programme under way thatGuns vowed was going to bring him in grey hairsand sorrow to the grave. Then one busy morningwhen I had mapped out a nice little programme formyself, the Boatswain and the Captain of the Sidegoing round the ship in a skiff, the Skipper sent forme in the after-cabin.

"Hornby," he said, "what are your plans for thefuture?" I stared at him a bit. I'd only beenpromoted three years, and I wasn't worrying abouta Command. I felt I was doing pretty good workwhere I was, and the ship, though perhaps I say itwhat shouldn't, didn't figure badly in the SquadronReturns. However, I decided he was contemplatinga change of Commanders and was sorry, because hewas a White Man.

"Plans, sir," I said. "I don't know that I haveworried much about making plans. I believe ingoing where I'm sent and leaving it at that."

He nodded with his dry smile and picked up atelescope off his desk. "I know you won't thinkI'm butting into your private affairs, Hornby, orbeing inquisitive"—he focused the glass througha port on a distant cutter under sail—"but are youby any chance thinking of getting married again?"

"No," I said.

He closed the glass with a snap and faced mesquarely. "Got any one dependent on you?"

I shook my head, wondering what on earth hewas driving at.

"Well then, I won't beat about the bush anymore. There's a certain operation in contemplationover the other side; a pretty desperate business asfar as I can make out, and the odds against comingout of it alive are considerable. A Captain is wantedto command a certain unit of the force; are you onfor it?"

"I'm on for it all right," I replied, "but I'm nota Captain."

"That's all right," said the Skipper. He lookedat me a bit queerly. "I was dining with the Admirallast night and he hinted the nature of the businessand asked me if I thought you'd do. I told himyou would, but the thing is uncommonly likesigning a very old friend's death warrant. However,if you pull through you'll not exactly loseby it."

I suddenly felt a most extraordinary elation, likea schoolboy promised an unexpected holiday.

"Can you give me any details, sir?" I asked."Something to go on and make arrangements?"

The Owner shook his head, and sitting down athis desk pulled a signal pad towards him. "No," hesaid, "but I'll make a signal to the Admiral that youaccept and he'll probably send for you in the courseof the day." He rang the bell as he spoke andhanded the signal to a messenger.

"Give that to the Yeoman of the Watch and tellhim to make it to 'Flag.'" Then he nodded to me."That's all then, Commander. We'll leave it at thatfor the present."

"Aye, aye, sir," I replied, and so left him,feeling younger than I had felt for many a longday.

I hadn't long to wait for the summons from theFlagship. Barely an hour had elapsed before theChief Yeoman stood in the doorway of my cabin.I was going through the Defaulters' List with theMaster-at-Arms, I remember.

"Signal from Flag, sir," said the Chief Yeoman."Admiral wishes to see Commander Hornby at once." Hehad evidently shown it to the Officer of the Watchen route, because as he spoke I heard the pipe ofthe Boatswain's Mate shrill along the upper deck,calling away the picket boat. I've noticed thatwhen the gods elect to disturb the course ofhuman destinies they don't dally long upon theroad.

I had a surprise on the threshold of the GreatMan's after cabin. The Flag Lieutenant ushered mein and left me on the mat with a murmured "CommanderHornby, sir."

The Admiral was standing with his back to theempty stove. Sitting on the arm of a chintzupholstered sofa, swinging his leg and smoking acigarette through a foot-long amber holder, was noless a person than the Director of Naval Offensives,whom I, in common with the rest of the Navy,imagined at that moment to be seated at his deskin a Whitehall office.

"Morning, Hornby," said the Admiral. "I've gotyour Captain's signal. Very glad to get it. Justcast your eye over that chart on the table."

From where I was standing I could see it was abig scale chart of the German coast. I crossedthe cabin, and the Admiral, who was standing bythe table, bent and placed his forefinger on aspot half way up the coast. "See that place,Hornby?"

"Yes," I said, "Angerbad. The new Germandestroyer and submarine base."

"That's it," said the man who spent his lifewatching it as a cat watches a mouse-hole. "Wewant you to block it...."

I confess that caught me in the wind a bit.

The Director of Offensives chuckled and blew acloud of smoke. "We'll help you, Hornby," he said.I think I flushed a bit. It was the cold insolence, thecalculated madness of the thing that took away mybreath.

"Aye, aye, sir," I said, and as I spoke I notedthe red markings scattered about that section of thecoast and clustering thick round the port of Angerbadtill there was not an inch thus unadorned. Everymark was a German battery, and the guns rangedfrom 15 in. to 3-pounders or thereabouts.

"Just give him the outline of the thing," said theAdmiral, and the Director of Offensives got downfrom his perch and joined us at the table. With themouthpiece of his cigarette holder he traced thecourse of the canal to where it debouches into theharbour.

Our conversation for the ensuing half-hour neednot be recorded here. It was concerned with waysand means and a good deal of detail that wassubsequently found impracticable or to requiremodification. But it wasn't very long before I realisedthe magnitude of the task ahead of us, and whilehe talked the Director of Offensives sat twisted onthe side of the table, enveloped in cigarette smoke,talking in curt sentences that gave one insight enoughinto the icy, almost terrible, intelligence that laybehind his smooth forehead. The other occupant ofthe cabin spoke but little, pacing slowly to and frowith bent head, pausing every now and againto caress the great wolfhound that lay sprawledacross the hearth and never took his eyes off hismaster.

At length, however, when the broad outlines ofthe plan had been unfolded, the Admiral halted inhis walk.

"We'll give you an obsolete Cruiser to fit out forthe job, and you'll run her alongside, disembarkthe assaulting parties, and bring them off again whenthe work's finished. It's a seaman's job, and we'vepicked you to do it."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and meant it.

"What about the officers and men?" he said."My pack want blooding again. Got any suggestions?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "I know of two I'd like tosee there, and I'd like to take a Lieutenant calledThorogood as my First Lieutenant; I think I cananswer for his willingness to come."

"Well, that can wait for the present," said theDirector of Offensives. "We've got to get you Southfirst of all and choose the ships. Then we'll findsome men to put into 'em. We want a real PrinceRupert of a Marine to lead the storming party on theMole, and some good subalterns——" He climbedstiffly off the table and threw away the stump of hiscigarette. "Eh!" he said, "why ain't I twenty yearsyounger! They didn't do these things when I wasa boy!"

I heard the words, but my mind was far awayin the corner of a southern dockyard at night, andas in a dream I heard Milsom's voice:

"Stonework and searchlights.... I wish I knew....I wish I knew."

Ye Gods! Was this what the bogie in him wasdriving at?

"I'll wire to the Admiralty for your relief at once,"said the Admiral, as I withdrew to return to my ship."He'll be North in three days, and you can start inon this business."

And so I went out, past the motionless figure ofthe Marine sentry in the lobby, to begin an awfullybig adventure.

6

I was sitting in my cabin after dinner writing upmy night order book when Jakes pushed back thecurtain and stepped inside. I believe in beingaccessible, and don't let people knock at my door.

"Hullo, Mouldy," I said, "what can I do for you?"

He was our Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant, andhe was called Mouldy in the Wardroom on accountof a silent sardonic manner he usually affected.Popularity is a mysterious thing; no man ever soughtharder to avoid it or achieved it more readily thanour silent "fathom of misery," as the First Lieutenantaffectionately termed him. I think fellows in a Messread character rather well and ignore externals.Anyhow, for all his dry cynicism, I knew Mouldy tohave an absurdly tender heart, and to be as sensitiveof soul as a soft-shelled egg. He stood with his capunder his arm and his hands joined in front of him,the fingers twisting.

"'Speak to you for a minute, sir?" he mumbled.As a matter of fact, before he introduced the formulathat signifies private affairs, I guessed at the firstglance that Mouldy was in trouble of some sort. Inodded at the armchair.

"Take a sit-down, old lad," I said, "andhave a cigarette; I shan't be a minute finishingthis."

I had been too busy since we returned from leaveto pay much attention to affairs in the Mess. ButI had observed that Mouldy never seemed to be about,and when he came to meals appeared even moretaciturn and self-contained than his wont. I left himalone for a few minutes and then turned round. Hewas still standing before the door slowly twistinghis fingers. I got a pipe and began scraping it out.

"Cough it up, Mouldy," I said.

He cleared his throat. "It's nothing much, sir,"he replied, in a rather husky tone of forceddetachment. "I—I just wanted to say that I thoughtI'd—er—rather like to leave the ship."

I said nothing, but went on scraping out my pipe.

"I don't feel I'm doing much good, sir, an' Ithought I'd like to volunteer for a 'mystery ship,'or something with a bit of risk attached to it. I'dtake on anything as long as there was some dangermixed up with it. I feel I'm growing moss andbarnacles up here."

I didn't altogether like that. Mouldy was asbrave as anyone I knew, but he was no adventurerby nature.

"Well," I said, "of course the Skipper'll sendyour name in if you want me to ask him, but I'd thinkit over for a bit if I were you."

"I've thought it over," was the reply. "I've donenothing else since I came back from sick leave." Hemade a little movement with his damaged hand."And I—the fact is, sir, I can't stick it any longer."

There was a note in the old thing's voice thatsomehow wrung my heart. There was trouble here, andmy imagination coursed wildly over fields ofimprobability. For an instant I thought of a woman,but dismissed the idea. The sort of women thatMouldy usually bestowed a fleeting affection uponwere not the type to send a man looking forglory.

"Look here," I said, "we've known each othersome years now. I'm not the man, as you've probablydiscovered, to butt into a fellow's private affairsor worm confidences out of anyone, but if you'rein trouble of any sort, and it would help to get itoff your chest——"

He hesitated for an instant, and in that momenthe looked somehow pathetic; awfully young andboyish and in need of advice. "I'm a good deal olderthan you are, Mouldy," I went on, "and I've beenthrough my own Valley of the Shadow in mytime."

He took a long breath, and for a second I thoughtthe floodgates were going to be loosed. Then thepainful reserve and shyness of his nature closed onthe impulse like a vice. "No, sir," he said, "no... thanks awfully.... I just wanted to get away... just that."

Whatever fox was gnawing under his shirt, hepreferred to hold on to it rather than another eyeshould see his hurt. Well, I think I liked him allthe better for it. I never found talking about mytrouble lightened it. It's a matter of temperament,I suppose.

"Right-o!" I said instantly. "I'll see whatcan be done. In fact I'll go further. I'll promiseyou all the change and danger and excitement youcould possibly want." And with that I sent him toturn in.

7

My relief turned up three days later, and that nightthey gave me a farewell dinner in the Wardroom.It was like all shows of the kind—a mixture of wildjoviality and moments of sentiment, real or stimulatedby the cup. I had to make a speech, of course, andaltogether was not sorry when it was at last possibleto escape to the Quarter Deck. I had given no reasonfor my abrupt departure from the ship, and I wasconscious that I had succeeded in surrounding myselfwith a sort of glamour of mystery. Bunje (he wasour First Lieutenant then) would have it that I wasabout to contract a matrimonial alliance with anexiled princess, and made a moving speech afterdinner that was not in all its features fit forreproduction in these pages.

The Young Doctor stoutly maintained that I haddecided to embrace Holy Orders, and insisted onborrowing the Padre's cassock to wear while heoutlined my probable career as a missionary in the valleyof the Yangtse-Kiang.

It was Thorogood who joined me on the QuarterDeck where I was finishing a final pipe before turningin, and he fell into step beside me, linking His armin mine in the boyish, spontaneous manner in whichhis affectionate nature revealed itself.

"We'll miss you awfully, Commander," he said.

"You haven't seen the last of me yet, James,"I replied.

"No," he answered, "but you're off to-morrow,aren't you? And God knows when I'll see youagain."

"Hang it, why shouldn't I drop him a hint," Ithought. If the flower of the Service was neededfor this bloody business, then I'd choose JimmyThorogood amongst the bunch.

"James," I said, "would you care to come with meto my next job?"

He stopped short and stared at me through thedarkness. "D'you mean it?" he cried. "By Jove!If I thought——"

"Listen," I said. "Its a business that wantsthinking over. It's a pretty risky affair, and youare liable to get scuppered. The odds are a hundredto one on your being killed. I can't tell you anydetails at present, but think it over. You're not totell a soul, and I'll write to you later and renew myoffer. I shan't think you a coward if you refuse." Uponmy soul, at that moment I half hoped hewould refuse. I was awfully fond of Jimmy Thorogood.

"My aunt!" he gasped, just as I hadgasped in the Admiral's cabin in fact. "Howperfectly topping! ... I say, thanks awfully,sir!"

I left it at that.

8

For the next couple of months I was a busy man.I made my headquarters ashore, but they gave mea roving commission, and I spent a good deal of thetime at the Admiralty and paid a lot of flying visitsto Dockyard Ports. It would take too long to gointo all that part of the business and describe ourhunt round the scrap heaps of the Navy for justthe craft we needed. I fixed on the old Intolerantfor my share of the business, and I shan't forget thethrill with which I first saw her, black against thesunset one evening, lying at her rusty moorings onthe Motherbank. For the three blockships we selectedthe three obsolete Cruisers of the "D" class: Daring,Dauntless, and Determination, and presently theirCaptains arrived down from the North in obedienceto a telegram from the Director of Offensives. Theyinvaded my diggings at the Base one forenoon,tumbling out of a rickety four-wheeler, burdened withrugs and suitcases, all jabbering at once; JamesThorogood, a contemporary of his called Glegg, andanother Lieutenant-Commander I didn't know,named Brakespear. They were in the highest spiritsand loudly demanded food. I fed them and gavethem drink, and finally, when they had their pipesalight and were sprawling at their ease, I unfoldedwhat lay ahead. Of course, they had an inkling—infact, they had to be told a certain amount whenthey were asked to volunteer. But they wanteddetails now, and what I told them ought to havesobered a circus. Instead of which, Glegg danced awar dance, and Thorogood solemnly stood on hishead in a corner of the sofa, while Brakespear flungcushions at him and scared the landlady's cat to theverge of delirium.

It was the next day that I learned for the firsttime who was to lead the Marines' storming partyon to the Mole from the deck of the old Intolerant.I received a telephone message from the Director ofOffensives that he wanted to see me, and accordinglyI went to town and reached his office about noon.There, studying a roll of aerial photographs througha magnifying glass at the Admiral's side, wasMilsom. I somehow felt no surprise, but he raisedhis eyebrows and smiled in his half-mockingwhimsical way.

"You know each other?" said the Admiral."That's all right. Now what about the demolitionparty. We want a Lieutenant-Commander for that;a Gunnery man for preference. Any suggestions,Hornby?"

"Yes," I said. "Lieutenant-Commander Jakes." Inamed my old ship.

He nodded. "Send for him and let me see him.In the meanwhile you two had better go and havea Council of War. It wouldn't be a bad plan if youwent down and looked at the Intolerant together.They've started work on her, and as soon as theliving quarters are ready, you, Hornby, can takeup your quarters on board. Milsom won't need tofor some time yet." He turned to the Marine. "Youcan pick your men and start in a preliminary trainingashore. No need to be uncomfortable till you've gotto! By the way, if you are going down to see theIntolerant you can take a letter for me to theCommander-in-Chief. Just wait while I dictate a fewlines."

He pressed a button on his desk, and I carried acouple of the photographs to the window to get abetter light. They were photographs of Angerbad,obtained by our aircraft the previous day, and Istudied them with considerable interest. The weatherhad been bad for reconnaissance of late, and the mostrecent photographs I had seen previously were takenten days before. I don't think I heard the door open,but I did hear Milsom give a funny little gasp behindme, and I turned to see a girl standing in the doorway.The light was full in her face, and my heart gave themost unaccountable jump. I suppose it wasastonishment, because the new-comer was the girl who hadtravelled with us in the train returning from leave—whatnow seemed centuries ago. She didn't appearto see me, but her eyes, with their curious concentratedgaze, were levelled on Milsom. She stood quitemotionless for a moment, and I realised for the firsttime that she was very tall. I am not a short man,and her startled eyes were level with mine. A littlehalf-smile of recognition passed over her face. Then,with a slight inclination of her graceful head, sheslipped into a chair, with pencil poised and notebookon her knee. The Director, deep in papers thatstrewed his desk, dictated a note, smoked half acigarette while it was being typed, and signed it. Asthe girl was leaving the room he said: "By the way,Miss Mayne—Captain Hornby—Colonel Milsom." Thegirl bowed, but Milsom stepped forward. "We'vemet before," he said, and held out his hand.

"Yes," said Miss Mayne. A faint colour came intoher pale face. She gave him one searching, half-puzzledlook (just such another glance as I interceptedin the railway carriage), and quietly left the room.

9

Some day I hope a better man than I will write thestory of that grim preparation with its hours ofheartbreaking labour; its disappointments and anticipations,the close, almost affectionate, intimacy betweenofficers and men. "Eat, drink, and be merry" was themotto of the Force, and those who know the sailorman'slightheartedness and cheerful oblivion to thethings of the morrow will realise, with a morrow asuncertain as ours, how care-free was to-day. As apsychological study it must have presented strangeand interesting sidelights. We only had onepunishment—a threat of dismissal from the Force; and Ivow that the dread of the cat in the Navy of old neverproduced such a state of discipline as ruled on boardthose ancient crowded ships.

I got a First Lieutenant appointed, a lad calledJervis, who, immediately on joining, decided that hisrôle required of him that he should grow a beard withall speed; as a facial adornment it was not a success,but regarded as a terrifying war-mask it left little tobe desired. He was a laughable, lovable soul, aregular soda-water bottle of fizzing spirits andoptimism, and the men worshipped him. Selby was ourNavigator, a dry, thoughtful old stick, with eyes thatalways seemed full of memories that clung like sheep'swool along a bramble hedge. He was one of thosem*n you never get to know thoroughly, yet who nevermake you conscious they are keeping you at arm'slength. It's a type the Navy breeds prolifically.Never knowing privacy from earliest youth onwardshas a good deal to do with it.

In all the preliminary fitting out, however, themen who really slaved and on whom so much of thefinal success depended were Shorty Casseen, ourEngineer-Lieutenant-Commander, and the GunneryLieutenant, Teigne. The former found a scrap heap,and converted it into a set of engines that was not onlyto be relied upon to take the ship to Angerbad, but werather hoped would also bring her back after analmighty hammering. I've often wondered why hevolunteered for the job: he had a little wife he adoredand two bonny kids. But he came, and he livedthrough it, bless him.

"Guns" (Teigne) was one of those gunneryenthusiasts who make you wonder what profession he'dhave chosen if no one had discovered gunpowder. Hesaw the world through telescopic sights, I believe, andis reputed, on first seeing the large hotel that was aprominent landmark near where we were thenanchored, to have muttered longingly: "My aunt!What a target!"

Of course, as the time drew near, and we hadrehearsed and drilled to the last gasp of preparedness,others were added to the complement. We had aPadre, a bullet-headed athlete, who before the war wasthe parson of a roaring miners' camp in the North.Not the wife-beater's terror of the Sunday periodicalsto look at, though—a quiet, friendly little chap, witha way of blinking when he talked, as though the sunwas in his eyes. But one night in the Mess when wewere having a scrap to keep our spirits up and helpour digestions, he picked me up and threw my twelvestone about like a rag doll.

Jock Macrae was our P.M.O., with two assistantsfresh from some hospital. For a man who was nodespiser of whisky he had the most iron nerve andsteadiest hand of any "butcher" I've met. I havewondered since how many torn and bloody bundles ofhumanity owe their lives to his imperturbable pluckand skill. He brought a banjo with him, and nightafter night he would sit cross-legged on the deck,plucking at the catgut with those long surgical fingersof his, and sing old Jacobean ballads to the moon.

The blockships were moored not far away fromus, and we organised concerts and dinners thatwill always remain vivid in my memory as thegayest entertainments of the kind I have everparticipated in.

I saw little of Mouldy or Milsom during the trainingperiod. The former was coaching his braves inthe gentle art of demolishing things ashore at theBase, and the latter was at Headquarters introducinghis band of warriors to the inner mysteries ofbomb-throwing, flame projecting, and similar cults. Onceor twice I went over to confer with them separately,and found that, by a curious succession of accidents,they had never met each other.

"Went over twice to see that Marine bloke,"grumbled Mouldy, seated on a case of explosivesand measuring off some fuse, "and blowed if hewasn't in Town each time, havin' a frolic; an'here are we sweatin' our guts out..." He launchedinto a brief description of the activities of hisdisciples during the past month.

Milsom had a similar grievance. "What's thebird's name—the demobilisation expert?" heinquired. "Jakes? Well, I went over to look him upt'other day; I've never met him, and I thought that,as we were going over the bags together, we mightmeet and have a chin-wag. Of course, the day Ichose to toil over to the Base he had gone afloatto try some experiments somewhere, so I came backnone the wiser."

"You'll meet as soon as they transfer the forceson board us," I said.

I saw Milsom once more before they all took uptheir quarters on board. It was in Town, and I hadgone up for the last time to set a few private affairsstraight. I don't worry my solicitor much, and Ithink he was genuinely concerned at my "clewingup" my affairs so thoroughly. Anyhow, whenthe business was over he insisted on takingme to lunch "somewhere cheerful," as he putit. He thought, I suppose, that I was gettingmorbid.

We lunched at a large crowded restaurant full ofred-tabbed soldiers and pretty women smokingcigarettes. I'd rather have gone to the club, but oldAddison was all for this place. "Brighten you up,my boy," he said, pouring out the champagne. Itwas at that moment I saw Milsom. It wasn't somuch seeing him there that surprised me as theglimpse I got of his companion's profile. It wasMiss Mayne, and judging by the angle at whichMilsom's head was inclined towards her, and thegrave intentness with which she was listening towhat he had to say, they appeared to know eachother pretty well. They had finished luncheon, andshe was aimlessly stirring her untasted coffee andanswering Milsom in rare monosyllables, her eyeson her cup. Altogether, they didn't appear to behaving a particularly gay time, and in a little whilethey rose and threaded their way side by side outof the babbling overheated room and were lost toview.

10

I had completed everything I came up to Londonto do by 4 P.M., and found on looking up a timetableat the club that I had just time to get to thestation and catch a train back to the Base. I gotto the terminus with a few minutes to spare, andon going to the bookstall to buy something to readI saw a familiar figure standing beside the stallturning the pages of a magazine. It was a Commanderof the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a tough oldyachtsman called Armitage. I did not know himwell, but I had heard a good deal about him fromThorogood. He was well over fifty and was, Ibelieve, a very rich man. Yet he spent the first threeyears of the war slamming about in the North Sea,and he was now stationed at the Base in charge of theArmed Motor Launches.

He nodded a greeting at me and gathered abundle of papers. "Going down by this train?"he said. "Let's find a carriage together. I'd like tohave a yarn with you."

As luck would have it, we got a carriage toourselves, and after we had started and Armitage hadgot a gigantic bulldog pipe in full blast, he broachedthe topic that was uppermost in the minds of allof us those days.

"It's this blockship business that's been worryingme," he said. "Even with the crews cut downto the bare minimum and disembarking surplussteaming parties before they get across, there'll bean awful lot of men on board when they sink themselves."

"Yes," I said; "but they've got boats. They'lljust have to pull across the harbour under coverof your smoke screen"—the motor launcheswere detailed to lay the smoke screen inshore—"andthe Destroyers will pick up the boats outside."

Armitage nodded and puffed his enormous pipe."That's all right as long as the wind holds. Butsupposing the wind shifts and blows the harbourclear of smoke?"

I was silent. We all knew there was a possibilityof such a thing happening, but that had been takeninto consideration by the gallant lads who hadvolunteered for the job.

"I saw the Admiral this morning," continuedArmitage, "after talking it over with some of myboys. I told him six motor launches would volunteerto go inside the harbour and bring off theblockships' crews."

I stared at him. "But..." I said, "have youseen the photographs of the place? There's amachine-gun about every two yards round theharbour, to say nothing of any destroyers there may bemoored alongside the Mole. You'll get smotheredwith gunfire at point-blank range before theblockships are abandoned."

"Oh!" he said, "I'm not making out it's ajoy-ride. Thirty years ago I might have laughed atit. Remember," he said, pointing the stem of hispipe at me. "I'm not making a proposal that I'mnot going to see through myself. I'm going tolead the boats in. But I feel that it would be wrongnot to have a try at saving some of those gallantchildren's lives. Why," he went on, "I might havehad a son there——" He broke off and was silentfor a moment, puffing hard as if he were laying oneof his own defensive smoke screens.

"We're the R.N.V.R.," he said. "Rememberthat. We want to show the Navy what we're goodfor. The R.N.V.R.!" he repeated. "Lord! I couldtell you tales of the old days. The Buzzard——"

He laughed, a little hard laugh without any mirthin it.

We were silent for a while after that. My brainwas busy with this new development of the affair,and I was beginning to see all manner of heroicpossibilities in the proposal.

"When a man gets to my age," continued Armitagepresently, "he sees things more clearlysomehow—the things that matter and things that don't.You get down to bedrock. Money! I know somethingabout that commodity, and just how muchhappiness you can buy with it." He made a littlemovement with an empty hand. "Hope makes fortwo-thirds of the happiness of life: hoping forsomething you believe God'll be good enough to giveyou—something you think you've lived clean enoughto earn. Maybe you get it, maybe you don't. Butyou just go on hoping something, you know." Helooked at me with patient, steadfast eyes. "I wantto be of some use to somebody before my numbergoes up. And if I bring back to his lover some boywho might otherwise have been buried by a Germanfuneral party, perhaps I shan't altogether have livedin vain.

"'A little hope that when we die
We reap our sowing, so—good-bye!"

he quoted, smiling. And I thought his smile wasas pathetic as his words.

11

The storming and demolition parties came on boardone lovely sunny morning—the sort of day thatmakes you want to forget there's a war. They weretwo of the finest bodies of men I've ever set eyesupon, and as I watched them disencumberingthemselves of their arms and accoutrements along theupper deck, laughing and joking among themselves,it occurred to me that if blood must be the priceof Admiralty, we were going to pay full measureof our best.

We had a sort of informal Council of War in theWardroom during the morning, and the Mess wascrowded to the limits of its capacity with Subalternsand Lieutenants, smoking and talking nineteen to thedozen. Into that Dutch Parliament presently strolledMouldy Jakes, and stood a moment in the doorway."My word," he ejacul*ted, "who wouldn't sell hislittle farm and go to sea—eh, boys? Anybody gota drink to give the Officer in Charge of thedemolition party?" Someone handed him a co*cktail andhis lugubrious face brightened. It then occurred tome that he and Milsom had not yet met, and I rosefrom my seat on the edge of the table to find thelatter in the crowd. I discovered him standingupright by the door staring at Mouldy withone of his odd, inscrutable smiles, and it struckme, I remember, that he looked unusually white.I introduced him and left him yarning over adrink.

We half expected to get our eagerly awaitedsignal that night. The factors of weather, wind andsea and visibility on which the whole businessdepended were favourable enough at noon. Everysoul committed to the venture was aboard and themotley force was assembled with steam raised.Somewhere to the northward of us I knew the supportingforces, big ships, destroyers, motor launches, andcoastal motor boats were fretting at the leash, andthen, just when our hopes were at their highest, thewind veered and a nasty sea got up. We banked ourfires for the night, and for the first time for manya long day we found we had leisure to think andtalk of other things. I remember walking up anddown the bridge that night in the windy darknesswith the sparks flying from my pipe, and wonderingwhat Beth thought about it all, and whether shewas glad.... And presently a form loomed up outof the darkness and Milsom fell into step beside me.I had left him playing poker in the Wardroom, andwas rather surprised to see him. We paced up anddown in silence for a while, and I knew and likedhim so well that he hardly interrupted my train ofthought.

"Bill," he said presently, "this is going tobe a hell of a scrap. I thought the LancashireLanding was warm work, but I guess this'll knockit silly."

I grunted assent, and for a while he went on totalk about the show; how he and Mouldy were goingto lead two rushes simultaneously, and his dispositionsfor his machine-gun sections and bombingparties, and while he talked his cigar glowed red inthe darkness. As I've said, I was rather a long wayoff in my thoughts and wasn't listening to himproperly.

"... And we'll light such a candle, MasterRidley, as by God's Grace——" he broke off,soberly. Down in the forecastle a gramophone washumming the refrain of a popular song, and thesound floated up to us on the wind. It was somehowfamiliar to me, and I connected it with laughter andwomen's voices.... Somewhere aft a soda-waterbottle popped as the cork was drawn. I rememberedthen. The orchestra had been playing it the day Ilunched with Addison at that restaurant and I'd seenMilsom.... The incident had gone clean out ofmy mind.

"By the way," I said, "I forgot till this minute,but something's reminded me; that girl we travelledup with in the train that day—Miss Mayne?"

"Yes," said Milsom; "what about her?"

"I didn't know you knew her."

Milsom had got out of step; he shuffled his feetand picked it up again before replying.

"Didn't you?" he said, and glanced sidewaysat me. "Yes," he went on, after a pause, "we gotto know each other rather well. But how didyou——"

I told him about the luncheon at that restaurant,and how I had seen them. "Soj," I said, "did youever ask her who that—that fellow was?"

Milsom was silent for a moment. "No," he repliedpresently. "I never asked her what his namewas." We walked the length of the bridge beforehe spoke again. "She told me the story, though;rather a pitiful little tale. She was a governess, itseems. No people: orphan. Very little money, andwhat there was she gave to an only brother to keephim in the Guards. Father's old regiment, don't youknow. Brother was killed and she eventually learnedshorthand and took on that job at the Admiralty.Thought she ought to do war work. But it was whileshe was a governess she met this—er—naval officer,somewhere in the country."

"Naval officer, was he?" I interrupted.

"Yes, and she—I think she got fond of him....and she thought he cared for her ... but they hada row.... It sounds as if he was that sort offellow who would make a mess of it. Anyhow, hemucked up the whole business and went back tosea and never wrote again ... or anything." Milsompitched the glowing stump of his cigaroverboard. "And he'll never have her now." Therewas a hard note in my companion's voice I'd neverheard there before.

I reflected. "But," I said, "couldn't you findout his name? If it was only a silly misunderstandingbetween two kids, we might have helped."

"He wasn't a kid." Milsom halted at the headof the ladder. "And as to helping him, ... I don'tknow that I wanted to—particularly," and with thathe descended the ladder, leaving me staring afterhim in the darkness.

12

Hopes ran high with the rising of the sun nextmorning. The wind was light and steady, and thesea, as the morning wore on, grew calm as a millpond.

About noon the signal came through, and by fiveo'clock we were aweigh.

It is difficult now, after all the momentoushappenings of the ensuing twelve hours, to recaptureprecisely one's sensations as we sighted the escortingDestroyers and Motor Launches sweeping downto meet us, and forming up on either wing as ourlittle column, Intolerant, Daring, Dauntless, andDetermination, fell into line ahead. A squadron of'planes hummed overhead, searching the sky forsigns of inquisitive aircraft, and louder than thatresonant sound was the deep drone of men's voices onthe decks below, talking amongst themselves. Wewere committed at last to the bravest adventure thatever caused a man to tighten his girths and roll upthe sleeve of his sword arm, and as I looked up fromthe binnacle, across the broad expanse of water, andsaw that doughty array spread out beneath theafternoon sunlight, I thought that a man might chooseworse company than this in which to fight his lastfight. Shorty Casseen came up presently and stoodbeside me whistling a little tune between his teeth.

"How are the bulgines heaving round, old lad?"I asked.

"Fine," he replied. "She's going as well asshe did when I was an Engineer-Sub and tinkered thatscrap-heap through a Commission in the Pacific. Butdon't you worry, sir," he said, with one of hisbird-like sidelong glances, "we'll get the old hookeralongside that Mole if the bottom drops out ofher."

In so saying, I think he somehow voiced the feelingthat was predominant in all our hearts.

The Padre held a sort of informal service later,on the upper deck, which was attended by all whocould be spared from their duties. The light wasfading from the sky, and the violet shadows of eveningwere closing in on us. The men's faces, as theystood bareheaded and intent upon his words, werewhitely visible from the bridge.

The attack was timed for midnight but it washalf an hour before that when we saw the first gleamof star-shell that betrayed an apprehensive spiritamongst the Boches. Our Coastal Motor Boats andMotor Launches had been at work some time, andwere weaving their curtains of artificial fog to andfro across the harbour mouth. We heard theoccasional distant boom of a gun, but nothing thatbetokened a bombardment or that the enemy had anyreal inkling of what was afoot. One by one wepicked up the mark buoys that had been laid sincedark by the dauntless C.M.B.'s.

The moments passed, and the tension grew withevery muffled throb of the engines. The batterieswere crowded with silent men, and the starlightgleamed on their steel helmets and here and there anaked bayonet. Somewhere in front of those denselypacked ranks were Milsom and his six Subalternsand Mouldy Jakes, his impassive features hidden bya gas mask. He had donned it some time previously,and persisted in wearing it "as a type of Englishbeauty," he said, and shook hands in silence beforehe went to his post. Milsom and I had a few wordsoutside the flame-thrower's hut a little while afterthat.

"I knew of this show before you did, Hornby,"he said laughingly, as he broke open a packet ofrevolver ammunition. "D'you remember that nightin the Dockyard when we said good night?"

"Yes," I said. "'Stonework and searchlights.'"

"That's it. It puzzled me at the time, but I'llknow all about it in a little while. And the rest——"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell? It'swritten somewhere, I suppose?

"'Nor all thy piety and wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.'

"Well, I'll send a Boche or two ahead of me topipe the side before I step over it. And if I comeback"—he gave one of his reckless devil-may-carelaughs (the laugh I once heard him give when heflung his last louis on the table at Monte Carlo)—"faith,Bill, you shall foot it at my wedding...."He turned abruptly on his heel, and as he strodeaway I heard him humming:

"Wid me bundle on me shoulder,
Sure there's no man could be bolder...."

At the prearranged point we shifted from thebridge; the Navigator and Quartermaster moved intothe conning tower, and I took up my position in theport flame-thrower's hut from where I conned theship. I had previously been round the gun andhowitzer positions, and exchanged a few words withthe waiting officers and men, and as I passed fromone motionless group to the other my heart swelledwith pride and love for them. There wasn't ananxious face or a wavering eye. Broad grins andwhispered jests, like children waiting for the curtainto go up at a pantomime; and among the Marinesgrouped in the rear of each brow some whisperedcatchword of Milsom's was rife.

"'Urry up there, please! Step smartly, plenty ofroom in the front...."

Gallant, gallant lads! And astern of us in thequiet darkness lay England—England lighting itscandles and going to bed; England bending overcradles; and here and there, beside some open windowthat looked out to the sea, perhaps some Englishgirl kneeling and praying as she never prayedbefore.

A guttering smoke buoy went down our port side,and the next moment we were enveloped in theartificial fog of our own making. We had partedcompany from the Destroyers some minutes before, andthe blockships had swerved aside to make theentrance. Then, as I stood with my hand on the keyof the fire gongs, peering ahead into the swirlingmurk, I felt a breath of damp air blow strong in myface. The wind had changed and was rolling backour fog on top of us. Like magic I saw a space ofwater clear ahead, and the next instant the Molestood out black and distinct a couple of cables away,limned against the glare of searchlights and starshell.

There was a blinding yellow flash—it seemed ontop of us; and that instant, as the old ship answeredto her helm, hell was unloosed.

Every gun and howitzer on board opened fire witha roar that shook the ship from bridge to keel. Themachine-guns in the top broke into a hystericalchatter, and all along the Mole bursts of flamebelched forth. The shrapnel was spattering aboutthe upperworks like hailstones, and as I got the bowsround, heading for the Mole, I felt the ship checkand shudder as a heavy shell struck her. Anotherburst aft and again another; they must have struckus in the battery where all those men were waiting,and try as I would I could not shut out of myconsciousness the thought of the carnage that they musthave caused. The foremost howitzer gun's crew werelying in heaps round the gun, and as they rolledover fresh men came running and stumbling over thedead to take their places. The tide was floodingstrong, and the ground swell of yesterday's breezebroke ominously against the stonework. The shiplifted her bows to it, and plunging and scending,we grated alongside. I left the shelter of the hut thenand got out on to the bridge to superintend theplacing of the grappling anchors. Three of the browswere out, rising and falling above the parapet of theMole as the ship lurched in the swell; at one momentthey were six feet above the level of the stonework,the next they were striking it with a shuddering jar.And as I watched I saw Milsom and Mouldy golurching out along them with their men at theirheels. A dazzling star shell lit the scene like day,and I saw Milsom stoop and vault a clear drop ofsix feet, turn and catch a burly Marine in his arms,and rush forward to help secure the grapplinganchor. They had got another brow out by now,and men were pouring over it with scaling ladders.The din surpassed all description. The almostceaseless roar of guns, the grinding and crash of thebrows, the sob of the waves as they broke againstthe pier, flinging the spray high, and ever and anonthe explosion of shrapnel overhead spattering theirdeadly hail broadcast. Our monitors and aircraftwere busy, too, and ashore the tall flames of a score ofgreat conflagrations leaped into the sky.

It must be explained that the outer pathwayalong the top of the Mole was about six feet wide.Then came a drop of 30 feet on to the Mole itself,and once they passed over into this abyss bothstorming and demolition parties were lost to view. Theytook ladders for the purposes of this descent, andthe sight of those reeling brows a-swarm withmen, laden as they were with these ladders,flamethrowers, machine-guns, bombs, cutlasses, anddemolition implements, will always haunt me. Theydropped like flies, to lie where they fell, danglingacross the narrow gangways or clinging piteouslyfor a moment ere they let go and slipped intooblivion. The forecastle was just a battered heap ofdead and shattered wreckage, and aft along thebatteries I saw Jock Macrae's assistants bending amongthe motionless heaps and rushing the wounded below.

The Pilot joined me after a while, and togetherwe watched the blockships pass through the entrancea few cables away, vomiting flashes and spurts ofheavy and machine-gun fire. How they got acrossthat harbour, lit like day by searchlights, whippedinto a sheet of foam by shrapnel and machine-gunfire, only God and their Captains know. We sawJimmy Thorogood in the Dauntless go crashingthrough the flimsy anti-submarine defences, and Ibelieve we gave him a crazy, cracked cheer. Theywere plastering him with gas shell, and he was onfire aft and blazing like a hay-rick. But he heldon and made the entrance to the Canal, and was lostto view behind some sheds. Daring came next, andDetermination, trailing in the rear and almost hiddenby waterspouts of falling shell. And then Selbygripped my arm and pointed to the foremostbrow. Our Padre was lurching along it withsplinters flying all round him, looking for allthe world like a tightrope walker learning hisprofession. He reached the Mole intact, and stoodlooking about him. Then suddenly bending down,he swung the unconscious form of a giant Marineover his shoulder, and carrying him thus, turnedand retraced his steps. Other matters claimed myattention for the moment, but when I next lookedalong the ship's side I saw him returning withanother precious human freight slung on hisback.

It was impossible to tell what was going on alongthe causeway below the parapet of the Mole. Twicewith a deafening concussion a great sheet of flameleaped into the air, and I came to the conclusion thatMouldy's merry men had "touched off" something.It was afterwards, when we came to piece togetherthe breathless narratives of those who returned,that we, whose business it was only to stand andwait, learned something of that desperatehand-to-hand righting; of the rushing and bombing ofthe machine-guns and a Destroyer alongside; thedestruction of the seaplane sheds; and the yellingbayonet charge Milsom led against the angryreinforcements of the Huns.

From where I stood I could see the whole panoramaof the harbour in that unearthly light. I sawthe blockships lying athwart in the entrance to theCanal, blocking it effectually; I saw the MotorLaunches, led by old Armitage, dashing throughthat hellish barrage of machine-gun fire andpom-poms, and run alongside to embark the crews, turnand race blindly for the harbour mouth and safety;and then, when the last was clear, our work wasdone.

I seized the lanyard of the syren and tugged it,and shrill above the ceaseless uproar rose the hootof the "Recall."

According to the arrangements we had madebeforehand, the demolition party retired first, whilethe Marines covered the retreat, and no soonerhad the first reluctant figures begun to struggleback across the shattered brows than the enemyconcentrated every gun he could bring to bearupon the crowded scaling ladders and the gangways.

Fountains of flame and sparks flew skywards,through which the forms of men came stumbling,each living figure that reached our deck, it seemedto me, the embodiment of a miracle. The plankingflew about me as chips fly from a woodman's axe.My cap was torn from my head, my monkey-jacketwas ripped and scorched, but there wasn't a scratchon my body that I was conscious of.

I saw my First Lieutenant forward busy aboutthe slip of the cable; I saw the top above meshattered by a shell, and after a silence heard thepom-pom there break out again undismayed. The upperdeck was a reeking shambles, with men pouring downinto it from the Mole, exhausted, bloody, andtriumphant. Nearly every man carried a wounded mate slungacross his back, and most of them had a chunk ofmasonry or a fragment of shell gripped in his fistto bring back as a "souvenir" of the night's work—asif their memories or those of their children'schildren needed any such reminder.

The Marines fell back at length, and the last toembark was Milsom, one arm hanging limp andbloody. He laughed as he saw me.

"Thank God you're all right," he panted.

"Ditto," I shouted.

"The Devil looks after his own," he said, andthen the business of getting clear claimed all myattention.

We got out of range of their batteries, and thelast fire on board extinguished before we stopped totransfer our wounded to some of the Destroyers, to berushed back to the Base. A battered Motor Launchcame alongside and I recognised the number paintedon her bows. It was Armitage's boat. I went to thegangway and hailed her. A Volunteer Reserve Sub. witha bandage round his smoke-begrimed face,standing by the wheel, raised his arm.

"Armitage?" I shouted. The boy shook hishead and climbed inboard. They were passing thewounded down to be transferred to one of theDestroyers laying off.

"Where is he?" I asked. The youngster jerkedhis thumb towards the launch's tiny cabin. "Aft,"he said, in the dull tone of utter exhaustion of bodyand emotions.

"Five times he was hit an' he wouldn't budge....Kneeling in a pool of blood for'ard givin'directions.... Got the last man from Determinationaboard and he said 'Finish,' and rolled over ina heap. Just that one word, 'Finish.'" The deadman's second in command stood with his faceworking. "Oh, God!" he said; "he was a man, hewas a man!"

We resumed our voyage with four Destroyers toscreen us, and the dawn broke chill and wan; amist closed down upon us like a pall as the lightstrengthened.

Jervis was below having a wounded eye dressedand I was alone, but for the Quartermaster, on thewreckage of the bridge; but presently I saw Milsom,with a bandaged arm in splints and a cigar stucktruculently in the corner of his mouth, climbing stifflyup the ladder.

"Jakes is all right," he said, as he joined me besidethe rail.

"Yes," I said. "Hasn't got a scratch. Only gota sniff of gas—but he'll shake that off in a few hours.The Destroyers say that those Motor Launches savedall the officers and most of the men from theblockships. How's the arm?"

"Bit stiff. Broken in two places." Milsomleaned against the rail and took a deep breath. "ButI'm still alive." He repeated the sentence and staredat the dim outline of one of our escort just visiblethrough the mist. His tone was like that of a manawakening from sleep. "Oh, damn it!" he said. "No,no," ... and then he turned abruptly and faced me."Look here, Bill," he said, "I was going to play therottenest trick a man ever was tempted to stoop to." Hewas talking as if he was in a desperate hurry, thewords coming in a rush. "This is a funny time totell a love story, in all conscience, but I—I—d'youremember that girl, Miss Mayne? I've never lookedat a woman in my life till I saw her. She wasn'tin love with me, but I made her say she'd marryme....

"Oh, I understand her, Bill, as no other man alivecould.... I tell you, I could read every thoughtthat was in her head—and knowing that, I was goingto take her. I told myself I had every right to if Icould, and she was mine—just made for me, body andmind and soul. I'm telling you this now—you'venever heard me talk like this before, Bill, and Godknows you never will again.... Don't stare like that,old thing. I'm not light-headed—I'm telling you allthis, because I—I know who the other man is. You'vegot to help him find her again and patch up theirsilly squabble and make her happy—happier thanever I could. And I understood her better five minutesafter I'd first set eyes on her than he will withher lying in his arms——"

Somewhere at the back of my brain I heard a far-offdrone like the sound of a distant beehive.

"Well," I said. "What's his name?"

Milsom stood staring past me into the mist thatlowered over us.

"I'll tell you," he said, "because I——"

The events of the next few seconds will alwaysremain a blur in my memory; the bark of a high-anglegun from one of the Destroyers astern cut short hiswords. The drone above us seemed suddenly to becomea rushing roar of sound, and a blast of machine-gunfire swept the deck and bridge as a flight ofseaplanes whizzed overhead flying low, so that I couldsee the goggled faces of the pilots behind the spurts offlame from their guns. The next instant they weregone again in the mist. It was the last sting fromthe hornets' nest we had been burning out, andMilsom was at my feet leaning on his one arm andstaring stupidly at the thin dark stream tricklingacross the planking. The Destroyers on our beamwere firing fruitlessly into the mist.

I bent and put my arms about him and he turnedhis face towards me. Twice he tried to speak, andan attempt at a smile, a ghost of the old jaunty smile,flitted across his grey face. He made one moresupreme effort, and with my ear to the bloody lips Ijust caught the last whispered breath that took hissoul with it.

13

We passed up harbour to our berth alongside thefollowing afternoon, and every craft in harbourmanned ship and gave us a cheer while the tugs andferry craft hooted, and the folk ashore lined the beachand waved flags and handkerchiefs. I am not ashamedto own that I saw it all through a blur; and as theoff-shore wind carried the thin sound of women'svoices, I couldn't help thinking of the lads below theshattered upper deck, who had fallen asleep that Englandon the morrow might wake to a fuller realisationof her glory.

We dined together that night in the coffee roomof the big hotel that had been converted into theNaval Headquarters of the Base. We had countedon having a tremendous jamboree—those of us whor*turned. But somehow the feeling that predominatedwas a sort of dazed astonishment that we werestill alive. And our heads ached "fit to split" ashousemaids say.

Mouldy was in bed, recovering from a slightgassing, but Thorogood sat next to me, squeezing myarm at intervals as if to reassure himself that hewasn't dreaming; and on the other a big subalternof Marines who seemed to regard his recent experienceswith less emotion that the last Army v. Navyrugger match, in which I saw him play. Glegg wasthere with a bandage over one eye, but Brakespearwas in hospital with a piece of shrapnel somewhere inhis anatomy.

Jervis had shorn his beard, and in the processseemed to have parted with something of hiseffervescent vivacity, and when I remembered him as Ihad last seen him, as we shoved off from theblazing Mole, stumbling amid the dead and bawlingthrough his megaphone.... No, we weren't feelinggay.

It was after dinner that we got really talking.There must have been a dozen of us altogether,because Shorty had gone home to his wife, and Selbyhad gone Home too: a longer journey, but perhapsan even happier meeting at the end of it....Anyhow, there were about a dozen of us that lit cigarsand cigarettes and put our elbows on the table,and the scene, as I remember it, was justlike some big family happily reunited, with theshadow of the Angel's wing still hovering overall.

Messengers were coming and going all the whilewith signals and telegrams, and presently the orderlymurmured, "The Director of Offensives, sir, wantsto talk to you on the telephone."

I went up to the room I used as an office whenashore, and as I picked up the receiver of theAdmiralty line, heard the Director's voice faintly,speaking not to me but to someone in his room.

"Tell them I'll be at the War Office at 3 P.M. forthat meeting ... that's all for to-night, Miss Mayne,"I heard him say. Then clearer and louder, "Hallo,that you, Hornby?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Well, I'm damned glad to hear it." Then hesaid a lot of nice things about what we'd done andbeing proud of us, and finished off: "Well, I'd liketo see you at 3.30 P.M. to-morrow if you can get totown by then."

"Aye, aye, sir," and as I answered a thoughtflashed through my brain: it was one of those brilliantinspirations that come once in a lifetime, and inthe course of a sleepless night (none of us slept thatnight) I perfected it into a piece of strategy for whichI claim, in all modesty, a place in this already undulyprolonged narrative.

Mouldy occupied a spare room at my diggingswhere most of us were billeted for the night, and whenI turned out the following morning, I visited him.I found him drinking tea and reading the morning,paper.

"How d'you feel?" I asked.

He pointed to a tin of cigarettes with a wry face.

"Dead off baccy," he said lugubriously.

"Well," I replied, "that'll do you no harm. Allright otherwise?"

He nodded. "All right last night. Lord knowswhy I should have been rammed into bed while allyou pirates lapped up bubbly and made a night ofit."

"Doctor's orders. Anyhow, he says you can goto town to-day."

Mouldy sat up. "Damn good of him, 'cos I wasgoin', anyhow. I'm going to have a hell of ajamboree." He blinked at me defiantly from under alank lock of black hair.

"You've got to come with me to the Admiralty atthree o'clock," I said as sternly as I could. Mouldygroaned.

"Have I got to keep sober till three—an' pubsclosing at half-past two?"

"Yes," I said. "You won't have a drink till theevening—and then you can have as many as youwant."

He acquiesced reluctantly, and we caught a trainto town that landed us at the terminus shortly beforethree; thence we taxied to Whitehall.

"This place gives me the holy pip," said Mouldy,as we threaded our way through the stuffy-smellingcorridors of the Admiralty. "Looks as if the Navywas run by women from what I can see of the place.Phew! Shockin' frowst!" We reached the Director's room.

"Never mind that," I said, and opened the door.I breathed a sigh of relief to find the room was empty,and glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes pastthree. Well, if Mouldy couldn't fix things intwenty minutes.... He walked to the openwindow and stood staring out on the Horse GuardsParade.

"Humph!" he observed moodily. "I reckon thebounding blue's good enough for me.... I wouldn'tcome and work here for a thousand a year. Whatthe blazes does the Director want to see me for,anyway? He's all adrift too."

I was hunting about on the paper-strewn desk forthe bell press I knew was there if I could find it.There were three: one marked "Secretary," another"Messenger," and a third "Stenographer." I took along breath and pressed the third.

"Mouldy," I said, "don't get into mischief. Waithere till I come back. I shan't be a minute." ThenI made tracks for the door.

In the semi-gloom of the passage outside a tallgirl brushed past me and entered the room, penciland notebook in hand. It was Miss Mayne, and Iwaited till the door closed before I looked at mywatch. "I'll give them two minutes," I thought."And if she doesn't come back——"

I gave them ten minutes, as a matter of fact, thenI knocked at the door and went in.

"Mouldy," I said, "you needn't wait. It's allright. I mean, the Director doesn't want to see youafter all."

They had not apparently heard my knock, becauseMiss Mayne's head was resting on Mouldy'sshoulder, and he was stroking her hair with hisdamaged hand. She was crying softly, with hercheek against his coat.

Mouldy raised his head and glared at me overMiss Mayne's shoulder. She neither moved norturned her head.

"Here," he said, "you 'op it!"

I went out into the corridor, closing the door softlybehind me.

Then for the Erst time since we landed I felt tired—moretired than I had ever felt in my life before.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For purposes of fiction, only the broad outlines of agreat achievement have been sketched into this story;and no attempt has been made to reproduce faithfullythe strategy or events of St. George's Day, 1918.Indeed, only such ships find their replicas here as theturning-circle of the tale allows, and if the Authorhas anywhere endeavoured to be true to facts, it isin the portrayal of those fearsome and bloodyconditions under which the Navy added so fair a page toHistory.

II

BEHIND THE VEIL:

THE STORY OF THE Q BOATS

(1918)

1

FIRST BLOOD

There was a day, now happily past, when thesubmarine scourge was broadcast upon the seas; thenthe country turned for its salvation to the Navy,upon which, under the good providence of God, ithad grown accustomed to rely in most of the crisesof its history. Scientific and mechanical appliances,on a scale adequate to meet and checkmate the outrageof unrestricted submarine warfare, could not beproduced by pressing a button. With workshops andlaboratories yielding their output at highest pressure,the German submarine building yards were gaining inthe race. Every day brought its sickening tale ofsinking and burning and murder on the high seas, and inWhitehall offices men studied statistics and columnsof figures with faces ever growing graver.

The irritable tension of those days is best forgottennow. Prices rose, ships sank, and the Navy said nota word. It was "doing its damnedest" in silence,according to its wont. And not even in forecastle orWardroom did men so much as whisper what wasafoot. To-day* the submarine remains merely as astern corrective, curbing waste and extravagance,bracing the nation's nerve. The ingenuity of man isboundless, and science has not yet said her last word;human courage and devoted valour alone seem tohave reached a point there is no transcending. Itwas these two factors which stemmed the flood atthe moment of supreme crisis; on these the veil is atlast lifted, and the tale now told in all simplicity andtruth.

* Written in August, 1918.

The methods of the German submarine in its waragainst unarmed shipping gradually settled down toa routine which varied but little in the early phasesof the conflict. It was the custom to attempt to torpedoat sight, on the principle of the least said the soonestmended. If the torpedo missed, as was not infrequentlythe case, the submarine broke surface a mileor so away from the ship and fired a shot across herbows. The merchantman had then two alternatives:to take to his heels and try to escape, or to heave toand abandon ship. In the latter case the submarineclosed the derelict to within a few hundred yards andsummoned the boats alongside. At the muzzle of arevolver the Captain was ordered into the submarinewith his papers, and the crew of his boat directed torow a party of German sailors, bearing bombs, backto the ship. These worthies, having placed thebombs in the ship's vitals and looted the officers'quarters, returned to the submarine, propelled by themen they had robbed and whose ship they wereengaged in sinking. In due course the bombsexploded and the ship disappeared. It was aneconomical method, since bombs cost less thantorpedoes, and the formality of looting the ship helpedto preserve its popularity.

For a while the Navy noted these methods and thelittle human failings of the enemy in silence. Thenit drew a deep breath and made its plans accordingly.It argued that a man-of-war could be disguisedas a tramp steamer and carry concealed armament.Such a vessel, by plying on the trade routes,must inevitably meet a submarine in time, andin her character of peaceful merchantman be orderedto abandon ship. The ship might be abandonedto all outward appearances, but still retainsufficient men concealed on board to fight the hiddenguns when the moment came for her to cast disguiseto the winds and hoist the White Ensign. Certainrisks had to be taken for granted, of course; thealmost inevitable torpedo sooner or later, theprobability of a little indiscriminate shelling while thesubmarine approached, the possibility of beingultimately sunk before assistance could arrive. Yet theodds were on the submarine being sunk first, and therest was on the knees of the gods.

An old collier of some 2,000 tons was selected fromamong the shipping at the disposal of the Admiraltyand taken to a Dockyard port, where she unostentatiouslyunderwent certain structural alterations. Theseincluded disappearing mountings for guns concealedbeneath hatchway covers, and masked by deck-houseswhich collapsed like cards at a jerk of a lever. Fromthe host of volunteers, among whom were retiredAdmirals, Captains, Commanders, and Lieutenantsof the Royal Navy, a young Lieutenant-Commanderwas selected and appointed in command. Hisofficers were volunteers from the Royal NavalReserve, ex-merchant seamen, familiar enough with therôle they were required to play, and in some caseswith little mental scores of their own which requiredadjustment when the time came. The crew wasmostly from the West Country, men of Devon withone or two traditions to uphold in the matter of braveadventure. It also included Welshmen and Irishwith a pretty taste for a fight, and a few Scots, of thedour type, hard to frighten. They were picked fromthe Royal Navy, Fleet and Royal Reserves—merchantseamen and fishermen the last, many of whomhad formed a nodding acquaintance with Death longbefore they received this invitation to a closerintimacy. Their ages ranged between 17 and 52.

They sailed from Queenstown under the Red Ensign;but before they left some of the crew trudged,as pilgrims to a shrine, and stood awhile among themounds in that pathetic God's acre where the womenand children of the Lusitania rest. They were thenbut freshly turned, those mounds, in their eloquentdiversity of lengths, and men had not begun toforget....

For five weary months they endured the wintergales of the Atlantic, wallowing to and fro along thetrade routes, outwardly a scallywag tramp, butbehind her untidy bulwarks observing, with certainnecessary modifications, the discipline and customsof his Majesty's Navy. With paint-pot and sail-cloththey improved the ship's disguise from time to time,and wiled away the heart-breaking monotony of thedays by inventing fresh devices to conceal theircharacter.

The ship's steward's assistant, when not engagedupon his office as "dusty boy," was orderedto don female attire over his uniform and recline ina prominent position on the poop in a deck-chair.This allurement was calculated to prove an irresistiblebait. The Navigator, whose action station was theabandonment of the ship in the rôle of distractedMaster, fashioned the effigy of a stuffed parrot andfastened it inside a cage which he proposed to takeaway with him in the boat, thus heightening thepathos of the scene and whetting the blood-lust ofthe enemy....

From time to time watchful patrols swooped downupon them, exchanged a few curt signals in thecommercial code, and bade them pass on their imaginaryoccasions. Once a Cruiser, less easily satisfied thanthe remainder, bade the rusty-sided collier heave to,and sent an officer to board her; he climbed inboardat the head of armed men to find himself confronted,in the person of the "Master," with a term-mate ofBritannia days and a grin he is not likely to forget.Then, early one spring morning, when the daylightwas stealing out of grey skies across the Atlanticwaste, the track of a torpedo bubbled across the bowsand passed ahead of the ship. The moment forwhich they had waited five weary months had come.

In accordance with her rôle of tramp steamer in theearly days of the War, the ship held steadily on herway, observing the stars in their courses, but nototherwise interested in the universe. Inboard,however, the alarm rang along the mess-decks andsaloons, and men crawled into hen-coops anddeck-houses to man the hidden guns. A few minuteslater the submarine broke surface half a mileastern of the ship, and fired a shot across her bows.Whereupon the supposed collier stopped her engines,and lay rolling in the trough of the seas with steampouring from her exhausts, while the crew, who hadrehearsed this moment to a perfection never yetrealised on the boards of legitimate drama, rushed to andfro with every semblance of panic. The Captaindanced from one end of the bridge to the other,waving his arms and shouting; boats were turned outand in again amid a deliberate confusion that broughtblushes to the cheeks of the ex-merchant seamencalled upon to play the part.

In the meantime the submarine had approached atfull speed to within about 700 yards, and, evidentlynot satisfied with the speed at which the ship wasbeing abandoned, fired another shot, which pitched50 yards short of the engine-room. There wasapparently nothing further to be gained by prolonging theperformance for this impatient audience, and theLieutenant-Commander on the bridge, cap in hand,and breathless with his pantomimic exertions, blew ashrill blast on his whistle. Simultaneously the WhiteEnsign fluttered to the masthead, deck-houses andscreens clattered down, and three minutes later thesubmarine sank under a rain of shells and Maximbullets. As she disappeared beneath the surface theavenger reached the spot, and dropped a depth-chargeover her. A moment after the explosion the submarineappeared in a perpendicular position alongsidethe ship, denting the bilge-keel as she rolleddrunkenly among the waves. The after gun put fivemore rounds into the shattered hull at point-blankrange, and, as she sank for the last time, two moredepth-charges were dropped to speed her passing.

The Lieutenant-Commander in command had personallybeen superintending the administering of thecoup de grâce from the stern, and, as he turned tomake his way forward to the bridge, for a few briefmoments the bonds of naval discipline relaxed. Hismen surged round him in a wildly cheering throng,struggling to be the first to wring him by the hand.They then mustered in the saloon, standingbare-headed while their Captain read the Prayers ofThanksgiving for Victory, and called for three cheersfor his Majesty the King. They cheered as onlymen can cheer in the first exultant flush of victory.But as the vessel gathered way and resumed her grimquest, each man realised, deep down in his heart, thatfar sterner ordeals lay ahead.

2

ORDEAL BY FIRE

Because man is mortal, not infallible, and Fortune ather brightest a fickle jade, it was inevitable that sooneror later a day must come when a crippled Germansubmarine would submerge beneath a hail of shells,miraculously succeed in patching up her damagedhull, and, under cover of darkness, crawl back toport. Word would then go out from Wilhelmshavenof a British man-of-war disguised as a lumberingtramp, with such and such a marking on her funnel,with stumpy masts and rusty deck-houses, who carriedguns concealed in wheel-house and hen-coops, whosebulwarks collapsed, and whose bridge screens maskedquick-firers and desperate men. German submarineswould be warned that to approach such a vessel wasto enter a death-trap, unless every precaution was firsttaken to ensure she had been abandoned.

Such a day came in due course; misty, windless,with the aftermath of a great storm rollingeastward beneath a sullen swell. A vessel with theoutward appearance of a merchantman (the fruitsof whose labours for the past six months haddoubtless perplexed that section of the Wilhelmshavenbureaucracy concerned with the non-return ofU-boats), sighted towards evening the periscope andconning-tower of a submarine a mile away on herbeam.

The figure on the bridge of the tramp, who carried,among other papers in his charge, his commissionas a Commander of the Royal Navy, laughed asDrake might have laughed when the sails of aSpanish galleon broke the horizon. A tangle offlags appeared at the periscope of the submarine,and the tramp stopped obediently, blowing offsteam in great clouds. Her Commander turned overthe pages of the International Signal Code, smilingstill. "Hoist: 'Cannot understand your signal,'"he said to the signalman, "I want to waste a fewminutes," and moved to the engine-room voice-pipe.Obedient to his directions, the screws furtively joggedahead under cover of the escaping steam, edging thesteamer towards the watching enemy. The latter,however, promptly manned her foremost gun, turned,and slowly steamed towards them; she opened fire ata range of half a mile, the shell passing over thefunnel of the disguised man-of-war.

In the tense excitement of that moment, whenmen's nerves and faculties were stretched likebanjo-strings, the report of the submarine's gun rang loudthrough the still air. One of the man-of-war'sgun-layers, lying concealed within his collapsibledeckhouse, heard the report, and, thinking that the shipherself had opened fire without the customarywarning gongs, flung down the screens which masked hisweapon. Any further attempt at concealment wasuseless. The fire-gongs rang furiously at every gunposition, the White Ensign was triced up to the mast-headin the twinkling of an eye, and the action started.After the first few hits the submarine lay motionless,with her bows submerged and her stern in the air forupwards of five minutes, while shells burst all abouther. The heavy swell made shooting difficult, buteventually she sank in a great commotion of the waterand dense clouds of vapour that hung over the surfacefor some minutes. Two depth-charges were droppedover her, and if ever men had cause for modestself-congratulation on having ridded the seas of yetanother scourge, it would seem that the officers andcrew of The King's Ship might have laid claim totheir share. Yet, by ways unknown and incredible, itwas claimed by the enemy that the submarine contrivedto return, with shot-holes plugged, to tell the tale.

Once the cat was out of the bag, it was obviousthat in the future the enemy would not rise tothe surface until his torpedo had found its mark,and it became part of this grim game of blufffor the victim to ensure that she was hit. Then,when the "panic party" had abandoned the ship,the remainder must wait concealed and unresponsivebeside their hidden guns, while the submarinerose to the surface and either closed withinrange or shelled them with sufficient thoroughness toconvince him—who judged endurance and self-controlby no mean standards—that the limit of humancourage had been reached; that there could be no oneconcealed on board, and that he might with safetyapproach to loot and burn. Now this, as Mr. Kiplingwould put it, "was a damned tough bullet tochew." They were no demi-gods, nor yet fanatics,these three-score or so sailor-men. They were justordinary human beings, with the average man'spartiality for life and a whole skin, and the love ofwife and bairn or sweetheart plucking at the heart-stringsof most of them. But they shared what is notgiven to all men in this world of human frailty—awhole-souled confidence in a fellow-man, whichwould have carried them at his lightest nod throughthe gates of hell.

Under his command, then, they sailed with a cargoof timber in each hold, and in due course, about 9.45one morning, a torpedo was seen approaching thestarboard beam. Observing his rôle as Master of acareless tramp, with poor look-outs, the Commander heldon his course. At the last moment, however, the helmwas imperceptibly altered to ensure the ship beingstruck abaft the engine-room, where the torpedo mightdo least damage. Those whom fate has afforded theopportunity of studying the trail of an approachingtorpedo will, if they recall their sensations, appreciateto some extent the iron nerve requisite to such amanœuvre. The torpedo burst abreast No. 3 hold,hurling a wall of water and wreckage to the height ofthe mast, and blowing a hole in the ship's side 40 feetwide. Half-stunned and deafened by the concussion,the Commander raised himself on his hands and knees,where he had been flung, and shouted to the Navigator:"They've got us this time!" The Navigator, whowas inside the chart-house, thrust his head out for amoment, moistening a lead pencil with his lips. "Ireckon I've got time to finish working out this sight,sir," he replied with a grin, and withdrew his head.

The alarm-gongs had already sent the guns' crewsto their invisible guns, and immediately after theexplosion "Panic stations" was ordered, followed indue course by "Abandon ship." The Navigator,having finished his "sight," and now acting as"Master," abandoned ship with the "panic party." Nosooner had the boats been lowered and shoved offfrom the ship's side, however, than the Chief Engineerrang up from below and reported that the after bulkheadhad gone and that the engine-room was fillingfast. Peering, on all fours, through a slit in thebridge-screen, waiting for the inevitable periscope toappear, the Commander bade him hold on as longas he could and keep enough steam to work thepumps; when the water had extinguished the fires,and then only, the engines were abandoned and thestaff remained concealed. This they did, crawlingeventually on to the cylinders to escape from therising flood.

Shortly after the torpedo struck the ship theperiscope of a submarine broke the surface a couple ofhundred yards distant, evidently watching proceedingswith a deliberate, cautious scrutiny. Movingslowly through the water, like the fin of a waitingshark, the sinister object came gradually down theship's side, within five yards of the breathlessboats, and not ten yards from where theCommander lay beside the voice-pipes thatconnected him with the Assistant-Paymaster, R.N.R.,who, concealed in the gun control position, wasawaiting the order to open fire. From the altitude of thebridge, the submerged whale-back hull was plainlyvisible to the figure crouched behind the bridge-screens,and the temptation to yield to the impulse ofthe moment, to open fire and end the suspense, shookeven his iron nerves. A lucky shot might pierce thelead-grey shadow that moved 15 feet beneath thesurface; but water plays strange tricks with projectiles,deflecting them at unexpected ricochets, at anglesno man can foretell; moreover, the submarine was indiving trim. The odds against a broadsideoverwhelming her before she could plunge into the depthsand escape were too great. So the Commander waited,with self-control that was almost superhuman, and,prone beside their guns, unseeing and unseen, hismen waited too.

The ship had then sunk by the stern until it wasawash, and the crew of the gun masked by the wheelhousewere crouched up to their knees in water. Ablack cat, the ship's mascot, that had been blown offthe forecastle by the explosion of the torpedo, swamaft and in over the stern, whose counter rose normally20 feet above the surface. Still the periscopecontinued its unhurried observation; it travelled pastthe ship, across the bow, and then slowly movedaway, as if content that the task was done. Forthe space of nearly a minute bitter disappointmentand mortification rose in the Commander'sheart. His ship had been torpedoed and wassinking. Their quarry had all but been withintheir grasp, and was now going to escape unscathed.Then, when hope was flickering to extinction, thesubmarine rose to the surface 300 yards on the port bow,and came slowly back towards the ship.

Up to this juncture, although the ship was settlingdeeper every moment, the Commander had purposelyrefrained from summoning assistance by wireless, lestinterruption should come before his grim work wasdone. Now, however, he saw at one quick glance thatthe Lord had indeed "placed the enemy upon his leebow," and the rest was only a matter of a few bloodymoments. Accordingly he gave orders for an urgentwireless signal to be sent out forthwith summoningassistance, and waited until the submarine was on aline when all his guns would bear. She reached thedesired spot at the moment when the German Commanderwas complacently emerging from the conning-tower;up went the White Ensign, and the first shotbeheaded him; he dropped back into the interior ofthe submarine, and his wholly unexpected reappearanceimparted a shock of surprise to the remainder ofthe inmates from which they never recovered. Thesubmarine lay motionless as a dead whale, while theavenging broadside shattered the hull, and thegrizzled pensioner inside a hen-coop scientificallyraked her deck with a Maxim to prevent her gun frombeing manned. She finally sank with her conning-toweropen and the crew pouring shrieking out of thehatchway.

From the swirling vortex of oil and blood and airbubbles in which the majority vanished, two dazedprisoners were rescued by the exultant "panic party"in the boats, and brought back to the ship. Once onboard, however, the imperious necessities of themoment overwhelmed even the elation of victory.Bulkheads were shored in all compartments still accessible,confidential documents destroyed in anticipationof the worst, and then all but the Commander and ahandful of men took to the boats and awaited succour.It came at noon in the guise of a congratulatory andbusinesslike Destroyer, and was augmented later by acouple of Sloops. By 5 P.M. the water had ceased togain and the ship was in tow, heading for port; thereshe arrived, and was safely beached after dark thefollowing day.

Thus her crew, emerging triumphant from theordeal, added at the last a feat of seamanship whichsaved the ship. It required no great power ofimagination to foretell what lay ahead; yet, when the timecame for a fresh venture under the command of theman who had brought them victorious through theordeals that were past, they sailed with light heartsand unafraid. As if for a pledge of that devotion,he wore thenceforward, on the left breast of hisancient monkey-jacket, the scrap of ribbon whichit is the King's pleasure men shall wear "ForValour."

3

WON BY WAITING

The disguise adopted by such of his Majesty's shipsas were selected to cope with the U-boat menace,varied according to the changing fashions. Inthe early days of the war the rôle of care-free tramp,steering a steady course, and minus look-outs or gun,was sufficient to lure the enemy to close quarters onthe surface. But as the peculiar methods of warfareadopted by the German Government harked back topiracy and rape, so the custom of the seas reverted tothe arming of merchantmen for defensive purposes.

For purpose of offence against the enemy,with which this story of a King's ship isconcerned, a dummy gun sufficed; at all eventsfor preliminaries. It was mounted prominentlyaft, attended by a conspicuously vigilant gunner.To outward appearances the ship was then anarmed British merchant vessel, steering a zigzagcourse for home at a good speed, conscious that shewas in the danger zone, and, by virtue of herunmistakable gun and position, liable to be torpedoed atsight according to the code of customs and chivalryof the sea—as revised by Germany. Torpedoed atsight she was, at eight o'clock of a misty summermorning, in a blinding rain storm and heavy sea.The torpedo was fired at apparently close range, sinceit jumped out of the water when one hundred yardsfrom the ship; it struck the engine-room near thewater-line, flooding the boiler-room, engine-room,and adjacent hold. The Stoker Petty Officer on dutyin the engine-room was killed outright by theexplosion, and the Third Engineer, who held a commissionas Engineer Sub-Lieutenant, in the Naval Reserve,was half-stunned and badly wounded by flyingsplinters and fragments of coal. Despite the inrushof water, he contrived to reach the hatchway, andarrived on deck reeling with shock, half-flayed, andbleeding, to stagger to his post in the second act ofthe grim drama.

One of the lifeboats had been blown tosmithereens, fragments of it being lodged even in thewires of the aerial between the masts, so great was theforce of the explosion. Under the command of theNavigator, acting the part of Master, the "panicparty" abandoned the ship in the remaining threeboats as the ship settled deeper in the water. Theofficers and men whose station was on board werealready motionless at their invisible guns; in themajority of cases they were concealed by screens, butthe crew of the foremost gun were compelled to lieprone on their faces on the exposed forecastle, unableto stir a muscle until the order came to open fire.

Then for thirty-five leaden minutes, followedthe savage ordeal of waiting for the unknown.For aught these motionless figures knew, thesubmarine might torpedo them again at any moment,might break surface and shell them at extremerange till they sank, or, an even more nerve-rackingpossibility, might set off in pursuit ofa fresh victim and escape. Withal was theconsciousness that a single movement on board, so muchas a finger raised above screen or coaming, wouldbetray their true character and bring the game of bluffto a swift and tragic conclusion. The periscope of thesubmarine had broken surface a quarter of an hourafter the torpedo struck, about 400 yards distant onthe port beam. It turned after a while and steeredtowards the ship, but the Captain and Signalman,prone at each end of the bridge, with their eyes gluedto the observation slits, alone were aware of theirquarry's movements. It was in the tense stillness ofthose moments, a stillness only disturbed by thelapping of the waves round the water-logged hull, andby the hiss of escaping steam, that from the littlegroup of prostrate figures round the foremost gun rosea man's whistle, executing a gay, if somewhat tremulous,ditty of the sea. For a moment those in theimmediate vicinity of the performer listened to theeerie music without comment. Then a motionlessofficer, moved by a sense of what was seemly atsuch a time and what was not, rebuked the minstrel."I dursn't stop, sir," said the boy—he was onlyseventeen—"cos if I stops whistlin' I gits scared."

As the submarine drew nearer to the ship theCommander on the bridge of the disguised man-of-warcast a swift glance round to see that all was well, andsaw the old and trusted Quartermaster lying facedownwards beside the wheel. "For God's sake," hecalled, "don't show yourself, he's nibbling....""Aye, aye, sir," said the faithful seaman. And then,so ingrained apparently had become the habit ofdisguise on board, he furtively dragged a lifebelt overthe most prominent portion of his anatomy.

When fifty yards off the ship the periscopevanished, to reappear a few minutes later directlyastern. Very deliberately, as a cat plays with a mousebefore dealing the last stroke, the periscope travelledon to the starboard quarter, turned, and came backround the stem to the port beam, where the boats werelying. The stage management of the drama thenpassed into the hands of the Navigator in charge ofthe boats. His task was not lightened by a dispositionon the part of the "panic party" to regard theaffair in the light of high comedy, despite the coldscrutiny of the periscope. In no measured terms hereminded them that they were presumed by theTeutonic intelligence beneath the waves to be terrifiedmariners, not a boat-load of grinning buffoons; andthen, mindful of the shortness of the visibility and theknown weakness of the enemy for light banter withcastaways in boats, he began pulling towards the ship.As he had foreseen, the submarine promptly rose tothe surface and followed in pursuit, closing to withina few yards of the masked guns on board. An angryHun shouted abuse through a megaphone from thetop of the submarine's conning tower, and wasreinforced a moment later by an equally abusive andimpatient gentleman of the good old Prussian school,clasping a Maxim in his hands.

The prospect of being shot by either party at thisjuncture of the performance was none too remote.Yet the boat continued pulling as if manned by deafmutes until the submarine had been lured into thedesired position. Then suddenly the eagerly awaitedWhite Ensign shot up to the masthead. Screensclattered down along the length of the ship's side, anda broadside of yellow flame leaped out over theirheads. The submarine was suddenly plastered bybursting shell and half hidden by leaping waterspouts,as she slowly listed over to her side, with oilspouting from the rents in her hull. Her crewscrambled wildly out of the conning tower and wavedtheir hands above their heads in token of surrender.Fire instantly ceased on board the British man-of-war,when unexpectedly the crippled enemy, her sternsubmerged, shot ahead and made off at high speed. Thewould-be "Kamerads" on her deck were swept intothe sea by her last wild rush through the water, andthe British guns broke out again in vengeful chorus.Fire was continued until she blew up and sank, onewretch clinging to her bows as she disappeared.

In spite of the heavy sea, the boats succeeded inrescuing two prisoners from the water before returningto the ship. An American Destroyer arrived afew hours later, accompanied by two Sloops. Withtheir assistance the ship was brought safely into port,and of all who had passed through the soul-stirringevents of the day none exhibited greater satisfactionor surprise at living to see it close than the lateupholders of German freedom of the seas.

By command of his Majesty the King, one officerand one man were selected by ballot for the honourof the Victoria Cross from among the ship's companyin recognition of the fact that, where all played sovaliant a part, the distinction was earned by the shiprather than by the individual. Yet their task, the taskrequired of them by the England which reads theselines at a well-found breakfast table, was stillunfinished. They sailed again in another ship, knowingfull well that they alone could never accomplish itentirely. But the name of that ship* shall be ahousehold word some day wherever the English tongue isspoken, because of the ordeal these men enduredbehind her shattered bulwarks for England's sake.

* H.M.S. Dunraven.

4

THE SPLENDID FAILURE

To travel hopefully, said Robert Louis Stevenson, isbetter than to arrive; and therein he summed up thewhole attitude of the Anglo-Saxon race towardshuman endeavour. It is our custom to honour theachievement less than the spirit, in the wistful hope,perhaps, that thus may we, too, be judged in our turnat the last. This is a record of failure, if the ventureis to be judged by its material result. Yet the lessonit will carry to succeeding generations is concernedwith neither success nor failure, but with those shiningheights of the Spirit (attainable by every mother'sson) where no fear is.

The King's ship to which this story relates was asteamer of some 3,000 tons, to outward appearances anarmed merchantman with a light gun mounted on herpoop. To make plain what happened on board it isnecessary, however, that the uninitiated should beadmitted into certain secrets of her construction. Awooden structure on the poop, common to merchantmenof her type, concealed a gun of effective calibrebehind collapsible covers. Beneath this gun position,and occupying much of the space below the poop,were the magazine and shell rooms. Four depth-chargeswere fitted at her stern; any one of thesedropped over the position of a submerged submarinewas calculated on detonating to do all that wasnecessary. In addition, a smaller gun was mounted on theforecastle on a disappearing mounting, while hen-coopsand deck fittings concealed similar armament atother points of vantage. To complete her offensivecapabilities, she carried a masked torpedo tube on either beam.

This, then, was the true character of the ship whicha German submarine sighted on the horizon at eleveno'clock one morning. She noted the small gundisplayed defensively aft, and started in pursuit, firingas she went. The submarine was sighted directly sherose to the surface, whereupon the Captain of theman-of-war ordered the after gun to be manned andthe remainder of the crew to take shell cover, tacticswhich differed in no respect from those customary tomerchantmen under the circ*mstances. On the otherhand, speed was imperceptibly decreased, and thecrew of the light gun at the stern directed to shootshort in order to encourage the adversary to drawcloser. It says much for the discipline on board thatmen thus prominently exposed to the fire of thepursuing enemy could deliberately continue to reply to itin the consciousness that their shots were not requiredto hit. German submarine commanders at this phaseof the war were growing notoriously "nervy";hysterical appeals for help were therefore sent out bywireless, in the hope that the enemy would interceptthem and gain confidence.

The heavy sea gradually rendered it impossiblefor the submarine to maintain the pursuit and man hergun. She therefore abandoned the bombardment andcame on at full speed, until after a chase of about anhour she turned broadside on and again opened fire.Shots were then falling close, and at 12.40 the steamerstopped, as great clouds of steam emerging from theengine-room showed she was disabled, and the"panic party" proceeded to abandon ship. To lendcolour to the general atmosphere of demoralisationand confusion, one of the boats was purposelydropped by a single fall, and remained hanging fromthe davit in a vertical position. In the meantime theenemy had closed nearer and continued methodicallyshelling the ship. A shell struck the poop, explodingone of the depth-charges and blowing the officer incharge of the after concealed gun out of his controlposition; on recovering consciousness, however, hecrawled inside the gun hatch, where his crew of sevenmen were hidden. The seaman superintending thedepth-charges was badly wounded by this explosionand lay motionless. Seeing his condition, the hiddencrew of the after gun attempted to drag him withintheir place of concealment, but the injured manstubbornly refused to be moved. "I was put here incharge of these things," he replied, indicating theremaining depth-charges, "and here I stop." Andstop he did until subsequent events proved strongerthan even his indomitable spirit. Two more shellsburst inside the poop in quick succession, and a fewmoments later dense clouds of smoke and flames disclosedthe disquieting fact that the after part of theship was heavily on fire.

From his customary place at the end of the bridge,peering through slits in his armoured coign ofobservation, the Captain watched the submarine turn andcome slowly past the ship 400 yards away. The nextmoment, as he was about to open fire on an easytarget, the wind caught the smoke from the conflagrationaft and blew it like a curtain across his vision.The Captain was confronted with two alternatives.One was to open fire there and then on a partiallyobscured target, or wait until the submarine shouldround the stern and come past the weather side, wherethe smoke did not interfere with the accuracy of theshooting. At the same time he was conscious that thefire raging aft must very soon engulf the magazine.It could only be a matter of moments before themagazine blew up, and with it the masked gun and itscrew.

Nothing but utter confidence in the devotion ofthat gun's crew, the conviction that even in the direstextremity they would remain concealed and motionless,enabled the Captain to choose the second of thesealternatives. Yet he chose it, determined at all coststo make sure of his quarry, and waited; and while hewaited the deck on which this gun's crew werecrouched grew slowly red-hot, so that they werecompelled to cling to the mounting of the gun and to holdthe cartridges in their arms. Their ordeal ended asthe submarine was rounding the stern. The magazineand two more depth-charges blew up with a deafeningroar, hurling gun, gun's crew, fragments of wreckage,and unexploded shells high in the air. Onemember of the crew fell into the water, where he waspicked up by the "panic party"; the remainder,including the depth-charge keeper, landed in thewell-deck, with the gun.

The concussion of the explosion had, however,started the electrically controlled fire-gongs at theremaining gun positions. Thereupon the WhiteEnsign fluttered automatically up to the masthead,and one gun—the only one that would bear—openedan unavailing fire on the enemy, who had begun todive immediately the explosion had taken place. Theruse had failed, and every man on board realised onthe instant that what must follow was to be thesupreme test. The wounded were removed out ofsight with all speed, hoses were turned on to theburning part of the ship, and wireless signals sent outwarning all men-of-war to divert traffic for a radiusof 30 miles, that nothing should interrupt the lastphase of this savage duel a entrance.

To borrow a phrase from sporting parlance,they ensured that the ring was kept, but inso doing they deprived themselves of any hope ofsuccour from the savagery of the enemy, should theship sink and leave them at the submarine's mercy.In this comfortable reflection, therefore, they settleddown and awaited the inevitable torpedo.

It must be remembered that the ship was nowopenly a man-of-war, flying the White Ensign, withguns unmasked. At 1.20 P.M., two hours and twentyminutes after first sighting the submarine, a torpedostruck the ship abreast the engine-room, hurlingblazing wreckage and water in all directions. Withfar-seeing thoroughness of organisation this momenthad been anticipated sooner or later for months past.Accordingly, at the order of "Abandon ship," themen previously detailed launched the remaining boatand a raft, and paddled clear of the doomed vessel.The Captain and crews of two guns and both torpedotubes, the Navigator, Assistant Paymaster, andQuartermaster remained on board. For the ensuingeighty minutes, while the fire in the poop continuedto blaze furiously, and the ammunition in the vicinitydetonated like a succession of gigantic Chinesecrackers, the periscope circled suspiciously round theship and boats. At 2.30 the submarine rose to thesurface in a position on which none of the guns onboard would bear, and began once more shelling theship and boats with vindictive fury.

For twenty minutes the remnant on board enduredthis ordeal, lying face downwards and motionless onthe splintered planking. It is recorded that duringthe hottest of the fire one of the foremost gun's crewrequested, in a hoarse whisper, to be allowed to takehis boots off. The officer in his vicinity inquired thereason for this strange request, to which the manreplied that he didn't think he had much longer tolive, and, on the whole, thought he'd prefer not todie with his boots on. He subsequently explainedthat he came of a respectable family.

By means of the voice-pipe connecting him withthe guns' control, the Captain cheered andencouraged his men through that long agony. Smallwonder they loved an officer who exhorted them insuch a pass to "keep merry and bright"; who quotedBairnsfather to the boyish officer in the control whenshells were bursting all about his head ("If you knowof a better 'ole, go to it!"); who, when the woundedNavigator, blinded with blood at the opposite endof the bridge, called that he was done, replied:"You're all right! Hang on, 'cos we've got himcold!" and found time to steady the guns' crewswith, "Remember the V.C. The King has giventhe ship, lads."

At 2.50 P.M. the submarine abruptly ceasedshelling and submerged. Then, with only a periscopeshowing, he steamed once more past the ship. As hecame abeam under-water, the British Captain playedone of his few remaining trump cards, and dischargeda torpedo; it missed by inches, and passed unnoticed.Going very slowly, the enemy then crossed the bowand came down the starboard side. One lastdesperate chance remained, and the second torpedo wasfired. In an agony of suspense they watched thetrail of bubbles flicker towards the periscope, heldtheir breath for the explosion, and saw the tell-talewake pass a foot astern of the periscope. They hadshot their bolt, and the game was up. A wirelesssignal was immediately sent out for urgent assistance,as the wary enemy had sighted the last torpedoand promptly dived. The ship was sinking fast, andto wait for another torpedo or further shelling wouldhave meant the useless sacrifice of life. A UnitedStates destroyer, an armed yacht, and two Britishdestroyers that had been hovering below the horizon,rushed up at full speed and took charge of thewounded. The ship sank thirty-four hours later, withher colours flying, after strenuous endeavours hadbeen made to save her.

Despite the almost incredible gruelling the crewhad undergone, all survived the action. The officerin charge of the after-gun received the Victoria Cross,and one of the gun's crew was selected by ballot fora similar honour. The remainder, including the handtold off for the depth-charges, who has sincesuccumbed to his wounds, were awarded the ConspicuousGallantry Medal.

Much of the tale remains untold, but it isbest brought to an all too brief conclusion in thewords of the official report written by the officer,who, as his head and shoulders appeared above thebridge screen at the conclusion of the action, broughtforth the following ecstatic shout from one of the"panic party": "Blimey! there's the Skipper stillalive! Gawd, wouldn't them perishin' 'Uns giveninepence an inch for 'im!" This officer's reportconcludes as follows:

It is hardly necessary for me again to refer to thebehaviour of my crew—the tactics I carried out wereonly possible through the utmost confidence I had in myship and my crew. I would especially bring to your noticethe extreme bravery of Lieutenant Bonner, R.N.R., theofficer in charge, and the 4-in. gun's crew. LieutenantBonner, having been blown out of his control by thefirst explosion, crawled into the gun hatch with the crew.They there remained at their posts with a fire ragingin the poop below and the deck getting red hot. Oneman tore up his shirt to give pieces to the gun's crewto stop the fumes getting into their throats, otherslifted the boxes of cordite off the deck to keep them fromexploding, and all the time they knew they must be blownup, as the secondary supply and magazine were immediatelybelow. They told me afterwards that communicationwith the bridge was cut off, and although theywould be blown up, they also knew they would spoil theshow if they moved, so they remained until actuallyblown up with their gun.

Then, when, as wounded men, they were ordered toremain quiet in various places during the second action,they had to lie there unattended and bleeding, withexplosions continually going on aboard and splinters fromthe enemy's shell-fire penetrating their quarters.Lieutenant Bonner, himself wounded, did what he could for twowho were with him in the wardroom. When I visitedthem after the action they thought little of their wounds,but only expressed their disgust that the enemy had notbeen sunk. Surely such bravery is hard to equal. Thestrain for the men who remained on board after the shiphad been torpedoed, poop set on fire, cordite and shellsexploding, and then the enemy shell-fire can easily beimagined. I much regret that two officers and sevenmen were wounded, and am very grateful to U.S.S. Nomafor taking charge of the two most dangerous cases.I—we—deeply regret the loss of one of H.M. ships, andstill more the escape of the enemy. We did our best,not only to destroy the enemy and save the ship, but alsoto show ourselves worthy of the Victoria Cross the Kingrecently bestowed on the ship.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

(Signed) GORDON CAMPBELL,
Captain, R.N.

III

"NOT IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY"

(1918)

1

THE GLEANER

The motor-launch chugged to the limit of her beatand wheeled with her bows to a rusty sunset. Thewind had been freshening steadily since noon and thesteep grey seas were edged with spray, streakedlike the flanks of an over-spurred horse. Themotor-launch, from a monotonous corkscrew roll, changedto a jerky see-saw that enveloped her in a bitterly coldcascade at every downward plunge.

The R.N.V.R. Lieutenant in command leanedwith one broad shoulder against the side of thewheel-shelter, his legs braced far apart and his oilskinflapping wetly against his leather sea-boots. As eachsuccessive welter of spray drove past his head heraised a pair of glasses and searched the horizon tothe westward where the sombre November sunset wasfast fading.

Somewhere below that horizon thehomeward-bound convoy was approaching, and his orders wereto patrol a given length of the swept channel up thecoast on the look-out for floating mines that mighthave drifted by chance currents from distantmine-fields. Twice since dawn the sweepers had passedover that water and reported the fair-way clear; butwith a dozen shiploads of wheat to pass up it in themorning, no one was taking any chances. "Patrol tilldark; floating mines to be sunk by gun or rifle fire,"said his orders. The R.N.V.R. Lieutenant had beenreckoned a good shot with a rifle in the days when hewas an Admiralty clerk, and spent his Saturdayafternoons on a rifle range at Wormwood Scrubs; heglanced from the bucking deck of his commandto the rifle hanging in slings over the Coxswain'shead, and smiled rather doubtfully to himself. Asif in challenge to that smile, the Signalmanon the other side of the Coxswain suddenlyextended his telescope and arm in a straight line toseaward.

"Mine awash, sir," he shouted. "Two points onthe port bow." The Coxswain raised his eyefrom the binnacle and moved the wheel throughhalf a turn.

The Lieutenant stared through his glasses."Umph," he said. The crew of the muffled six-pounderin the bows emerged from the fore hatchwayand began to cast off the clips securing the lid of theammunition box.

In silence they stared at the dull green globularobject that bobbed past them in the trough of a sea,the soft lead horns projecting ominously as the waveswashed over the rounded surface.

"One of ours," said the Lieutenant, with a swiftexpert glance. He stepped inboard a pace and studieda chart. "Hell! It's come a long way—must ha'been Tuesday's gale."

The launch held on her course till she had reachedthe limit of the safety zone of a bursting mine;stopped, and brought the gun to the ready. Thegun-layer adjusted his sight, and the tiny gun platformrolled in sickening lurches.

"She may steady for a moment," said the Lieutenant,without conviction. "Choose your time." Thegunlayer chose it.

"Bang! A puff of smoke dissolved about themuzzle and the shell sent up a column of foam a yardbeyond the preposterous target.

"Try again," said the Lieutenant, and unslung therifle. "Fire on the downward roll."

The gunlayer fired on the downward and then onthe upward roll, and each time the shell went sobbingaway into the Channel haze, and the dark, smoothobject still bobbed in the fast-fading light amid thewaves. The Lieutenant kicked aside his seventeenthempty brass cylinder and snapped the rifle boltangrily. "There's the smoke of the convoy," heshouted to his second in command, who was firingfrom aft and swearing in a monotonous undertonethat sounded like a litany. "It's right in their track."For the ensuing half-hour they kept up the fruitlessfusillade until dusk blotted out the target.

The R.N.V.R. Lieutenant rang down for half-speed."Secure the gun," he said, curtly, and to theCoxswain: "Close the blighter; we've got to makea rope's end fast and tow it inshore out of thefairway." The Coxswain gave his Commanding Officera searching, incredulous glance, as if he doubted hissanity, and spun the wheel round, but the Lieutenantwas lurching aft on his way to the cabin hatch. Hepaused en route and thrust a head and shoulders intothe engine-room. "Bring a can of lubricating oil aftan' a handful of waste," he shouted to the unseenoccupant, and dived into his cabin.

Under direction of the First Lieutenant, a grassline was uncoiled and one end made fast to a cleat;there was no time to be lost, for the dusk was fallingfast and the convoy with its attendant escorts was abare five miles away. The motor-launch circled roundthe floating mine, visible only by reason of theintermittent whiteness of the broken water about it. TheSub-Lieutenant stared at it half-fascinated, the coils ofthe line in his hands. For a moment he felt an angryresentment against the minesweepers; this, assuredly,was their business. Then he remembered that theyhad garnered their grim harvest and returned to port.The motor-launch was only a gleaner.

"Now then!" He turned to see his Captain at hiselbow, stark naked as the moment he was born,glistening with oil like a wrestler of old. "Give usthe rope's end. Drop down to leeward when Ishout—an' stand by with a hot grog."

The speaker knotted the rope loosely over onemuscular shoulder and measured the distance to themine with a dispassionate eye. "If I bungle it andfoul one of the horns," he said, "it'll blow the boat tosmithereens. You'd better stand by with life-belts foryourselves."

"What about you?" asked the Sub. His Captaingave a little grim laugh. "If that egg breaks, therewon't be much of me to put a belt round," and withoutfurther ado he slid over the stern into the water.

The crew of the launch watched the receding headand shoulders as their Commanding Officer wascarried to leeward on the crest of a wave, and theSub-Lieutenant, paying out loose coils of rope into thedark water, murmured: "That's a man for you!They had a glimpse of white gleaming body, as theswimmer circled cautiously round the floating mineand the waves lifted or dropped him into their hollows.Then for a moment he vanished and the watchinggroup aft held their breath.

"If he grabs for the ring bolt and catches hold of ahorn——" said the Coxswain, and left the sentenceunfinished. The seconds passed. Then out of thedarkness came a thin hail. The Coxswain jumped tothe wheel; the second in command flung the slack lineover the stern, and the launch dropped down toleeward.

The numb, exhausted figure hauled over the side aminute later, to be wrapped in blankets and massagedback to speech, resumed his clothes and clumpedforward to the wheel-house as the launch turned inshorewith the mine in tow.

He stared into the darkness astern as the linetautened. "God knows if there are any more fartherup the coast... But our beat's clear. Full speed,Coxswain!"

2

THE MILLIONTH CHANCE

Three hundred feet above mother earth sat an ableseaman of the Royal Navy, reflecting on the strangenessof his profession. For the first eighteen monthsof the War he had been a loading number of one of aBattleship's six-inch guns; as such he spent most ofhis waking hours punching a dummy projectile intothe breech of a "loader," or, when not at meals orasleep, following critically the fortunes of cinemaartistes as portrayed on the Grand Fleet films. Therecame a day after that when the vagaries of fortunetransplanted him to a Dover Monitor, where he grewaccustomed to the roar of fifteen-inch shells from theBelgian coast batteries passing overhead, or pitchingshort of his floating home in a thunderous upheavalof white water. Finally he returned to his depotsuffering from gun-deafness, to find himself in duecourse one of a working party attached to a high-powerNaval Wireless Station, and still a little hardof hearing.

No one had consulted him as to his personalinclinations in the matter of these changes; indeed, henever asked himself if it was merely blind chance thatruled his comings and goings, or Fate, far-seeing,omniscient, working to an appointed end. Destiny, ashe knew it, always appeared in the guise of a ship'scorporal with a Muster List and a stump of pencil.He paid his debts, tucked his "papers" into the liningof his cap, shouldered his bag and hammock, andpassed without concern to such future as awaitedhim.

Whatever the effect of heavy gunfire on hishearing, his nervous system remained unimpaired; somuch so that, as he sat swaying in a "boatswain'sstool," three-quarters of the way up one of the fourhundred and thirty feet wireless masts, slappingcreosote on to the wooden lattice work with a brush,he hummed a little tune to himself:

"Laugh while you may,
There's still to-day—
You may be dead ter-morrer!"

He crooned contentedly, and desisted from hislabours to survey, like Moses of old, the landscapeo'er.

Below him, seen through a thin veil of shiftingmist, stretched smooth grey downs and a network ofroads. Directly beneath, tiny figures moved amongthe buildings of the wireless station; on the slope of afar hillside rows of conical tents showed white in apassing gleam of sunshine. Something moving alongone of the roads held his interest for a moment andthe song came to an end; a field-gun battery going outto exercise; horses the size of mice. He wonderedwhat it must be like to be an airman and pepper anenemy battery with a machine-gun. Wouldn't theyscatter! Horses all mixed up with the traces,plunging. Pap! pap! pap! would go the machine-gunwith the goggled face behind it, laughingtriumphant... Fine, it 'ud be.

He bent his head back and stared up into the low-lyingclouds that seemed to hover just overhead. Wasit because he had been thinking of aeroplanes, or didhe really hear the hum of an engine coming down outof the mist? The slender lattice-work above him rosetowering for another hundred feet, taking the eyecriss-cross along its diminishing perspective until itmade you giddy. The sailor knotted his brows andcursed his deafness as he strained to listen. Surely itwas an aeroplane. He could feel the vibration of itsengine rather than hear it. Or was it the winddroning in the taut wire stays that spread earthward onevery side.

Then, swift as a falling stone, flashing darkthrough the mist, he saw the machine, apparentlycoming straight for him.

"Look out!" he shouted, and as he spoke thewhirring thing crashed fairly into the mast fifty feetabove him with a splintering concussion that shookthe framework like a whip. The bluejacket duckedhis head as a shower of fragments descended, and satwaiting for the thing to fall. Nothing happened. Thelast piece of shattered propeller dropped clatteringdown the lattice for a little distance, rebounded andvanished into space. Only the humming of thewind broke a silence that had somehow becomedreadful; dreading he knew not what, the manlooked up.

There was the plane, with her nose jammedsecurely between the bars of the crossed lattice,embedded as far as the wings. The fuselage stuck outinto the air at right angles to the mast like adragonfly that had flown blindly against a sticky window...The sight was extraordinary.

The A.B. craned his head downwards. The smallfigures on the earth were running to and fro like ants.But where was the pilot? He peered up at themotionless wreck and shouted. No reply came. Odd!He'd better go and see about the pilot, who evidentlyhadn't seen the mast in the fog, and, by the millionthchance, hit it.

Taking with him the rope that secured theboatswain's-stool he commenced to climb. P'rapsthe bloke was stunned—dead, more likely. Anyhow,he couldn't leave him there in his seat with thelikelihood of the machine breaking off from its nose andfalling to the earth any moment. Just as well he'dbeen there at the moment when it happened;that was chance, too, in a way... Rum turn,altogether.

Foot by foot, from cross-bar to girder and girderto cross-bar he climbed, and finally reached the pointof impact. The lattice was smashed to matchwoodhere, and the mast swayed dizzily above the damagedplace. Another pull and a heave enabled the rescuerto look down on the unconscious figure who had beenthe puppet of so incredible a whim of fate. He layface upwards across one of the wings where he hadbeen flung by the force of the collision. His armswere outstretched, and both legs, from his kneesdown, hung over the edge of the wing into threehundred and fifty feet of space. The machine had butto sag a couple of feet, or the unconscious figure stirever so little....

The able seaman took a deep breath. Far belowhim—perhaps half an hour's climb—men with ropeswere toiling upwards to the rescue. Overhead thedamaged mast shivered and creaked in the wind; ayard away on the curved surface of the wing lay thepilot, spread-eagled and motionless. "That ain't noplace for you!" said the bluejacket. He knotted therope round his body, made the other end fast to themast, and gingerly tested the frail platform. Wouldit stand the weight of both?

Inch by inch he crawled out along the wing,stretched forth a hand, and grabbed the pilot'sgauntleted wrist. Then unfastening the rope from hisown body he tied it round the insensible figure, andslowly, breathlessly, with many a pause and mutteredoath at the tumultuous thumping of his heart—whichseemed as if it must bring down the mast—he drew thebody off the wing and regained the mast. Sitting inthe V-shaped angle of the cross-girders he lashed theboy's shoulders securely to the nearest upright, andwith the limp legs across his lap, produced and withdifficulty lit the stump of a clay pipe. His hand shookand the perspiration trickled cold behind his ears; butpresently his lips parted, and in a not too certain voicehe began again his interrupted song:

"Laugh while you may,
There's still to-day—
You may be dead ter-morrer!"

3

CHINKS

"The Hohangho," read the First Lieutenant, turningthe pages of a three-day-old paper, "has shiftedits course. It is estimated that upwards ofthree-quarters of a million souls perished in the inundationof villages." He puffed at his pipe and eyed theinmates of the Destroyer's Wardroom withsolemnity. "They give it a four-line paragraph....Three-quarters of a million——"

"Shortage of paper," said the Lieutenant inCommand. "'Sides, they were only Chinks. What'sa million Chinese more or less? Don't supposeanybody worried about it. When I was on the ChinaStation——"

"But," interrupted the First Lieutenant, "whenyou come to think of it, that's about half the totalBritish casualties so far in the War. Wipedout—phut! In one act! Men, women, and children!

"You don't think of 'em quite like that," repliedthe Captain of the Destroyer, stirring his cup ofcoffee. He braced his back against a stanchion tosteady himself to the roll of the ship. "There arefour hundred millions of the blighters, remember.They all look alike; they've no religion, noambition, no aim in life except to scratch together enoughfor the next meal——"

A Signalman came tumbling down the ladder,water streaming from his oilskins.

"Please, sir, Officer of the Watch says there'sa glare ahead looks like a ship a-fire. Shall he increasespeed?"

The Captain, who had descended for a cup ofcoffee, and still wore his sea-boots and duffle coat,snatched up his cap and was on the bridge withhis glasses to his eyes in fewer seconds than it takesto write these lines.

The Destroyer was slashing her way past a headsea and the sound of the wind and waves madespeech difficult. The Gunner was on watch, peeringahead into the darkness through binoculars.

"Oil ship, sir, by the looks of it," he shouted.

The Captain studied the far-off glare in silencefor a moment, and gave an order to the telegraph-man.

"Yes," he said presently. "Oil ship. Must havebeen torpedoed. She's leaving a trail of blazing oilon the water astern of her." For half an hour theywatched the conflagration grow brighter as theDestroyer rapidly overhauled the burning derelict.Finally the Gunner ranged alongside his CommandingOfficer. "She's making way through the water,sir—yawing too. Best give her a wide berth."

The Lieutenant nodded. "Keep to windward.There can't be anybody below. I expect the heat ofthe fire is keeping the steam pressure up.... Myghost! What a blaze!"

The ship was now plainly discernible, blazingfuriously from forecastle to poop. The wind whippedpennons of flame hundreds of feet to leeward, andfrom started rivets and gaping seams streams ofliquid fire poured blazing into the sea. The shipwas blundering along at a good seven knots, swervingblindly from side to side like a wounded bull,and leaving on the troubled surface of the watera fiery, serpentine trail of burning oil. The hissingcrackle of the flames and roar of the wind, theconstant eruption of vast columns of sparks that belchedhundreds of feet into the air and floated to leeward,made the doomed ship a terrifying and almostdemoniac spectacle.

"Can't be a soul alive on board," said theFirst Lieutenant. "Just as well—ugly customer totackle."

They ranged abeam, giving the blazing derelicta wide berth, and even at that distance felt theircheeks scorch. Men lined the Destroyer's lee rail,watching in shocked silence. To the seaman thefairest of all sights is a ship upon the sea; a shipwrecked upon a lee shore or even plunging beneaththe surface with racing propellers is a sad, thoughnot unnatural sight, prompting the heart of everysailor to the rescue, whatever the risk. But a shipon fire, even though abandoned, is repellent,horrible beyond the power of description.

The Gunner suddenly emitted an oath andextended an arm and pointing forefinger:

"Look, sir! Fore-peak! There's some menthere!"

The Captain stared through his binoculars.

"Yes," he said calmly; "you're right. They'llbe grilled alive if her head falls away from the wind.Starboard ten, Quartermaster."

Obedient to her helm, the Destroyer closed thatblinding hell-glare, and presently to the naked eye ascore of human figures were visible, huddled into theeyes of the ship. The Lieutenant on the Destroyer'sbridge picked up a megaphone and bawled throughit.

"Why don't they jump, the damned fools?" hedemanded angrily. "They must have seen us. Theyknow we'll pick them up." The Destroyer camecloser, plunging and rolling in the seaway. Thefigures on the bridge shielded their faces from thescorching heat as every eye watched the hungryflames licking their way forward along the oiler'sforecastle. Her foremast fell with a crash, sendingup a great column of fire into the outraged sky. Byits glare the faces of the huddled figures were plainlyvisible: beardless, with high cheek-bones, distortedwith terror like the masks of trapped animals.

"God!" ejacul*ted the First Lieutenant."Chinks! They're all Chinese! No wonder theywouldn't jump! Can't swim!"

The Captain thrust him towards the ladder."Stand by with fenders the port side. Get thehand-pumps going. I'll run her alongside."

"Gawd 'elp us!" muttered the Gunner, and ashe spoke the burning ship yawed suddenly and camebearing down on them.

From first to last it was less than five minutes'work. With paint blistered and scorched clothing,rails and davits bent, with cold fear in their heartsand a sense of duty that mastered all, that prodigyof seamanship was accomplished. Twenty-fourjabbering Chinese firemen and a dazed Scotch mateflopped down pell-mell on to the Destroyer's upperdeck, and received the gift of life at the hands of ayoung man in a singed duffle coat, who said nothing,whose breath came and went rather fast throughdilated nostrils.

"Twenty-five," reported the First Lieutenantwhen he had mustered the rescued and the Destroyerwas racing landward, "and twenty-four of 'emChinks. You risked your ship for a couple of dozenyellow-bellies!"

"Maybe I did," replied his Captain. Dawnwas paling the Eastern sky, and he loosened theduffle coat about his throat. "Maybe I did. I ain'tthe Hohangho."

4

A FORTY-FOOT SETTING

The tramp that had done the damage lay rolling lazilyin the long, smooth swell, blowing off steam. Herescort of two Destroyers—or more properly aDestroyer and a half—was some distance away,exchanging a highly-seasoned and technical dialoguethrough megaphones. In the course of anunpremeditated zigzag a quarter of an hour earlier thetramp had rammed one of her escort and cut her intwo.

The combination of misunderstandings whichculminated in this mishap was at the moment in processof review on the bridge of the tramp. Her master,who was a Portuguese, and the mate, who hailed fromPernambuco, in the apportioning of blame were foronce in agreement; the Chinese Quartermaster called,weeping, upon his ancestors' gods to witness theylied. Each spake his own tongue, and the babel oftheir strife mingled with the thin hiss of escapingsteam, to be engulfed by the vast blue loneliness ofthe sky.

The Captain of the rammed Destroyer (his agewas twenty-five and his vocabulary one Methuselahneed not have been ashamed of) transferred his ship'scompany to the other escort and made a cursorysurvey of the damage.

The bulkhead forward of the gaping cavity washolding—precariously, it is true, but still holding.Therefore the fore part of the crippled Destroyercontinued to float; the after portion, since the sea wassmooth and the swell slight, although sagged belowthe surface, continued attached to the remainder bya few twisted longitudinals of steel and some mangledplates. The unhurt Destroyer having embarked theshipwrecked crew, ranged alongside her damagedsister, and proclaimed her intention of passing atowing hawser.

The Captain of the cripple filled and lit a pipewhile he considered the problem from the vantage ofthe midship funnel of his command, which lolleddrunkenly in a horizontal posture athwart the upperdeck.

"Not yet," he shouted, and turned to the Gunner,who stood knee-deep in water where once a torpedo-tubehad been. "It's that cursed depth-chargeI'm worrying about. It's still in the chute atthe stern, and set to explode at a depth offorty feet."

The Gunner nodded, and bent forward to peerthrough the translucent depths at what had been, aquarter of a hour before, the dwelling-place of both.Somewhere beneath the surface, still affixed to thesubmerged stern, was the Destroyer's main anti-submarinearmament—her depth-charges. One had beenin the tray, ready set for instant release by the jerkof a lever, when the collision occurred.

"If the stern breaks off, that depth-charge'llsink with it, and explode when it gets downto forty feet."

"That's right, sir," said the Gunner, withmelancholy calm.

"And the explosion'll rip this bulkhead out ofher, and down the fore part will go. Half a ship'sbetter'n none, Mr. Hasthorpe."

Mr. Hasthorpe agreed, but inclined to the viewthat he'd rather have kept the other half, given achoice in the matter.

"There was a nice li'l drum o' paint aft therewe had give us at Taranto, sir, an' some ostridgefeathers under my bunk, what I'd promised my oldwoman."

A long, sleek swell passed beneath them on itsunhurried path from Africa to the Adriatic. Thedark wreckage beneath the surface stirred like weedin a current, and the deck plating under their feettrembled ominously as the hulk rolled.

"A few more of those," said the youthful Captain,"and down goes the after part. I shall lose my ship." Thespeaker had rather less than half a ship to lose,but he scrambled down on to the buckled plating ofthe upper deck, hastily unbuttoning his drill tunic.

"That depth-charge must be set to 'safe,' then itcan't explode, however far it sinks."

"It's a couple of fathoms below the surface. Iain't no Annette Kellerman meself," said theGunner.

His Captain waved the dinghy alongside. "That'snothing. I'll have a shot for it—if I can only find thebeastly thing in all that tangle."

"An' if another swell passes when you'rein the water, sir, likely as not the stern'll dropoff an'——" The sentence remained unfinished, forhis Captain had slipped over the side into thewaiting dinghy and was busily divesting himselfof his clothes.

"You'd better get clear," he shouted to his confrèrein the other Destroyer, "till I've finished. NoI'm not going to bathe!" He explained the situationwhile the dinghy man rested on his oars and musinglycontemplated the big toe of his left foot round whicha shred of spun yarn was twisted. The Captain ofthe other Destroyer raised his arm to show heunderstood; the telegraph gongs clanged, and theDestroyer moved away from the side of the derelict.The dinghy paddled a few strokes, and the nude pinkfigure in the stern bent down and stared into thewater.

"Right," he said presently. "Keep the boatthere, Simmonds." He took a few deep breaths,standing on the after thwart, and then dived.

The oarsman leaned over the gunwale and heldhis breath, gazing under the boat like a man in atrance.

After all the tumult of the collision the momentwas one of deathly stillness. The tramp lay blackagainst the sunlight half a mile away. The Destroyerwas turning in a wide circle, with a flick of whiteunder her stern, and close at hand, amid the wreckageof the still floating unfortunate, the Gunner stoodmotionless, staring.

The dinghy man suddenly sat upright and took astroke with one paddle. The head and shoulders ofthe Lieutenant-in-Command broke the oily surfacewith an abrupt splash. He gripped the stern of thedinghy and heaved himself out of the water. Then,stark and dripping, he stood upright, transfiguredby the Mediterranean sunshine into a figure ofshining gold, and, raising his arms above his head,semaphored two letters to the watching Destroyer—"OK,"finishing with a triumphant wave of thehand.

A thin cheer broke out along the crowded rail, thesyren sounded a toot of congratulation, and as theresultant wisp of steam dissolved in the air the dinghysuddenly rose, rocked on the slope of a passing swell,and dropped down its smooth flank. The portion ofthe Destroyer that remained afloat rolled twice; therewas a succession of big swirls in the water, an uglygrinding sound, and a snap. The Lieutenant-in-Commandgave a short, hard laugh.

"There go your peaco*ck feathers," he said to theGunner, as he climbed on board the wrecked remnantof his command.

"Ostridge," amended Mr. Hasthorpe, and clamberedforward to the towing bollard and the preliminariesof a piece of seamanship that brought halfa Destroyer safely to the dock a hundred and seventymiles away.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The foregoing are based on actual occurrences inthe War, and, as far as the author is aware, conformto fact. The characters are imaginary; their wordsand thoughts those of the writer's imagination.

IV

THE ACTION BETWEEN H.M.S. PRIZE
AND GERMAN SUBMARINE U93

(1917)

The German submarine U93 sailed from Emden onFriday, April 13, 1917, on her maiden trip to theAtlantic. She carried eighteen torpedoes and 500rounds of ammunition for her two 3.9 mm. guns; hercomplement consisted of thirty-seven officers andmen, under the command of Captain LieutenantF. Freiherr Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim.

A tendency on the part of the crew to regard thedate as ill-omened was met by the Commander withthe assurance that the combination of Friday and thefigure thirteen would cancel any bad luck usuallyassociated with either.

About 8.30 P.M. (Greenwich time) on April 30U93 was in approximately Latitude 49° 40N, Longitude11° 40W., making her way back to Germany withthe sinking of eleven merchant ships to her discredit.

The Commander of U93 was more than satisfiedwith the result of his cruise: moreover, he had twohorses running in the Berlin races during the secondweek in May, and was anxious to be back in time forthe event. But on sighting the sails of a smalltop-sail schooner coming over the horizon, he decided todelay his return a few hours and complete the rounddozen of ships sunk; also the size of the schoonerwould, he judged, round off his tonnage figuresevenly.

He opened fire on the schooner at three milesrange, and, as this was the last ship to be sunk duringthe trip, gave orders that all men who could be sparedfrom their duties below might come on deck andwitness the sinking.

The schooner in question was His Majesty's ShipPrize of 200 tons, commanded by Lieutenant WilliamEdward Saunders, Royal Naval Reserve, with two12-pounders concealed in collapsible deck-houses, andone aft on a disappearing mounting under the hatchwaycovers of the after hold. She also carried twoLewis guns, and was incidentally the first Germanprize (then called the Else) captured by Great Britainon the outbreak of war.

In complete ignorance of these details, however,the Commander of U93 turned his submarine in awide circle in order to close his victim cautiouslyfrom astern, firing in a leisurely manner from hisforemost gun as he approached.

Immediately the submarine opened fire the alarmgongs sounded on board the Prize. With theexception of the Commanding Officer and SkipperMeade, R.N.R. (Trawler Section), who wereconcealed inside the steel companion-cover amidships,and six hands in charge of Skipper Brewer, R.N.R. (TrawlerSection), every man threw himself flat onthe deck under cover of the bulwarks and crawled tohis action-station, where he lay awaiting orders. Thetwo foremost guns were in charge of thesecond-in-command, Lieutenant William D. Beaton, RoyalNaval Reserve, who lay at the foot of the foremastwith his ears to the voice-pipe from the Captain'sobservation position.

The ship's head was put up into the wind, andthe six hands in charge of Mr. Brewer, who formedwhat was technically known as a "panic party,"launched the small boat and abandoned the ship withevery outward symptom of haste and disorder. Thetime was then 8.45 P.M.

The ship's head fell away to eastward, and theenemy slowly followed her round, still firing at herin a deliberate manner. Of two shots that hit thewater-line and burst inside the ship, one put theauxiliary motor-engine out of action, wounding theStoker Petty Officer in charge; and the othershattered the wireless-room, wounding the operatorinside it. The cabins and mess-room were wrecked,the mainmast shot through in two places, and theship began to make water fast.

In spite of this heavy punishment and the intensityof the strain, the guns' crews remained motionlesson the deck while the submarine drew closer.She was invisible to all on board the schooner exceptthe two figures inside the companion, who throughslits in the plating were able to watch her movementsand communicate the closing range to theguns.

With unrelaxed caution, however, the submarinecontinued to approach slowly from astern, and it wason this precise bearing that none of the schooner'sguns would bear. The leaden minutes dragged bylike an eternity. The Commanding Officer of thePrize several times left his place of observation andcrawled on hands and knees from man to man,steadying them and impressing on them the necessityfor keeping out of sight. One of the port foremostgun's crew, a lad of eighteen, twitcheduncontrollably with excitement like a galvanised frogas he sprawled face-downwards.

"What are you tremblin' about?" demandedthe gun-layer in a hoarse, contemptuous whisper."You can only die onest."

Twenty minutes passed thus in almost intolerablesuspense. Then the crew of the after gun, strainingtheir ears for the slightest sound, heard the fittingto which the patent-log line was attached splinteras it was wrenched away from its screws. Thesubmarine had closed until she fouled the schooner'slog-line and carried it away.

The next moment U93 put her helm to starboardand glided out on to the port quarter of the schoonerat seventy yards' clear range.

It was then 9.5 P.M., and Lieutenant Saunders,satisfied at last that his guns would bear, shouted,"Down screens! Open fire!" At the same momentthe White Ensign was hoisted.

The Shipwright, whose duty it was to release theafter-gun screen, knocked the catch and the hatchwaycover slid back like the front of an Americanroll-top desk. With the jerk of a lever the gun roseinto position and opened fire two seconds later.

The foremost gun's crew leaped to their feet, andthe deck-houses collapsed simultaneously, unmaskingthe foremost twelve-pounders.

The enemy was not easily taken by surprise,however. As the White Ensign appeared above thebulwarks of the Prize, the submarine fired two roundsfrom her guns. One hit the schooner's superstructure,and the other the water-line. This shell burstin the interior of the ship, severely wounding theShipwright, who had rushed below to fetch one ofthe Lewis guns which were kept at the bottom of theladder.

The Commander of the submarine put his helmhard over with the intention of ramming the schooner,but realising that she was inside his turning circle,reversed his helm and tried to escape. The nextmoment a shell from the schooner's after gun struckthe foremost gun of the submarine, blowing it toatoms and annihilating the crew.

The Commanding Officer of the Prize, on realisingthat the submarine was heading away from him,rang down the order for full speed to the engine-room.Unknown to him, however, one engine wascompletely disabled, and the other, after driving theship for about one hundred yards, also stopped.There was practically no wind, and the ship laymotionless on the water.

In the meanwhile, however, the gunlayer of theafter gun had hit the conning tower of the submarinewith his second shot, and demolished it; a deckhandat the same time raked the remainder of thesurvivors off her deck with the Lewis gun. A thirdshot from the after twelve-pounder struck thesubmarine in the vicinity of the engine-room anddisabled her, but she continued to carry her way untilabout 500 yards from the Prize, when she came toa standstill, slewing broadside on to her vanquisher.There were no survivors visible, and a dull red glarefrom internal fires showed through the rents in herhull. At the thirty-sixth round she sank stern first,four minutes after the commencement of the action.

The "panic party" in the boat were then orderedto pull over the scene of the action and search forsurvivors. Darkness was falling fast, but theysucceeded in picking up the Commander of thesubmarine, who had been knocked overboard by one ofthe bodies blown from the foremost gun, the NavigatingWarrant Officer, and a Stoker Petty Officer. Noother survivors could be found, and the boat returnedwith the prisoners, conscientiously "covered" by aBrowning pistol in the fist of the Trawler Skipper atthe helm.

While the search for survivors was being carriedout by the ship's boat a survey of the damageon board the schooner revealed a serious state ofaffairs. The water was pouring through the shot-holesand stood a foot deep between decks. It continuedto gain in spite of the employment of everyavailable man on pumping and bailing, and thetemporary plugging of the holes with hammocks andblankets.

Fortunately the sea was calm, with very little orno wind. The ship was put on the port tack andevery possible device employed to list her tostarboard, all the damage she had received being on theport side. The boat was swung out at the starboarddavits and filled with water, coal and water shifted tothe starboard side, and both cables ranged along thestarboard scuppers. By these means sufficient listwas obtained to lift the shot-holes clear of the waterand to enable them to be temporarily patched.

Immediately after boarding the Prize the Germansubmarine Commander offered his word of honourto make no attempt to escape, and promised that heand his men would do all in their power to assist.His parole was accepted, and both he and his menset to with a will, prisoners and captors working sideby side to save the ship. The Navigating WarrantOfficer voluntarily attended to the wounded anddressed their wounds.

As soon as it was realised that the water was nolonger gaining on them, the attention of theCommanding Officer of the Prize was devoted to anattempt to restarting the motors. In the course ofthis work a fire broke out in the engine-room, due tosparks from the motor igniting the oil which hadleaked from the damaged tank. This was successfullyextinguished, and the wounded Stoker PettyOfficer, assisted by the German Stoker PettyOfficer, succeeded in getting one motor started. By11.45 P.M. on April 30 all sail was set, and with oneengine working the Prize shaped a course for theIrish Coast, 120 miles to the north-eastward.

Land was not sighted until the afternoon ofMay 2, during which time the crew, assisted by theprisoners, laboured at the pumps day and night.They were finally picked up 5 miles to the westwardof the Old Head of Kinsale by one of H.M. MotorLaunches and towed into Kinsale Harbour. Heretwo of the wounded were disembarked, andimprovised leak-stoppers, made out of the pieces ofplank with blankets stretched over them, were boltedover the shot-holes.

On May 4 the Prize, with her three prisonersstill on board, left Kinsale Harbour in tow of one ofH.M. Drifters, and arrived at Milford Haven, whereshe was based, at 8 A.M. on May 4.

During the passage an enemy minelaying-submarinewas sighted on the surface to the southwardabout two miles away. The crew of the Prizeimmediately went to "Action Stations" in the hope thatthe enemy would close to within effective range, andfor an hour they waited in tense excitement, while thesubmarine steered a parallel course to theirs.Apparently, however, her caution got the better ofher curiosity, for she finally drew ahead and was notseen again. The remainder of the voyage passeduneventfully.

His Majesty the King, in recognition of the conspicuousgallantry displayed by the Officers and menof the Prize, was pleased to award the Victoria Crossto Lieutenant W. E. Saunders, who was alsopromoted to the rank of Temporary LieutenantCommander, Royal Naval Reserve.

Lieutenant W. D. Beaton, R.N.R., theSecond-in-Command, was made a Companion of theDistinguished Service Order, the two Skippers,R.N.R. (T), were decorated with the Distinguished ServiceCross, and the remainder of the ship's companyreceived the Distinguished Service Medal.

A few months later H.M.S. Prize, under thecommand of Lieutenant-Commander Saunders, V.C.,R.N.R., was lost with all hands, presumably as theresult of an engagement with one or more enemysubmarines. The death of this most gallant officer andhis efficient and highly trained crew was a disasterthe Navy and the nation could ill afford.

V

THE FORFEIT

(1916)

1

The sun was sinking low behind the peach-treeswhen workers from the rice-fields came stragglingback to the village. By twos and threes they came,toil-stained women and boys, with here and there anold, gnarled man, their shadows long on the roadbefore them.

Tani, maker of sandals, looked up from his workas each one came abreast his shop, respondinggravely to the low-voiced, musical greetings. Butafter the last worker had passed, his eyes, shadedbeneath the palm of his hand, still sought the roadbeyond the village in patient expectancy.

Presently he heard the distant click of clogs, anda little figure came in sight. Her cotton kimono waslooped to the knees, the mud of the paddy-fields stillclung to her slender brown limbs. She drew near.

"Greeting, Su Su O!"

"Greeting, Tani!" The girl paused before theshop, with quaint genuflection and the gentle hiss ofindrawn breath that in Japan is a courtesy. Thesandal-maker sat back on his heels.

"Tired, Su Su O?"

"Very," replied the girl. She moved the heavy,mud-caked hoe from her shoulder and leaned on thehaft, looking down at him with a little smile. Hermouth, with its geranium-scarlet lips, droopedwearily at the corners when in repose: her wholeattitude betrayed fatigue.

The man frowned. "It is not well, Su Su O, thatyou should do coolie work. You are not of cooliestock, nor yet of coolie strength. Su Su O, hearkenyet again! Be my wife! Come and live with mehere, and let me labour for us both! I need you so,little Flower. I want you for my wife ... not tosee you only at sunrise and dusk, passing mydwelling by."

The sun set swiftly; swiftly the purple nightswept up over rice-field and cherry-orchard. Hereand there along the village street a coloured lanternglowed suddenly out of the darkness; through thefrail oiled-paper walls of the cottages drifted thevoices of children and the tinkle of a samisen. Thesandal-maker stood up and took the girl's hand inhis.

"I am lonely without you, Su Su O," he pleaded.

Her lip quivered. "I too am lonely, Tani; but Iam a beggar—a coolie girl without father or mother.I cannot marry you: I have no dowry. I can bringnothing to the wedding—save myself, in rags. Itwould bring disgrace upon us."

In vain he pleaded, all the poetic imagery of theAsiatic upon his tongue. In vain he scoffed atconvention—that terrible, inexorable convention of theEast; still the dainty head shook in plaintive negation.Some unknown strain in her blood set honour beforelove, bowed to the decrees that had ruled herunknown forbears. At length, as if fearing that herresolution might weaken from sheer physicalweariness—and she loved very dearly too—she turnedtowards the village.

"I must go, Tani. It is of no avail.... Nay,entreat me not further.... Nay, Tani, I am sotired...."

The sandal-maker stepped back among his wares.Punctiliously they went through the little ceremonyof genuflection and gesture. Click-click went theclogs up the narrow street, and among the shadowsthe sandal-maker stood with head bent, as if listening,long after the sound had died away.

That evening a traveller came to the village, alittle wizened man, clad somewhat incongruously ina grey silk kimono, a bowler hat, and elastic-sidedboots. Rumour whispered that he was the owner ofa fashionable cha-ya (tea-shop) in Tokyo, renownedfor the beauty of its Geishas. Gossip spreadingquickly from door to door supplemented this as thenight wore on. The honourable stranger was touringthe country on the look-out for pretty girls. He paidwell, they said, and his establishment was muchfrequented by Europeans, who, as all the worldknows, part freely with the sen. Here was a chancefor a girl with looks!

The old gentleman was sipping saki in the guest-roomof the village inn when Su Su O was announced.His keen old eyes noted with appreciationthe lines of the childish figure as she bowed herforehead to the matting. But when she raised herself toher knees, and faced him with downcast eyes, hepursed up his mouth as if contemplating a whistle.Had he been a European he probably would havewhistled, but this is not an art practised amongowners of cha-ya. Otherwise his face was expressionless.

"Who is your mother?" he inquired, breaking thesilence.

"She is dead, most honourable one. A peasantwoman. I reside at the house of Matsu thecharcoal-burner and his wife."

"And your father?"

"I do not know, O honourable one."

"Ah!" said her interlocutor, as if something hadbeen explained that he did not understand. Peasantsdo not beget daughters with hair like Su Su O's,nor with ears like tiny pink shells, nor yet slenderwrists and fingers. "And you wish to be aGeisha?"

Su Su O prostrated herself in silent acquiescence.

"I will take you on condition that you remain withme three years." The heart of Su Su O sank.Would Tani wait three years? "And I will payyou"—he named what was to the girl a considerablesum. That clinched it: with a dowry like this shecould marry Tani over and over again. Yet herfingers trembled as she painted her signature to theindentures, and her heart was sick at the thought ofthe parting. Even "passing his dwelling by" wasbetter than never seeing it at all. But she left forTokyo the next day, and a few moments were all thatshe had for saying good-bye.

"Oh, but you will wait?" she pleaded. "It willsoon pass, the three years, and I will come back rich,and—marry you, Tani."

Tani's reply, in flowery Japanese, was to the effectthat he would wait a hundred million years ifnecessary.

* * * * *

Her life in the Tokyo tea-house was no worse thanthat led by the thousands of other Geishas in the greatstraggling city. In some respects it was better,because European tourists of many nationalitiesfrequented the establishment, and her beauty was suchas to appeal not only to Japanese ideas, but Westernas well. For one thing, her cheek-bones were notaccentuated; and her mouth, scarlet-lipped andtremulous at times with laughter, you would havethought adorable whatever part of the world youhailed from. Also there was something very bewitchingabout her plaintive love-ditties (even if youcouldn't understand them), which she sang in a minorkey to guitar accompaniment through her inconsiderablenose.

One day there came to the house a German officeron leave from Tsingtau. He was a big, beardedyouth with blue eyes, and—this was a ceaselesswonder and delight to the Geishas—the centre of hisfront upper row of teeth was crowned with a diamond.

Attracted by the glitter in his mouth, and inuredto the oafish attentions of European customers, shesuffered him to put his arm round her. Withoutfurther warning, he lowered his bearded face andkissed her publicly on the lips.

To the Japanese mind the act was an indignity—worse,indecent. With a deft wriggle she twisted anarm free and struck him in the face, her eyes blazing.The big man laughed uproariously, imprisoned herarm, and kissed her again and again, while shequivered helplessly. Released at length, she facedhim like a tiger-cat.

"Swine!" she cried. "Son of a foreign swine!"—andstruck the piece of gold that he extended towardsher out of his hand.

2

The railway terminus at Tokyo was gay with buntingand thronged by a great crowd of people. A brassband somewhere out of sight broke into crashingmartial music. "Banzai!" roared the khaki-cladfigures in the closely packed carriages, and inresponse the women and children waved littlehand-flags that bore the national emblem on a whiteground.

Japan had declared war on Germany, and theoccasion was the departure of a Reserve Divisionwhich was shortly to operate against the Germanfortress of Tsingtau. The windows of the carriageswere blocked by grim, fighting faces: men from theNorth. Among them was Tani, sometime maker ofsandals; and on the platform beneath his window,like a painted butterfly hovering round the cannon'smouth, stood Su Su O, eyes suspiciously bright.

"Return if the gods will it!" she whispered,echoing the murmured farewells of mothers, wives,and lovers. The grim memories of ten years ago stilllingered. The vaulted roof of the terminus hadechoed so many farewells; so few who parted amidthe roars of "Banzai!" had greeted one anotheragain. "If the gods will," said the women now, andthe younger men still shouted "Banzai!" in reply.But at the last, as the long train steamed slowly outof the station, the finite human heart held sway. Theoft-repeated "Banzai!" changed to "Sai-onara!Sai-i-onara!"—the saddest, most plaintive-soundingfarewell yet fashioned by the human tongue.

A month later found Tani leading a moist andsomewhat precarious existence in a trench beforeTsingtau. His recollection of the siege since he tookpart in it had been a series of blurred impressions,mud being predominant throughout. It had seemedan eternity of mud, of ceaseless rifle and artillery fire,of being soaked to the skin, of cold, hunger, andfatigue. Once or twice there had been moments offerocious hand-to-hand fighting. They were goodmoments, those; and as he sat in the bottom of atrench cleaning the bolt of his rifle with a piece ofoily rag, his thoughts recurred to them with a certaingrim enjoyment.

By clearing away the earth at the top of the trenchhe was able to catch an occasional glimpse of hissurroundings. An amphitheatre of barren hills, withthe gleam of the sea in the far distance; a small,slow-moving speck upon it that was a Japanese or Alliedwarship shelling the fortress. Elsewhere, as far ashe could see, the ground was scarred by burstingshell, and herring-boned by wire entanglements.Ahead, where the picric shells were pitching, a yellowcloud hung low, as the mists sometimes cling to theslopes of Fujiyama. There were intermittent pointsof jagged fire beneath the cloud; shrapnel burstingabout the German redoubts.

It all represented to Tani a certain amount ofuphill ground to be covered under fire: how soon he didnot know, but the rest was familiar enough. Theinferno of shell-fire that was bursting ahead wouldredouble till the mere contemplation of it almoststunned the senses. Then the order rippled along toadvance: you leaped out of your trench and ran aswell as you could across the debris of the last attackand the chaos of barbed wire till the next trench wasreached. Sometimes you just dropped into it andpanted; sometimes you met other men there, fierce,blue-eyed men who had to be bayoneted. Bulletswould shriek and whimper overhead, or hitsomething with a sullen "Zip!" Men grunted andseemed to fall asleep, or rolled over and lay twitchingin a novel and rather ludicrous fashion. And therewas the ceaseless rain, the smell of cordite smoke, thebewildering roar of the howitzers.

That was War, as understood by Tani, sometimemaker of sandals.

Early one morning a flask of raw saki was passedalong the advanced trench. Tani drank deep andtightened his belt, for he was hungry; the spirit ranthrough his veins like fire. "It is the end," said theman next to him, a battle-scarred veteran of Nogi'sArmy, with a queer note of exultation in his voice.There, was a sudden lull in the firing. Whistlessounded shrilly.

An officer near Tani who had been divestinghimself of his overcoat leapt to his feet with a shout.With an answering roar the trenches seemed to vomitwave upon wave of steel, and yellow-faced, khaki-cladfigures. They swept forward, stabbing and cheering,hewing their way through the wire entanglementin the face of a tempest of bullets, leaving their deaddangling as they fell.

Tani reached a line of sandbags at the crest of arise unhurt, and drove his bayonet into the chest of aGerman who was clubbing his rifle. He heard thebreast-bone crunch as the steel went home to themuzzle of the rifle. The German fell sideways,twisting the weapon out of Tani's grip with hisweight. Then Tani saw a bearded officer, the haft ofa broken sword dangling from a leather thong at hiswrist, struggling to reload his revolver.

As a mongoose jumps for a snake the Japaneseleapt at the German's throat. They fell together inthe bottom of the trench, and for a moment theyfought with their hands, in the welter of mud andwater, trampled on by other combatants, breathing inshort, savage gasps. Then Tani got the "neck-lock"he had been struggling for. Somethingsnapped with a sound like a dry twig breaking, andthe German's head dropped back. Tani sat up,spitting and wiping the mud out of his eyes. Hisadversary was dead, and lay staring up at the greysky as if amazed. The bearded lips were drawn back,showing his teeth; one of these sparkled curiously.Save for the dead and wounded, the trench wasdeserted: the assault had swept forward. Abovethem was a sound of great cheering. Someone waswedging a colour-staff between the sandbags; theemblem of the Rising Sun, tattered and stained,stirred in the morning breeze. Tsingtau had fallen.

Tani leaned over to examine more closely thephenomenon in the dead man's mouth. Then heemitted an interested grunt. The centre tooth of theGerman's upper jaw was crowned with a diamond.

3

Tani, maker of sandals, leaned over the parapet ofthe little cedar-wood bridge that spanned an artificialhike in the temple grounds. Every now and againthe moon's placid reflection on the water broke intowidening ripples as a carp rose. In the stillness thesound of its feeding was audible—a tiny "gluck!" asif a greedy child were smacking its lips. It was latespring, the season of the cherry-blossom, and thelight airs of evening came in puffs across the water,laden with faint fragrance. The doors of the templestood open: inside, a lamp burned dully before thealtar.

After a while the man took from his pocket a littlepouch of oiled silk and emptied the contents into hispalm. There was some dusty tobacco, two or threematches, and a small object that caught the light ashe moved his hand. This he retained, and put thepouch and the rest of its contents back into his pocket.

"Click-click, click-click!" Light, metal-shodsandals were approaching from the direction of thevillage. A form fluttered towards him out of thedarkness like a soft grey moth.

"Have you waited long, Tani?"

"So long, Su Su O, that the night had grown intoEternity, and the sound of my sighing checked thevery lamentation of the frogs!"

She laughed in her delicious gurgling way, andpressed her face against his sleeve. He slipped onehand beneath her chin, raising the flawless oval faceto the full light of the moon.

"Thou art very beautiful," he said, half below hisbreath. "A thousand men assuredly have loved theesince we bade farewell."

Su Su O sighed. "But none have laid a fingeron me in love, Tani—save one, and him I struck."

The man smiled a little, and then his face grewgrave. He fretted with the sling which supported hisleft arm. "What manner of man was he, thislove-besotted fool?"

"A German, Tani; a man of great stature,bearded, with a jewel set in the centre tooth of hisupper jaw."

Tani released her chin. "A diamond, belike,Little Flower?"

She nodded assent. "And by force he kissedme—upon the mouth."

"Ah!" For a moment the sandal-maker staredacross the water, his eyes narrowed into slits, his faceinscrutable. Then, with a sudden jerk of the wrist,he sent something spinning through the air—somethingthat glittered like a point of flame in the moonlight.It fell with a splash, scaring the lazy carp thatlay just beneath the surface.

"He has paid his forfeit," said Tani grimly.

All uncomprehending, Su Su O nestled againsthim and slipped her slender hand into his. Togetherthey turned towards the temple.

VI

SUPPER BEER

(1914)

1

With the turn of the tide the wind backed and swepta wet mist in from the sea. During the daypromenaders had thronged the stone pier that partlyencircled the deserted harbour; townspeople for themost part—stolid, sombre-clad folk, taking theirconstitutionals soberly, as if they formed part of someinflexible schedule that regulated their lives. In theafternoons a sprinkling of infantrymen from the fortintermingled with them; loose-limbed young conscriptsin grey uniforms, with heads too small fortheir bodies—a phenomenon partly accounted for bythe zeal of the garrison barber, and partly by thesize of their grotesque boots.

Now, however, as the evening set in with everypromise of dirty weather, the promenaders turned inpairs towards the town. The angler who had beenfishing in the shelter of the stone beacon slowlywound in his lines, gathered together hisparaphernalia, and departed also. A watchman,carrying a short ladder over his shoulder, came andexamined the automatic revolving gear of the lantern,and after polishing the reflector, briskly returned tothe town, taking his ladder with him.

With the exception of a solitary figure pacingbackwards and forwards under the lee of the roughwall, the pier was soon deserted. But this figure'sconstitutional appeared to partake of the nature of avigil, for every few minutes he paused and staredseaward into the mist through a pair of binoculars.

His face, as much of it as was visible above thecollar of his ulster, was that of an elderly man, thinand aristocratic-looking. When not gazing out tosea, he contemplated his slow-pacing feet with mild,thoughtful blue eyes through rimless pince-nez. Onecheek-bone was ornamented by a duelling-sabre scar.

Half an hour passed, while the spray drifted overthe sea-wall and collected under-foot in shallow poolsthat alternately mirrored the waning light anddarkened as a fresh gust of wind hurled itself in fromthe North Sea. Out at the entrance to the harboura solitary gull faced the wind with steady beats of itspowerful wings, calling with querulous persistency.Lights were beginning to twinkle here and there alongthe deserted sea-front when the watcher at thepier-head lowered his glasses, hastily wiped the lenses,and raised them again to his eyes. Then he made aguttural observation in an undertone.

Out of the grey smudge of sea and sky a smallvessel suddenly became an object distinct, making forthe mouth of the harbour: a short, squat craft, withhigh bows and a tall raking funnel set far aft. Tojudge by the derricks topped up to her mainmast shehad every appearance of being a trawler; yet for atrawler returning in the height of the fishing seasonshe gave evidence of very empty holds by thebuoyancy of her movements. She carried no lights,though the dusk was now settling fast.

A short, thick-set man in a blue jersey stood atthe wheel; at his side was a younger man, a tall,upright figure muffled in a thick pilot coat. Thecrew, with the exception of two who were gettingready to make the vessel fast, stood in a group in thewaist. For a North Sea trawler the complement ofhands appeared somewhat in excess of the usualrequirements.

The man at the helm brought the vessel smoothlyalongside without acknowledging the presence of thewatcher on the pier. His companion, however,smiled a greeting, raised his hand as if to salute, andchecked himself. As the trawler went astern and herway slackened, he jumped out and joined the figurein the ulster.

"Well?" asked the elder man.

"Absolutely successful! Twenty-four, all told.I got right across to within ten miles of their coast."

The other gave an abrupt, disconcerting laugh."You laid them in fours, as you were ordered?"

The young man nodded. "They cannot missthem. And if a ship fails to touch one direct shemust cross one of the wires that connect them. Theimpetus of her speed will swing them aft against herside—two on each side.... Or three on one and oneon the other...! Then——!" The speakermade a graceful upward gesture with his hands andsmiled.

"And you were not sighted?"

"Once. The fog lifted a little, and one of theirLight Cruisers must have seen us. But I was flyingtheir flag——" He laughed again. "Oh, they arefools! Fools! They had time to blow us out of thewater six times over before I could slip back intothe fog again." The speaker lit a cigarette andmoistened his dry lips. "Then I came back asquickly as possible. And now I want my supper andsome beer—it's thirsty work, that—that trawling inthe North Sea!" He took a Service revolver out ofthe side pocket of his coarse reefer jacket andextracted the cartridges from it as they walked alongthe deserted quay.

His companion took his arm affectionately. "Mydear boy," he ejacul*ted. "Beer! Come along! Youshall have a gallon—you have earned it! Herr Gottin Himmel! You shall swim in it if you like."

2

It was the supper hour on board the Cruiser, and the"watch below" were enjoying their leisure, after thefashion of the sailor-man, along the crowded batteries.The sailor's meal, especially in war time, is a satisfyingaffair; but he does not linger over it as one lingersover the tea-table ashore. For one thing, thesurroundings are cramped and stuffy, and the time isshort; there are other needs more pressing: there is aduck jumper to be scrubbed by to-morrow perhaps;or a few more inches to be added to the wonderfulpatchwork quilt destined some day to be the prideand ornament of somebody's home. Besides, ondeck one can smoke a pipe.

The battery was thronged with men; many weresitting in pairs at a mess-kettle, up to their elbows insoap-suds; forward by the break of the forecastle theship's barber was reaping a rich harvest of pennies—a"penny a shave and twopence hair-cut" is the recognisedtariff. A sewing-machine whirred busily in thelee of a gun-shield; the crew "standing by" the gunexchanged lazy chaff with the bearded sempster.Their watch was nearly at an end, and with the prospectof a meal ahead the sailor brightens wonderfully.The ship's pet goat wandered from group to group,gravely accepting the attentions—cigarettes, banana-skins,and the like—that came his way during stand-easy.

Out of the wreaths of fog and tobacco-smoke forwarddrifted presently the strains of an accordion——

"It's a long, long way to Tipperary...." Thevoices of the men, singing under their breath as theyworked, blended restfully with the throb of theengines and the swish of water past the ship's side.A little breeze sprang up, tearing rifts here andthere in the surrounding fog; a few pale gleams ofsunlight filtered through, and on the fore-bridge ofthe Cruiser the Yeoman of Signals raised his glassand steadied it against the topmost rail. Suddenlyhe stiffened like a pointer.

"Trawler right ahead, sir!" His lynx-like eyeand almost lifelong training told before the otherscould see anything. The Captain stepped out of thetiny chart-house, where he had been busy with thechart and a pair of dividers.

"There, sir." The Officer of the Watch extendedhis arm and forefinger. The Navigating Lieutenantjoined them, and together they peered through theshifting veil of vapour.

"Yes, I see...." The Captain adjusted hisglasses the fraction of a degree. "She's flying ourcolours ... Can you see her number...?" TheOfficer of the Watch moved to the voice-pipe, as if togive an order to the helmsman.

"No; steady as you go!" said the Captain."She's a mile away yet. I want to see her a bitcloser—ah..." He broke off disgustedly as thefog closed down on them again, blotting out the palesunlight. The distant trawler vanished as a picturevanishes from the screen when a hand withdraws thelantern slide. The Captain blinked as the tiny beadsof moisture collected on his eyelashes, and rubbed hisglasses impatiently. "Damn this fog! Put a look-outin the eyes of the ship." Going to the voice-pipe,he gave a curt order to the Quartermaster at the helmand came back again to the compass. "I didn't likethe look of that fellow, for all his display of bunting.Too many men on deck for one of our trawlers." Helooked up into the blindfold drifts overhead. "Oh,for one little minute...!"

The Officer of the Watch had stepped to the headof the ladder and beckoned to a messenger:

"Jump down and tell the Captain of the Forecastleto tell off a hand as look-out forward in theeyes of the ship. He's to get him there at once!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" The boy sped off on his errandand darted off along the upper deck. The pettyofficer whose official title was "Captain of theForecastle" was seated with his back against theengine-room casings, playing "crib" with a Chief Stoker.The messenger pulled up panting:

"Please—the—Officer—of—the—Watch—sez—tell—off—a—hand—to—look—out—in—the—eyes—of—the—ship!"he gasped. He had run so fastand spoke so quickly, in his fear lest he should forgetthe message, that to a less trained ear it would havesounded unintelligible.

The Captain of the Forecastle turned a clear greyeye upon him, and moistened a thumb preparatory todealing. "Right, my son.... Nip along on to thefo's'cle an' pass the word to Able-Seaman Eggers—'e'sone of the party standin' by the foremost gun—toget up quick 's 'ell into the eyes of the ship. Tell 'imto get back smart to 'is gun if 'e's wanted. An' thenjump down to 19 Mess an' warn Able-Seaman Leckeyto relieve 'im nex' watch. Tell 'em both from me tokeep their eyes skinned, or they'll get 'ung at theport fore-tops'l yard-arm!"

The boy departed as if wings were attached to hisbare heels, his freckled face solemn with the burdenof these grave responsibilities. In his Pantheon threedeities presided over the affairs of men. There wasMr. Corbett the Boatswain, terrible in wrath,iron-handed, implacable, who drank rum (so rumour hadit) as weak mortals drink swipes, and could put aneye-splice in a bit of six-inch wire single-handed in hissleep.... A more mysterious power was that investedin a trinity of Lieutenants known collectively as"Orficer-of-the-Watch"; and, lastly, there was theCaptain of the Forecastle. But the greatest of thesewas the Captain of the Forecastle. Other gods theremay have been, but they were too remote andmagnificent to concern themselves about Boys 1stClass, or to be concerned about.

Able-Seaman Eggers was leaning against theshield of his gun, inhaling the delicate aroma ofbloaters that drifted up from the ship's galley. Hehoped his mess was going to have bloaters for supper;he liked them best when they had soft roes.... Tohim came Mercury, in the form of the fore-bridgemessenger, repeating breathlessly the edict of theCaptain of the Forecastle. Able-Seaman Eggersaccepted the change of duties philosophically; hewould as soon spend the remainder of his watch inthe "eyes" of the ship as closed up round a gun.

"Oo sez?" he queried—not from any desire toquestion the order, but because it was necessary tomaintain appearances before the Boy 1st Class whodelivered it.

"Cap'n of the Forecastle. An' 'e sez you gotterkeep your eyes skinned."

Able-Seaman Eggers cuffed the emissary of theGreat Powers for form's sake, and betook himself intothe foremost point of the "V" formed by the ship'sbows.

* * * * *

Down in the Wardroom the occupants had finishedtea; the Paymaster rose from the table, and crossedover to the notice-board, carrying a sheet of foolscapover which he had expended much thought andlabour. He pinned it up, and stepped back a paceto admire the effect.

The Young Doctor came over to his side. "Whatare you up to, Pay?"

The other smiled in all the pride of authorship."I don't know what you think, but I call that rather aneat bit of wit, eh?"

The notice read as follows:

"GRAND QUOITS COMPETITION."

"Subject to interference by atmospherics, barratry,mines, fog, lyddite shell bursting on board, and theKing's enemies, it is proposed to hold the above inthe dog watch whenever possible:

"First Prize—A good cigar.
"Second Prize—A blood orange.
"Third Prize—A bag of nuts.

"Penalty for throwing a quoit overboard:
"First Offence—Fined half a crown.
"Second Offence—Thrown overboard himself.

"And what'll he do the third time?" inquired theSurgeon, who was suspected of being Irish. "Butanyway, it's a grand idea—let's go and play beforethe light gets too bad."

The Paymaster stepped into his cabin and returnedwith half a dozen discs of indiarubber. "I wheedledthese out of the 'Chief.' Padre, come on and playquoits—you and I'll take on 'Pills' and the GunneryLieutenant."

"Never played in my life. I should probablychuck them down the funnel or hit the Skipper in theeye on the fore-bridge."

"That doesn't matter—it's your money we want.Come along, 'Guns,' we'll take these two on." ThePaymaster led the way out of the Mess, followed bythe other three.

A Lieutenant dozing in the one remainingarmchair opened his eyes and watched their retreatingbacks. "Noisy devils," he murmured drowsily."Why don't they sleep when they can?" and lapsedinto slumber again.

A Marine servant entered to remove the tea-thingsand tidy up the Mess. As a matter of fact,there was not much to tidy: a table and the barenumber of chairs required to accommodate themembers was all the woodwork in the place. Twoash-trays that no one used stood on the stove, togetherwith a novel, several pipes, and an open tin of tobacco.On the sideboard lay a little pile of newspapers a weekold and a "Bradshaw"—pathetic reminder of thedays when one looked up trains with a view to leaveand suchlike vanities. A couple of war-mapsornamented the bulkhead: otherwise, the Mess—thehome and place for sleep, meals, and recreationof a dozen English gentlemen—was bare andunadorned.

The voices of the quoit-players outside came inthrough the open door, mingling with the soft thudof the rubber quoits as they played. The figure inthe arm-chair stirred slightly and smiled in his sleep.

* * * * *

Forward in the bows of the ship Able-SeamanEggers leaned over the rail, staring into the mist.The ship's bows seemed to be carving their waythrough liquid jade that fell away on either side ofthe bows with a deep sobbing sound. He wonderedwhen the bell would strike ... he wanted hissupper...

A blinding sheet of flame leaped into the air, hurlinga mountain of water after it with a report that rentthe fog in tatters.

What was left of the cruiser lifted half clear of thewater and lurched forward, sickened and stricken ... herstern rose slowly in the air, the propellers kickingwildly.

After a while objects began to descend out of theriven patches of mist overhead—fragments of woodand steel, wisps of clothing still alight ... shatteredimages of God...

Then, somewhere aft in the reeling hull, a magazineexploded. The cruiser sank as a bull sinks inthe ring before the crowning mercy of the last thrust.A pall of smoke closed down upon the outraged sea.

3

In a ground floor room at the back of PortsmouthHard an old woman was laying the table for supper.Not much of a supper: the remains of a loaf of bread,some dripping in a saucer. But the chief item of themeal, a bloater, lay on a plate in front of the fire,keeping warm.

An old man sat in a chair by the hearth, readinga newspaper through steel-rimmed glasses. Layingit aside, he leaned forward and prodded the bloaterspeculatively with a nubbly forefinger. He turnedand looked at his wife over the top of thesteel-rimmed spectacles.

"It's a soft roe, Mother. 'E liked 'em wiv softroe."

The woman had completed the arrangementsfor their meal, and was tying on her bonnetbefore the scrap of mirror that hung on thewall.

"Well, don' get pokin' it about!" she snapped,with unexpected vehemence that told of overstrungnerves. She took a jug off a nail on the dresser andcovered it with her apron. There is an etiquette to beobserved in these matters when one carries abeer-jug abroad. "I'm goin' out to fetch the beer forsupper, an' when I come back you shall 'ave yourbloater."

The old man nodded. "That's right; an' buy anevening paper 'fore you come back. P'raps we'll seesome news of the boy. Pity 'e ain't 'ere to fetch thebeer for supper same's 'e did use to. 'E should 'avea gallon to 'isself if 'e wus 'ere this minute!" Theold man chuckled.

The woman went out and closed the door behindher. The rays of the setting sun glowed red onthe old tiled roofs and sparkled on the waters ofthe harbour. It was a golden evening, and apeaceful haze hung over the far-reachingDockyard and the few ships lying at anchor in thedistance.

The hoarse cry of a paper-boy arrested her attention,and she stopped outside a newsvendor's shop toread the contents bill of the evening paper. She readslowly, for she was no great scholar and her sightwas not so good as it had been. Then she wentquickly into the shop and bought a copy of thepaper.

NAVAL DISASTER IN THE
NORTH SEA

BRITISH CRUISER SUNK BY MINES

FULL LIST OF CASUALTIES

The glaring type attracted several passers-by,amongst them a policeman on his beat. When thelittle old woman came out of the shop her face wasscrewed up with grief, and she held her apron to hereyes. Red eyes and tear-blotched faces are notuncommon in war-time in a garrison town. Thebystanders that gathered round understood as if bycommon intuition, and the policeman spokeencouragement in a gruff, kindly tone. Standing thereon the kerb, she had her cry. A Boy Scout held thejug her son would never carry again to fetch thesupper beer.

VII

THE WAY THEY HAVE

(1915)

1

The coastguard was turning over the earth in oneof the tiny cabbage patches that belonged to the rowof whitewashed cottages on the flank of the headland.The sun was hot and he paused frequently, straighteningup and passing the back of his hand across hisforehead. Each time he did this his eyes travelledhalf-mechanically round the blue curve of the horizon,thence along the foreshore, and so back to thecabbage patch, when he resumed his digging.

It was during one of these pauses that he noticedthe gulls, and stood motionless for several seconds,shading his eyes from the sun. The tide had turnedand left a few yards of sand below high-water markwet and gleaming in the October sunlight.

Half a mile away a couple of gulls were circlingcuriously above something that lay in the shallowwater, stranded by the fast-receding tide.

The coastguard watched the birds intently. Thedark speck that broke the smooth shimmering surfaceof the sea might have been seaweed or driftwood, butfor them. Seaweed interests nobody—not evensea-gulls. On the other hand what interests sea-gullsinterests coastguardmen. Acting apparently alongthis chain of reasoning, the coastguard dug his spadeinto the earth, and made off down the winding gravelpath that led to the beach. Once on the sand hestopped, said something in an undertone, and glancedback at the coastguard station; he had come withouthis telescope.

For a moment he paused, measuring the distancewith his eye. He was a man of leisurely and deliberatehabit of mind. It was a question whether he wentback for his telescope or walked along the foreshoreand decided at close quarters what it was that thetide was shrinking from in the warm morning sunlight.

There wasn't much in it one way or the other,he decided after due reflection, and set outaccordingly along the wet sands at the edge of the sea.

He was in no particular hurry. Whatever hisvices, curiosity wasn't one of them. But it was hisjob; and as he walked he eyed the sea distastefully asif it had been responsible for more jobs than hepersonally had much use for.

One of the sea-gulls soared suddenly and flewswiftly out to sea with quick strong beats of its wings.

The other still hovered, as if questioning the seawith thin querulous cries. The coastguard drewnear, and it too fled seaward, abandoning the enigmathat lay with the little waves lapping round it inretreat.

The coastguard stopped at the edge of the waterand stood with his hands on his hips contemplatingthe jetsam.

"Another of 'em," he said, and was for wadingout there and then, till he remembered his wife andwhat she said the last time he went in with hisboots on.

Accordingly he removed his boots and socks,rolled up his bell-bottomed trousers, and splashedout to where the thing was lying. He turned it overgingerly and he shook his head.

"'Dentity disc," he muttered, and pulling out hisknife, severed the cord that connected a little metaldisc to what lay at his feet.

Then he retraced his steps to where his boots werelying, examining the disc as he walked. Three rowsof letters and some figures were stamped on it. Withdifficulty he deciphered them:

A. E. JONES,
TMR. R.N.R.T.
1347
BAP.

With more haste than he had hitherto exhibitedthe coastguard replaced his socks and boots andreturned to the coastguard station.

His mate was examining a steam-drifter far outto sea through the big brass-bound high-powertelescope. He turned as the new-comer entered. Thelatter threw the disc down on to the desk and steppedto the telephone. "A. E. Jones," he said; "Trimmer,Royal Naval Reserve, Trawler Section, No. 1347.Religion, Baptist."

The other nodded, and resumed his scrutiny of thedistant drifter. "Bin in the water long?" heinquired.

"Weeks," said the other, turning the handle ofthe telephone bell, "an' weeks." Then he picked upthe receiver, and in half a dozen terse sentences setin motion that part of the vast and complex machineryof the British Admiralty interested in the affairs—evenunto death—of R.N.R. (T.) No. 1347.

An hour later an immaculate young gentlemanwith paper protectors to his cuffs, who occupied acorner of a large dusty room overlooking Whitehall,was running his pen down the pages of a tomeresembling in appearance the Doomsday Book. "J,"he said. "Um—m—m. Jo—Jones—1347. Next ofkin, mother. That's the fellah." Then he wrotesomething on a piece of paper and handed it to amessenger, glanced at the clock, removed his paperprotectors from his cuffs, and went off to his lunch,and the spiritual refreshment of twenty minutes'badinage with a rather coy waitress at a popular café.

His part in the drama was taken a couple of hourslater by a Registrar of the Naval Reserve at a grimyWelsh seaport, who was also the Assistant Collectorof Customs and a deacon at the local chapel; he, atthe bidding of a curt telegram, pumped up the backtyre of his bicycle and rode some three miles alonga cobbled thoroughfare, till he came to a row ofcottages that stared across an evil-looking canal atmounds of slag. He dismounted at the door of thethird house and knocked. An old woman answeredthe summons, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Mrs. Jones?"

"Aye," said the old woman. "Have they found 'im?"

"They have," said the registrar grimly. "An'buryin' him they are to-morrow."

The old woman sat down in a chair and threw herapron over her head. "Anwl!" she wailed. "Anwl,Anwl! Seven year since I set eyes on 'im, an' thenhe did hit me a clout and went foreign—drinkin' he'dbeen... Dhu! Dhu! And me his mother."

The registrar entered the squalid room, drew achair up beside the old woman, and, sitting down,prepared to enjoy himself.

"The Ard-miralty," he began sonorously, unfoldingthe telegram and clearing his throat; "theArd-miralty, look you, gives me authority to pay yourfare to the East Coast of England so's you can bepresent at the funeral, Mrs. Jones." Then, his voicerising to the triumphal mournful "hoeul"* of theWelsh preacher, he added, "Are not two sparrowssold for one farthing——!"

* A sort of sing-song chanty.

The old woman ceased to rock herself to and fro.Her head emerged from under her apron.

"Maggie Ann!" she cried shrilly.

A slovenly girl, with a sallow face, and masses ofuntidy hair twisted up in curl papers, crossed theyard at the back, and stood in the doorway.

"Get you out my black dress an' my red flannelpetticoat, Maggie Ann."

The registrar eyed the girl sternly. "Have yougot a black dress too?" he inquired.

"I have indeed," replied Maggie Ann simply."In the pawnshop, it is."

The registrar consulted the telegram as if itcontained directions as to the method of redeemingarticles from pawn.

"I am authorised by the Ard-miralty to issue twotickets to the next of kin of the deceased." He clearedhis throat and contemplated Maggie Ann. "I amprepared to give you one so's you can go to thefuneral too."

"There's my married sister," said Maggie Annreflectively, "with a black dress as would fit me——"

"Get it you from her," commanded the registrarmajestically. "An' be at the station at 4 o'clock. Iwill find a train for you." His manner suggested thattrains were things that took even a man a good dealof finding.

He was as good as his word, however. The twoquaint figures clad in rusty black, voluble and breathlesswith the enormity of this adventure, were bundledinto a third-class carriage. The registrar handed theelder woman a sheet of directions, and, being akindly-hearted man, he pressed five shillings into the palmof Maggie Ann's black-cotton-gloved hand. Thenhe spoke magnificently to the guard—as one brass-boundofficial to another—and with a wide gesture offarewell that was partly a military salute and partlya parochial benediction he turned on his heel.

The train slowly gathered speed, and the twowomen sat staring out of the window as if they werehypnotised. Then Maggie Ann opened her clenchedpalm and displayed the two half-crowns which sheheld together with the tickets.

"Did 'e give 'em to you?"

"Aye," said Maggie Ann.

"Well, well! Who'd ha' thought it?" said hermother. "Put 'em somewhere safe, Maggie Ann,for fear of robbers." They had the carriage tothemselves, and Maggie Ann obeyed her motheraccordingly.

Then whispering together in the vernacular, afterthe manner of the Welsh, crying a little from timeto time to keep one another company, and sustainedthroughout the long journey by peppermint drops ofamazing pungency, they were whirled out of the landof their fathers into the unknown.

Among the passengers who shared their carriagelater on was a dignified, elderly lady, withsilver-white hair and a face of a singular, though rathersad, sweetness of expression. She was dressed indeep black, and listened intently as the old womantold her story for the benefit of their fellowpassengers. She did not smile, as did the others, whenMaggie Ann of the reddened eyes and nose, withwisps of untidy hair protruding from under hermarried sister's hat, was bidden to display the ticketsin token of an Empire's solicitude for the women ofthe humblest of her sons.

"You are lucky," she said gently. "You canat least bury your dead. That was denied me. I lostmy first-born in that battle too. He was a sailor likeyour son was."

They reached Paddington as the dusk was falling,and in the vast echoing dimness of the station theimmensity of the unknown descended upon the twoWelsh women, as they stood bewildered upon theplatform among the jostling throng of passengers.

"Find a policeman, Maggie Ann," said the elderwoman, consulting the sheet of directions given herby the registrar. "An' ask 'im where to find a tidyli'l' public-'ouse where we can stop the night."

But before Maggie Ann could invoke the aid ofthe law in quest of lodgings, the grey-haired lady whohad spoken to them in the train again approachedthe pair.

"My car is waiting," she said. "Will you bothcome home with me for the night? I have a bighouse and a very empty one; there is room for youboth. Cook will give you breakfast early, and youcan start for the East Coast to-morrow morning ingood time for the funeral."

"Well, indeed to goodness!" said Mrs. Jones,and suffered herself to be led to a waiting car in which,to the visible astonishment of an elderly chauffeur,she and Maggie Ann were placed. "There's kindyou are, Mum."

"Not at all," said the grey-haired lady as the carstarted. "I have very few servants now, and thereare plenty of spare servants' rooms. I am gratefulto Providence for bringing us together into the samerailway carriage," she continued simply. "I—I amso glad to be able to help"—her hands twistedtogether on her lap with a little nervous, ratherpathetic gesture—"another mother."

The visitors supped in a vast spotless servants'hall, where the floor was of polished linoleum in blackand white squares, and the electric light shone downon burnished copper pans and scoured woodwork.

Cook, a stout sentimentalist, afterwards bade theold woman draw a chair to the fire and together theybrewed strong tea.

"I've buried two husbands," she said, "but nevera bairn have I borne. I don't know but what you'reto be envied, Mrs. Jones. Her ladyship, she gaveher only son, same's what you did, and her heart isbroken. But she holds her head the prouder'There's worse things than dyin' for the right,' shesez." Cook dabbed at her eyes with a hugepocket-handkerchief.

Janet, the trim housemaid, was interested in theNavy for personal reasons in which a good-lookingsignalman "on Jellicoe's boat" played a considerablepart. She it was, early the following morning, whotook Maggie Ann in hand. "Did you ever see suchhair wasted?" she said, contemplating Maggie Ann'shoney-coloured tangled thatch. "Even if you aregoing to your brother's funeral..." and bade hercomb it, and dressed it with such cunning that thepale slatternly girl stood silent, staring before themirror. The generous enthusiasm of the woman whois fond of her sex seized Janet. "Here," she said."Put this blouse on; it's one her ladyship gave me.I don't want it. And see if these boots will fityou.... Oh! what stockings—wait a minute." Drawerswere rummaged, bits of lace and crape unearthed,the married sister's hat was pounced upon and underwenta swift metamorphosis in Janet's nimble fingers."There!" she said at length. "Why, I believeyou're pretty!" Maggie Ann turned from the glasswith her hazel eyes aglow, and a faint colourcreeping towards the cheek bones set wide apart in herpale face.

2

Towards dawn a British Destroyer limped into thelittle harbour embraced by one flank of the headlandwhere the coastguard station stood.

One of the blades of the Destroyer's propellerwas missing, and the "A" bracket, designed tosupport the shaft, threatened to decline any furtherresponsibility in the matter.

The Destroyer had sighted an enemy submarineon the surface at close quarters during the night. Thesubmarine had dived with commendable promptitude,but not quite fast enough to avoid the nimblymanœuvred Destroyer, who grated over her outerskin at thirty knots. The conning tower of thesubmarine, which bumped along the length of theDestroyer's side, was responsible for the disinclinationof the "A" bracket for anything but a merelypassive attitude towards the damaged propeller.

A couple of depth charges accelerated thesubmersion of the submarine considerably, and theDestroyer made for the nearest harbour with leakingstern-glands, and a ship's company uplifted beyondmere jubilation.

The Commanding Officer went ashore to telegraphhis report of the incident, while the Chief ArtificerEngineer and the Blacksmith put their heads togetherover the fractured "A" bracket.

Ashore, the Lieutenant-Commander encounteredthe Chief Officer of the Coastguard.

"Seein' as 'ow you're in the harbour, sir," said theChief Officer, "mebbe you'd like to land a party forthe funeral this afternoon."

His tone was that of a man organising an entertainmentunder difficulties. "This 'ere's a dull 'ole,an' a bit of a show would liven 'em up like."

The Lieutenant, standing on the steps of thetelegraph office, looked up the sleepy street.

"Whose funeral?" he inquired.

"Party o' the name o' Jones," replied the C.O. intones of melancholy enjoyment. "Trimmer, RoyalNaval Reserve, washed ashore near the coastguardstation. Mother attendin' funeral at 2 P.M. If youwas to land a firin' party, an' a bugler, an' mebbehalf a dozen mourners, sir, we could do the thing instyle."

The Lieutenant mused in silence for a while. The"A" bracket would take till five o'clock, and thefuneral was at 2 P.M. "I can't guarantee themourners," he said, "but you can have the firing partyand the bugler. And if any of the men wish to attendas mourners, I'll give them leave."

"Thank you, sir," said the Chief Officer. "TheBoy Scouts from 'ere is turning out, and the firemenfrom Nordbury, an' the lifeboat's crew. They was allfor 'avin' a collection afterwards in aid of theinstitootion. But I sez to them——"

The Lieutenant-Commander had sighted a pinkparasol, shading a white muslin dress above neatankles, that emerged from a shop farther down thestreet. If he walked quickly enough he ought to beable to get a glimpse of the face hidden by the parasolby the time he reached the pier, where his gig waswaiting. Two years of war in a Destroyer quickensmasculine interest in such problems. He descendedthe steps hurriedly. "That'll be all right," he said."The party'll be at the landing-place at one-thirty,"and hastened down the street in the wake of the pinkparasol.

Twenty minutes later he was climbing on board hisDestroyer.

"Mr. Foulkes," he said to the Gunner, "I wantyou to take a firing party of eight men and a bugler,to attend the funeral of an R.N.R. trimmer who'sbeing buried ashore this afternoon at 2 P.M. Betterrun them through the manual before they land. Andif any of the port watch want to attend as mournersthey can have leave. Some of the stokers may liketo go."

The Torpedo Coxswain who had overheard theconversation went forward to herald the tidings alongthe Mess deck. "Blime!" said a bearded seamanecstatically, when he heard the intelligence, "first wesinks a perishin' submarine, an' then strike me giddyif the bloke don't lush us up to a funeral ashore! Ireckon that's actin' proper 'andsome."

At 1 P.M. the funeral party fell in on the upperdeck; the brown-gaitered firing party, with rifles andbandoliers, and an attendant bugler, were given finalinjunctions by the Gunner.

"Don't forget now, when we arrives at themortuary, dead-'ouse or what-not, the firing party willrest on their arms reversed, the muzzle of the rifleplaced on the toe of the right boot, 'ands resting onthe butt, chins sunk upon the breast, at the same timeassumin' an aspec' cheerful but subdued."

The Lieutenant-Commander arrived on deck andinterrupted the oration.

"What's that brigade fallen in forward there,Mr. Foulkes?" he inquired. "We aren't giving generalleave."

"Them's the mourners, sir," said the Gunner,sternly surveying the crape-swathed ranks, who, afterthe fashion of sailors when about to go ashore, werepreening themselves and squaring off each other'sblue-jean collars.

"Mourners, 'shun!"

The mourners sprang to attention and gazedsolemnly into vacancy.

"How many of the port watch are landing,in the name of mercy?" asked the CommandingOfficer.

"The 'ole lot, sir," said the Gunner, "bein' wishfulto pay respec' to the dead."

The third volley rang out across the quiet churchyardthat was the last resting-place of R.N.R. (T.) 1347.

The bolts of the rifles rattled and snapped as thefiring party unloaded; the last empty cartridge casefell to the ground with a little tinkling sound, and thebugler raised his bugle to send the thin sweet notes of"The Last Post" out into the stillness of the afternoon,speeding the fighting soul upon its finaljourney.

Its last unfinished note died away, and there was amoment's utter silence. A hoarse word of command,followed by the grounding of rifle-butts, succeeded thestillness, and the firing party swung off down the hillwith the air of men who had handled a dramaticsituation without discredit.

The mourners, at the invitation of the Chief Officerof the Coastguard—who held that a thing worth doingat all was worth doing properly—repaired to theCoastguard Station to partake of a cup of tea.

Here as many as could crowd into the little housewere introduced, in a congenial atmosphere of tears,hot tea and peppermint, to the mother and sister ofR.N.R. (T.) 1347.

"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Jones in a gratified asideto Maggie Ann, "to think Albert Edward had somany friends! There's fine young fellows too."

The mourners, not one of whom had ever set eyeson Albert Edward in their lives, acted to this cue withthe inevitable instinct of the sailor for the rôle requiredof him.

When, reluctantly, they departed, shepherdedback to the boat by the Torpedo Coxswain,Maggie Ann stood at the little gate leading to thecabbage patch, and gazed after them with swimmingeyes.

"There's kind they are," she murmured, "grand,strong men an' all..." and thrust a crumpled twistof paper one had given her, bearing his name andaddress, into the bosom of her dress.

A week later the Commanding Officer of theDestroyer, in the exercise of his duties as censor ofthe ship's company's letters, came across thefollowing epistle:

"DEAR Miss JONES,—Hoping this finds you as itleaves me in the pink, thank God. I take up my pento write you these few lines dear Miss Jones, it givesme much pleasure to write to you as promised afteryour brother's funeral which I hope you will find timeto write me a few lines as I am a very lonely sailor.Being an norfun and no incumbrances whatsoeverdear Miss Jones I now draw to a close with bestrespects and plese write soon.

"from your sincere friend,
"JOE WALSH, able seaman.

"P.S.—I enclose postle order for £1 so plese don'tbe offended, excuse me, hoping you will buy somelittle present for yourself."

The Lieutenant-Commander restored the documentto its envelope. "Thank God I was taught young toaccept responsibility," he said. He picked up thecensor stamp, pressed it fervently on the envelope,and sent the letter on its way.

VIII

THE EPITAPH

(1919)

It stood in the darkest corner of a West End antiquefurniture dealer's shop.

"That?" The proprietor echoed my inquiry.

"Yes, it's one of the desks out of the old Britannia.Came out of the studies where the cadets weregiven instruction on board. I acquired it when theship was broken up." He eyed me thoughtfullythrough his spectacles, and passed three fingers roundthin, clean-shaven lips. "Valueless intrinsically, ofcourse. But it struck me it might have sentimentalassociations for some: possibly historic associationsin years to come. Generations of cadets have carvedand scratched their names all over it. This was oneof the few remaining. Nearly all the others had beenbroken up for firewood—it's only deal."

Together we dragged the relic into the light ofday. "You see?" he said, and switched a dusterover the varnished sloping surface. One glancesufficed.

"Yes," I replied, "I see.... I'll take the desk.I'll take it now if you can get me a taxi."

"Thank you," he said.

"Thank you," said I.

* * * * * *

The fashionable epidemic prevailing at the timewas mumps. The stricken and the suspect were herdedin separate enclosures between decks, segregated bycanvas screens hung from the beams overhead to thedeck. The migratory mump germs probably foundthe canvas screens less of an obstacle to freedom thantheir victims, and to these, doomed to the confines ofa hammock, the time passed with leaden slowness.Even the novelty of contemplating in a mirror theunfamiliar distortion of one's jowl palled after a bit."Dracula," a much-thumbed and germ-impregnatedvolume, circulated from hammock to hammock untileven Bram Stoker's vampires failed to stir the pulse.Meals, reduced to proportions in themselves aninsult, did little to break the monotony, and the hourarrived when Satan, on the look-out for idle hands,must have found his task what a later generationwould have called a "cinch."

It was the custom, when visitations of this naturedescended upon the cadets, for a sick-berth stewardto be banished into exile with the stricken. The jobcan have been no sinecure, although germs ignoredthe individual in question with as great indifferenceas bees display towards an apiarist. Frequentsojourns in the camps of the afflicted had soured thetemper of this sick-berth steward and warped a naturethat can at no time have been a sunny one. As aministering angel his appearance was not æsthetic;he was a ponderous fellow, with a neck that ran tocreases at the back and appeared to undulateimperceptibly into his bullet head. In fact, it wasdifficult to say where neck ended and head began. Hiseyes were small and furtive; his nose a button;Nature, in a well-meaning attempt to balance matters,had given him enormous ears set at right angles tohis head. It was this peculiarity that earned him thetitle of "Windsails," a name by which he wasuniversally known among the cadets, and to which,curiously enough, he answered without resentment.

Now, it happened that one of the victims of themump scourge was a certain cadet whom, for purposesof this reminiscence, we will call Day. Asevents transpired, he was not long destined to wearthe King's uniform, but passed a few years afterwardsto a walk of life whose ethics obeyed a lesstrammelled code than that of the Royal Navy.

In worldly knowledge, ingenuity of mind, andhumour of a certain standard, he was far in advanceof his years. Possessed of a cold-blooded courage,utterly indifferent to consequences, he was anunfaltering ringleader in a "rux." In fact, it was thislast quality that made for such popularity as hecommanded. No one really liked him, but there werea good many who held him in half-grudging admiration,and so passed under an influence not whollyto the good, but dominated by his personality andcontrolled by a glib and bitter tongue.

Boredom hit him harder than the more placidtemperaments; they might be provoked to mischiefthereby, but in the soul of Day it roused a very devilof perversity. Finally, one evening when the slenderevidences of the last meal had been removed, and lifebecame a blank without outlook or hope, Daybroached his scheme to half a dozen of his languidfellow-patients who lounged round the open gun-portwatching the afterglow dying in the western sky.

"I vote we cut Windsails down when he's snoringin his hammock to-night," he said in his slow,meditative drawl. Windsails slept at night in a hammockslung a little forward of his charges, and the soundof his snoring compared favourably with what onecan imagine of the roaring of the Bulls of Bashan.

There was an aghast silence. The very tone inwhich Day propounded such a stupendous outragewas sufficient in itself to compel their admiration.

"I can reach the foot of his hammock lanyardwhere it's made fast to the beam, from my hammock,"he went on, with a thoughtful smile on his thin lips."I can reach it with my razor." It was in keepingwith other characteristics that he should possess arazor, although the need for it was not apparent onhis smooth cheeks.

"We shall all be run in," objected a faint-heart."Heaven only knows what we'd get for cutting downa sick-berth steward. A 'bimming,' as likely asnot." Perhaps some dim shadow of the Hague Conventionfloated through the speaker's mind.

Day eyed him contemptuously. "Why shouldanyone be run in? He'd never suspect. They'dthink his lanyard broke 'cos it was rotten.Windsails weighs about a ton."

"But suppose they ask us point-blank if we knowanything about it?"

"Why, then we should have to tell a lie—a thunderingbig one—and stick to it." He mused with hisagate-coloured eyes on the far-off hills turning darkagainst the quiet sky. "'Course, you fellows needn'tknow anything about it. You can shut your eyeswhen you hear Windsails start snoring, and keep'em shut. Then you couldn't actually swear who didit." His smile was, somehow, never quite boyish."D'you see?"

Something like relief spread over the faces of theconspirators. Assuredly this was a master-mind.

"It 'ud have to be done in a wily way," said one,revolving the possibilities of the coup with revivingcourage. Given this loophole for the conscience themonstrous proposal assumed an alluring aspect."Make the lanyard look sort of frayed....Windsails told me there weren't any letters forme yesterday," he added inconsequently, "andthere were two. He was just too jolly lazy toget 'em."

"He found my cigarettes where I'd hidden 'em—inmy boots," supplemented another, "and collared'em. Said I could either give 'em to him or be runin." He brooded darkly. "Serve him jolly wellright!" For the moment he almost persuaded himselfthat the affair was in the nature of a punitivereprisal.

"It's just possible, though," temporised a morelaw-abiding member, "that if no one owns up they'llpunish everybody—I mean everybody who's underthe screen now."

"Ah!" observed Day, "in that case somethingwould have to be done about it."

The evening wore on, and the invalids retiredto their hammocks. Windsails, having concludedthe few simple preliminaries to which he wasaccustomed, turned into his.

"Fuggy beast!" whispered one of the watchfulpartners of this unholy alliance. "He doesn't eventake his socks off!"

One by one the law-abiding occupants of thehammocks dropped off to sleep; but, as the sound oftheir even breathing swelled and the minutes passed,the wakefulness of the conspirators increased. WouldWindsails ever start snoring? What was Day doing?Did it hurt much to be cut down? Supposinghe died ... broke his neck?

Then, faint at first, gathering volume and strengthevery moment, began the rumbling, stertorouseruption of sound that proclaimed the reception ofWindsails into the arms of Morpheus.

If he died, would it be murder? ... Accessoriesbefore the fact.... Of course, as long as one keptone's eyes tightly shut.... What was Day doing?Why didn't he get it over? Keeping everyone ontenterhooks——

There was a soft, almost noiseless chuckle. Thatwas Day. Of course the situation would appeal tohim; he knew no one dared open his eyes.

Crash! Then utter silence.

Ten throbbing seconds passed—twenty. Still nosound. He must be dead!—no need to pretend anylonger. Half a dozen heads emerged fromblankets—craned; jaws dropped, hearts beat suffocatingly.But the huddled figure on the deck made nomovement; it remained in the light of thepolice-lantern a confused heap of blankets and muffledhumanity that presently emitted a groan—and thenanother.

No one dared move; blanched faces stared downover the edges of the canvas hammocks; visionsof disgrace, expulsion—worse, the felon's dockand hangman's noose, came clustering out of theshadows.

And then Day snored.

It was not a loud snore; nothing overdone orinartistic. Just the heavy, regular breathing of aninnocent and tired boy asleep. That fellow had nervesof steel! Endurance, pent in frailer vessels, had justreached its limits when the huddled figure on the deckstirred, rolled out of its blankets, and, with anothergroan, rose to his feet. Day's solitary breathingbecame a chorus of snores, impassioned in theirrealism.

Windsails stood motionless, contemplating amassive bollard adjoining the ruins of his bed.

"That's what winded me," he said with the airof one who had solved a problem of some complexity.He must have come in contact with it as he fell.Then, slowly and deliberately he bent down, pickedup the severed hammock lanyard and scrutinised itin the lantern light. In silence he made the end fastto the beam again, readjusted his blankets, andclimbed ponderously into the hammock.

"Snore away!" he observed with vicious calm."But there's some of you as will answer for this!"

There was in the captain's face that blend ofsternness and faint surprise with which he alwaysconfronted malefactors. In this case there werearraigned before him all the recent inmates of thequarantine quarters.

"It is incredible to me," he was saying, "that anyofficer—any young gentleman about to become anaval officer—should so far forget himself as toperpetrate this outrage. I have personally examined thehammock lanyard, and there is no doubt in my mindwhatever that it was cut—cut by a sharp knife. Therewas no one under the screen at the time with theexception of you young gentlemen." He paused andallowed his grave, handsome eyes to travel over theirhaggard faces. "I expect the cadet who did it to stepforward and own up honourably."

No one moved. There was a pause. "I shallgive you all three minutes to think it over,"continued the captain, "and if at the end of that timeno one has come forward, the whole lot will doinstruction on board every half-holiday for the rest ofthe term." The captain drew out a gold watch,glanced at it, and closed it with a little snap. As ifdismissing the whole business from his mind, heturned and began conversing with the commander ininaudible undertones. Finally, he drew forth thewatch again and turned towards the cadets.

"You have fifteen seconds..." he said, paused,and closed the watch for the last time. Turningtowards the commander, he nodded. "Dismiss thecadets."

On the desk in front of each cadet was a litterof foolscap covered with ladders of bewilderingcalculations whereby seamen, incrediblyenough, ascertained the position of their ships atnoon.

It was a laborious task, exacting and uninterestingduring legitimate school hours; as an occupationfor a half-holiday in June, with the warm air blowingthrough the open ports the scent of hay and Devonmoorland, it was loathsome. One of the toilers,having finally placed his ship securely in the centreof Radnorshire, laid down his pen, thrust his thumbsinto his "beckets" and gave himself up to vengefulbrooding. The breeze brought visions of the playingfields and practice at the nets, with a lemon-squashto follow ... and a strawberry ice.... Oh, curseDay! Why couldn't he own up and take his hidinglike a man? What was the use of his declaringthat the lanyard really broke of its own accord?That he never touched it! As if anybody believedhim after all he said the evening before ithappened.

He glanced across the study with furtive dislikeat the author of all this misery. It was hard to believethat he had really done it to look at him now. Dayhad finished his task (he was extraordinarily quick atfigures) and was leaning back in his seat with hislips pursed up in a soundless whistle, staring at theflies on the ceiling with a sort of far-away smile inhis eyes. Of course he had done it! Didn't thecaptain as good as say he'd done it? He wasdoubtless planning some fresh devilment.

His dislike of Day crystallised to hatred. He hadrather admired him before all this took place;admired his cool impudence, his quick tongue, hissuperlative cleverness at games. Now he hated him,and wanted to do something that would proclaim hisfeelings to the Universe.... Perpetuate—— Anidea smote him and his face brightened.

With the aid of a book of logarithmic tables andan instrument box he built up a not too obviousbarricade screening him from casual observation.Then, drawing a knife from his pocket, he cleared alittle space on his desk and set to work, whittlingunobtrusively. In a quarter of an hour it was done,and with ink and spittle the newly-cut wood anointedto a semblance of age. Feeling better, he resumedhis navigation.

* * * * * *

The daylight had gone from the outside world andthere was only firelight in the room. The little deskI had bought earlier in the day still stood in thecorner where I had deposited it, and as I layhalf-dozing in the saddlebag chair, the mocking flamesplayed strange tricks. It seemed as if another figurewere in the room—a restless, uneasy shadow amongthe shadows, and ever and again it seemed to hoverround the desk. I lay with my eyes half closed,identifying one by one the familiar objects of theroom, and gradually the presence of this shadowpuzzled me to wakefulness. The poker, left carelesslybetween the bars of the grate, dropped a few inches,and the handle struck the fender with a little rattle.The fire spluttered and flared brightly, so that I sawthe figure by the desk distinctly. It was a tall, gauntman in a uniform I didn't recognise for the moment—aragged, mud-stained jacket and baggy trousers.Then I remembered seeing a regiment of them on themarch once near Algiers. It was the uniform of theForeign Legion.

The figure was bending over the desk tracingsomething on it with a lean forefinger.

I sat upright, and as I moved the tall man turnedhis face towards me. There was a grimy stainedbandage round his head, and it was twenty yearssince I had seen him, but I recognised the queer paleeyes and thin lips.

"Day!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," he said. It gave me an inexplicable shiverdown the back to hear him speak. "But I didn't doit. I didn't cut Windsails down." He fingered thesurface of the desk like a lost soul feeling for thelatch of Heaven's gate.

"I meant to do it," he went on, "and I hadmy razor ready. I was going to keep you all insuspense for a bit. And then, suddenly, beforeI touched it, the lanyard broke. I thinkWindsails cut off the frayed ends afterwards. Hehated us all."

There was a dark stain on the left breast of Day'sjacket that seemed to be spreading slowly.

"I came back to tell you," he said, his voicesounding faint and far away. "I don't care what theothers think. But this——" Again he fingered thedesk.

Within reach of my hand was an electric desklamp, one of those portable things with a switch atthe base. I reached out and turned it on, floodingthe room with light.

The desk was there all right, but I was alone.

Carrying the lamp in my hand, I rose and crossedover to examine my purchase again. Yes, there werethe words, crossed and recrossed by faintly scratchednames and dates, covered by successive layers ofvarnish, but still plain to read, deep carven in thewood:

DAY IS A SCAB

The room was half full of smoke when I hadfinished, and the acrid smell of burning presentlybrought an alarmed housemaid to the threshold.

"It's nothing," I reassured her. "I was onlydoing a little poker-work on this desk." I replacedthe fireiron in the fender, and opened the window tolet the smoke out as the maid withdrew.

An uneasy wind was fretting the invisiblerhododendrons with the threat of rain on the morrow.

"I'm sorry, Day," I said to the darkened universe."But it's all right now. I've burnt it out."

IX

THE ENGLISH WAY

(1917)

1

The Quartermaster of the Watch pushed aside thetarpaulin cover to the Wardroom hatchway andwhistled softly through his teeth. "Mail," he saidto the Officers' Steward, who stepped out of thediminutive pantry in answer to the summons, and,bending down, thrust a bundle of sodden envelopesinto the outstretched hand. It was snowing hard,and the whaler that brought off the Destroyer'sChristmas mail had shipped sufficient water to callfor a muttered protest from beneath the sou'-westerof the stroke oar.

"I don' mind wettin' my blinking shirt," hemuttered, as he tugged at the oar, "not so long aswe brings 'ope 'an' comfort. But if them perishin'mail-bags is goin' to sit in a pool o' water—what the'ell's the use? No one can't read a letter wot's binsoaked in the Norf Sea for a hour!" The whaler'screw murmured concurrence.

The Coxswain, nursing the mail-bags on his kneewith a hand on each and his elbow on the tiller, badethe crew chuck their weight into their oars and mindtheir ensanguined business—what time he, theCoxswain, would mind his. This admirably adjusteddivision of labour brought them eventually alongside,and the mail inboard.

The Surgeon Probationer, whose body was buriedin the depths of a wicker arm-chair (with theexception of his feet, which were on top of thestove; and his heart, which was in thekeeping of the "Wren" driver of an Admiraltycar), heard the whaler come alongside and wasat the bottom of the hatchway as soon as thesteward.

"Gimme the ruddy things," he muttered,hungrily, and awoke the partially gassed inmates ofthe Wardroom with a joyous whoop.

"Mail!" he shouted, and dealt the moist envelopesinto the laps of the recumbent figures sleepingoff the effects of a Christmas luncheon in variousattitudes of statuesque abandon.

The Mess awoke bleary-eyed, and fumbled withits correspondence. One by one the forms satupright; grunts were succeeded by articulate expressionsof approval. The Lieutenant (E), who sat nearestthe bell, rose to his feet and pressed it fervently.Then he sat down again, ordered a drink, and slitopen the first of four fat envelopes. It was from afavourite sister, ætat fourteen, who, having made upher feminine mind that Sir David Beatty's positionin the naval cosmos was one that her brother wouldfill with more picturesque and efficient completeness,speedily surrounded that officer in a comfortableaura of giggling self-complacency.

The Midshipman R.N.R. burst open a bulgingenvelope and stepped straightway on to a magiccarpet, which wafted him out of the steel shell of aDestroyer's Wardroom into a Berkshire vicarage.

The Sub sat on the settee with his legs in heavyleather sea-boots and his elbows on his knees readinga letter from a farm in Northamptonshire. Thewriter of the letter had spent the morning cleaningout a byre, and the early part of the afternoon sortingpotatoes. She had then bathed and sat down inher prettiest crêpe-de-chine kimono and a mingledfragrance of China tea and bath salts to thecomposition of a letter that spread a slowly wideninggrin of ecstasy across the weather-beaten features ofthe recipient, who had almost forgotten what awoman's voice sounded like.

The clouds of tobacco-smoke curled to and fro inthe close atmosphere of the Destroyer's Wardroom,and the silence—save for the rustle of a quickly-turnedpage or the snicker of a knife opening a freshenvelope—was profound. Then the SurgeonProbationer chuckled hoarsely. It was a profane soundand passed unnoticed; but presently he bent forwardand thrust a gaudy strip of pasteboard beneath thenose of the enraptured Sub-Lieutenant.

"Call that nuffin'?" he queried, coarsely.

The Sub detached his soul with difficulty fromthe seventh heaven, and considered a highly-colouredrepresentation of a robin upon a snowybackground, and the legend "Peace on earth andgoodwill among men" picked out in frosted lettersagainst a border of holly leaves.

"'Snice, ain't it?" said the Surgeon Probationer.

"Fair bit of all-right," said the Sub,good-humouredly, and resumed page seven of the closelyscribbled sheet:

"I am writing this by the firelight, and if onlyyou were here we'd draw up our chairs close andp'r'aps——"

"My Aunt Agatha sent it to me," continued thevoice of the importunist. "Read what's written onthe back."

The Sub, who was what is called a good mess-mate,turned the pasteboard over rather absent-mindedly.

"Love your enemies," was written in angularspidery handwriting across the inoffensive surfaceof the card. The Sub was twenty, but he had knownfour years of warfare against the Powers of Evil,which we call Germany for short.

"Any relation of Lansdowne or Ramsay Macdonald,your Aunt Agatha?" he inquired, and tossedthe card back, to return instantly to a firelit twilightand "p'r'aps."

The Surgeon looked round the Mess in search ofa fresh confidant. The First Lieutenant sat hunchedup on his right, holding a bunch of sheets of paperclenched in his hand, and staring at the stove withunseeing eyes.

"Here, Number One," said Aunt Agatha'snephew, and smote his neighbour on the knee."You look as if you wanted brightening up. Readthat, my lad! Both sides. Every picture tells astory."

The Lieutenant turned eyes like those of a startledhorse upon the speaker.

"Eh?" he said. He, too, had come back a longway to answer a living voice.

"Read that, my pippin."

The Lieutenant read obediently, turning the cardbackwards and forwards in his fingers as if lookingfor something that wasn't there. The crumpledsheets of his letter dropped to the deck and layunheeded.

Then abruptly he laughed; it was not a laughcommon to Englishmen, and so disconcerting was thesound that two or three faces lifted from thepreoccupation of letter or illustrated paper, and tranquileyes stared curiously.

"My God!" said the First Lieutenant. "That'sthe best joke—the best joke——" His voice droppedlow. He handed back the Christmas-card andfumbled blindly for the fallen sheets of hisletter. One by one he straightened them onhis knees, smoothing out the creases mechanically.

"The best joke——" He rose to his feet withsomething in his white face that jerked the medicalman instantly upright beside him.

"Sit down," said the First Lieutenant, and therewas a note in his voice the Doctor obeyed, becauseit was something he was still young enough toacknowledge. "Listen," said the Lieutenant, inhard, dry tones. "You've got to share this—you'veall got to share this." Papers rustled and every eyewas on the speaker. "It's—it's too good to keep tooneself. My brother"—he made a little gesture withthe letter in his hand—"my brother was wounded—brokenthigh—twenty miles behind the line in a basehospital—the Huns bombed it in broad daylight, withthe Red Cross flying on every flagstaff and paintedon every roof—bombed it in cold blood, and killedthirty-four wounded officers and men and twoV.A.D.'s. They killed my brother, and theykilled——" He thrust the letter into the limp hands ofthe Surgeon Probationer. "You gave me somethingto read just now. Read that! They killed thewhitest woman—she was trying to save him—withthe Red Cross on her breast—and his thigh broken.Goodwill among men! Love your enemies! Loveyour——"

The Gunner came across the mess with his heavytread, his stolid face full of concern.

"No offence, I'm sure, sir," he said, glancing atthe Surgeon. "Mr. Dantham didn't know—howcould he? Nor yet his aunt——"

The tragedy of one is the tragedy of all in acommunity as small and as intimate as a DestroyerWardroom; but the innate sense of justice in the Briton'sheart found expression in the Gunner's inarticulatesympathy. He held no brief for the Hun, but hewas the champion of the shocked Surgeon and AuntAgatha for all her pacifist leanings.

The Surgeon sat with the unread letter in hishands staring up at the First Lieutenant.

"Oh!" he said. "Oh, the swine." A growl ofconfirmation ran round the Mess, but no oneaddressed the First Lieutenant direct.

"Yes," he said. "Bestial swine. Brutal, bestialswine. If he'd been killed by the shell that broke hisleg I wouldn't have minded. That would have beenfair fight; and she—if it had been septic poisoning ordisease; those are the risks all nurses run: theenemies they face and fight all day and night. Butthis!" He spoke in low, measured tones. "If Iever get to grips with a Hun after this——" Themask of icy self-control slipped for a moment fromhis face. His features worked and his hands madea movement somehow suggestive and brutal.

"Best have a drink," said the Gunner, soothingly,and as he spoke there was a trampling of men's feetoverhead, muffled by the snow on the thin plating.The Quartermaster's pipe rippled and shrilled, to besucceeded by a hoarse sing-song bellow. "Boot andsaddle" sounded in a cavalry barracks never stirredthe stables as that rush of unseen feet overhead,breaking the peace of a Christmas afternoon inharbour, galvanised the Wardroom into suddenactivity.

"Stand by to slip from the buoy," said theGunner, and made for the hatchway. But the FirstLieutenant was before him, bareheaded, cramminghis Christmas mail into his pocket as he swunghimself up the iron rungs of the ladder.

2

The Commander, who had been standing peeringthrough his glasses for the last five minutes, loweredthem suddenly and glanced at the chart clamped onthe bracket beside him.

His First Lieutenant continued to stare acrossthe grey sea to the north-west. Day was dawning,and the spray, flung from the reeling bows of theDestroyer, was like a frozen whip-lash on their faces."Yes, that's them," he said, in a grimlyungrammatical undertone. To the naked eye nothing wasvisible above the ragged skyline, but every man onthe bridge was standing gazing intently in the samedirection, as if the wind carried with it the scent ofthe quarry they sought.

The Commander gave an order to the Signalmanstanding attentive beside the daylight searchlight,and immediately the shutters broke into a chattering"View halloa!"

A blink answered on the instant, where, twocables astern, the second boat in the line followed inthe heaving wake. Out of the faint haze of smokethat almost screened the rest of the division fromview, one after the other the answers flickered, andthen the leader spoke. The lights all blinked backtogether.

"Signal passed, sir!" said the Yeoman.

"Right," replied the Commander. He bent overthe chart again for an instant, and straightening,gave an order to the wheel.

The leader's bows leaped at a charging sea, roseshuddering, and fell away from the wind a couple ofpoints; the drone of the turbines below took on adifferent, higher note. The Commander turned andglanced along the upper deck with a little grim smileabove the turns of his worsted muffler. TheDestroyer was stripped for the fight, and at themid-ship and after guns the crews were blowing on theirhands and jesting amongst themselves. The Gunnersat astride the torpedo tube glancing along the sightsas the twin tubes trained slowly round like ponderousaccusing fingers.

"Your brother ain't going to be long unavenged,"said the Commander to his First Lieutenant, as thelatter climbed into the fire-control position. "We'vecaught this party cold!"

The First Lieutenant nodded, unsmiling, as heturned away.

"We'll sink the lot," he said. "But that's toogood a death for a Hun. The sea's too clean todrown 'em in. I'd——" He checked the sentenceand busied himself about his fire-control instruments.

Then out of the north-west came a stutter of light.It winked suspiciously, and the Commander laughed,with his hand on the fire-gong key.

"There's my answer, Fritz," he said, and beforethe words were out of his mouth the foremost gunopened fire. "You're dev'lish good at raidingmerchant convoys—let's see how you take a hiding." Theacrid cordite smoke, as his guns gave reply tothe German challenge, caught him in the throat, andhis words ended in a cough.

The German Destroyers turned for home, heldtheir course for eight bitter minutes, steaminghell-for-leather and husbanding their ammunition. Theirinstructions were peculiar, inasmuch as they wereordered to return at all costs to their base. Indestroyer warfare the nation that holds command of theseas can afford to omit this bitter clause from itslight-craft's sailing orders; but an Admiralty thatknows it can send nothing to the succour of itsdisabled adventurers perforce plays for safety.

The German flotilla leader, bending over hischart and stop-watch, deluged with spray from fallingprojectiles, made a rapid mental calculation andrealised that this was no tip-and-run business. He hadplayed that game twice and brought it off, and playedit once too often. In golfing parlance, of which hewas entirely ignorant, he was stymied.

He laid a smoke-screen, and turned under coverof it, avoided a long-distance torpedo by six feet, andapplied himself to the voice-pipe connecting him withthe engine-room. What he said to the blond perspiringengineer at the other end does not concern thisstory, because a "browning" salvo at four miles'range struck his quivering fugitive command amidships,and beat her into a flaming, smoking welterof flying fragments and spouting foam.

His opponent saw things appearing above thesmear of that hasty smoke-screen, things that leapedinto view against the grey sky and descended againinto invisibility. He lowered his glasses, glancedgrinning at his First Lieutenant, and gave anotherorder to the Quartermaster at the wheel.

But the Quartermaster was seized with a suddenpreoccupation. He was leaning back against astanchion with the broken spokes of the wheel still inhis hands, looking with stupefied amazement at thepulsating jet squirting from his thigh.

"Hand steering-gear!" bawled the Commander,striving to dominate the din of the action with amechanical shout. He jumped the body of the Yeomanof Signals, sprawled bloodily across the head ofthe ladder, and stumbled blindly down the ironrungs.

"Give 'em hell, Number One!" he shouted, andcaught a glimpse of his Second-in-Command's headand shoulders above the rent and tattered splinter-mats."The blighters have got our range," he muttered,and as he reached the upper deck he sawanother torpedo hurtle from the tube and vanish ina cloud of spray.

"Keep it going, boys!" he shouted, as he passedthe midship gun. "Give it to 'em hot and strong!"

The gun-layer turned from the eye-piece as hepassed and grinned as the smoking breech clangedopen. His jumper and jersey were rent fromshoulder to hip, and he stanched a wound withcotton-waste while the loader slammed a fresh cartridgehome. The Destroyer, temporarily out of control,fell broadside on to the sea; the waves leaped atthem and sluiced knee-deep across the deck ere theCommander reached the after steering position andgot the kicking hand-wheel manned. The windcarried the sound of cheering to the Commander'sears, and he glanced over his shoulder to see therest of the division wheel and go crashing past hisquarter in a cloud of spray and funnel smoke. Thenext astern had taken charge as the leader fell outof line. A burst of shrapnel whipped the after funnelinto a colander, and the Gunner rolled into thescuppers, clutching helplessly at a cleat, and slid intothe embrace of a curling sea that folded its armsabout him and carried him from sight.

The Lieutenant (E) appeared on deck and clawedhis way aft through clouds of steam.

"Main steam-pipe, port engine-room's cut, sir,"he shouted. "Nine knots is the best we'll get out ofher." He stared ruefully to leeward.

The fight had swept away to the south, and thecrippled leader followed, to pass presently across thebattle's trail. Clinging to lifebuoys and scraps ofGerman wreckage were pitiful drenched humanbeings. Hands waved, white faces appeared in thesmooth flanks of the waves or vanished, smothered intheir breaking crests.

The Commander jerked the telegraphs and surveyedhis rolling deck. "Cease fire!" he bawled,satisfied himself that the battered whaler was stillseaworthy, and gave the order, "Away lifeboat'screw!"

They lowered her, manned by men still breathlesswith the exultant flush of battle, some with hastybandages about them, and to and fro they plied amidthat tumbling sea and the unmanned foe calling fordear life at their rough hands. The Destroyer turnedto make a lee, and along her rail the ship's companygathered, with heaving-lines and lifebuoys.

A wave passed surging down the ship's side,carrying on its crest the head and shoulders of a man.His face was ashen grey, and his hands grabbedineffectually at the slipping coils of a rope's end thrownfrom the forecastle. He slid helplessly into thetrough of the sea, his eyes wide and terrified, staringat the rows of faces above him.

"'Ere, Fritz," said a rough voice, "'ang on!"and another rope jerked and fell with a splash besidehim. Again the clutching hands went out, but hisstrength was gone. The white face fell forward—jerkedback, gasping and choking—the hands wentup.

"Gangway, you fools! He'll drown!" Twoable seamen, leaning over the side—one had escapedfrom a German prison camp six months previously,and was enjoying himself—were thrust apart; a burlyfigure in socks, and divested of his reefer jacket,steadied himself with one hand on a davit while hemeasured the distance, and dived.

"Number One!" gasped the incredulous Commander."Don't tell me that's the First Lieutenant?"

"Yessir," said the Wardroom Steward, who hadbeen passing up ammunition, with a cigarette behindhis ear, and a hastily-collected gallery of lady-loves'photographs projecting from his breast-pocket.

"Yessir." Adding, as one in the confidence ofthe Wardroom: "'Im as lost 'is brother, bombed bythem 'Uns. Actin' regardless, you might say."

The First Lieutenant, treading water, was effectinga businesslike bowline under the armpits of thedrowning man, and avoiding his enfeebled embracewith considerable presence of mind.

Finally the two were hauled inboard and theship's company raised a cheer.

"Shut up, will you!" spluttered the First Lieutenant,angrily, wringing the water from his soddennether garments. He avoided the eye of hisCommanding Officer.

The ship's company, under direction of the Surgeon,applied themselves to first aid with all theenthusiasm of victors and amateurs in the gentle artof saving life. The whaler, laden with dazed andbedraggled captives, was pulling wearily up to thequarter, rising and plunging in the steep seas. Thebusiness of the ensuing five minutes brought theCommander and his First Lieutenant face to face.

"Funny little fellow, ain't you?" said the former.

"Bah!" said the Lieutenant. Then added,savagely, "You wait till next time!"

X

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

(1919)

The Light Cruiser that had shortened-in, whosepaying-off pendant hung limp from mainmast-head toquarter-deck, asked permission to proceed.

From her berth in the upper waters of the Firththe Flagship was invisible; but repeating ships anddockyard signal station caught the query, tossed itfrom one to the other till the Flagship had it, and sentthe affirmative signal back to the Light Cruiser as herCaptain stepped up the ladder to the bridge.

He walked to the rail that overlooked the forecastle,caught the eye of the First Lieutenant, andnodded. The latter raised his arm, as one who hadreceived and understood an order. He transmitted itapparently by telepathy, for immediately the lastlengths of cable came grinding through the hawsepipe.

The anchor was weighed, the invisible propellersbegan to eddy the water round the stern, hoists offlags shot from the lockers to the yardarm, said theirsay, and descended in whirls of colour; yet everywherewas the same scrupulous economy of word andgesture. Officers and men were performing atask—that of getting under weigh—so familiar as to bealmost mechanical; yet, conscious that they werecarrying it out together for the last time, gave, as itwere, a little exhibition of supreme competency, eachfor his own soul's private satisfaction.

The Captain, looking down on it all from the altitudeof the bridge, saw that it was good. It was sogood that it gave him a sort of lump in the throat.He knew the Chief Yeoman was watching him,awaiting the word that would send their last signalto the anchored remnant of the fleet ahead. Yet nowit came to the moment, he hated the words thosegaily coloured flags would spell.

"Odd numbered ships and even numbered ships"—thusyou address a fleet—"Good-bye."

He glanced aft and saw the paying-off pendanttake the wind of their passage, unfold its sinuouslength, and float out into the breeze with the gildedbladder dancing lightly in the smoke above theirwake—glanced ahead at their grey "comrades ofthe mist," lying patiently at anchor awaiting thesummons that would bid them also "return in peaceto enjoy the blessings of the land"—glanced finallyat the Chief Yeoman....

They passed a Battleship at a cable's length, atowering mammoth whose superstructures were alivewith men. From somewhere forward a man's voicereached them across the water: "Stand by to givethree cheers.... Hip! Hip! Hip!" and a greatroar of sound breaking like rollers against the hills ofthe South Shore, those misty wooded hills whosesameness they had cursed so often through four yearsof war.

Ship after ship cheered them as they passed. Therows of motionless figures standing stiffly atattention warmed to those cheers. They attributed theirobvious gusto to the proud patches on funnels andside, the little Cruiser's battle scars. They wereconscious of a clean record in the canteen ashore and onthe upland playing-fields, for these things weigh inthe quick reckoning of men's hearts at parting. Butthey were being cheered above all for the paying-offpendant they flew. All the world loves a lover,grateful to this ebullition of nature for reminder andpromise alike. To the sailor, however, there is nofairer sight than a ship with 600 feet of white buntingfloating astern. It may not be his ship, but itreminds him that his turn will come.

A semaphore waved a parting message from abrother Captain: a cryptic jest that wrinkled thecorners of the recipient's eyes; a great man steppedout on to the spacious grandeur of his quarter-deck,and raised his cap with a dignified, half-affectionategesture of farewell.... And then they weresliding under the towering girders of the ForthBridge.

Southward ho! With the threat of a north-easterlygale on the quarter to speed their heels:south and west for a night and a day, pricking offthe familiar names of light vessels amid the steepyellow waves off the east coast; overtaking Channeltraffic creeping out to seas where once more no fearwas; red ensigns and white dipping in salute andacknowledgment; with the land like a grey shadowon the starboard hand; with war a grey shadow onthe memory, fading fast....

Then, at daybreak, chequered forts ahead: cranesand sheerlegs rising out of the mist about the dockyard,distant spires catching the first of the sun.Home!

The Light Cruiser came slowly up harbour in towof her attendant tugs, like a victor being escorted tohis dressing-room by seconds. On all sides syrenshooted vociferously, ships in harbour manned andcheered, and all about the old weather-beaten brickhouses by the water's edge was the flutter of flagsand handkerchiefs: the welcoming cries of womencame faintly across the stream.

By the afternoon the ship was in dock, and neitherin the Wardroom nor on the mess deck did menstand upon the order of their going. "Leave!"was in the air: it was echoed in hammer blows onpacking-cases, in the bumping of portmanteaux asthey were dragged from store-rooms: epitomisedperhaps by the Engineer Commander, who dancedmid plaudits, solemnly and without grace, on theWardroom hearthrug.

Entered the Lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve, andlaid his suit case, rug, and gloves upon the settee.

"Weel," he observed, "I'm awa'." The revolvingfigure stopped in the midst of a gyration; theonlookers stared: smiles somehow evaporated.

"Going, Jock?" said one blankly. "Going!"echoed the rest. It sounded absurd. The Messwithout Jock! The Navy without Jock!

"Aye." The speaker shook hands gravely withthe First Lieutenant. "The war's over.... Ye'llno' want the R.N.R. any longer...." His smilewas a forced one, and a chorus of protests andfarewells drowned his next words. They crowded roundhim, wringing his hand, buffeting his shoulders,recalling in allusions and catchwords the familiarintimacy of all these years of war. By comparisonthe emotions of yesterday's farewells in the Northseemed superficial. They would all meet again,somewhere under the White Ensign.... But Jockwas going; their Jock: dour, tough seaman:incomparable messmate. This was the parting of theways.

"Back to the Mer-r-chant Service—coals an'bananas.... Maybe we'll meet again, though." Hemade for the door, and there turned as if to surveythe mess for the last time. "Eh! But I've had aguid time!" He appeared to search his vocabularyfor adequate emphasis.

"A bluidy guid time," he said, and was gone.

XI

UNTO THE HILLS

(1913)

For two hours the train from Nice had crossed andrecrossed the River Var, as if uncertain which bank itshould pursue. The journey had been punctuated bystoppages at innumerable small stations, apparentlyto enable the engine-driver to discuss politics withthe proprietors of adjacent sawmills. The guard tookno part in these discussions, but remained aloof—albeitwithin earshot—until his confrère on the enginehad scored his point. Then he blew a discordantblast on his horn, the driver climbed triumphantlyback on to his engine, and we jolted on to the nextpolitical tourney-place.

Where the valley widens the line appeared to makeup its mind and to decide definitely for the right bank.The sawmills and patches of Indian corn gave placeto orchards and pretty farms; the mountains on eitherflank of the valley towered to more majestic altitudes.For perhaps the tenth time the brakes screeched,and we came to a standstill beside a deserted platform.

"Touet de Beuil!" said the guard gruffly, cominground to the carriage window. He was a man of fewwords, who appeared content to rely on the trumpetfor any expression of his views or feelings.

"Oui, oui!" he confirmed irritably as I climbedout, slightly incredulous. "C'est ça—Touet deBeuil—V'là!" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder atthe mountains which frowned above us; the hornblared forth a shrill note of defiance, and he swunghimself on to the departing train.

I looked up to where he had indicated, and there,sure enough, perched crazily among pinnacles andbuttresses of rock, was what appeared to be thestronghold of some medieval outlaw. I detected thebrown roofs and quaint gables of a hamlet, apparentlyaccessible to none but the eagles, yet boastingin this land of equality and fraternity a railwaystation of its own.

Footsteps approached me as I stood adjusting thestraps of my knapsack, and one of the inhabitantshurried down the lane on to the platform. Childishthough it may seem, I was frankly disappointed. Thenew arrival was a meek-looking little man dressed inblack, wearing a bowler hat. In one hand he carrieda gingham umbrella, and under his arm a buff-colouredhen of singular imperturbability. Now abrigand may wear a bowler hat; moreover, he maycarry a chicken under his arm, and yet preserve anair of outlawry. But to descend from a mountainfastness that belonged by rights to the sixteenthcentury and brandish an umbrella at a departing trainwas carrying the incongruous a shade too far.

True, he swore roundly, as every good brigandshould, at having missed the train. But I could notforgive him his gingham gamp.

A narrow gorge struck off into the mountains, andthe path, skirting the torrent that thundered below,wound its way upwards. Limestone cliffs with fernsclinging to precarious footholds rose precipitously oneither side, and high up, a thousand feet or more,the tops of trees showed up stark against the bluesky. To the brawling accompaniment of the streamI walked for an hour, when the gorge widened into arock-strewn valley and I came in sight of an inn. Ina rubbish-littered courtyard the proprietress wasministering to a stricken pony that lay buried beneathstraw in the shelter of an outhouse: she turned atmy approach.

I could lunch there—assuredly. She would preparean omelette forthwith, and François could wait.François had broken his back somehow, and was, asfar as I could gather from the lady's patois and thepatient's appearance, in a baddish way.

The sound of our voices brought a travelling bag-manto the door. My arrival had evidently interruptedhis déjeûner, and he courteously postponed itscompletion to stay in the sun and gossip while minewas being got ready. He was an Italian, and hadcome from somewhere across the frontier—I forgetwhere—on foot. It was a long way, I remember.

He glanced at my discarded knapsack: "Andmonsieur is also on the road?" I explained that itwas for pleasure, and his eye lit. "Just so—checomprende. And so a man may walk many a longmile, with the sun in his eyes and the wind on hischeek and the noise of running water at his side forcompany—is it not?" Something of a poet—or atall events a kindred soul, for all he ate garlic "to"his déjeûner and his visit to a barber was sadly over-due.

"And monsieur goes to Beuil? It is but fourteenkilometres: I have myself descended from there thismorning. To climb Mounier? A brave adventure"—heflourished his wooden toothpick—"when one isstrong, and young. Yes, the snow lies au sommetand the nights are cold là haut."

We parted after lunch and I resumed my journeyalong the slope of the valley. Half an hour later theroad forsook the more cultivated ground, and, turningsharp to the left, commenced a series of zigzagsup the steep side of the cliff. Here the limestoneceased suddenly, and the red rock proper of theGorge du Cians commenced. It was a dull, deep red,the shade of Egyptian porphyry, and the line ofdemarcation between it and the limestone of the valleycuriously distinct. At the final turn of the path Ientered the gorge, and there, where an ancient Romanwatch-tower still stood, I turned for a last look downthe valley. The sun was gilding the russet autumnfoliage, and the poplars along the river-bed stood uplike slender golden spires. The fig and cypress stillheld to their brave, hard green, but elsewhere thevegetation rioted through every shade of brown andyellow. The white road wound away like a thread tothe southward, and far off among the trees a curl ofsmoke showed the inn where I had lunched. It wasthe second stage of the journey accomplished, andalready I had experienced the regrets of a parting,for the Italian bagman with his vile French andmuddy gaiters, the companion of a moment, was onewho understood the call of

"A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down."

The Gorge du Cians is a great cleft in the rock,with precipitous sides. The road is cut out of therock itself and climbs bravely, with the riverthundering along three or four hundred feet below it, andthe cliffs towering a thousand feet above. It is aversatile road, too: no two hundred yards arestraight, and occasionally it goes to earth and tunnelsbeneath an outflung buttress. In places the gorge isso steep that no vegetation but moss and lichen cancling to its sides. At others it leans back to makea lap, as children say, for a wilderness of trees andsome copper-coloured shrub like a Canadian maple.Once it narrowed overhead to a few feet, a merecrevice in the mountains.

Tiny streams trickled down to join the parentstream below, and presently I came to a spot where averitable cascade poured on to the road from anoverhanging ledge. I ran the gauntlet of this crystalshower, and sat awhile to listen to the voices of thegorge. The scent of damp earth and wet greenery,the murmur of the stream below, and a thousandtricklings and plashings, played their part in thesylvan melody. Somewhere surely along this pathI should turn a corner and encounter Pan, or viewhim afar off among the tree-boles where the sunbeamswheeled to mark the passing hours! But I onlymet, as the afternoon wore on, an old man driving adonkey laden with fa*ggots; though once (I admitwith a momentary quickening of the heart) I did see agoat, horned and venerable of aspect, silhouettedagainst the pale sky.

The afternoon shadows crept higher up thewooded slopes; the air got cooler as I progressed, andwhen I emerged from the gorge a chilly wind sprangup. The sun dipped out of sight and the broadvalley took on a more sombre tint. Here for the firsttime I encountered the pines, and in place of the redrock of the gorge, sad-coloured limestone appearedbetween the foliage. Then it was I realised that thewine-red earth and rock had all the while beenreminding me of my own Devon, and felt suddenly homesick.

An occasional woodcutter's hut appeared in aclearing among the trees, and once or twice I overtookworkers returning to the village; but it was notuntil an hour later that I turned a shoulder of themountains and saw my destination. It was thequaintest jumble of brown roofs and gables, clingingfor all the world like a colony of swallows' nests tothe end of a sort of promontory that projected intothe valley. No two lines about ii were parallel, andbehind, where the ground rose steeply towards theencircling mountains, towered Mount Mounier,snow-capped and ghostly in the twilight. The roadwound round to the base of the promontory andentered the village at the farther end. But byfollowing a rocky path I scaled the steeper side, andreached the main street through a labyrinth of stepsand alleys as the vesper-bell of the little churchstopped ringing. An inn, a wineshop, the church,and a general dealer's were the outstanding featuresof the hamlet. The rest of the buildings (to thenumber of perhaps a couple of score) were groupedhaphazard around them. Few lights wereshowing, and I only saw one person, a woman,who was singing some plaintive lullaby at herdoorstep.

An old man at the inn showed me to my room, andwhile he prepared dinner I strolled out towards aknoll of ground behind the village where a crucifixstood. The woman who had been singing had goneindoors, leaving the night curiously silent. Thewind had dropped: a full moon struggled above thefringe of firs, and the shadow of the crucifix took amore definite outline across the tint, where thehoar-frost was already glimmering. In the utter stillnessI heard one sound, the tinkle of a sheep bell far offacross the valley, and holding my breath to listenbetter, was aware of the ticking of the watch upon mywrist.

Here it was the village priest joined me. Hehad concluded vespers, and was taking his eveningstroll.

"And monsieur has come all this way to climbMounier? If the question is permitted, whom hashe selected as a guide?"

I explained that I proposed going alone, and heshrugged his shoulders, nodding his head a little.Presently he lit the cigarette I had proffered, and inthe flare of the match considered me with grave browneyes.

"You are young, my son, and when one is youngone must needs climb alone, n'est ce pas? One seeksthe adventure—the brave adventure...." Hesighed. "Then the heart of monsieur must be soundand his sinews strong. But once there, I am told theview is superb, and there is a hunter living near thetop who will give you a meal at a moderate charge.The path is not difficult—when one is young and theheart sound...."

* * * * *

"Cinq heures du matin, monsieur!" The oldman, who combined the duties of cook, waiter,chambermaid, and maître-d'hôtel, hammered at mydoor, and I awoke. A thin coating of ice had spreadover the water in my jug, and through the open windowthe stars still shone with frosty brilliance. Bythe time I had finished a bowl of chocolate and stoodoutside in football "shorts," nailed boots, and sweater,the first hint of dawn was creeping over the edge ofthe hills.

Early as it was, a sleepy teamster was yoking uphis horses outside and stamping on the road to warmhis feet. I could see the summit of Mount Mounier,9,000 feet above the level of the sea I had left but theday before. But there remained another 5,000 feetto climb, and 9,000 to descend ere I earned my bedthat night. So with a "Good morning!" to thecarter (who regarded it out of place and superfluous)I set forth.

The going was easy enough, and I simply steeredfor the snow-cap. For the first hour or so I crossedcultivated ground, which gave place to turf, croppedlike an English lawn by sheep and goats, and finallyto rough shale and boulders. The sun rose before Iwas high enough to see more than the sudden flushon a few isolated snow-capped peaks, but as I climbedsteadily the whole panorama unfolded, and therounded foothills, with their fir-clad slopes andglens, the village of Beuil, the valley up which I hadcome the day before, all dropped back into insignificance.By eight o'clock I had reached the snow, andcould detect far above me a tiny speck where thehuntsman's dwelling was. An hour later, and Iheard the unmistakable bark of a dog.

A few wearisome zigzag paths, a struggle up somesteps cut in the frozen snow, and I was greeted by agaunt deer-hound, who sniffed round me andslobbered at my hands. A man came out of a two-roomedshanty of pine-logs and turf. He was cleaninga muzzle-loading gun, and put it down to meetme with extended hand.

"Tu as bien grimpé, m'n ami!" As we shookhands he placed his disengaged one over my heartwith the air of a Harley Street specialist and nodded,smiling. "Je t'ai vu, depuis sept heures.... Oui,tu as bien grimpé. C'est un cœur fort." He was awiry little man of about fifty, with a wrinkledface, burnt madder-brown by exposure to the sunand wind, a pair of hawk-like eyes, and anaquiline nose. In fact, altogether he looked verylike a hawk.

"Mais il faut monter juste au sommet, et aprèscela le déjeûner, n'est ce pas?" I had not in factreached the top. A saddle of rock stretched awayup another 300 feet to the actual peak, and after adrink of ice-cold water I commenced the finalascent.

A cairn of stones marks the summit of MountMounier—a feature not uncommon to the tops ofmountains. I sat there, as it were, on a pinnacle, ina stupendous amphitheatre of mountains. The horizonwas mountains, the foreground mountains, rangeupon range, peak after snow-clad peak, stabbing thecloudless sky. The valleys were full of shadows,violet in the depths, claret-coloured—the very tint oflees of wine—as they neared the sunlight. And asthe sun rose higher a distant peak would flushrose-pink and pale again. A little wind came from overthe edge of the world, the scented messenger offar-distant pine-trees, and passed whispering to anotherpeak ten miles away.

I sat for quite a while musing, as might the godsupon Olympus, over the littleness of man and hisaffairs; and in truth, with my chin on a level withthis majestic array of Nature's grandeur, some aloofnessof spirit was pardonable. In the middle of myJove-like meditations, however, I saw the figure of myhost, 300 feet below, gesticulating.

"But, the omelette..." he protested, when Idescended. As I ate and drank he bustled about thehut, voluble in a queer clipped patois; a gossip,removed by choice or destiny 5,000 feet above hisfellows, to live in company with his dog in this hut.I looked round it for some clue to his pursuits: acouple of ice-axes and some coils of rope behind thedoor; a pair of skis in a corner; a shelf for crockery,with a powder-flask and a rosary hanging from anail. A bed, a table and chair, a charcoal stove, anda few cooking implements: that was all.

After I had finished eating he led me outside, and,pointing with a gnarled forefinger, named one by onethe peaks in view. He spoke of them familiarly—asone who refers to constant and intimatecompanions, but once or twice I had to shake my headin despair. There might have been a wedge-shapedopal-tinted shadow on the far-off haze, but I couldnot confess to more. The little hawk-eyed manchuckled indulgently.

"Peut-être bien, peut-être bien. Mais j'ai l'habitude,moi." Generously put, but I felt that I hadfailed in this supreme test, and it was significantthat he no longer tutoyait as at his first rapturousgreeting.

An hour and a half later, as I was nearing theexpanse of turf on my downward journey, I encounteredan ancient of days leading a charcoal-laden donkey:to be more exact, the donkey appeared to be leadinghim. The three of us halted to exchange amenities,and I proffered the old man a cigar which remainedin the bottom of my wallet. The ancient took itreadily enough, then looked searchingly round as ifwe were a pair of conspirators in a drama. I wasabout to inquire the reason for these precautions whenhe laid a forefinger to his nose, and half-closing onerheumy eye, whispered huskily:

"Vous êtes contrebandier—oui?"

Twenty-four hours earlier I should have repudiatedthe suggestion. But after my communing withmountains, and the great solitude of the snows, oneman's occupation seemed as good as another's. Afterall, it is not easy to give pleasure to one's fellows,and if it added flavour to the tobacco to suggest it hadbeen smuggled from over the frontier, then a smugglerI would be.

I nodded darkly, and we shook hands. Withvery little encouragement I think he would haveembraced me. "An adventurous life!" wheezed thehoary sinner as we parted; "ah, but one of braveadventure!"

It was curious how the phrase recurred. First thebagman, then the village priest at Beuil, and now thiswithered charbonnier. I reached the village (theclock was striking noon) inclined to wonder whether,after all, I was the dull dog I had hitherto decidedmyself to be. But be it here recorded that thistransient doubt I have since ascribed to themountain air.

Already the hours were forging afresh the linksthat bound me to the sea, and soon after six Iclimbed wearily into the train for Nice. Thecompartment was crowded: nevertheless, at a littlestation lower down the Var valley, the door openedto admit four new-comers. Votaries of "La Chasse"returning from a day's shooting. They combined avaried taste in sporting attire with a fine disregard forthe precautions usually observed by bearers of lethalweapons. One in particular, who had omitted tounco*ck his gun, held it so that the muzzle waveredbetween the pit of my stomach and his companion'sear. It may not have been loaded, but I was tootired to investigate or expostulate. Shot by shot,mile by mile, they lived through their day again,while the carriage applauded, commiserated, andhung breathless over the tale of prowess. The bagcontained one greenfinch. Yet it needed but a glanceat the principal narrator's flashing eye and vividgestures to realise that none but the most exactingwill judge the day by its material result.

I had not even a greenfinch to show, yet I doubtnot that the five of us went to bed that night equallyaglow with a sense of "the brave adventure." Andwhen all is said and done, life would smack of theheroic often enough were but our audience a littlemore appreciative and the stage less cramped.

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