A Tall Ship Part 7

The request-man was a young stoker, little more than a boy, and his eyes were troubled.

"She don't deserve it," he replied; "she drinks, sir. I got letters from fr'en's----" He thrust his hand inside the breast of his jumper and produced his sad evidence--a letter from a clergyman, one or two from lay-workers in some north-country slum, and one from his mother herself, an incoherent, abusive scrawl, with liquor stains still upon the creased paper.

"I send 'er my 'arf-pay reg'lar ever since I were in the Navy, sir.

But she ain't goin' ter 'ave no more." He made the statement without heat or sorrow.

"Stopped," said the Captain, with a nod.

"Allotment stopped," repeated the Master-at-Arms, and the allotter pa.s.sed forward out of sight to whatever destiny awaited him.

"To be rated Leading Seaman, sir."

A tall, young Able Seaman stepped forward and fixed eyes of a clear blue on the Captain's face.

The Captain met his gaze, and for a moment threw all the weight of thirty years' experience of men into the scales of judgment. "There is a vacancy for a Leading Seaman's rate in the ship," he said. "The Commander has recommended you for it. You're young. Keep it."

"Rated Leading Seaman. 'Bout turn."

The newly created Leading Seaman, whose nose was a reminder of the vagaries of the main sheet block of a cutter when going about, flushed with pleasure and turned smartly on his heel. The vacant rate was due to a lapse from rect.i.tude on the part of one Biggers, leading hand of the quarter-deck, who had returned from leave with a small flat flask tucked inside his cholera belt. The flask contained whisky, and had been thrust there by a friend ash.o.r.e in an access of maudlin good-fellowship on parting. The night had been a convivial one, and Leading Seaman Biggers overlooked the gift until, coming on board, the keen-eyed officer of the watch drew his attention to it. He paid for the misplaced generosity of his well-wisher with his "Killick."[1]

He happened, moreover, to be employed in coiling down a rope--in the capacity he had reverted to--while his supplanter received the rating; but he eyed the ceremony stoically and without resentment. He had failed, and, of his less frail brethren, another was raised up in his stead. It was the immutable law.

"To be restored to the first cla.s.s for leave."

A stout Able Seaman stepped forward, and, from force of a habit engendered by long familiarity with the etiquette of the defaulters'

table, removed his cap.

"_Put_ yer cap on," added the Master-at-Arms in a fierce undertone.

The suppliant deftly replaced his cap. As he did so a packet of cigarettes, a skein of darning worsted and a picture postcard (depicting a stout lady in a pink costume surf bathing) fell out on to the deck in the manner of an unexpected conjuring trick. An attendant ship's corporal retrieved them, while the conjurer affected an air of complete detachment.

The Captain glanced at the conduct book. "Clean sheet?

Right--restored to the first cla.s.s. And see if you can't stop in it this time."

The stout one made guttural noises in his throat intended to convey a.s.surances of future piety, and departed with an expression that suggested a halo had not only descended upon his head, but had been crammed inextricably over his ears.

The last request-man--the man with "private affairs"--was a small leading stoker with a face seamed by innumerable tiny wrinkles. His skin resembled a piece of parchment that somebody had crumpled in a fit of petulance and made a half-hearted attempt to smooth out again; even his ears were crumpled. His brown eyes, big and sad, were like the eyes of a suffering monkey.

The Commander interposed with an explanation: "This man wishes to see you about a private matter, sir."

The Captain made a little gesture with his hand, and the small group of officers and ship's police near the table stepped back a few paces out of earshot. The Commander, perhaps the busiest man on board, s.n.a.t.c.hed the moment's respite to confer with the Carpenter, who had been hovering round waiting for his opportunity. The Master-at-Arms was standing by the bollards alternately sucking a stump of pencil and making cryptic notations in his request-book. The two ship's corporals had removed themselves with great delicacy of feeling to the screen door, where in an undertone they settled an argument as to whose turn it was to make out the leave tickets. The Captain's Clerk became interested in the progress of work in an ammunition lighter alongside.

The Captain, with knitted brows, was reading a letter that had been handed to him across the table. He folded it up when read, and handed it back to the recipient; then, holding his chin in his fist and supporting the elbow with the other hand, he listened to the tale the small man with the crumpled ears had to unfold. It was an old tale--old when Helen first met the eyes of Paris. But there was no veil of romance to soften the outline of its crude tragedy. It was just sordid and pitiful.

For five minutes, perhaps, the two men faced each other. At the end of that time the Captain was leaning forward resting both hands on the table, talking in grave, kindly tones. He talked, not as Captains commonly talk to Leading Stokers, but as one man might talk to another who turned to him for advice in the bitter hour of need, drawing on the deep well of his experience, education, and kindly judgment.

"Troubles shared are troubles halved." The Captain had said so, and the tot of rum served out at one-bell to the little man with the crumpled ears went some way to complete the conviction.

Jeremiah Casey, Petty Officer and Captain's c.o.xswain, hauled himself nimbly up the Jacob's ladder to the quarter-boom and came inboard. The Captain was walking up and down, deep in thought, with his hands linked behind his back. Casey pattered up and saluted.

"I've bent on that noo mainsail, sir. . . . There's a nice li'l sailin' breeze, sir." Casey, hinting at a spin in the galley, somehow reminded one of a spaniel when he sees the gun-case opened. Had he been blessed with a tail, he would most certainly have wagged it.

The Captain walked slowly aft and looked down into the galley lying at the quarter-boom. Few men could have resisted the appeal of that long slim boat with the water lapping invitingly against her clinker-built sides. The bra.s.swork in her gleamed in the sun like jewels set in ivory, for the woodwork was as near the whiteness of ivory as holystone and sharkskin could make it. She had little white mats with blue borders on the thwarts and in the sternsheets, and her yoke, of curious Chinese design, had a history as mysterious and legendary as the diamonds of Marie Antoinette.

"Get her alongside," said the Captain. "I want to try that mainsail."

Five minutes later the galley was spinning across the sparkling waters of the harbour.

Once the Captain spoke, and the bowman moved his weight six inches forward. Then she sailed to his light touch on the helm as a violin gives out sound under the bow of a master.

Casey, sitting motionless on the bottom boards with the mainsheet in his hands, gazed rapturously at the new mainsail, and thence into the stolid countenance of the second stroke.

"Ain't she a _witch_?" he whispered.

For half an hour the galley skimmed to and fro among the anch.o.r.ed fleet, now running free like a white-winged gull, anon close-hauled, the razor bows cleaving a path through the dancing water in a little sickle of creaming foam.

The Captain brought her alongside the gangway with faultless judgment and stood up. Like Saul, he had taken the cares of high command to a witch, and lo! his brow was clear and his eyes twinkled.

"Yes," he said in even tones as he stepped out of the boat, "that mainsail sets all right," and ran briskly up the ladder two steps at a time.

Casey thumbed the lacing on the yard. "Perfection is finality, and finality is death."

"I don't know but what I wouldn't shift the strop '_arf_ an inch aft--mebbe a quarter . . ."

Inboard the ship's bell struck eight times, and the boatswain's mate began shrilly piping the hands to dinner.

[1] Anchor. The distinctive badge of a leading rating.

IV

THE SEVEN-BELL BOAT

The last answering pendant from the Fleet shot up above the bridge rails, and the impatient semaph.o.r.e on the Flagship's bridge commenced waving its arms.

The Yeoman of the Watch in the second ship of the line steadied his gla.s.s against an angle of the chart house. "'Ere y'are! Write down, one 'and." A Signal-boy stepped to his elbow with a pad and pencil in readiness.

"Flag--general: Leave may be granted to officers from 8.30 to 7 p.m.

Officers are not to leave the vicinity of the town, and are to be prepared for immediate recall." He lowered the gla.s.s sharply.

"Finish. Down Answer!"

Obedient to the order, a Signal-man brought the long tail of bunting down hand over hand. He hitched the slack of the halliard to the bridge rail and puckered his eyes, staring across the waters of the harbour to where the roofs of houses showed among the trees. "'Ow I pities orficers!" he observed under his breath, and walked to the end of the bridge.