H.M.S Part 12

Wish we could run up one of the ca.n.a.ls and join in, sir."

"You'd be too late if we could. It's dying out now. Just as well, too; it keeps all the look-outs' heads turned that way. How's the time? All right, we'll turn now and try back."

The glow faded and pa.s.sed, and left the velvety dark as blank as before. The leader swung round on a wide curve, and, as if held by one long elastic hawser, the flotilla followed in her gleaming wake. At the same cantering speed as they had come, they started on the long beat back of their bloodthirsty prowl, at the moment when the Scotch submarine officer turned over the watch to his Canadian subordinate.

"I've sheered right out now, and they ought to be clear of us all right, but keep your eyes skinned for them and nip under if you see them again. They're devilish quick on the salvoes in this longitude, and 'pon my soul I don't blame 'em either."

IN THE BARRED ZONE.

They called us up from England at the breaking of the day, And the wireless whisper caught us from a hundred leagues away-- "Sentries at the Outer Line, All that hold the countersign, Listen in the North Sea--news for you to-day."

All across the waters, at the paling of the morn, The wireless whispered softly ere the summer day was born-- "Be you near or ranging far, By the Varne or Weser bar, The Fleet is out and steaming to the Eastward and the dawn."

Far and away to the North and West, in the dancing glare of the sunlit ocean, Just a haze, a shimmer of smoke-cloud, grew and broadened many a mile; Low and long and faint and spreading, banner and van of a world in motion, Creeping out to the North and West, it hung in the skies alone awhile.

Then from over the brooding haze the roar of murmuring engines swelled, And the men of the air looked down to us, a mile below their feet; Down the wind they pa.s.sed above, their course to the silver sun-track held, And we looked back to the West again, and saw the English Fleet.

Over the curve of the rounded sea, in ordered lines as the ranks of Rome, Over the far horizon steamed a power that held us dumb,-- Miles of racing lines of steel that flattened the sea to a field of foam, Rolling deep to the wash they made, We saw, to the threat of a German blade, The Shield of England come.

A MATTER OF ROUTINE.

There was little or no wind, and only a gentle swell from the south.

The ships rose and fell lazily as they steamed to the south-eastward, while only occasionally a handful of light spray fell across a sunlit forecastle, drying almost as it fell. But if the air was still the ships were certainly not so--as vast as a great moving town, the Fleet was travelling at the speed of a touring car. From the Flagship's foretop the view was extraordinary. Destroyers or light cruisers when pressed seem to be slipping along with something always in hand and with no apparent effort; a battleship, however, seen under the same conditions, makes one think of St Paul's Cathedral being towed up the Thames; she carries a "bone in her teeth," and her bows seem to settle low and her stern to rise. In this case the Grand Fleet was hurrying--moving south-east at full speed, because--well, they _might_ just cut the enemy off; but the Hun was canny, and knew exactly the danger-limit in this game of "Prisoner's base."

The visibility was good, and as far as the eye could see the water was torn and streaked with the wakes of ships--cruisers, destroyers, battleships, and craft of every queer and imaginable warlike use. The great ma.s.s of steel hulls had one thing only in common--they could steam, and could steam always with something in hand above the "speed of the Fleet." From the ships came a faint brown haze of smoke that shimmered with heat and made the horizon dance and flicker. From the foretop, looking aft, it seemed incredible that there could be any power existing which could drive such a huge beamy hulk as the Flagship was, and leave such a turmoil of torn and flattened water astern. Battleships in a hurry are certainly not stately; an elderly matron in pursuit of a tram-car shows dignity compared to any one of them. But if they looked fl.u.s.tered and undignified, they carried a cargo which no one could smile at. "_Battleships are mobile gun-platforms._" I forget who said that--probably Admiral Mahan--but it is true; and if these ships showed an ungraceful way of moving, they certainly complied with the definition of gun-platforms. The low-sloped turrets all pointed the same way--out to the starboard bow.

The long tapering guns moved up and down, following the horizon against the roll, and sighing as they moved, as if the hydraulic engines were weary of the long wait. On the tops of the turrets the figures of officers could be seen pacing to and fro across the steel--checking now and then to stare at the southern horizon.

Somewhere out there beneath the blazing sun were the scouts, and beyond them--well, that question was one that the scouts were there to answer. The smaller ships in sight seemed like motor-cycle pacers escorting a long-distance foot-race. With their sterns low and their bow-waves running back close to the beautifully-shaped hulls, they gave the impression of sauntering along at their leisure and of looking impatiently over their shoulders at the big heavy-weights astern of them. A destroyer division suddenly heeled and altered course like redshank, each ship turning as the leader swung, and with a fountain of spray at their sharp high stems they cut through the intervals of a Battleship division, swinging up again together to the south-east course as they cleared. The watcher in the top had seen the trick before, but familiarity could not prevent his eyes from widening a little as he saw the stem of his next astern throw up a little cloud of spray as it met the foaming V-wake that followed a few yards from the leader's counter. He smiled as he thought of an old picture in 'Punch' of a crowd of small children urging and dragging a huge policeman along to a scene of disturbance. The darting, restless destroyers seemed like the small bloodthirsty boys--hurrying on ahead to see the fun, and then back to wait for the ponderous but willing upholder of the law--anxious to miss nothing of the excitement.

The Fleet was running down to intercept, and might be in action at any moment if the luck held, but there was no signalling or outpouring of instructions. There was just nothing to be said. Everybody knew more or less what the tactical situation was; all knew that the enemy might be met with any time in the next few hours, but in the turrets the guns' crews proceeded with the all-important task of getting outside as much dinner as they could comfortably stow. The procedure of endeavouring to meet the High Sea Fleet and of dealing with it on sight had been rehea.r.s.ed so often, that the real thing, if it came, would call for one signal only, and no more. Many prophets have said that the increase of Science and Applied Mechanics in the Navy would make men into mere slaves of machines, and into unthinking units. This is another theory which has been shown to be hopelessly wrong--certainly so in the Navy, as in it both officers and men are taught, and have to be taught, far more of the reasons for and the object aimed at in the Rules for Battle than ever Nelson thought it necessary to communicate to his subordinates in the last Great War.

The Prussian system may be good, but it produces a bludgeon--ours produces the finest tempered blade.

The sight from the foretop was a thing that one would remember all one's life, and be thankful not to have missed. The almost incalculable value of the great ma.s.s of ships--the whirl of figures conjured up by a rough estimate of the collective horse-power and the numbers of men present; the attempt and failure to even count the actual ships in sight; the vision of a scared and wondering neutral tramp lying between the lines with engines stopped as the great ma.s.ses of grey-painted steel went past her along the broad highroads of churned water,--this was the Fleet at sea; and the known fact that it would wheel, close, or spread at the word of one man, from the ships that foamed along four hundred yards away to those whose mastheads could only just be seen above the horizon, made the wonder all the greater. One thought of the thousands of eyes looking south in the direction of the big gun-muzzles, of the sh.e.l.ls that the guns held rammed close home to the rifling, and of the thousands of brains that were turning over and over the old question, "Is it to be this time, or have they slipped in again?"...

WHO CARES?

The sentries at the Castle Gate, We hold the outer wall, That echoes to the roar of hate And savage bugle-call-- Of those that seek to enter in with steel and eager flame, To leave you with but eyes to weep the day the Germans came.

Though we may catch from out the Keep A whining voice of fear, Of one who whispers "Rest and sleep, And lay aside the spear,"

We pay no heed to such as he, as soft as we are hard; We take our word from men alone--the men that rule the guard.

We hear behind us now and then The voices of the grooms, And bickerings of serving-men Come faintly from the rooms; But let them squabble as they please, we will not turn aside, But--curse to think it was for them that fighting men have died.

Whatever they may say or try, We shall not pay them heed; And though they wail and talk and lie, We hold our simple Creed-- No matter what the cravens say, however loud the din, Our Watch is on the Castle Gate, and none shall enter in.

THE UNCHANGING s.e.x.

When the battle-worn Horatius, 'midst the cheering Roman throng-- All flushed with pride and triumph as they carried him along-- Reached the polished porch of marble at the doorway of his home, He felt himself an Emperor--the bravest man of Rome.

The people slapped him on the back and knocked his helm askew, Then drifted back along the road to look for something new.

Then Horatius sobered down a bit--as you would do to-day-- And straightened down his tunic in a calm, collected way.

He hung his battered helmet up and wiped his sandals dry, And set a parting in his hair--the same as you and I.

His lady kissed him carefully and looked him up and down, And gently disengaged his arm to spare her snowy gown.

"You _are_ a real disgrace, you know, the worst I've ever seen; Now go and put your sword away, I _know_ it isn't clean.

And you must change your clothes at once, you're simply wringing wet; You've been doing something mischievous, I hope you lost your bet....

Why! you're bleeding on the carpet. Who's the brute that hurt you so?

Did you kill him? _There's a darling._ Serve him right for hitting low."

Then she hustled lots of water, turning back her pretty sleeves, And she set him on the sofa (having taken off his greaves).

And bold Horatius purred aloud, the stern Horatius smiled, And didn't seem to mind that he was treated like a child.

Though she didn't call him Emperor, or cling to him and cry, Yet I rather think he liked it--just the same as you and I.

TWO CHILDREN.

His age was possibly nineteen, and his general appearance had decided the members of his last gunroom mess in their choice of a nickname for him. "Little Boy Blue," or "Boy" for short, would probably stick to him throughout his naval career. The name had certainly followed him to his present appointment as "third hand" of a destroyer, where the other sub-lieutenants of the flotilla were not likely to allow him to forget it. He would have made a perfect model for a Burne-Jones angel. His mother would have worded that comparison differently, being under the impression that no angel could hope to equal him: on his part, he always took most filial care not to disillusion her on such a point. At the moment, in the first flush of glory induced by the fact that he had left gunroom life for ever, and that his midshipman's patches were things of the recent past, he was making the most of a week's leave, and making the most also of the opportunity of cultivating the society of a home Attraction whom the discerning eyes of his mother may or may not have yet noticed. The Attraction was aged sixteen, extremely pretty, and, as is usual in such cases, extremely self-possessed.

The Boy, as he accompanied her along the garden path, was not feeling self-possessed at all. He had discovered from frequent experience that the only position he could retain with reference to the lady as she walked was, as he would put it, "half a cable on the starboard quarter."

Knowing as he did that he was being kept thus distant by intention, he followed the broad lines of strategy which his naval training had taught him, and acted in a way which on such occasions is always right--that is, he aroused doubt and curiosity in the mind of his adversary.

The lady, who--carrying a ball of string in one hand and a bowl of peas in the other--had walked in cool silence for at least fifty yards, turned suddenly and spoke.

"I suppose this is the first time you've----What _are_ you staring at?"

The Boy blushed at once. "I beg your pardon," he murmured; "I----"

"Is my hair coming down?"

The Boy looked fixedly again at a large black bow which, as he told me afterwards, "held the bight of it up." "No-o," he said slowly.

"Then don't stare at it, and don't lag behind. What was I saying?"

"You asked me how long leave I'd got."