H.M.S Part 13

"I didn't--you've told me that, and anyhow I've forgotten. I was going to ask you if this is the first time you've done any war-work."

"Yes, I was out in the Straits till last Thursday week, and----"

"Don't be silly. I mean work like this, digging and doing without things, and helping, and so on."

"Yes, I suppose it is. I haven't had time, really----"

The lady turned on him in righteous scorn. "_Time_--oh, you're one of the worst I know. Won't you _ever_ take the war seriously? You just look on it all as a joke, and you won't make _any_ sacrifices. Now come here--take the other end of this string, and lay it out till I tell you to stop."

The Boy meekly obeyed instructions. He pegged the end of the string firmly down and returned to the Attraction, who was engaged in hunting out a hoe from among a litter of horticultural implements that lay in a corner of the garden wall. He stood watching her for a moment, and with her eyes away from him, his att.i.tude altered slightly and became almost proprietary, while his face seemed to harden a shade and give an inkling of the naval stamp that it would develop later on. She looked round suddenly and saw him again as a shy and awkward youth.

"Have you done it?" she said. "All right, you can really start doing some work now. I'm going to make you dig a trench. _That's_ the best way to serve your country when you're ash.o.r.e and have the chance. And to think you've never used a hoe before!"

The Boy sc.r.a.ped the hoe reflectively with the toe of his boot. It did not seem to him politic to mention the fact that vegetable gardens do not usually grow either on the decks of battleships or on the sh.e.l.l-beaten slopes of Gallipoli. He made no attempt to follow the tortuous wanderings of a feminine mind, but held on his own course.

"Are you going to help?" he said.

"No. You'd only loaf at the work if I did, and I've got other things to do, too. Now, come along and start, or you'll never get it finished by to-night."

"I'm leaving to-morrow," said the Boy.

"So you've told me--heaps of times to-day. But you must finish that trench before you go."

The Boy nodded and walked away towards the pegged-out end of the string. The lady, without turning her head, walked back up the path until she came to the gra.s.sy slope at its end. Selecting a spot from which a view could be obtained through the hedge of her oppressed admirer, she sat down and carefully laid the basin of peas on the bank beside her.

"He's rather a dear," she observed cautiously to herself. "But he _is_ such a child. 'Wonder why boys are always so awfully young compared to women?"

The flotilla would have turned round for its run back in another half-hour if the last destroyer in the enemy's line had not shown a faint funnel-glare for the fractional part of a second. They were only a couple of miles from the end of the "beat" when it showed, and considering the poor visibility that accompanied the frequent snow-showers, it was a piece of happy luck that the glare was seen at all. Three people on the leader's bridge saw it together; two of them gave a kind of m.u.f.fled yelp, as foxhound puppies would at sight of their first cub, while the third gave an order on the instant. The destroyer settled a little by the stern, her course altered slightly, and she began really to travel. For some hours she had been jogging along at seventeen knots, but her speed now began to rise in jumps of five knots at a time, till in a few minutes she had become a mad and quivering fabric of impatient steel. As she gained her speed the snow began to pour down again, blotting out the faint shadow that had meant the bow of her next astern. The Captain glanced aft once, and then continued his intent gazing forward. He had pa.s.sed a rough bearing and the signal to chase to his subordinates astern, and could do no more till he could get touch again. He had no intention of easing his speed to wait for clearer visibility. He knew too much of flotilla war to let a chance of fighting go by in that way. If he once got to the enemy, the rest of his flotilla would steer to the sound of the guns; and anyhow, he decided, if he did have to fight single-handed, the worse the visibility was and the greater the confusion and doubt among the enemy, the better would be the chances for him. The snow ahead cleared for a minute to leave a long narrow lane between the showers, and he saw the loom of the last ship of the enemy's line. The German destroyer seemed to fall back to him, as if she was stopped, though in reality she was holding station on her next ahead at a fair sixteen knots. With a startling crash and a blaze of blinding light the guns opened from along the leader's side--the German guns waiting, surprised, for a full minute before they replied. When they did open fire, the duel had become too one-sided to be called a fight at all.

Between the crashes of the guns, the clatter and ring of ejected cartridge-cases could be heard but faintly, yet as the big leader pa.s.sed her battered opponent at barely half a cable distance, through the din and savage intensity of a yard-arm fight the quartermaster stooped over his tiny wheel, oblivious to all things but the clear quiet voice that conned the ship past and on to her next victim. The rear destroyer of the enemy swung away, stopped, and remained--a horrible ill.u.s.tration of the maxim of naval warfare, which says that he who is unready should never leave harbour.

At the head of the German line a man of decision had acted swiftly. As the blaze of the gun-fire broke out astern of him, and before the first German gun had fired a round, he had swung the leading division four points off its course. As the British destroyer tore on up the line, he swung inwards again and closed on her to engage on her disengaged side. As a piece of tactics it was pretty and well performed, but nothing can be judged to perfection in war, and this evolution was no exception to the rule. As he closed in on the British leader, she started her broadside on her second quarry,--an opponent better prepared than her first,--and the snow-laden air quivered to the shock of furiously worked guns. The flashes lit the contending ships in rippling, blinding light, and across the foaming waters that the fighters left in their pa.s.sage, the drifting snow showed up like flying gold. At short range the leading German division broke in with a burst of rapid fire, and in his swift glance towards this menace from his disengaged side the British leader saw the flaw in his enemy's harness. The last of the German division was too far astern for safety in view of the fact that the British ship was at the moment fighting-mad. The German leader had a glimpse of a high bow swinging round towards him in the midst of salvoes of bursting sh.e.l.l--then came an increased burst of firing from down the line astern, followed by a great crash and a dull booming explosion. The gun-fire died down and stopped as the guns' crews lost sight of their target, until the scattered flotilla was running on in the same darkness as had preceded the fight, though in far different condition. The German leader was not sure as to what had happened to the first of his command to be attacked, but he knew well what had come to the rear ship of his own division. She had been blown up in the shock of being rammed by the English madman, and although she had probably taken her slayer with her, she had left an impression on the minds of the rest of the flotilla on the subject of what odds an English ship considered to be equal, that would take some considerable drilling to eradicate. He flashed out a signal to tell his unseen ships to concentrate, and the signal, shaded as it was, drew down a salvo of sh.e.l.l from half a mile away on his quarter. At full speed he tore on for home, realising a fact that he had only suspected before--that the savage who had attacked him had been but the forerunner of a flotilla of unknown numbers and strength. The crackling sound of battle--a battle at a longer range now--pa.s.sed on and died down as the unheeding snow smothered both light and sound. Both flotillas were occupied, and in their occupation had no time to think of what was left astern of them,--a shattered German destroyer stopped, helpless, and an easy prey for the returning British--a litter of lifebelts, corpses, and wreckage, that marked the grave of the rammed ship--and a barely-floating hulk, her stern and half her deck only above water, that lay rolling to the swell; a broken monument to a man who had fought a good fight and gone to his death with the sound of the trumpets of the Hall of all Brave Men calling in his ears.

The Boy twisted the seaman's silk handkerchief more tightly round his left wrist, and drew another fold across his broken hand. He snapped his orders out furiously, and men hastened to obey them. He knew that his after-gun was the only one above water, and that the sloping island of the stern that formed its support was not likely to retain buoyancy long, but so long as there were survivors cl.u.s.tered aft and dry ammunition with which they might load, he was going to be ready for fighting. To the luck that caused one of his flotilla to lose touch in the chase and blunder across him, he owed the fact that he was ever able to fight again. She came tearing by down wind--threw the narrow beam of a searchlight full on to him--and recognising by that extraordinary nautical "eye for a ship," which can see all when a landsman could see nothing, that the sloping battered wreck was the remnant of a ship of her own cla.s.s, turned on a wide sweep to investigate. The Boy knew nothing of her nationality, and cared less what her intentions were. In the midst of a litter of ammunition, wounded men, and half-drowned or frozen survivors, he slammed sh.e.l.l at her from his sightless and tilted gun till his store of dry cartridges dwindled and failed him. His shooting was execrable; he could hardly make out the dark blotch that was his target as, astonished and silent, she circled round him. Savage and berserk, he fired till his last round was gone, then drew his motley collection of ratings around him, and with pistol, knife, and spanner they waited for their chance to board.

A long black hull slid cautiously into view and closed them, till up against the beating snow and rising wind a voice roared out through a megaphone a sentence which no German could ever attempt to copy--"You blank, blank, blank," it said, "are you all something mad?"

The Boy stood up, and his wounded hand just then began to hurt him very much. "No sir," he called in reply. "I'm sorry, sir; I made a mistake. We've got a lot of wounded here."

The night seemed to turn suddenly very cold, and he realised that at some moment since the collision he must have been in the water.

The Boy did not see her till he had left the train and was half-way along the station platform. Then she came forward from the ticket-collector's barrier, and he discovered with a start that not only was the sun shining, but that the world was a very good place to be alive in. He dropped his suit-case to shake hands, and then hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed it up to forestall her attempt to carry it for him. She turned and piloted him out of the station to where an ancient "growler" waited, its steed dozing in the sunshine. "I ordered this old thing, as I thought you mightn't be strong enough to walk, but you're not such an invalid as I expected. The carrier is bringing your luggage." The lady spoke, looking him carefully over from under the shade of her hat.

"Walk! Yes, of course I can. I'm not an invalid. I--No, I mean--let's drive." He slung his suit-case hastily in through the open cab door.

The lady seemed to see nothing inconsistent in his incoherencies. She may have possibly followed his train of thought. She merely nodded, and reached in for his suit-case, which she swung easily upwards, to be received by the driver and placed on the roof. She then stepped in, and watched as the Boy cautiously entered and took his station beside her. With what seemed almost a yawn, the old horse roused and began to work up to his travelling pace, a possible five miles to the hour.

"Well, Boy," said the lady, "and what sort of a time did they give you in hospital?"

"Oh--quite decent, you know; but mighty little to eat. I believe they put every one on low diet as soon as they get there just to keep them humble and quiet."

"Well, your mother's just dying to feed you up, so you'll get awfully fat soon. How's the hand?"

The Boy stretched out his left arm and showed a suspiciously inert-looking brown glove. "Only three fingers gone and some bits missing. It's stopped my golf all right, though."

"But you'll still be able to hunt and shoot and you'll work up some sort of a golf handicap again when you're used to it. What was the battle like, Boy?"

"Oh--just the usual sort of destroyer sc.r.a.p. We saw them first in our packet, and so we got most of it. It was a good sc.r.a.p, though."

"Will you be able to go to sea again, or will they----?"

The Boy flushed and leaned back. "Of course I will--I've got a hand and a half, and they can't stick me in a sh.o.r.e job when I've got that much." The lady put a hand swiftly out and rested it on the padded brown glove. "Of course they can't. Sorry, Boy. I never thought they would, you know." The Boy instantly brought his right hand across, and, catching the sympathetic hand that lay on his glove, kissed it with decision. He then leaned back again to the musty padding of the cab, rather shocked at his own temerity. The lady, however, showed no signs of confusion at all.

"How long sick leave did they give you? Do you have to go back to the hospital, or do you just report at the Admiralty?"

"I don't know,--look here, when are we going to be engaged?"

"When we're old enough, Boy--if you're good. Are you going to be?"

"That's a bet," said the Boy firmly. "So long as I know it's going to be all right, I'll be awfully good. What are you going to do with me on leave? I can't dig trenches for peas now--at least, not properly."

"No; but if you took a little more interest in the subject, you'd know that at this time of year you can pick them. Now, here's your house, and you're going in to see your mother, and I'm going home; and you're not to laugh at her if she cries, and--pay attention, Boy--there's no need for you to wear that glove on your hand; she isn't a baby any more than I am."

AN URGENT COURTSHIP.

[Written with a lot of a.s.sistance from a partner.]

The solitary figure in the R.N. Barracks smoking-room rose, stretched himself, and lounged across to a table to change his evening paper for a later edition.

"Hullo! old sportsman. Where's everybody?"

The "sportsman"--a precise-looking surgeon who wore a wound-stripe on his cuff--looked round from the litter of newspapers he had been turning over.

"Why, lumme! if it ain't James the Giant-Killer. Here, waiter! Hi! Two sherry--quick! What the deuce brings you here, James?"

"Just down from the North,--joining the _Great Harry_ to-morrow.

Where's every one? Is there an air-raid on, and were the cellars too full for you, my hack-saw expert?"

"They were not. They're d.a.m.n near empty, worse luck. But the Depot Boxing is on to-night, and I'd be there too, only it's my turn for guard. It's no good your going now, you old pug; they'll finish in half an hour, and it's a mile away."

"Oh! Well, I'm tired, anyway. I want dinner and then a bed. Of all filthy games, give me a war-time train journey. I've found a cabin here, and I found a bath, and I won't quarrel with any one for an hour or two."