H.M.S Part 7

The Torpedoman moved along the bench and twisted his head round till his ear was against one of the voice-pipes. The others sat silent and watched him with lazy interest.

"We're takin' a dip," he said. "Thought I 'eard 'im say, 'Sixty feet.'" The faint rolling motion that had been noticeable before died away, and the boat seemed to have become even more peaceful and silent. The Leading Stoker leaned back against the hull and rested his head against the steel. From the starboard hand there came a faint murmur, which grew till the regular threshing beat of a propeller could be distinguished. The sound swelled till they could hear in its midst a separate piping, squeaking note. The ship pa.s.sed on overhead, and the threshing sound pa.s.sed with her and faded until again the steady purr of motors remained the only reminder of the fact that the boat was diving. They felt her tilt up a little by the bow as she climbed back to regain her patrol depth.

"That's a tramp," said the Torpedoman; "nootral, I reckon."

"Squeaky bearing, too," said the Artificer judicially. "Don't suppose he's looked at his thrust since he left port. What's the skipper want to go under her for?"

"Save trouble, I s'pose; didn't want to alter helm for 'er. What was you talkin' of--yes, Kismet--that's the word I've been wantin' all along. You're a Mohammedan, you are?"

"Aw, don't be a fool; I tell you I'm nothing."

The fourth wakeful figure, another Torpedoman, spoke for the first time. "If you're nothing, and you think you're nothing, what the 'ell d'yer want to make such a fuss about it for?"

"_I_ don't make a fuss. It's all you people who think you're something who make a fuss. You can't alter what's laid down, but you think you can. You fuss and panic to stave things off, but you're like chickens in a coop--you can't get out till your master lets you, and he can't understand what you say, and he wouldn't pay any attention to it if he did."

The big Torpedoman put out a hand like a knotted oak-root and spoke--

"You an' your Kismet," he said scornfully. "Look 'ere, now. This is Gospel, and _I'm_ tellin' of yer. S'pose there _is_ a bullet about with your name on it, but s'posing you shoot the other ---- first, and there's to 'ell with yer Kismet. Gawd 'elps those that 'elp themselves, I say. S'pose we 'it a Fritz now, under water--'oo's Kismet is it? Never mind 'oo's arranged it or 'oo's down in the book to go through it, the bloke that gets 'is doors closed first and 'as the best trained crew is goin' to come 'ome and spin the yarn about it. I say it may be written down as you say, but there's Someone 'oldin' the book, an' 'e says: 'Cross off that boat this time,' 'e say. 'They've got the best lot aboard of 'em,' 'e'd say. Is it Kismet if yer thrust collars go? Are you goin' to stop oilin' 'em because it's in the book an' you can't alter it? Yer talkin' through yer neck.

Call it luck, if yer like. It's luck if we 'it a mine, and it's luck if we don't; but if we met a Fritz to-night an' p.o.o.p off the bow gun an' miss--that's goin' to be our blanky fault, an' you can call it any blanky name, but you won't alter it."

"But you don't understand," said the Artificer. "I didn't----"

"_Action Stations--Stand by all tubes._" The voice rang clearly from the mouth of the voice-pipe, and the group leapt into activity. For sixty seconds there was apparent pandemonium--the purr of the motors rose to a quick hum, and the long tunnel of the hull rang with noises, clatter and clang and hiss. The sounds stopped almost as suddenly as they had begun, and the voices of men reporting "Ready" could be heard beyond the high-pitched note of the motors.

The big Torpedoman stretched across his tube to close a valve, and caught the eye of the fourth partic.i.p.ant in the recent debate. "Say, Dusty," he whispered, "'_ere's_ Someone's Kismet--in this blanky tube, an' I reckon I ain't forgot the detonator in 'er nose, neither."

The Captain lowered the periscope, his actions almost reverent in their artificial calm. He looked up at the navigating officer a few feet away and smiled. "Just turning to east," he said. "We'll be in range inside three minutes." He glanced fore and aft the boat and then back at his watch. "By gum," he said, "it's nice to have a good crew. I haven't had to give a single order, and I wouldn't change a man of 'em."

LIGHT CAVALRY.

I.

Peter Mottin was an acting Sub-Lieutenant, but even acting Sub-Lieutenants from Whale Island may hunt if they can get the requisite day's leave and can muster the price of a hired mount. The hounds poured out of Creech Wood, and Mottin glowed with intense delight as his iron-mouthed horse took the rails in and out of the lane and followed the pack up the seventy-acre pasture from whence the holloa had come. It was late in a February afternoon, and most of the dispirited field had gone home, so that there was no crowd--and a February fox on a good scenting day is a customer worth waiting for.

Mottin sat back as a five-foot cut and laid hedge grew nearer, and blessed the owner of his mount as the big black cleared the jump with half a foot to spare. Two more big fences, cut as level as a rule, and the field was down to six, with three Hunt servants. The fox was making for Hyden Wood, and scent was getting better every minute. A clattering canter through a farmyard, and Mottin followed the huntsman over a ramshackle gate on to gra.s.s again. The huntsman capped the tail-hounds on as he galloped, and Mottin realised that if they were going to kill before dark they would have to drive their fox fast.

Riding to his right he saw Sangatte--a destroyer officer, whom he knew only by name, but whom he envied for the fact that he seemed able to hunt when he liked and could afford to keep his own horses. As they neared a ragged bullfinch hedge at the top of a long slope, he saw Sangatte put on speed and take it right in the middle, head down and forearm across his eyes. Mottin eased his horse to give the huntsman room at the gate in the left-hand corner. The pilot's horse rapped the top bar slightly, and as Mottin settled himself for the leap, he saw the gate begin to swing open away from him. There was no time to change his mind--he decided he must jump big and trust to luck, but the black horse failed him. The hireling knew enough to think for himself, and seeing the gate begin to swing, decided that a shorter stride would be safer. The disagreement resulted--as such differences of opinion are liable to do--in a crash of breaking wood and a whirling, stunning fall. Mottin rose shakily on one leg, feeling as if the ankle of the other was being drilled with red-hot needles, and swore at the black horse as it galloped with trailing bridle down the long stubble field towards Soberton Down. He saw Sangatte look back and then wrench his brown mare round to ride off the hireling as it pa.s.sed. He caught the dangling reins and swung both horses round, and came hurrying and impatient back. As he arrived he checked the mare and turned in his saddle to watch the receding pack.

"Come on," he said. "_Quick_--you'll catch 'em at Hyden." He turned to look at Mottin by the gate-post, in irritation at feeling no s.n.a.t.c.h at the black horse's rein. His face fell slightly. "Hullo--hurt?" he said, and leapt from his mare.

"Go on. Don't wait. Go _on_," said Mottin. "I'll be all right. You get on--it's only my ankle."

"d.a.m.n painful too, I expect. I'm not going on. They'll be at Butser before I could catch them now, and I bet they whip off in the dark."

He threw the reins over the mare's head and left her standing. "Now,"

he said. "It's your left ankle; come here to the near side, and put your left knee on my hands and jump for it."

Mottin complied, and to the accompaniment of a grunt and a pain-expelled oath arrived back in the muddy saddle.

"I say, this is good of you--you know," he said; "but you've----"

"Cut it out--it won't be anything of a run, anyway," lied Sangatte gloomily.

"Come along--it's only three miles to Droxford, but you'll have to walk all the way, and we'd better get on."...

II.

The big seaplane circled low over the harbour and then headed seaward, climbing slowly. There were two men aboard--a young Sub-Lieutenant as pilot and Mottin as observer. Mottin sat crouched low and leaning forward as he studied the chart-holder before him and scratched times and notes in his log-book. They were off on a routine patrol, but there was the additional interest to the trip that on "information received" they were to pay a little more attention than usual to a particular locality.

From his seat Mottin could see nothing of the pilot but his head and shoulders--a back view only, and that obscured by swathings of leather and wool. The two men's heads were joined by a c.u.mbersome arrangement of listeners and tubes which, theoretically, made conversation practicable. As a matter of fact, the invariable rule of repeating every observation twice, and of adding embroidery to each repet.i.tion, pointed to a discrepancy between the theory and practice of the instrument. The machine was a big one, and its engines were in proportion. The accommodation in the broad fuselage was considerable, but on the present trip the missing units of the crew were accounted for by an equal weight of extra petrol and T.N.T. "eggs."

The morning had been hazy and they had delayed their start till nearly noon. It was not as clear as it might be even then, for in a quarter of an hour from leaving the slip the land was out of sight astern. At a thousand feet the pilot levelled off and ceased to climb. He flew mechanically, his head bent down to stare at the compa.s.s-card. At times he fiddled with air and throttle, twisting his head to watch the revolution indicator. The occasional b.u.mping and rocking of the machine he corrected automatically without looking up. He had long ago arrived at the state of airmanship which makes a pilot into a sensitive inclinometer, acting every way at once.

Mottin finished his scribbling and sat up to look round. He raised himself till he sat on the back of his seat, and began to sweep the sea and horizon with a pair of large-field gla.s.ses. The wind roared past him, pressing his arm to his side as he faced to one side or the other, and making him strain the heavy gla.s.ses close to his eyes to keep them steady. An hour after starting he touched the pilot on the shoulder and shouted into his own transmitter. He waited a few seconds and shouted again, with the conventional oath to drive the sound along. The pilot nodded his swathed and helmeted head and swung the machine round to a new course. Mottin crouched down again and began to study his chart afresh. Navigation was easy so long as the weather was clear, but with poor visibility, which might get worse instead of better, he knew that it was remarkably easy to get lost in the North Sea, and at this moment he wanted to see his landfall particularly clearly. Five minutes later he saw it, and signalled a new course to the pilot by a nudge and a jerk of his gloved hand. A low dark line had appeared on the starboard bow, a line with tall spires and chimneys standing up from it at close intervals. The seaplane banked a little as they turned and headed away, leaving the land to recede and fade on their quarter. The hazy sun was low in the west and the mist was clearing. It had been none too warm throughout the journey, but it was now distinctly cold, the chill of a winter evening striking through fur and leather as if their clothes had been slit and punctured in half a dozen places.

Mottin had just slid back in his seat after a sweeping search of the sea through his gla.s.ses, and was slowly winding, with cold fur-gloved fingers, the neat carriage clock on the sloping board before him, when he heard a yelping war-cry from the pilot and felt the machine dive steeply and swerve to port. He half rose in his seat and then slipped back to feel for his bomb-levers. The submarine was just breaking surface eight hundred feet below and a mile ahead. As he looked she tucked down her bow and slipped under again, having barely shown her conning-tower clear of the short choppy waves. The pilot throttled well down and glided over the smooth, ringed spot which marked where she had vanished. As it slid past below them he opened up his engines again and "zoomed" back to his height. He turned his head to look at Mottin, but said nothing. Mottin made a circular motion with his hand and they began a wide sweep round, climbing all the while. Mottin sat back and thought hard. No, it had not been indecision that had prevented him from dropping bombs then. He knew it was not that, but the exact reasons which had flashed through his mind at the fateful moment must be hunted out and marshalled again. He knew that his second self, his wide-awake and infallible subst.i.tute who took over command of his body in moments of emergency, had thought it all out in a flash and had arrived at his decision for sound reasons. Yes, it was clear now, but that confounded fighting subst.i.tute of his was just a bit cold-blooded, he thought. They had petrol for the run home with perhaps half an hour to spare. Fritz had not seen them, as his lid had not opened--or at any rate if he had seen them through his periscope, the fact of no bomb having been dropped would encourage him to think that the seaplane had pa.s.sed on unknowing. Of course they might have let go bombs, but, well, Fritz must have been at anything down to 80 feet at the moment they pa.s.sed over him, and it was chancy shooting.

Yes, it was quite clear. Fritz should be up again in an hour (he evidently wanted to come up), and if they were only high up and ready they would get a fair chance at him. Of course, they would not get home if they waited an hour; but if that cold-blooded second self of his thought it the right thing and a proper chance to take, well, it was so. Mottin looked over the side and wished it was not so loppy. A long easy swell was nothing, but this short choppy sea was going to be the devil. The pilot shouted something to him and pointed at the clock and the big petrol tank overhead. Mottin nodded comprehension, and shouted back. The Sub took a careful look overside and studied the water a moment. Then he laughed back at Mottin, and shouted something about bathing, which was presumably facetious, but which was lost in the recesses of the headpieces.

The sun was down on the horizon, and the hour had grown to a full ninety minutes before the chance came. They had not worried about clocks or thoughts of petrol after the first half-hour of circling.

They were "for it," anyhow, after that, and it was going to come in the dark too, so that the question of whether it was going to be fifty or a hundred miles from land did not make much difference. Almost directly below them the long grey hull rose and grew clear, the splashing waves making a wide area of white water show on each side of her. The seaplane's engines stopped with startling suddenness, and to the sound of a rushing wind in the wires and of ticking, swishing propellers they began a two-thousand-feet spiral glide, coming from as nearly overhead as the turning circle of the big machine would allow.

At two hundred feet the pilot eased his rudder and began a wider turn, and then the German captain saw. He leapt for the conning-tower, leaving a startled look-out man behind. The man tried to follow him down, but the lid slammed before he could arrive at it. He turned and looked helplessly at the big planes and body rushing down a hundred yards astern. With his hands half raised and shoulders hunched up the poor devil met his death, two huge bombs "straddling" the conning-tower and bursting fairly on the hull as the boat started under. Mottin had a vision of a glare of light from the rent hull, a great rush of foaming, spouting air, and then a graceful knife-edge stem, with the bulge of torpedo-tubes on each side of it, just showed and vanished in the turmoil of broken water. The seaplane roared up again, heading west, the young pilot--apparently oblivious to the fact that he hardly expected to be alive till morning--displaying his feelings on the subject of his late enemy by a series of violent "switchbacks."

Mottin checked him, rose, and began a careful look round. Any ship would be welcome now, neutral or not; but this was an unfrequented area to hope to be picked up in. The petrol might last five minutes or half an hour--one could not be certain. The gauge was hardly accurate enough in this old bus to work by. As he looked the engines gave a premonitory splutter and then picked up again. Well, it was five minutes, he reflected, not half an hour--that was all. The pilot turned and headed up wind. With the engines missing more and more frequently they glided down, making a perfect landing of the "intentional pancake" order on the crest of a white-topped four-foot wave. Instantly they began to feel the seas--the hard, rough, senseless water that was so different to the air they had come from.

The machine made wicked weather of it, and it was obvious that she could hardly last long. She lurched and rocked viciously, constraining them to cling to the sides of the frail body. Mottin pulled off his headpiece, and the pilot followed suit.

"Well," said Mottin, "it was worth it--eh?"

"By gum, yes! It was that, and I give you full numbers, sir. I thought for a moment you had taken too long a chance, but you were right."

A wave splashed heavily over the speaker and laid three inches of water in a pool around his ankles.

"This is going to be a short business, sir, unless we get busy."

"I know," said Mottin. "Case of four anchors and wish for the day. Sea anchor indicated, and mighty quick too."...

An hour later it was pitch-dark, and a semi-waterlogged seaplane drifted south, head to sea, bucketing her nose into the lop. Two figures crouched together in the body of her, baling mechanically. On the upper plane an electric torch glowed brightly, pointing westward.

The figures exchanged disjointed sentences as they baled, and occasionally one of them would stretch his head up for a glance round for possible pa.s.sing lights.

"Cheer up, Sub!" said Mottin. "Your teeth are chattering like the deuce. Bale harder and get warm."

"It's not the cold, it's the weather that's doing me in, sir. I'm so d.a.m.ned sea-sick."

"Yes, it's a filthy motion, but she's steadier than she was. 'Fraid she's sinking."