Part 14

Janet, the trim housemaid, was interested in the Navy for personal reasons in which a good-looking signalman "on Jellicoe's boat" played a considerable part. She it was, early the following morning, who took Maggie Ann in hand. "Did you ever see such hair wasted?" she said, contemplating Maggie Ann's honey-coloured tangled thatch. "Even if you are going to your brother's funeral..." and bade her comb it, and dressed it with such cunning that the pale slatternly girl stood silent, staring before the mirror. The generous enthusiasm of the woman who is 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 fit you.... Oh! what stockings--wait a minute." Drawers were rummaged, bits of lace and crape unearthed, the married sister's hat was pounced upon and underwent a swift metamorphosis in Janet's nimble fingers. "There!" she said at length. "Why, I believe you're pretty!" Maggie Ann turned from the glass with her hazel eyes aglow, and a faint colour creeping towards the cheek bones set wide apart in her pale face.

2

Towards dawn a British Destroyer limped into the little harbour embraced by one flank of the headland where the coastguard station stood.

One of the blades of the Destroyer's propeller was missing, and the "A" bracket, designed to support the shaft, threatened to decline any further responsibility in the matter.

The Destroyer had sighted an enemy submarine on the surface at close quarters during the night. The submarine had dived with commendable promptitude, but not quite fast enough to avoid the nimbly manœuvred Destroyer, who grated over her outer skin at thirty knots. The conning tower of the submarine, which bumped along the length of the Destroyer's side, was responsible for the disinclination of the "A" bracket for anything but a merely passive attitude towards the damaged propeller.

A couple of depth charges accelerated the submersion of the submarine considerably, and the Destroyer made for the nearest harbour with leaking stern-glands, and a ship's company uplifted beyond mere jubilation.

The Commanding Officer went ashore to telegraph his report of the incident, while the Chief Artificer Engineer and the Blacksmith put their heads together over the fractured "A" bracket.

Ashore, the Lieutenant-Commander encountered the Chief Officer of the Coastguard.

"Seein' as 'ow you're in the harbour, sir," said the Chief Officer, "mebbe you'd like to land a party for the funeral this afternoon."

His tone was that of a man organising an entertainment under 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 the telegraph office, looked up the sleepy street.

"Whose funeral?" he inquired.

"Party o' the name o' Jones," replied the C.O. in tones of melancholy enjoyment. "Trimmer, Royal Naval Reserve, washed ashore near the coastguard station. Mother attendin' funeral at 2 P.M. If you was to land a firin' party, an' a bugler, an' mebbe half a dozen mourners, sir, we could do the thing in style."

The Lieutenant mused in silence for a while. The "A" bracket would take till five o'clock, and the funeral was at 2 P.M. "I can't guarantee the mourners," he said, "but you can have the firing party and the bugler. And if any of the men wish to attend as mourners, I'll give them leave."

"Thank you, sir," said the Chief Officer. "The Boy Scouts from 'ere is turning out, and the firemen from Nordbury, an' the lifeboat's crew. They was all for 'avin' a collection afterwards in aid of the institootion. But I sez to them----"

The Lieutenant-Commander had sighted a pink parasol, shading a white muslin dress above neat ankles, that emerged from a shop farther down the street. If he walked quickly enough he ought to be able to get a glimpse of the face hidden by the parasol by the time he reached the pier, where his gig was waiting. Two years of war in a Destroyer quickens masculine interest in such problems. He descended the 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 pink parasol.

Twenty minutes later he was climbing on board his Destroyer.

"Mr. Foulkes," he said to the Gunner, "I want you to take a firing party of eight men and a bugler, to attend the funeral of an R.N.R. trimmer who's being buried ashore this afternoon at 2 P.M. Better run them through the manual before they land. And if any of the port watch want to attend as mourners they can have leave. Some of the stokers may like to go."

The Torpedo Coxswain who had overheard the conversation went forward to herald the tidings along the Mess deck. "Blime!" said a bearded seaman ecstatically, when he heard the intelligence, "first we sinks a perishin' submarine, an' then strike me giddy if the bloke don't lush us up to a funeral ashore! I reckon that's actin' proper 'andsome."

At 1 P.M. the funeral party fell in on the upper deck; the brown-gaitered firing party, with rifles and bandoliers, and an attendant bugler, were given final injunctions by the Gunner.

"Don't forget now, when we arrives at the mortuary, dead-'ouse or what-not, the firing party will rest on their arms reversed, the muzzle of the rifle placed on the toe of the right boot, 'ands resting on the butt, chins sunk upon the breast, at the same time assumin' an aspec' cheerful but subdued."

The Lieutenant-Commander arrived on deck and interrupted the oration.

"What's that brigade fallen in forward there, Mr. Foulkes?" he inquired. "We aren't giving general leave."

"Them's the mourners, sir," said the Gunner, sternly surveying the crape-swathed ranks, who, after the fashion of sailors when about to go ashore, were preening themselves and squaring off each other's blue-jean collars.

"Mourners, 'shun!"

The mourners sprang to attention and gazed solemnly into vacancy.

"How many of the port watch are landing, in the name of mercy?" asked the Commanding Officer.

"The 'ole lot, sir," said the Gunner, "bein' wishful to pay respec' to the dead."

The third volley rang out across the quiet churchyard that was the last resting-place of R.N.R. (T.) 1347.

The bolts of the rifles rattled and snapped as the firing party unloaded; the last empty cartridge case fell to the ground with a little tinkling sound, and the bugler 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 final journey.

Its last unfinished note died away, and there was a moment's utter silence. A hoarse word of command, followed by the grounding of rifle-butts, succeeded the stillness, and the firing party swung off down the hill with the air of men who had handled a dramatic situation without discredit.

The mourners, at the invitation of the Chief Officer of the Coastguard--who held that a thing worth doing at all was worth doing properly--repaired to the Coastguard Station to partake of a cup of tea.

Here as many as could crowd into the little house were introduced, in a congenial atmosphere of tears, hot tea and peppermint, to the mother and sister of R.N.R. (T.) 1347.

"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Jones in a gratified aside to Maggie Ann, "to think Albert Edward had so many friends! There's fine young fellows too."

The mourners, not one of whom had ever set eyes on Albert Edward in their lives, acted to this cue with the inevitable instinct of the sailor for the rôle required of him.

When, reluctantly, they departed, shepherded back to the boat by the Torpedo Coxswain, Maggie Ann stood at the little gate leading to the cabbage patch, and gazed after them with swimming eyes.

"There's kind they are," she murmured, "grand, strong men an' all..." and thrust a crumpled twist of paper one had given her, bearing his name and address, into the bosom of her dress.

A week later the Commanding Officer of the Destroyer, in the exercise of his duties as censor of the ship's company's letters, came across the following epistle:

"DEAR Miss JONES,--Hoping this finds you as it leaves me in the pink, thank God. I take up my pen to write you these few lines dear Miss Jones, it gives me much pleasure to write to you as promised after your brother's funeral which I hope you will find time to write me a few lines as I am a very lonely sailor. Being an norfun and no incumbrances whatsoever dear Miss Jones I now draw to a close with best respects and plese write soon.

"from your sincere friend, "JOE WALSH, able seaman.

"P.S.--I enclose postle order for £1 so plese don't be offended, excuse me, hoping you will buy some little present for yourself."

The Lieutenant-Commander restored the document to its envelope. "Thank God I was taught young to accept responsibility," he said. He picked up the censor 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 antique furniture 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 were given instruction on board. I acquired it when the ship was broken up." He eyed me thoughtfully through his spectacles, and passed three fingers round thin, clean-shaven lips. "Valueless intrinsically, of course. But it struck me it might have sentimental associations for some: possibly historic associations in years to come. Generations of cadets have carved and scratched their names all over it. This was one of the few remaining. Nearly all the others had been broken up for firewood--it's only deal."

Together we dragged the relic into the light of day. "You see?" he said, and switched a duster over the varnished sloping surface. One glance sufficed.

"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 time was mumps. The stricken and the suspect were herded in separate enclosures between decks, segregated by canvas screens hung from the beams overhead to the deck. The migratory mump germs probably found the canvas screens less of an obstacle to freedom than their victims, and to these, doomed to the confines of a hammock, the time passed with leaden slowness. Even the novelty of contemplating in a mirror the unfamiliar distortion of one's jowl palled after a bit. "Dracula," a much-thumbed and germ-impregnated volume, circulated from hammock to hammock until even Bram Stoker's vampires failed to stir the pulse. Meals, reduced to proportions in themselves an insult, did little to break the monotony, and the hour arrived when Satan, on the look-out for idle hands, must have found his task what a later generation would have called a "cinch."

It was the custom, when visitations of this nature descended upon the cadets, for a sick-berth steward to be banished into exile with the stricken. The job can have been no sinecure, although germs ignored the individual in question with as great indifference as bees display towards an apiarist. Frequent sojourns in the camps of the afflicted had soured the temper of this sick-berth steward and warped a nature that can at no time have been a sunny one. As a ministering angel his appearance was not æsthetic; he was a ponderous fellow, with a neck that ran to creases at the back and appeared to undulate imperceptibly into his bullet head. In fact, it was difficult to say where neck ended and head began. His eyes 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 to his head. It was this peculiarity that earned him the title of "Windsails," a name by which he was universally known among the cadets, and to which, curiously enough, he answered without resentment.

Now, it happened that one of the victims of the mump scourge was a certain cadet whom, for purposes of this reminiscence, we will call Day. As events transpired, he was not long destined to wear the King's uniform, but passed a few years afterwards to a walk of life whose ethics obeyed a less trammelled code than that of the Royal Navy.

In worldly knowledge, ingenuity of mind, and humour of a certain standard, he was far in advance of his years. Possessed of a cold-blooded courage, utterly indifferent to consequences, he was an unfaltering ringleader in a "rux." In fact, it was this last quality that made for such popularity as he commanded. No one really liked him, but there were a good many who held him in half-grudging admiration, and so passed under an influence not wholly to the good, but dominated by his personality and controlled by a glib and bitter tongue.

Boredom hit him harder than the more placid temperaments; they might be provoked to mischief thereby, but in the soul of Day it roused a very devil of perversity. Finally, one evening when the slender evidences of the last meal had been removed, and life became a blank without outlook or hope, Day broached his scheme to half a dozen of his languid fellow-patients who lounged round the open gun-port watching the afterglow dying in the western sky.

"I vote we cut Windsails down when he's snoring in his hammock to-night," he said in his slow, meditative drawl. Windsails slept at night in a hammock slung a little forward of his charges, and the sound of his snoring compared favourably with what one can imagine of the roaring of the Bulls of Bashan.

There was an aghast silence. The very tone in which Day propounded such a stupendous outrage was sufficient in itself to compel their admiration.

"I can reach the foot of his hammock lanyard where 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 keeping with other characteristics that he should possess a razor, although the need for it was not apparent on his smooth cheeks.

"We shall all be run in," objected a faint-heart. "Heaven only knows what we'd get for cutting down a sick-berth steward. A 'bimming,' as likely as not." Perhaps some dim shadow of the Hague Convention floated through the speaker's mind.

Day eyed him contemptuously. "Why should anyone be run in? He'd never suspect. They'd think his lanyard broke 'cos it was rotten. Windsails weighs about a ton."

"But suppose they ask us point-blank if we know anything about it?"

"Why, then we should have to tell a lie--a thundering big one--and stick to it." He mused with his agate-coloured eyes on the far-off hills turning dark against the quiet sky. "'Course, you fellows needn't know anything about it. You can shut your eyes when you hear Windsails start snoring, and keep 'em shut. Then you couldn't actually swear who did it." His smile was, somehow, never quite boyish. "D'you see?"

Something like relief spread over the faces of the conspirators. 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 reviving courage. Given this loophole for the conscience the monstrous proposal assumed an alluring aspect. "Make the lanyard look sort of frayed.... Windsails told me there weren't any letters for me yesterday," he added inconsequently, "and there were two. He was just too jolly lazy to get 'em."

"He found my cigarettes where I'd hidden 'em--in my boots," supplemented another, "and collared 'em. Said I could either give 'em to him or be run in." He brooded darkly. "Serve him jolly well right!" For the moment he almost persuaded himself that the affair was in the nature of a punitive reprisal.

"It's just possible, though," temporised a more law-abiding member, "that if no one owns up they'll punish everybody--I mean everybody who's under the screen now."

"Ah!" observed Day, "in that case something would have to be done about it."

The evening wore on, and the invalids retired to their hammocks. Windsails, having concluded the few simple preliminaries to which he was accustomed, turned into his.

"Fuggy beast!" whispered one of the watchful partners of this unholy alliance. "He doesn't even take his socks off!"

One by one the law-abiding occupants of the hammocks dropped off to sleep; but, as the sound of their even breathing swelled and the minutes passed, the wakefulness of the conspirators increased. Would Windsails ever start snoring? What was Day doing? Did it hurt much to be cut down? Supposing he died ... broke his neck?

Then, faint at first, gathering volume and strength every moment, began the rumbling, stertorous eruption of sound that proclaimed the reception of Windsails into the arms of Morpheus.

If he died, would it be murder? ... Accessories before the fact.... Of course, as long as one kept one's eyes tightly shut.... What was Day doing? Why didn't he get it over? Keeping everyone on tenterhooks----

There was a soft, almost noiseless chuckle. That was Day. Of course the situation would appeal to him; he knew no one dared open his eyes.

Crash! Then utter silence.

Ten throbbing seconds passed--twenty. Still no sound. He must be dead!--no need to pretend any longer. Half a dozen heads emerged from blankets--craned; jaws dropped, hearts beat suffocatingly. But the huddled figure on the deck made no movement; it remained in the light of the police-lantern a confused heap of blankets and muffled humanity that presently emitted a groan--and then another.

No one dared move; blanched faces stared down over the edges of the canvas hammocks; visions of disgrace, expulsion--worse, the felon's dock and hangman's noose, came clustering out of the shadows.

And then Day snored.

It was not a loud snore; nothing overdone or inartistic. Just the heavy, regular breathing of an innocent and tired boy asleep. That fellow had nerves of steel! Endurance, pent in frailer vessels, had just reached its limits when the huddled figure on the deck stirred, rolled out of its blankets, and, with another groan, rose to his feet. Day's solitary breathing became a chorus of snores, impassioned in their realism.

Windsails stood motionless, contemplating a massive bollard adjoining the ruins of his bed.

"That's what winded me," he said with the air of 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, picked up the severed hammock lanyard and scrutinised it in the lantern light. In silence he made the end fast to the beam again, readjusted his blankets, and climbed 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 of sternness and faint surprise with which he always confronted malefactors. In this case there were arraigned before him all the recent inmates of the quarantine quarters.

"It is incredible to me," he was saying, "that any officer--any young gentleman about to become a naval officer--should so far forget himself as to perpetrate this outrage. I have personally examined the hammock lanyard, and there is no doubt in my mind whatever that it was cut--cut by a sharp knife. There was no one under the screen at the time with the exception of you young gentlemen." He paused and allowed his grave, handsome eyes to travel over their haggard faces. "I expect the cadet who did it to step forward and own up honourably."

No one moved. There was a pause. "I shall give you all three minutes to think it over," continued the captain, "and if at the end of that time no one has come forward, the whole lot will do instruction on board every half-holiday for the rest of the term." The captain drew out a gold watch, glanced at it, and closed it with a little snap. As if dismissing the whole business from his mind, he turned and began conversing with the commander in inaudible undertones. Finally, he drew forth the watch again and turned towards the cadets.

"You have fifteen seconds..." he said, paused, and closed the watch for the last time. Turning towards the commander, he nodded. "Dismiss the cadets."

On the desk in front of each cadet was a litter of foolscap covered with ladders of bewildering calculations whereby seamen, incredibly enough, ascertained the position of their ships at noon.

It was a laborious task, exacting and uninteresting during legitimate school hours; as an occupation for a half-holiday in June, with the warm air blowing through the open ports the scent of hay and Devon moorland, it was loathsome. One of the toilers, having finally placed his ship securely in the centre of Radnorshire, laid down his pen, thrust his thumbs into his "beckets" and gave himself up to vengeful brooding. The breeze brought visions of the playing fields and practice at the nets, with a lemon-squash to follow ... and a strawberry ice.... Oh, curse Day! Why couldn't he own up and take his hiding like a man? What was the use of his declaring that the lanyard really broke of its own accord? That he never touched it! As if anybody believed him after all he said the evening before it happened.

He glanced across the study with furtive dislike at the author of all this misery. It was hard to believe that he had really done it to look at him now. Day had finished his task (he was extraordinarily quick at figures) and was leaning back in his seat with his lips pursed up in a soundless whistle, staring at the flies on the ceiling with a sort of far-away smile in his eyes. Of course he had done it! Didn't the captain as good as say he'd done it? He was doubtless planning some fresh devilment.

His dislike of Day crystallised to hatred. He had rather admired him before all this took place; admired his cool impudence, his quick tongue, his superlative cleverness at games. Now he hated him, and wanted to do something that would proclaim his feelings to the Universe.... Perpetuate---- An idea smote him and his face brightened.

With the aid of a book of logarithmic tables and an instrument box he built up a not too obvious barricade screening him from casual observation. Then, drawing a knife from his pocket, he cleared a little space on his desk and set to work, whittling unobtrusively. In a quarter of an hour it was done, and with ink and spittle the newly-cut wood anointed to a semblance of age. Feeling better, he resumed his navigation.

* * * * * *