Part 6

"I've thought it over," was the reply. "I've done nothing else since I came back from sick leave." He made a little movement with his damaged hand. "And I--the fact is, sir, I can't stick it any longer."

There was a note in the old thing's voice that somehow wrung my heart. There was trouble here, and my imagination coursed wildly over fields of improbability. For an instant I thought of a woman, but dismissed the idea. The sort of women that Mouldy usually bestowed a fleeting affection upon were not the type to send a man looking for glory.

"Look here," I said, "we've known each other some years now. I'm not the man, as you've probably discovered, to butt into a fellow's private affairs or worm confidences out of anyone, but if you're in trouble of any sort, and it would help to get it off your chest----"

He hesitated for an instant, and in that moment he looked somehow pathetic; awfully young and boyish and in need of advice. "I'm a good deal older than you are, Mouldy," I went on, "and I've been through my own Valley of the Shadow in my time."

He took a long breath, and for a second I thought the floodgates were going to be loosed. Then the painful reserve and shyness of his nature closed on the impulse like a vice. "No, sir," he said, "no ... thanks awfully.... I just wanted to get away ... just that."

Whatever fox was gnawing under his shirt, he preferred to hold on to it rather than another eye should see his hurt. Well, I think I liked him all the better for it. I never found talking about my trouble lightened it. It's a matter of temperament, I suppose.

"Right-o!" I said instantly. "I'll see what can be done. In fact I'll go further. I'll promise you all the change and danger and excitement you could possibly want." And with that I sent him to turn in.

7

My relief turned up three days later, and that night they gave me a farewell dinner in the Wardroom. It was like all shows of the kind--a mixture of wild joviality and moments of sentiment, real or stimulated by the cup. I had to make a speech, of course, and altogether was not sorry when it was at last possible to escape to the Quarter Deck. I had given no reason for my abrupt departure from the ship, and I was conscious that I had succeeded in surrounding myself with a sort of glamour of mystery. Bunje (he was our First Lieutenant then) would have it that I was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with an exiled princess, and made a moving speech after dinner that was not in all its features fit for reproduction in these pages.

The Young Doctor stoutly maintained that I had decided to embrace Holy Orders, and insisted on borrowing the Padre's cassock to wear while he outlined my probable career as a missionary in the valley of the Yangtse-Kiang.

It was Thorogood who joined me on the Quarter Deck where I was finishing a final pipe before turning in, and he fell into step beside me, linking His arm in mine in the boyish, spontaneous manner in which his affectionate nature revealed itself.

"We'll miss you awfully, Commander," he said.

"You haven't seen the last of me yet, James," I replied.

"No," he answered, "but you're off to-morrow, aren't you? And God knows when I'll see you again."

"Hang it, why shouldn't I drop him a hint," I thought. If the flower of the Service was needed for this bloody business, then I'd choose Jimmy Thorogood amongst the bunch.

"James," I said, "would you care to come with me to my next job?"

He stopped short and stared at me through the darkness. "D'you mean it?" he cried. "By Jove! If I thought----"

"Listen," I said. "Its a business that wants thinking over. It's a pretty risky affair, and you are liable to get scuppered. The odds are a hundred to one on your being killed. I can't tell you any details at present, but think it over. You're not to tell a soul, and I'll write to you later and renew my offer. I shan't think you a coward if you refuse." Upon my soul, at that moment I half hoped he would refuse. I was awfully fond of Jimmy Thorogood.

"My aunt!" he gasped, just as I had gasped in the Admiral's cabin in fact. "How perfectly _topping_! ... I say, thanks awfully, sir!"

I left it at that.

8

For the next couple of months I was a busy man. I made my headquarters ashore, but they gave me a roving commission, and I spent a good deal of the time at the Admiralty and paid a lot of flying visits to Dockyard Ports. It would take too long to go into all that part of the business and describe our hunt round the scrap heaps of the Navy for just the craft we needed. I fixed on the old _Intolerant_ for my share of the business, and I shan't forget the thrill with which I first saw her, black against the sunset one evening, lying at her rusty moorings on the Motherbank. For the three blockships we selected the three obsolete Cruisers of the "D" class: _Daring_, _Dauntless_, and _Determination_, and presently their Captains arrived down from the North in obedience to a telegram from the Director of Offensives. They invaded my diggings at the Base one forenoon, tumbling out of a rickety four-wheeler, burdened with rugs and suitcases, all jabbering at once; James Thorogood, a contemporary of his called Glegg, and another Lieutenant-Commander I didn't know, named Brakespear. They were in the highest spirits and loudly demanded food. I fed them and gave them drink, and finally, when they had their pipes alight and were sprawling at their ease, I unfolded what lay ahead. Of course, they had an inkling--in fact, they had to be told a certain amount when they were asked to volunteer. But they wanted details now, and what I told them ought to have sobered a circus. Instead of which, Glegg danced a war dance, and Thorogood solemnly stood on his head in a corner of the sofa, while Brakespear flung cushions at him and scared the landlady's cat to the verge of delirium.

It was the next day that I learned for the first time who was to lead the Marines' storming party on to the Mole from the deck of the old _Intolerant_. I received a telephone message from the Director of Offensives that he wanted to see me, and accordingly I went to town and reached his office about noon. There, studying a roll of aerial photographs through a magnifying glass at the Admiral's side, was Milsom. I somehow felt no surprise, but he raised his eyebrows and smiled in his half-mocking whimsical way.

"You know each other?" said the Admiral. "That's all right. Now what about the demolition party. We want a Lieutenant-Commander for that; a Gunnery man for preference. Any suggestions, Hornby?"

"Yes," I said. "Lieutenant-Commander Jakes." I named my old ship.

He nodded. "Send for him and let me see him. In the meanwhile you two had better go and have a Council of War. It wouldn't be a bad plan if you went down and looked at the _Intolerant_ together. They've started work on her, and as soon as the living quarters are ready, you, Hornby, can take up your quarters on board. Milsom won't need to for some time yet." He turned to the Marine. "You can pick your men and start in a preliminary training ashore. No need to be uncomfortable till you've got to! By the way, if you are going down to see the _Intolerant_ you can take a letter for me to the Commander-in-Chief. Just wait while I dictate a few lines."

He pressed a button on his desk, and I carried a couple of the photographs to the window to get a better light. They were photographs of Angerbad, obtained by our aircraft the previous day, and I studied them with considerable interest. The weather had been bad for reconnaissance of late, and the most recent photographs I had seen previously were taken ten days before. I don't think I heard the door open, but I did hear Milsom give a funny little gasp behind me, and I turned to see a girl standing in the doorway. The light was full in her face, and my heart gave the most unaccountable jump. I suppose it was astonishment, because the new-comer was the girl who had travelled with us in the train returning from leave--what now seemed centuries ago. She didn't appear to see me, but her eyes, with their curious concentrated gaze, were levelled on Milsom. She stood quite motionless for a moment, and I realised for the first time that she was very tall. I am not a short man, and her startled eyes were level with mine. A little half-smile of recognition passed over her face. Then, with a slight inclination of her graceful head, she slipped into a chair, with pencil poised and notebook on her knee. The Director, deep in papers that strewed his desk, dictated a note, smoked half a cigarette while it was being typed, and signed it. As the girl was leaving the room he said: "By the way, Miss Mayne--Captain Hornby--Colonel Milsom." The girl bowed, but Milsom stepped forward. "We've met before," he said, and held out his hand.

"Yes," said Miss Mayne. A faint colour came into her pale face. She gave him one searching, half-puzzled look (just such another glance as I intercepted in the railway carriage), and quietly left the room.

9

Some day I hope a better man than I will write the story of that grim preparation with its hours of heartbreaking labour; its disappointments and anticipations, the close, almost affectionate, intimacy between officers and men. "Eat, drink, and be merry" was the motto of the Force, and those who know the sailorman's lightheartedness and cheerful oblivion to the things of the morrow will realise, with a morrow as uncertain as ours, how care-free was to-day. As a psychological study it must have presented strange and interesting sidelights. We only had one punishment--a threat of dismissal from the Force; and I vow that the dread of the cat in the Navy of old never produced such a state of discipline as ruled on board those ancient crowded ships.

I got a First Lieutenant appointed, a lad called Jervis, who, immediately on joining, decided that his rôle required of him that he should grow a beard with all speed; as a facial adornment it was not a success, but regarded as a terrifying war-mask it left little to be desired. He was a laughable, lovable soul, a regular soda-water bottle of fizzing spirits and optimism, and the men worshipped him. Selby was our Navigator, a dry, thoughtful old stick, with eyes that always seemed full of memories that clung like sheep's wool along a bramble hedge. He was one of those men you never get to know thoroughly, yet who never make you conscious they are keeping you at arm's length. It's a type the Navy breeds prolifically. Never knowing privacy from earliest youth onwards has a good deal to do with it.

In all the preliminary fitting out, however, the men who really slaved and on whom so much of the final success depended were Shorty Casseen, our Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander, and the Gunnery Lieutenant, Teigne. The former found a scrap heap, and converted it into a set of engines that was not only to be relied upon to take the ship to Angerbad, but we rather hoped would also bring her back after an almighty hammering. I've often wondered why he volunteered for the job: he had a little wife he adored and two bonny kids. But he came, and he lived through it, bless him.

"Guns" (Teigne) was one of those gunnery enthusiasts who make you wonder what profession he'd have chosen if no one had discovered gunpowder. He saw the world through telescopic sights, I believe, and is reputed, on first seeing the large hotel that was a prominent landmark near where we were then anchored, to have muttered longingly: "My aunt! What a target!"

Of course, as the time drew near, and we had rehearsed and drilled to the last gasp of preparedness, others were added to the complement. We had a Padre, a bullet-headed athlete, who before the war was the parson of a roaring miners' camp in the North. Not the wife-beater's terror of the Sunday periodicals to look at, though--a quiet, friendly little chap, with a way of blinking when he talked, as though the sun was in his eyes. But one night in the Mess when we were having a scrap to keep our spirits up and help our digestions, he picked me up and threw my twelve stone about like a rag doll.

Jock Macrae was our P.M.O., with two assistants fresh from some hospital. For a man who was no despiser of whisky he had the most iron nerve and steadiest hand of any "butcher" I've met. I have wondered since how many torn and bloody bundles of humanity owe their lives to his imperturbable pluck and skill. He brought a banjo with him, and night after night he would sit cross-legged on the deck, plucking at the catgut with those long surgical fingers of his, and sing old Jacobean ballads to the moon.

The blockships were moored not far away from us, and we organised concerts and dinners that will always remain vivid in my memory as the gayest entertainments of the kind I have ever participated in.

I saw little of Mouldy or Milsom during the training period. The former was coaching his braves in the gentle art of demolishing things ashore at the Base, and the latter was at Headquarters introducing his band of warriors to the inner mysteries of bomb-throwing, flame projecting, and similar cults. Once or twice I went over to confer with them separately, and found that, by a curious succession of accidents, they had never met each other.

"Went over twice to see that Marine bloke," grumbled Mouldy, seated on a case of explosives and measuring off some fuse, "and blowed if he wasn't in Town each time, havin' a frolic; an' here are we sweatin' our guts out..." He launched into a brief description of the activities of his disciples during the past month.

Milsom had a similar grievance. "What's the bird's name--the demobilisation expert?" he inquired. "Jakes? Well, I went over to look him up t'other day; I've never met him, and I thought that, as we were going over the bags together, we might meet and have a chin-wag. Of course, the day I chose to toil over to the Base he had gone afloat to try some experiments somewhere, so I came back none the wiser."

"You'll meet as soon as they transfer the forces on board us," I said.

I saw Milsom once more before they all took up their quarters on board. It was in Town, and I had gone up for the last time to set a few private affairs straight. I don't worry my solicitor much, and I think he was genuinely concerned at my "clewing up" my affairs so thoroughly. Anyhow, when the business was over he insisted on taking me to lunch "somewhere cheerful," as he put it. He thought, I suppose, that I was getting morbid.

We lunched at a large crowded restaurant full of red-tabbed soldiers and pretty women smoking cigarettes. I'd rather have gone to the club, but old Addison was all for this place. "Brighten you up, my boy," he said, pouring out the champagne. It was at that moment I saw Milsom. It wasn't so much seeing him there that surprised me as the glimpse I got of his companion's profile. It was Miss Mayne, and judging by the angle at which Milsom's head was inclined towards her, and the grave intentness with which she was listening to what he had to say, they appeared to know each other pretty well. They had finished luncheon, and she was aimlessly stirring her untasted coffee and answering Milsom in rare monosyllables, her eyes on her cup. Altogether, they didn't appear to be having a particularly gay time, and in a little while they rose and threaded their way side by side out of the babbling overheated room and were lost to view.

10

I had completed everything I came up to London to do by 4 P.M., and found on looking up a timetable at the club that I had just time to get to the station and catch a train back to the Base. I got to the terminus with a few minutes to spare, and on going to the bookstall to buy something to read I saw a familiar figure standing beside the stall turning the pages of a magazine. It was a Commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a tough old yachtsman called Armitage. I did not know him well, but I had heard a good deal about him from Thorogood. He was well over fifty and was, I believe, a very rich man. Yet he spent the first three years of the war slamming about in the North Sea, and he was now stationed at the Base in charge of the Armed Motor Launches.

He nodded a greeting at me and gathered a bundle of papers. "Going down by this train?" he said. "Let's find a carriage together. I'd like to have a yarn with you."

As luck would have it, we got a carriage to ourselves, and after we had started and Armitage had got a gigantic bulldog pipe in full blast, he broached the topic that was uppermost in the minds of all of us those days.

"It's this blockship business that's been worrying me," he said. "Even with the crews cut down to the bare minimum and disembarking surplus steaming parties before they get across, there'll be an awful lot of men on board when they sink themselves."

"Yes," I said; "but they've got boats. They'll just have to pull across the harbour under cover of your smoke screen"--the motor launches were detailed to lay the smoke screen inshore--"and the Destroyers will pick up the boats outside."

Armitage nodded and puffed his enormous pipe. "That's all right as long as the wind holds. But supposing the wind shifts and blows the harbour clear of smoke?"

I was silent. We all knew there was a possibility of such a thing happening, but that had been taken into consideration by the gallant lads who had volunteered for the job.

"I saw the Admiral this morning," continued Armitage, "after talking it over with some of my boys. I told him six motor launches would volunteer to go inside the harbour and bring off the blockships' crews."

I stared at him. "But..." I said, "have you seen the photographs of the place? There's a machine-gun about every two yards round the harbour, to say nothing of any destroyers there may be moored alongside the Mole. You'll get smothered with gunfire at point-blank range before the blockships are abandoned."

"Oh!" he said, "I'm not making out it's a joy-ride. Thirty years ago I might have laughed at it. Remember," he said, pointing the stem of his pipe at me. "I'm not making a proposal that I'm not going to see through myself. I'm going to lead the boats in. But I feel that it would be wrong not to have a try at saving some of those gallant children's lives. Why," he went on, "I might have had a son there----" He broke off and was silent for a moment, puffing hard as if he were laying one of his own defensive smoke screens.

"We're the R.N.V.R.," he said. "Remember that. We want to show the Navy what we're good for. The R.N.V.R.!" he repeated. "Lord! I could tell you tales of the old days. The _Buzzard_----"

He laughed, a little hard laugh without any mirth in it.

We were silent for a while after that. My brain was busy with this new development of the affair, and I was beginning to see all manner of heroic possibilities in the proposal.

"When a man gets to my age," continued Armitage presently, "he sees things more clearly somehow--the things that matter and things that don't. You get down to bedrock. Money! I know something about that commodity, and just how much happiness you can buy with it." He made a little movement with an empty hand. "Hope makes for two-thirds of the happiness of life: hoping for something you believe God'll be good enough to give you--something you think you've lived clean enough to earn. Maybe you get it, maybe you don't. But you just go on hoping something, you know." He looked at me with patient, steadfast eyes. "I want to be of some use to somebody before my number goes up. And if I bring back to his lover some boy who might otherwise have been buried by a German funeral party, perhaps I shan't altogether have lived in vain.

"'A little hope that when we die We reap our sowing, so--good-bye!"

he quoted, smiling. And I thought his smile was as pathetic as his words.

11

The storming and demolition parties came on board one lovely sunny morning--the sort of day that makes you want to forget there's a war. They were two of the finest bodies of men I've ever set eyes upon, and as I watched them disencumbering themselves of their arms and accoutrements along the upper deck, laughing and joking among themselves, it occurred to me that if blood must be the price of Admiralty, we were going to pay full measure of our best.

We had a sort of informal Council of War in the Wardroom during the morning, and the Mess was crowded to the limits of its capacity with Subalterns and Lieutenants, smoking and talking nineteen to the dozen. Into that Dutch Parliament presently strolled Mouldy Jakes, and stood a moment in the doorway. "My word," he ejaculated, "who wouldn't sell his little farm and go to sea--eh, boys? Anybody got a drink to give the Officer in Charge of the demolition party?" Someone handed him a cocktail and his lugubrious face brightened. It then occurred to me that he and Milsom had not yet met, and I rose from my seat on the edge of the table to find the latter in the crowd. I discovered him standing upright by the door staring at Mouldy with one of his odd, inscrutable smiles, and it struck me, I remember, that he looked unusually white. I introduced him and left him yarning over a drink.