Читать книгу: «H.M.S. –», страница 3

A WAGE SLAVE

The Coxswain nodded to the boy messenger and reached for his cap.

"All right, my lad – 'ook me down that lammy. What's the panic, d'ye know?"

"No, I dunno. Sez 'e, 'Tell 'im to come up. I want 'im at the wheel,' 'e sez. An' I come along an' – "

"All right – 'ook it, and don't stand there blowin' down my neck."

The Coxswain jerked his "lammy" coat on, and clumped heavily out of the mess, chewing a section of ship's biscuit (carefully and cunningly – for the shortage of teeth among torpedo coxswains amounts almost to a badge of office) as he went.

"What's up, Jim – steam tattics?" asked the Torpedo Gunner's Mate – another Lower Deck Olympian – looking up from a three-day-old 'Telegraph.'

The Coxswain grunted in response. It is not the custom of the Service to answer silly questions. The reason the question was asked at all may be put down to the fact of the 'Telegraph' being not only old but empty of interest.

As he reached the upper deck he buttoned his coat and felt in his pockets for his mittens. It was very cold – a cold accentuated by the wind of the Destroyer's passage. There was no sea, but it was pitch-dark, with a glint of phosphorus from water broken by the wakes of six "war-built" T.B.D.'s running in line ahead at an easy twenty-four knots. The Coxswain could never, in all probability, have explained his reasoning, though the fact that the speed had been increased was noticeable; but he knew, as he swung up the ladders to the unseen fore-bridge, that he had not been sent for a mere alteration of course. His brain must have received some telepathic wave from the ship's hull which told him that the enemy had had something to do with the break in his watch below.

His sea-boots ceased their noisy clumping as he reached the bridge, and he was standing by the helmsman with a hand on the wheel before the man had noticed his arrival. With an interrogative grunt he stepped to the steering pedestal as the man moved aside, and he stood peering at the dimly lit compass card, and moving the wheel a spoke or two each way as he "felt" her.

"North Seventy East – carryin' a little starboard," said the dark figure beside him, and he accepted the "Turn-over" with another characteristic growl —

"That you, Pember? Follow the next ahead and steer small." The Commander had spoken, the white gleam from his scarf showing for a moment in the reflected compass light.

"Next ahead and steer small, sir." He leaned forward and watched the blue-white fan of phosphorus that meant the stern-wave of the next ship. Low voices spoke beside him, and the telegraphs whirred round and reply-gongs tinkled. Half, or perhaps a quarter, of his brain noticed these things, but they were instantly pigeon-holed and forgotten. He was at his job, and his job was to hold his course on the next ahead. Without an order, nothing but death would cause him to let his attention wander from his business. He heard the sub-lieutenant a few feet distant crooning in a mournful voice —

 
"How many miles to Babylon?"
"Three score and ten."
 

The back of his brain seized the words and turned them over and over. Babylon was in the Bible – he wasn't sure where it was on the map though. How much was three score and ten? Three twenties were sixty, and – "Action Stations" – Babylon slid into a pigeon-hole, and he relaxed for a second from his rigid concentration on the next ahead. He straightened up, stretching his long gaunt body, and a suspicion of a smile lit his face. Then he resumed his peering, puckered attitude, oblivious to everything but that phosphorescent glow ahead. The glow broadened and brightened, and he felt the quiver beneath his feet that told of a speed that contractors of three years ago would have gaped at. A vivid flash of yellow light lit up the next ahead and showed her bridge and funnels with startling clearness against the sky. By the same flash he saw another big destroyer on the bow crossing the line from starboard to port. His own bow gun fired at the instant the detonations of the first shots reached him, and in the midst of the tearing reports of a round dozen of high-velocity guns, by some miracle of concentration, he heard a helm order from the white scarf six feet away. The little fifteen-inch wheel whirled under his hand, and with a complaining quiver and roll the destroyer swung after her leader to port. In the light of a continually increasing number of gun-flashes he saw the next ahead running "Yard-arm to Yard-arm" with a long German destroyer, each slamming shell into the other at furious speed. He gave a side-glance to starboard to look for his opposite number on the enemy line – and then came one of those incidents which show that the Navy trains men into the same mental groove, whether officers or coxswains.

The enemy destroyer was just turning up to show her port broadside. She was carrying "Hard-over" helm, and her wheel could hardly reverse in the time that would be necessary if – . The coxswain anticipated the order he knew would come – anticipated it to the extent of a mere fraction of port-helm and a savage grip of the wheel. The order came in a voice that no amount of gun-fire could prevent the coxswain from hearing just then. "Hard-a-port! Ram her, coxswain!" The enemy saw and tried to meet the charge bow-on. There was no room between them for that, and he knew it. His guns did his best for him, but a man intent on his job takes a lot of killing at short range. Two shells hit and burst below the bridge, and the third – the coxswain swung round the binnacle, gripping the rim with his left hand. His right hand still held the wheel, and spun it through a full turn of starboard helm. The stiffened razor-edge bow took the enemy at the break of the poop, and went clean through before crushing back to the fore bulkhead. At the impact the shattered coxswain slipped forward on the deck and died with a smashing, splintering noise in his ears – the tribute of war to an artist whose work was done.

AN "ANNUAL."

A grey drizzly morning, with yellow fog to seaward and every prospect of a really wet day. At each side of the black basin gates stood a little group of men, the majority "Dockyard mateys" of the rigger's party. A few wore the insignia of higher rank – bowler hats and watch-chains. The bowler hats conferred together in low voices, while the rank and file conferred not at all, but stared solemnly out at the wall of mist that cut the visibility in the harbour down to a bare four hundred yards.

Round the corner of the rigger's store two uniformed figures appeared walking briskly towards the basin entrance. Both wore overcoats. The shorter man was grey where the hair showed beneath his gold-peaked cap, while the pale face and "washed-out" look of the younger man indicated that the hospital ship which took him away from Gallipoli had done so none too soon.

As they approached, one of the bowler-wearers detached himself from the group and spoke to the senior of the two. There was a three-cornered comparison of watches and then a move to the wall, over the edge of which they gazed down at the slowly moving yellow water.

"We'll give her another quarter of an hour, Mr Johnson, and then pack up," said the officer. "I think it has cleared a little since six, and I know they'll bring her up if they possibly can."

Through the medley of horns, syrens, and whistles that had been sounding through the fog, four short blasts caught the ear of a rigger who leaned against the outward capstan bollard. He lounged forward a couple of paces, and the men nearest looked round at him with a symptom of interest. The blasts sounded again, and he turned and looked at the foreman rigger behind him. The foreman nodded and spoke and the group separated a little, some of the men picking up long flexible "heaving-lines" coiled in neat rings on the cobble-stones.

"She's coming, sir," said the foreman, turning to the King's Harbourmaster; "she'll just do it nicely. That was the new tug's whistle."

A couple of capstan bollards began to clatter round as steam was turned on and a heavy wooden fender swung with a crash over the rounded edge of each entrance wall. The mist was clearing now, and the traffic in the harbour could be dimly seen. A foreman pointed to seaward, and the younger officer followed his arm with his tired eyes. Over the fog a slender dark line showed with a blurred foretop below. The unmistakable tripod mast of a big ship showed gradually through, and as he watched he was reminded of a magic-lantern picture out of focus being gradually brought into definition by the operator. The mist cleared faster than she approached, and at a quarter of a mile he could see the great looming bow surmounted by tier on tier of bridges, which mounted almost to the high overhanging top. She crawled slowly on, using her own engines, the hawsers leading to the furiously agitated paddle tugs on bow and quarter sweeping slack along the stream. On the tall "monkey's island" a group of figures clustered together, and the gleam of gold-peaked caps showed among the blue overcoats. At half a cable's length the voices of the leadsmen, inarticulate and faint before, could be clearly heard. "And a ha-a-a-f nine" – "and a ha-a-a-f nine." The bow tugs sheered off to each side, and whistles blew shrilly. The heavy bow hawsers fell splashing in the water, and the jingle of engine-room telegraph bells echoed up the walls of the entrance. A couple of dingy black "rigger" boats, propelled "Maltee fashion," with the rowers standing facing forward, appeared between the dockyard wall and the great curved stem. Heaving-lines sailed through the air, uncoiling as they flew, and the boats rowed furiously back to the entrance. From somewhere aft by the turret a great bull voice spoke through a megaphone. The riggers at the entrance leapt into sudden activity, and for five minutes the din and clatter of capstans, shrilling of whistles, and splash of hawsers in the water broke the spell of silence. The noise died suddenly, and the note of telegraph bells came ringing again from the high grey monster. Slowly she gathered way, and to the clatter of the dockyard capstans as the slack of the hawsers was taken in, her forty-foot curved stem passed the black caisson gates. The two officers, the young and the old, stepped to the edge of the wall and looked across. Her stem had hit off the exact centre of the entrance, but there was a good two hundred yards of her to come yet. In dead silence, with groups of men fallen in at attention along her side, she flowed on, her speed a bare two knots, but a speed in keeping with her enormous bulk and majesty. As she entered, and the finer lines of her bow passed, she seemed to swell, till she almost filled the entrance, and it looked as if one could step aboard her from the lock-side. The eyes travelled from the mighty turret guns that glistened in the rain, and were attracted up and up till heads were tilted back to look at the highest bridge of all. A quiet incisive voice could be clearly heard: "Port ten" – "'Midships" – "Stop both." Again the "kling-kling" of bells and then silence. The grey-haired officer on the wall raised his hand in salute, and a tall grave captain, looking down from above, saluted in return, showing a flash of white teeth in a smile of recognition.

As she passed the hawsers came with her, transferred from bollard to bollard by gangs of staggering men. The passage of her stern past the outer entrance seemed to break a spell, as if the hypnotism of hundreds of staring eyes had passed away. The caisson gates ground to with almost indecent haste behind her, as some castle portcullis might do as the last prisoner was dragged through. Whistles blew, answering each other across the oily, rain-pitted water of the basin, and to the weeep we-ooo of pipes and the roar of the boatswains mates' voices, the lines of rigid men on the great ship's side broke up and fell back. She had left the open sea and had become "Number 955 – for refit – in Dockyard hands."

"How long is she for, sir? Ten days?"

The grey-haired officer turned: "No, only eight. They want her back as soon as possible. Four days' leave to each watch and she'll be off again. You're looking cold, boy – come up to breakfast. That malaria hasn't left you yet."

"I wish it would, sir. I want to get to sea again.

"I know. It's not so bad to watch them come in, but it makes me feel old when I see them leaving again. But you needn't worry, the War's going on a long time yet."

"OUR ANNUAL."

 
Up the well-remembered fairway, past the buoys and forts we drifted —
Saw the houses, roads, and churches, as they were a year ago.
Far astern were wars and battles, all the dreary clouds were lifted,
As we turned the Elbow Ledges – felt the engines ease to "Slow."
 
 
Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle —
Saw the harbour-tugs around us – smelt the English fields again, —
English fields and English hedges – sheep and horses, English cattle,
Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.
 
 
Slowly through the basin entrance – twenty thousand tons a-crawling
With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War —
Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling —
"There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore."
 
 
Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloaming
With the sailors on the fo'c'sle looking wistfully a-lee —
Just another year of waiting – just another year of roaming
For the Majesty of England – for the Freedom of the Sea.
 

MASCOTS

 
When the galleys of Phœnicia, through the gates of Hercules,
Steered South and West along the coast to seek the Tropic Seas,
When they rounded Cape Agulhas, putting out from Table Bay,
They started trading North again, as steamers do to-day.
They dealt in gold and ivory and ostrich feathers too,
With a little private trading by the officers and crew,
Till rounding Guardafui, steering up for Aden town,
The tall Phœnician Captain called the First Lieutenant down.
"By all the Tyrian purple robes that you will never wear,
By the Temples of Zimbabwe, by King Solomon I swear,
The ship is like a stable, like a Carthaginian sty.
I am Captain here – confound you! – or I'll know the reason why.
Every sailor in the galley has a monkey or a goat;
There are parrots in the eyes of her and serpents in the boat.
By the roaring fire of Baal, I'll not have it any more:
Heave them over by the sunset, or I'll hang you at the fore!"
"What is that, sir? Not as cargo? Not a bit of private trade?
Well, of all the dumbest idiots you're the dumbest ever made,
Standing there and looking silly: leave the animals alone."
(Sailors with a tropic liver always have a brutal tone.)
"By the crescent of Astarte, I am not religious – yet —
I would sooner spill the table salt than kill a sailor's pet."
 

THE SPARROW

A perfectly calm blue sea, a blazing June sun, and absolutely nothing to break the monotony of a blank horizon. The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high. The sparrow had no right to be there at all. He hailed from a Yorkshire hedgerow, and nothing but a real three-day fog and westerly winds could have brought him over such a waste of waters. He had been flying in a circle all night, swerving at intervals down to the water in the vain hope of finding rest for his aching muscles. Now he was heading roughly towards his home with but slight hopes of ever reaching it.

A faint droning noise to the north made him turn, and low over the straight-ruled horizon he saw a silvery-white line that every moment grew larger. He headed towards it, but at a mile range swerved away to pass astern of it. It was not an inviting object for even a lost sparrow to rest on. With engines running slow – so slowly that the blades of the great propellors could be easily seen – with a broad white-and-black ensign flapping lazily below and astern, the Zeppelin droned on to the south'ard, a thing of massive grace and beauty on such a perfect summer's day.

With a vague idea that the monster might lead him home, the sparrow turned and followed. The Zeppelin slowly drew ahead and rose higher, while far to the south another monster rose over the skyline, black against the sun. The great craft passed each other and turned away, the first one heading back to the north whence he had come, and the second disappearing to the east, climbing slowly as he went.

The sparrow turned also and fluttered and dipped in pathetic confidence after his first visitor. The fact of having seen something, however unpleasant and strange-looking, had given him a new access of strength, and he was able to keep the great silver thing in easy view. Suddenly the Zeppelin tilted like a hunter at a high fence, and the note of his engines rose to a dull roar. He climbed like – well, like a sparrow coming up to a house-top – and at three thousand feet he circled at full power, levelling off his angle, and showing a turn of speed which left the frightened bird gaping.

The sparrow fluttered on vaguely, passing at 100 feet above the water, below the Zeppelin. He had decided that a pilot who played tricks like that was no sort of use to him, and that he had better stick to his original idea of working to the north and west, however lonely a course it might be. He swerved a little at a rushing, whistling noise that came from above him, and which grew to a terrifying note. A big dark object whipped past him, and a moment later splashed heavily into the mirror-like surface below. The rings made by its impact had hardly started to widen, when there was a great convulsion, and a column of smoky-white water leapt up behind him, followed by the roar of an explosion. The sparrow started to climb – to climb as he had never done in his life. Twice more – his weariness forgotten – he was urged to further efforts to gain height, by the shock of the great detonations from the water below. The Zeppelin was down to a thousand feet now, swinging round on a wider circle. Five hundred feet below, the sparrow saw a faint streak on the water which faded at one end into blue sea, and at the other narrowed to a little feather of spray round a dark point that was travelling like the fin of some slowly moving fish to the north-westward. The Zeppelin saw it too, and came hunting back along the line. Bang – bang – bang! Great columns shot up again ahead and astern of the strange fish, and away went the sparrow to the south once more. Any course was bad in this place, and it was better to die alone in the waters than to be pursued by such a monster of the air. As he went he heard more and more detonations behind him, until the noise of the droning engine had died, when he was again alone over the sparkling unfriendly sea. The exertions and alarm of the last hour had taken the last of his reserve forces, and in uneven flutterings his flight tended lower and lower, till he was a bare twenty feet from what he knew must be his grave. Then came a miracle of war. A bare quarter-mile ahead a thing like a tapering lance began to rise and grow from the water. It was followed by a grey black-lettered tower which also grew and showed a rounded grey hull, moving slowly south with a white band of froth spinning away astern. A lid on the tower clanged open, and two figures appeared. One raised something to his eye, and faced south. The other stood on the rail and pivoted slowly round, staring at sky and sea.

"I wonder what the deuce he was bombing – bit of wreckage, I suppose," said the man on the rail.

"Well, it wasn't us anyway. The blind old baby-killer." The man with the sextant lowered it and fiddled with the shades. "We've got no boats near, have we, sir?"

"Not for donkeys' miles. I hope it was a Fritz, anyway. I say, look at that spadger!"

"Where? I don't see it. Stand by. Stop, sir."

"All right, I got you. Here, catch this watch. That spadger's gone down into the casing, and he'll drown if we dip with him there. Look out for those Zepps. coming back."

The Captain swung quickly down the foreside of the conning-tower, ran forward and peered into the casing in the eyes of the boat.

"Zepp. coming, sir, – north of us, just gone behind a bit of cloud."

"Zepp. be damned. Ah! got you, you little beggar." He reached his arm into a coil of wet rope and rose triumphantly to his feet. The sparrow cheeped pitifully as he ran aft again and took the ladder in two jumps. He gave a glance astern and another all round the horizon before following his sextant-clutching subordinate below. The lid clanged, and with a sigh, a gurgle, and a flirt of her screws the submarine slid under, the blank and expressionless eye of her periscope staring fixedly at an unconscious but triumphant Zeppelin that was gliding out from a fleecy patch of cloud astern.

"Here you are, Lizzie. Skipper said I was to let him go soon's we got in, but I just brought 'im to show you. We've 'ad 'im aboard five days now, and 'e can't 'alf eat biscuit. 'E's as full as 'e can 'old now. Open the window, old girl, and we'll let 'im out afore I starts 'ugging yer."

The lid of the cap-box opened wide and the sparrow hopped to the table. He raised his cramped wings and fluffed out his feathers as he felt his muscles again. There was a flutter and a flip of his impudent tail, and quicker than the eye could follow him the wanderer was gone.