I.
Your modern destroyer differs from her prototype of twenty years ago in much the same way as the present-day Rolls-Royce differs from the early motor-car of 1895. She is just about four times as large, is infinitely more seaworthy, is much faster, and better armed. She is an ocean-going craft which, with judicious handling, can keep the sea in practically any weather, whereas her more elderly sister usually had to run for shelter in a really bad gale of wind, and was unfit for constant work in the North Sea except in summer.
Pincher had seen destroyers at work, and had heard a great deal about them in one way and another; and when, in the first week of February, he found himself detailed as one of the crew of a new craft of this type on the verge of completion in a northern port, he was happy. True, he knew he 'wouldn't be 'arf seasick,' as he put it, and did not at all relish the idea, though the extra sixpence a day 'hard-lying money' was always something to be grateful for. He was aware, moreover, that life in a destroyer in war-time was considered rather a hard and risky existence; but he would probably be in the thick of anything which took place in the North Sea, and he owed 'them 'Uns' something for sinking his first ship and drowning many of his shipmates.
He wondered why he had been sent to a destroyer at all, however, for he knew that as a rule ordinary seamen were not eligible. As a matter of fact, it was Peter Wooten, the late senior watch-keeper of the Belligerent, who had worked the oracle. Wooten was the sort of person whom nothing could kill. I don't know how many times he had been wrecked, or how often his life had been in danger; but after the battleship sank he had been in the water for half-an-hour in nothing but a singlet and a pair of socks, in one of which was stuffed his last five-pound note. He had been picked up by a boat from one of the cruisers at the last moment, and purely by a lucky accident; but even then he had been rather annoyed with his rescuers because they laughed at his scanty and unofficer-like attire. He also had a grievance because he had lost his best uniform cap, a brand-new article which, he informed any one who cared to listen, had cost him the sum of twenty-two shillings and sixpence, and had last been on his head when he jumped overboard. Incidentally he had saved the lives of two men by helping them to reach pieces of wreckage; but, being as hard as nails himself, he was not one whit the worse for his aquatic adventures.
He eventually got ashore in a borrowed overcoat, proceeded on a fortnight's leave, and then, as the result of a visit to a friend at the Admiralty, found himself appointed to the Mariner, a new destroyer. Naturally he was delighted, and at once set about collecting a good ship's company for his new ship. He far preferred having men he knew to strangers who had never served with him before; and, by dint of a little judicious conversation with the officer in charge of the drafting-office at the barracks, Petty Officer Casey, Billings, M'Sweeny, and Pincher were officially detailed for his ship. It was Casey himself who had suggested Martin's inclusion, though that youth was unaware who had caused a point to be stretched in his favour.
Pincher was not really a nervous, highly strung individual with a vivid and preying imagination; but even so, five weeks had elapsed before the doctors consented to allow him to go to sea again. His nerves had been badly shaken, and the sudden banging of a door or unusual sounds of any kind brought him out in a cold and horrible perspiration. Crossing a street through traffic or entering a boat was an ordeal which caused him many moments of poignant mental agony.
They had sent him on three weeks' leave, and the twenty-and-one days of blissful ease, during which he saw nothing of the sea, and was treated as more or less of an invalid and as very much of a war-worn hero, helped to restore him to his normal self. The presence of Emmeline, by special request, also had its effect, for with the girl as his constant companion he was able to forget many painful incidents which it was as well should be forgotten.
But the advent of Emmeline certainly did involve him in complications of another kind. A porter had told the stationmaster that he had seen Mrs Martin embrace the girl when she arrived at the railway station. The stationmaster imparted the information to his wife; and that lady, an inveterate gossip, spread the news far and wide. It caused no small flutter among the maidens of Caxton. It was neither correct nor proper for the mother of an eligible youth to go kissing a girl in public unless the youth himself regarded the maiden as his 'intended,' on approval, as it were; so Mrs Martin, quite inadvertently, put her foot in it, and caused the cat to leap out of the bag in one act.
Not that Emmeline or Pincher cared a jot who knew. It was bound to come out sooner or later, and each found the company of the other quite sufficient and pleasant enough to make life well worth living. The fact that the village girls were bitterly incensed and obviously jealous was rather amusing than otherwise. Though not admitting it, they would have regarded it as an honour to be seen about with a sailor or a soldier in uniform now that it was war-time. They considered that Pincher had played them a low-down trick in ignoring their charms and in going elsewhere for an object for his affections, and they did not hesitate to say so. They took the precaution of making their remarks in private, however, for with their parents Pincher was something of a hero. Their mothers knitted him socks and comforters, and at the 'Bull and Bottle' he could, if he had wished it, have absorbed sufficient malt liquor at the fathers' expense to float a battleship. So when he heard that busy tongues were wagging in his direction he laughed happily and said nothing. Emmeline, wise girl, did the same.
Some of the Mariner's ship's company and all the officers had been sent up north beforehand to become acquainted with their new ship; but at last came the day when the remainder—some sixty odd seamen and stokers—were put into a train with their bags, hammocks, and some mascots, in the shape of a monkey, two cats, and one small goat, for which they had not taken tickets.
The goat, Pompey, was young, but had a voracious appetite, for before they got to London he had eaten two pork-pies, the property of Pincher Martin, three packets of Wild Woodbine cigarettes of M'Sweeny's, and half a magazine belonging to some one else, while the respective owners slumbered peacefully. On arrival in the Metropolis he was so overcome by his miscellaneous diet as to be violently and unexpectedly ill in the omnibus on the way to King's Cross; whereupon the conveyance was stopped for brandy to revive him. As a consequence, they very nearly missed their train to the north; while Pompey, unused to potations in any form, spent the remainder of the journey in a state of coma.
The two cats behaved well; but, in the small hours of the morning, just before the train was due to start from one station, Jane the monkey was discovered to be missing. The whistle had already blown, but the train was stopped, and forty-three bluejackets, vowing that nothing on earth would induce them to be parted from their pet, swarmed from their carriages and went off in search of the truant. Ten minutes later, Jane, gibbering like a lunatic, but with absolutely no malicious intent, was discovered chasing a middle-aged, portly, highly respectable, and very terrified female round and round the table in the third-class waiting-room. The monkey was enjoying herself hugely; not so the lady.
'Such goin's on didn't oughter be allowed, young man!' she panted breathlessly when Billings stormed her retreat, and Jane abandoned the pursuit.
'Lor' bless yer, marm!' laughed Joshua, helping her to collect her scattered parcels, 'she's that tame she'd feed out o' yer 'and.—Come 'ere, Jane,' he added coaxingly. 'Come an' show th' lady 'ow nice ye kin be'ave.'
The animal, busily investigating the contents of the water-carafe on the table, clucked twice, and evinced no further interest.
'Them wild hanimals didn't oughter be allowed!' the woman retorted nervously. 'An' you, young man,' she went on, fixing Joshua with a horny eye, 'is a disgrace to your uniform! You oughter be fightin' them Germans instead o' chasin' monkeys round railway stations at this time o' night. I'm a respectable married woman, I am, an' if my 'usband knoo o' these goin's on 'e'd be very angry. My 'usband's a foreman bricklayer'——
'I'm sorry yer takes it that way, marm,' said Joshua apologetically, picking up the protesting animal by the scruff of her neck, and then touching his forelock. 'I'm sure our Jane didn't mean no 'arm. I'm a respeccable married man meself, an''——
'Married man, are you?' interrupted the lady, with a snort, as the seaman, with Jane perched on his shoulder, prepared to take his departure. 'Married? Shame on you! What'd your poor wife say if she see'd you be'avin' like this, an' chasin' respectable women with your wild hanimals instead o' fightin' for your country? I've a good mind to 'ave the lor on you! The wild beast nearly bit me; would 'ave done if I 'adn't run'——
There was no pacifying her, and Joshua, smothering his amusement, beat a hasty retreat. Her strident remarks followed him down the platform.
It took some time to collect the others, who had scattered all over the station in search of the deserter; but eventually, after a long and heated altercation with two ticket-collectors and three porters, reinforced by the guard and a sleepy station-master, the train was suffered to proceed on its journey twenty minutes late. The travellers, hungry, irritable, and very peevish, arrived at their destination at six o'clock in the morning, in a thick fog and a depressing north-country drizzle, to discover, on disembarking with their menagerie, that half-a-dozen hammocks and three kit-bags had, by inadvertence on some one's part, been left behind in London.
But all's well that ends well; and, two hours later, after breakfast, the party, slightly more cheerful, arrived at the shipyard where the Mariner was being completed. They found the workmen still busy upon her; and as she would not be ready for commissioning for another week, the men were billeted in lodgings for the time being.
But they were not allowed to kick their heels in idleness. There is always plenty to be done before a new ship is ready for sea; while in war, when every one is working at full pressure, the labour of a fortnight has often to be crammed into three or four days. Ammunition had to be transferred from railway trucks to the magazines and shellrooms; torpedoes had to be placed in their tubes; and a whole trainload of stores unloaded, sorted out, checked, and carried on board—dozens of drums of oil, tons of paint, bolts of canvas, bundles of cotton-waste, coils of wire and hemp rope, broomsticks and boat-hook staves, oars, cooking utensils, crockery, knives, spoons, forks, bedding, provisions, rum, and many other things too numerous to mention! It was like furnishing a new and empty house, except that a dwelling is not expected to cruise about the countryside at something over thirty knots, and does not as a rule contain sufficient in the way of lethal weapons and explosives to sink a squadron of battleships. Neither does the average residence accommodate eighty odd people. It was hard work, for the men were busy all day and every day, from early morn till dewy eve.
In the meantime, the contractors' workmen, using every effort to get the ship completed by the proper date, swarmed on board in their dozens. All day and all night the air resounded with the clanging of their hammers and the deafening rattle of their pneumatic drills. A party of bluejackets, under the orders of Mr Daniel Menotti, the gunner (T), once spent the whole of a bitterly cold forenoon stowing shell in the after shellroom. At eleven-thirty, when the men were looking forward to their midday meal, and were congratulating themselves that their labours were nearly finished, one of the contractors' foremen suddenly appeared.
'Hallo!' he remarked affably; 'what's going on here?'
'We're stowin' the after shellroom,' said Mr Menotti blithely. 'Reckon we've done it in record time, too.' He rubbed his hands contentedly.
The foreman scratched his right ear. 'That's rather unfortunate,' he observed, with a smile hovering round his mouth. 'We've not finished the woodwork yet, and we can't get on with it if all your projectiles are stowed.'
'Can't get on with it!' echoed the gunner. 'Why, Mr Scroggins—your Mr Scroggins—told me it was all right to carry on with the job!'
'I,' retorted the foreman dourly, tapping his bosom—'I am the man in charge, and Mr Scroggins isn't. You shouldn't have taken his word. If you'd come to me I could have told you that'——
'Mean to say you want the whole blessed lot humped out again?' the gunner demanded wildly. 'We've spent the whole bloomin' forenoon over the job, and'——
'That's just exactly what I do mean,' interrupted the foreman, smiling benignly. 'We can't put the woodwork up if your shell are there, and if the woodwork's not put up the ship'll be delayed. That's all about it.' It was his ultimatum, and with a polite nod to the exasperated officer he walked off.
'Lord love us!' Mr Menotti ejaculated; 'd'you mean to say'—— Words failed him, and he contented himself with shaking his fist at the foreman's retreating back. 'Damn an blast!' he muttered fiercely, recovering his breath but not his composure; 'of all the ruddy sons o' Ham you're about the worst! Why couldn't you have told me this three hours earlier, you lop-eared tinker? Why didn't you—— Oh, you perishin' swab, you!—Come on, lads,' he added mournfully, shrugging his shoulders; 'we'll have to hump the whole bloomin' lot out again, damn an' blast him!' He ground his teeth with rage.
The 'lads' expressed their disapproval of things in general and contractors' foremen in particular in loud, full-blooded nautical blasphemy. But uncompleted ships are still under the control of the firm building them, and the firm—well, the firm takes precedence next to the Admiralty itself. So there was nothing for it but to undo the work of hours. Every single projectile had to be removed. There were one hundred and fifty of them, and each weighed thirty-one pounds, neither more nor less.
But they were all busy. Wooten kept a watchful eye upon everything that went on, and in the intervals of interviewing Admiralty overseers and foremen wrestled with his correspondence and confidential books and documents. MacDonald, the Scots first lieutenant, grappled with his watch and station bills, arranged the men in their various messes and boats, and detailed them for their guns, torpedo-tubes, and stations. He, as the executive officer, was entirely responsible for the organisation and interior economy of the ship, and found it a difficult job to think of and provide for all the possible contingencies which might arise when once they got to sea. Sometimes he tore his hair and cursed aloud, more particularly over the matter of the Smiths.
It so happened that some person at the drafting-office at the barracks, with a sense of misguided humour, had thought fit to include no fewer than four Smiths in the Mariner's crew. There was Reuben Smith, an able seaman; John Smith, a stoker; Peter Smith, the cook's mate; and Harry Smith, a long-haired officers' steward of the second class, with a pale face and a mournful aspect. The ubiquitous surname, cropping up at every turn, became the first lieutenant's bugbear. It haunted him night and day. Once, after a couple of hours' hard work, he discovered that he had placed Reuben Smith in the stokers' mess, John Smith with the seamen, Peter Smith in the wardroom, and the undesirable Harry with the petty officers. He had made out a fair copy of his list before discovering the error, and then, adding up the total, found he had two men too many. He checked it again, to discover that he had included not four but five Smiths, while yet another man had been counted twice over.
Thompson, the engineer-lieutenant-commander, who had stood by the ship while she was being built, wore a suit of brown overalls and a harassed expression. It was not to be wondered at, for, amongst other things, he was responsible for all the stores, and nearly every morning he received pathetic or peremptory missives from the officials of the dockyard whence the destroyer had been supplied. His stores reminded him of the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. He had packing-cases, crates, and parcels of every imaginable shape, size, description, and weight, all of which had to be unpacked, checked, and acknowledged. He hoped fervently that the things would sort themselves out and fit into their proper places at some period in the dim future; but every train which arrived brought him fresh consignments, until his pile reached such colossal proportions that he had serious doubts if they would be able to get it all on board.
However, he had no time to worry too much about the stores, for he had quite enough to think about with the machinery and boilers of the ship herself. He had seen all his air-pumps, feed-pumps, air-compressors, and what-nots erected and tested in the shop before they had been built into his ship. He had examined his boilers, bearings, and thrust-blocks, and had supervised the delicate adjustments of the turbines; and now he spent all his days and most of his nights in the engine-room seeing if everything worked in harmony. Occasionally things went wrong, and he found himself embroiled in long and highly technical arguments with the representatives of the firm. They wanted things done in their way because they were building the ship; while he, quite rightly, preferred his own method because he would have to run her when she got to sea. They generally came to some sort of a compromise; but Thompson always avers that that last awful week took at least ten years off his life, and I am inclined to believe him.
The sub-lieutenant, Hargreaves, who had only his charts to correct, was perhaps the lightest-worked officer of them all; but Mr Menotti became apoplectic about the face, and was brought to the verge of lunacy thrice daily. First he had discovered that he had too much ammunition; and then, on counting again, that he had thirty projectiles too few. He promptly sent a frantic telegram to the ordnance depot which had supplied the ammunition in the first instance, to receive in reply a curt message stating that so many shell—the proper number—had been despatched on such and such a date. They held his signed receipt for them, so would he kindly verify his statement? Their meaning could not have been plainer if they had wired, 'If you're such a silly juggins as to go losing shell, it is certainly not our fault!'
The gunner, with awful visions of courts of inquiry and courts-martial for the loss of valuable Government stores—to wit, shell, lyddite, thirty in number—searched high and low, but without success. They eventually turned up the day the ship sailed, arriving in a hand-cart propelled by two small youths, who said they—the shell, not the youths—had been found in a remote storehouse in the shipyard where Mr Menotti himself had put them for safety. The gunner always had a very short memory when he was harassed.
The shipyard was a depressing place, full of gaunt cranes, overhead gantries, grimy buildings, and huge corrugated-iron erections with tall chimneys which befouled and blotted out every vestige of the sky with their oily black smoke. Besides two destroyers and some other small craft, the firm were building a battleship, and the noise and clatter of the pneumatic riveters and drilling-machines was deafening. Cranes, with steel plates hanging precariously from their jibs, staggered drunkenly to and fro on their lines, screeching as they went. Piles of rusty plates, which presently would be built into some ship, lay everywhere in seeming confusion for people to bark their shins against after dark; while pale, apathetic youths stood here and there working the bellows of huge brazier affairs with coke fires for heating rivets. A shout from a grimy gentleman perilously balanced on a plank some ten feet overhead would warn them that another rivet was wanted; and, seizing the morsel of red-hot steel in a pair of tongs, the boys, with a dexterous flick of their wrists, would send it flying through space, to be caught as cleverly by a man with a bucket. To an outsider the whole yard seemed to be in a state of chaotic confusion, but in reality it was very highly organised, for gang relieved gang, and the work went on night and day.
It was nearly always raining, and the horrible slime was carried on board the Mariner until her decks and living-spaces were literally an inch deep in black filth well trodden in by the feet of many workmen. The white wooden tables and stools on the mess-decks were caked in grime and covered with paint-splashes and candle-grease, while workmen shocked the susceptibilities of the first lieutenant by their monotonous and indiscriminate expectoration. He nearly wept every time he went on board. He would have to get the ship clean some day, and at present the labours of Hercules in the Augean stables seemed nothing to what he would have to undertake.