II.
At last came the day when the Mariner left the river to carry out the first of a series of steam trials. As yet she was not a full-fledged man-of-war, and, being still in the hands of the contractors, was in the charge of a pilot. Wooten was present merely as a spectator, and to take over the command in the rare eventuality of their happening to sight an enemy. They sighted no enemy; but the trip shook many of the civilian voyagers to the core.
It was a cold and blustery day. The wind was off the shore, and had raised what Wooten called 'a little bit of a lop,' but what, in the opinion of the contractors' men, was 'a terrible storm.' It is true that the motion was supremely uncomfortable, and that when the destroyer was travelling at something over thirty knots she was deluged fore and aft in sheets of spray. The ship was very crowded, too. To start with, she carried the eighty odd souls who formed her proper naval crew. Then there were the Admiralty officers, overseers, and officials, the builders' representatives and foremen, and others from different sub-contracting firms who had supplied various portions of the machinery. The firm, who never did anything by halves, provided lunch in the wardroom for the officers and the more important officials. And such a lunch it was, brought on board in three enormous wicker hampers which filled the officers' bathroom! It would seem that food and drink were presently to circulate as freely in the wardroom as would lubricating oil and north-country blasphemy in the engine-room. But most of them had no food until the ship returned into harbour in the afternoon. They had reckoned without that fickle mistress, the sea, and she flattened many of them out. Bovril and brandy were more to their liking than solid food. Moreover, some of them were rather nervous about going out of the harbour at all.
'I say, commander,' one of the firm's bigwigs had said to Wooten as they steamed down the river, 'is it true that the Germans have been laying mines off the coast?'
'M'yes,' said the lieutenant-commander; 'I believe it is.'
'Is there any chance of our being blown up?'
'No-o,' said Wooten slowly; 'I don't really think there is, though of course this bad weather we've been having lately will have broken many of 'em adrift.'
'And what'll happen if we hit one?' his companion wanted to know.
'Happen!' said the naval officer. 'The bloomin' thing'll probably go off, and we shall take single tickets to heaven in a puff of smoke. We're chock-full of lyddite and gun-cotton, and'——
The civilian seemed rather perturbed. 'Of course, I'm not really nervous,' he hastened to explain, looking rather white about the gills as he fidgeted with an inflatable rubber life-belt round his middle; 'but I do hope you'll keep a careful eye on the pilot.'
'Of course I will. I'm not going to let him bump one of the bally things unless I can't help it. She's still your ship, though,' added Wooten, 'and I'm not really responsible.'
'No, I quite understand that,' said the other; 'but, you see, I'm not used to—er—risks of this kind. I'm not paid for it, and I've a wife and five children.'
'You're insured, I suppose?' asked Wooten, smiling to himself.
'Yes; but my policy doesn't cover war risks.'
'H'm! that's bad; but I shouldn't worry about it if I were you. If we do go sky-high'—— Wooten paused.
'What were you going to say?' the bigwig asked apprehensively.
'I was thinking,' Wooten went on with a malicious twinkle in his eye—'well, I was thinking that if we are blown up there will be quite a merry little lot of us—nearly a couple of hundred—what? I can almost see myself as a nice fat little cherub sitting on a damp cloud twanging a harp—eh? They'll probably serve you out with a trombone. Can you play one?' He laughed, for somehow his companion reminded him of the man who had played that instrument in the orchestra of the Portsmouth Hippodrome in pre-war days.
'I do wish you'd be serious,' the contractors' representative observed sadly. 'This is no joking matter.'
'I am serious,' Wooten protested, trying hard to control his face.
'But you seem to like the idea.'
Wooten shook his head. 'Don't you believe it,' he replied. 'But just think what a glorious death it would be for you if you did go sky-high! Why, your name would be in the Roll of Honour, and your photo in the Daily Mirror. You'd be a public hero!'
'Better be a live convict than a dead hero,' observed the bigwig glumly, going off to seek consolation elsewhere.
But when they did get to sea, and the Mariner started first to bob and curtsy, and then, as she gathered speed, to kick and dance like a bucking mule, the violent motion drove all thoughts of mines or German submarines out of their heads. They were seasick—fearfully and wonderfully seasick. The joys of a sailor's life were not for them, and most of the contractors' men and not a few of the ship's company wished that they might die. The very thought of food made their gorges rise in disgust, so lunch was delayed until their return into harbour just before dark.
Wooten and the officers were enthusiastic about the ship. 'She's a rattling good sea-boat,' the former remarked, rubbing the caked salt out of his eyes as he sat down in the wardroom when the ship had secured alongside her wharf. 'We hardly took a green sea on board the whole time.—Give me some of that game-pie and a whisky-and-soda, steward! I'm perishing with hunger.'
'Green seas!' laughed a lately revived contractors' official, busy with a plate of galantine on the opposite side of the table; 'the water seemed to be coming on board everywhere. I thought the weather was absolutely poisonous.'
'Poisonous!' echoed the skipper, looking up with his mouth full. 'My dear sir, it was a ripping day. Nearly flat calm.'
'You call that nearly flat calm?'
'Course I do. There was nothing but a little bit of a lop.'
'A lop, d'you call it? And what the deuce are these craft like in a gale?'
'A bit lively, and most damnably wet,' said Wooten.
'Well, thank God I'm not a destroyer sailor!' exclaimed the civilian with a sigh of heartfelt relief. 'I think you fellows ought to get treble pay in bad weather.'
'So do I,' the naval officer agreed. 'But none of us get our deserts, thank Heaven!'
Every one laughed.
The first trial was not a complete success, and the ship was delayed for a few days with defective fan engines. Then, with the faults rectified, they went to sea again, and this time everything worked smoothly—far more smoothly than Thompson, the engineer-lieutenant-commander, had dared to hope.
The Mariner was a flyer, or at least she flew faster than any other ship most of them had ever been in before. The ship's company talked of her being able to do thirty-seven knots, and thought themselves no small beer in consequence; but as a matter of fact their estimate was exaggerated.
They carried out several more trials, and eventually, in the third week of February, the ship commissioned. Her officers and men shifted themselves and their belongings on board from their respective hotels and lodgings. Pompey, Jane, the two cats, and a newly acquired fox-terrier puppy rejoicing in the name of Tirpitz were dragged ruthlessly on board, and the destroyer hoisted her pendant and ensign. She was a man-of-war at last.
Two days later she sailed to the southward. The good wishes of her builders went with her; for, if anything serious went wrong with her interior economy within the next few months, they, by their contract, were due to pay the piper.
And so the Mariner put out to sea.