III.
All things are said to have their uses; but I have never yet been able to discover any utilitarian purpose attached to a fog. I believe that the men serving in lighthouses and lightships benefit by them to the extent that they receive extra pay in return for their want of sleep while their hooters and sirens are working; but I am more than certain that this small addition to their salaries would be more than made up by annual subscriptions from cheerful captains, masters, and officers of His Majesty's Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine were fogs to be abolished altogether.
There are fogs and fogs. A fog ashore is a nuisance which may cause one to arrive as much as an hour late at the office, may make one miss an appointment with one's dentist, or, worse still, an appointment to lunch or dinner with some opulent acquaintance. I have even heard of a London fog which was so thick that the conductor of a motor-omnibus, who had left his vehicle to discover his whereabouts, was unable to find it again. I feel sorry for that man, for a fog ashore is always an inconvenience and a nuisance, sometimes even a positive danger. But a real fog at sea is ever a ghastly nightmare; while thick weather in war-time, when one has to pursue a zigzag and serpentine track along a coast to dodge well-sown minefields laid for one's especial discomfiture and disintegration by an obliging and thoughtful cousin from the other side of the North Sea—well, the less said about it the better. Moreover, when the restricted navigable channels are crowded with merchant ships which the presence of mines and enemy submarines does not seem to deter, and when most of the buoys and navigational safeguards have been removed for the annoyance of the afore-mentioned Hun submarine, the difficulties are increased. Piloting a vessel in such circumstances might perhaps appeal to some jaded individual in search of new thrills; but to the ordinary simple sailor, who gets his thrills as regularly as clockwork free, gratis, and for nothing, an off-shore fog is an invention of the Evil One.
So when, during the Mariner's first passage, Wooten noticed the horizon to seaward was gradually becoming obliterated in a luminous haze, and the outline of the land was rapidly becoming less and less distinct in white, cotton-wool-like puffs of vapour, he cursed gently and felt anxious.
'Yes,' he growled disgustedly to the first lieutenant, whose watch it was, 'we're in for a regular thick un. D'you see this little lot?' He placed a finger on a large red oblong outlined on the chart.
MacDonald nodded.
'That's their latest minefield,' the skipper continued. 'According to all accounts it's a pretty good un, as four steamers have been blown up there within the last two days. We shall be up to this corner of it in about a quarter of an hour, and we've got to snuggle in between it and the shore somehow. I don't much fancy running along within a mile of the coast if we can't see a yard in front of our faces. However,' he added with a sigh, 'I suppose it's got to be done.'
The first lieutenant looked at the chart. 'We can ease down and run a line of soundings, sir,' he observed; 'but even then I doubt if the lead'll tell us much. The water's under ten fathoms the whole way, and we might pile up on one of these banks before we know where we are. They're steep to.'[ [33] He pointed to some patches of closely clustered dots representing sandbanks. 'Perhaps we might pick up one of the buoys, sir?' he added hopefully.
Wooten seemed doubtful. 'Most of 'em have been taken away,' he answered. 'I do wish these perishin' Huns would go and do their dirty work somewhere else! Our compasses are none too accurate, and Heaven alone knows exactly what the tide is doing.' He was very much annoyed, and not a little apprehensive; for the haze over the land was getting thicker every minute, and there was no breeze to dispel it.
Ten minutes later the Mariner was travelling in a cold and clammy mist through which it was impossible to see more than a mile; while five minutes afterwards she had run into a solid wall of thick gray fog, and their range of vision was bounded by a narrow circle with a radius of barely a hundred yards.
'Damn!' Wooten muttered fiercely, stepping to the engine-room telegraph and turning the handle until the pointer showed the revolutions of the turbines for ten knots.
With the sounding-machine going every five minutes, the siren wailing mournfully every two, and extra lookouts placed on the forecastle, they groped their way blindly on. It was trying work; for, now that the fog had shut down, the neighbourhood at once seemed crowded with other ships, the dismal hooting of whose sirens and steam-whistles came from all directions at the same time. The noises they made were curious. Some barked like dogs; others cleared their throats noisily, or stammered and yelped shrilly; while more boomed and bellowed like cattle, howled liked wolves, or laughed like jackasses.
'I've heard a farmyard in the early mornin',' Wooten observed; 'but the racket that's going on now fairly licks creation.'
Once they sighted a huge dull blur in the haze right ahead, and the skipper, holding his breath, jammed the helm over just in time to avoid a large Norwegian tramp laden with timber. The vessels slid by each other barely twenty feet apart, and as they passed a man with an excited purple face and a white beard leant over her bridge-rail gesticulating wildly. 'Why for you no look where you come?' he bellowed in incoherent and very bad English.
'Don't get excited, Father Christmas!' Wooten retaliated, justly annoyed. 'Why the deuce don't you sound your hooter, you perishin' pirate?'
The master of the steamer waved his fists excitedly, but before he could collect his wits and think of anything further to say the vessels had slid past each other and were out of sight and earshot.
For an hour the Mariner travelled on, with the fog as thick as ever. They were running down the Channel between the minefield and the banks lying off the shore; but in spite of the fact that they were working entirely by dead reckoning, and the tide was an unknown quantity, nothing unforeseen occurred.
'What the deuce is that?' asked MacDonald, as an excited, irregular, and strident 'He-he-haw-haw-haw!' burst out from the murk ahead.
Wooten laughed. 'Sounds exactly like a donkey braying,' he said. 'As a matter of fact, it's some blighter playing on one of those hand fog-horns. Sailing-craft of sorts. He's right ahead, too. Keep your eyes skinned!'
A moment later there came a wild yell from the forecastle, 'Ship right a'ead, sir!'
'Starboard! Hard a-starboard!' the skipper ordered at once, as a blurred silhouette came out of the mist right under the destroyer's bows. 'By George! we've got her!' His heart was in his mouth, and he gripped the rail convulsively and waited for the crash.
But they didn't hit her quite; for the Mariner, turning sharply to port under her helm, just shaved past within a fathom of a small decked sailing-boat with brown, idly flapping sails. An ancient mariner in a billycock hat at her wheel stared up open-mouthed at the destroyer's bridge, and then, yelling like a maniac, darted aft and hauled in on the painter of the dinghy towing astern. He did it just in time to save his small boat from being run into and destroyed. Farther forward a red-faced boy, with one hand on the pump-handle of a battered brass fog-horn, looked up with frightened eyes, as they passed so close that Wooten could almost see the drops of moisture on his rough blue jersey.
The midship gun's crew happened to be cleaning their weapon as the boat drifted by.
''Ow do, granfer?' said the irrepressible Billings, stepping to the rail and removing his cap with a low bow. 'Where did yer git that 'at?'
'You keep a civil tongue in yer —— 'ead!' retorted the aged fisherman with some heat.
'Now then, yer naughty boy,' answered the seaman, wagging a finger reprovingly, 'don't git usin' sich langwidge. Comin' aboard ter 'ave a nice drop o' rum?'
'Go to 'ell!' shouted the naughty boy, purple in the face. 'You —— torpeder deestroyers'll be the —— death o' th' likes o' me! Second —— time we've bin nearly run down this marnin'! W'y can't you —— look where you're —— well goin'? We've got our —— livin' to get'—— The remainder of his remarks were inaudible as his craft dropped astern and was swallowed up in the fog.
'Nice ole gent, ain't 'e?' Billings remarked with a grin, gazing after the boat with admiration. 'Don't 'e talk well? I 'specs, if we really know'd it, that ole bloke is a shinin' light in one o' these 'ere chapels ashore. Don't matter wot yer sez an' does in the week, s'long as yer good an' goes ter chapel reg'lar o' Sundays.'
''Ow often does we git these 'ere fogs?' queried Pincher, a trifle anxiously. ''Ow in 'ell does the skipper know where-abouts th' bloomin' ship is if 'e carn't see nothink?'
''Ow do, granfer? Where did yer git that 'at?'
Page 230.
Joshua smiled condescendingly. 'Fawgs!' he said. 'Sometimes we 'as 'em in th' North Sea fur days an' days on end—weeks sometimes.'
'But 'ow does ships find their way abart then?' Pincher persisted.
'Find their way abart?' Billings repeated, scratching his nose with an oily forefinger. 'I dunno rightly. They eases down an' keeps their soundin'-machines goin' reg'lar, an' uses their compasses; but I reckons they doesn't allus know where they is. They pretends to, o' course, but I believe they trusts ter luck more 'n 'arf th' time.'
Martin sucked his teeth. 'But supposin' we 'its somethink?' he asked. 'Supposin' we 'ad a bargin' match wi' another ship, or runs ashore?'
Billings grunted. 'W'en that 'appens yer kin start thinkin' abart it,' he returned. 'It's no good yer troublin' yer 'ead abart wot may 'appen; yer won't git no sleep, an' won't 'ave no happetite, if yer does. S'pose we gits blowed up by a mine or by one o' them there ruddy submarines; s'pose we 'as a collision wi' somethink a bit bigger'n ourselves, or per'aps 'as a bomb dropped on our 'eads from a bloomin' hairyoplane or a Zeppeling?'
'Well, an' wot abart it?' demanded the ordinary seaman, rather perturbed at Billings's summing up of the different ways in which they might meet their fate.
'Wot abart it? Why, I tells yer it ain't no use yer worryin'. If we does 'ave bad luck an' 'as an 'orrible disaster, shove yer life-belt on an' trust ter luck, same as yer did in th' ole Belligerent. It takes an 'ell of a lot to sink a deestroyer,' Joshua added. 'I've seen 'em 'arter collisions wi' their bows cut orf, their starns missin', an' chopped clean in 'alves, I 'ave; but still they floated some'ow, an' wus towed back 'ome inter 'arbour.'
'I don't fancy seein' this 'ere ship chopped in 'alves,' said Pincher dubiously.
'Don't talk so wet,' Joshua growled. 'Yer ain't frightened, are yer?'
'Course I ain't!' came the indignant reply.
'Yer looks ter me as if yer wus,' said the A.B. 'But, any'ow, don't worry yer 'ead. A deestroyer's a ruddy sight safer'n some other ships. We've got speed, we 'ave, an' kin run away if we're chased by an 'ostile cruiser, an' we don't draw too much water fur bumpin' mines and sichlike. Jolly sight safer 'n livin' ashore, I calls it.'
'I dunno so much.'
'Course it is. Look at th' ways yer kin lose th' number o' yer mess w'en ye're livin' on th' beach,' Billings replied with a snort. 'Yer kin be run over an' laid out by a motor-bus. Yer kin be drownded in yer barth, or git a chimney-pot dropped on yer napper in a gale o' wind. Yer kin be suffocated in yer bed if yer leaves th' gas burnin', an''——
'An' yer nearly dies o' suffocation if yer drinks more 'n a gallon o' beer,' chimed in another man, who knew Billings's past history.
Joshua turned round wrathfully. 'I don't stan' no sauce from th' likes o' you, Dogo!' he exclaimed, advancing threateningly.
'It's true, ain't it?' queried Dogo, retreating to a convenient distance. 'Besides, I never said 'oo it wus 'oo nearly died o' suffocation, did I?'
'No, but I knows ruddy well 'oo yer means, yer perishin' lop-eared milkman; an' nex' time yer sez things ter me I'll give yer a clip 'longside th' ear'ole as'll keep yer thinkin' abart it fur a week!'
The bystanders laughed.
'Don't you take no notice o' 'im, Pincher,' Joshua went on. ''E ain't no sailor. Afore this 'ere war started 'e wus drivin' one o' these 'ere milk-carts an' shoutin' "Milk-o!" artside th' 'ouses, an' makin' love ter th' slaveys!' It was perfectly true so far as the driving of the milk-chariot was concerned, for Dogo Pearson, after serving his first period in the navy, had retired into civil life as a milkman, only to be called up again on the outbreak of war.
It was Dogo's turn to get angry. 'Look 'ere, Billin's!' he said angrily; 'I'll 'ave yer know'——
'You men had better be gettin' on with cleanin' that gun!' came the wrathful voice of Mr Menotti, who had come forward unseen. 'It's not half done, red rust everywhere, an' you're all standin' round spinnin' yarns. Get a move on, or I'll have you up here cleanin' it in your spare time!'
The argument ceased, and the gun's crew, stifling their amusement, busied themselves with their emery-paper, bath-brick, and polishing-rags.
'You wait till I gits yer on th' mess-deck, me boy-o!' growled Joshua sotto voce when the gunner's back was turned.
'Orl right, chum,' Dogo grinned unconcernedly; 'don't go gittin' rattled.'
Billings was really a great friend of his.
All things come to an end in time, even sea fogs, and that same evening the Mariner steamed jauntily into her first port of call and dropped her anchor.
'I'm glad you've arrived all right,' said the senior naval officer when Wooten went over to report himself. 'To tell the truth, we were a bit anxious about you.'
'Anxious, sir! Why?'
'We've had to close the Channel to all traffic until it's been swept,' said the S.N.O. 'A steamer went up on a mine bang in the middle of the fairway about an hour after you must have passed the place.'
'Good Lord!' the lieutenant-commander ejaculated with a sigh of relief.
The S.N.O., who was used to such things, smiled blandly. 'Have a cigarette,' he said, pushing the box across. 'What about a glass of brown sherry? I've just got a new lot in, and it's rather good stuff.' He reached up and fingered a hanging bell-push.
'Thank you, sir. I think I will.'
The S.N.O. rang the bell for his steward.