CHAPTER XXIX
WHO FIRED THAT TORPEDO?
It was close on eight o'clock on a clear October evening that Kenneth Meredith, promoted to Lieutenant-Commander R.N.V.R., and having the distinctive letters D.S.C. tacked on to his name, was pacing the crowded departure platform at King's Cross.
Six months was a big chunk out of a man's life—six months of comparative idleness, spent partly in Haslar Hospital, partly in a convalescent home on the South Coast, and latterly at his own home. But carving fantastic-shaped pieces of shell—which, being German by origin, showed decided tendencies to produce gangrene—out of a patient and allowing the wounds to heal takes time, especially when the fragments are lodged in close proximity to the spine. For some weeks it was touch and go, but Meredith's record of clean living and high vitality were in his favour. And now he found himself at King's Cross, bound north to take command of M.L. 1497, attached to the fleet at Scapa Flow.
Only once since that memorable May evening when he travelled south in a hospital train had Kenneth been in London. That was a fortnight ago, when he had business at the Admiralty. Just outside the old entrance he encountered a burly, bearded man with one arm in a sling and the D.S.O. ribbon on his breast. It was Morpeth, very much down in the mouth despite the fact that he had been decorated by his Sovereign. The grievance was that "Tough Geordie's" sea-days were over. Neither the Royal Navy nor the Mercantile Marine has a use for a one-armed man. It was useless to remind My Lords that Nelson was one-armed, besides possessing only one eye. Autres temps, autres moeurs. So Morpeth was given a pension for wounds and sent out to join the vast and ever-increasing throng of wounded heroes, to jog along as best he might on a sum that, taking into consideration the low purchasing power of a "Bradbury," was barely sufficient to keep his head above water.
Apart from that chance meeting, Meredith had heard from Morpeth but twice. The R.N.R. officer was a bad correspondent at the best of times, and now, hampered by physical disabilities, he simply could not bring himself to put pen to paper.
It was different as far as Wakefield was concerned. Wakefield, too, had passed through some critical moments during his prolonged stay in hospital, but from the first, even though he had to correspond through the medium of a hospital nurse, he never failed to keep in touch with his late subordinate and brother-in-arms. He had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and had been appointed to M.L. 1499, also attached to the Scapa Flow Base.
The two R.N.V.R. officers had arranged to travel north together; but the hour fixed for the departure of the train was drawing nigh, and Wakefield, who usually made a point of being half an hour too early rather than half a minute too late, had not yet put in an appearance.
Already Meredith had secured a doubleberth sleeping compartment and had handed his compact kit over to the care of the guard. The passengers were exclusively Naval, Military, or Air Force. Bluejackets, holding their scanty kit in black silk scarves, were conversing with khaki-clad Tommies equipped with rifles and bayonets, "tin-hats" and other paraphernalia associated with that delectable region known as "The Front." There were men, too, clad in tropical uniform and wearing sun-helmets, whose appearance contrasted vividly with a party of fur-clad Engineers about to leave for Northern Russia. Amongst the officers, who for the most part had already secured their seats and had bought evening papers from the loud-yelling newsboys, could be seen every diversity of uniform. Naval rig predominated, but there were khaki-clad infantry officers, kilted Highlanders, R.A.F.'s in gorgeous if unserviceable light blue, slouch-hatted Australians and Canadians, flat brim-hatted New Zealanders, and a solitary subaltern of an Indian regiment wearing a turban. One and all were going to be shed from the crowded train at various stopping-places between King's Cross and Thurso, their diverse ways governed by an all-absorbing factor—to break for ever the menace of Prussian Kaiserism.
Everywhere a cheerful spirit pervaded. The end was in sight. After over four years of desperate fighting, in which there were dark periods when it seemed as if Germany was having much her own way, there were unmistakable signs that the Hun was "cracking up." On the naval side things had been going steadily worse with her since the glorious operations that resulted in the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Almost from that time the submarine menace paled. Convoys of merchantmen were continuously arriving unscathed at British ports; a huge American army had been successfully transported across the Atlantic, and the U-boats had been powerless to say them nay. Rumours, that were subsequently confirmed, were in the air that the Hun High Seas Fleet had been ordered out to commit felo-de-se under the guns of the Grand Fleet, and that the crews had declined to sacrifice their lives even to please the whim of the arch cannon-fodder provider, the Emperor Wilhelm.
And on land things were no better for the Hun. His stupendous attempt to break through at Arras had failed. Another desperate effort against Paris had resulted in his masses being thrown back dispirited and disorganised. All along the line between the North Sea and the Swiss Frontier the field-grey troops were being pushed back, while elsewhere their allies—Turkish, Austrian, and Bulgarian—were practically "down and out."
Amongst the naval people the news was received phlegmatically. Rumours of a German naval mutiny had been received before—perhaps it was a move on Germany's part to throw us off our guard. It seemed impossible to think otherwise but that the Hun High Seas Fleet would put to sea as a forlorn hope. British naval officers generously tried to credit the Germans with a sense of honour approaching their own; hence they could not expect anything else but a big scrap before the end. It would be a foregone conclusion, but it would give the Huns a chance to vindicate themselves and the British to clinch the opportunity that they had missed at Jutland.
While his fellow passengers were discussing the world-wide situation in general and the naval one in particular, Meredith was still keeping watch for his chum Wakefield. Almost at the last minute Wakefield hove in sight, cheery and smiling as of yore, having in tow a bearded, greatcoated individual whom Meredith recognised as "Tough Geordie Morpeth."
"Let's get aboard," exclaimed Wakefield briskly. "We can kag afterwards.... Yes; Morpeth's coming along, too.... Never mind about a porter; we'll sling this gear into the corridor. In you hop, Morpeth. My word! it was a narrow shave, eh, what?"
The three edged along the corridor, making their way over handbags and portmanteaux until they came to the compartment Meredith had secured.
"Leave your kit here," he remarked. "I'll find the attendant and get you a berth, Morpeth. S'pose you're going beyond York?"
He looked inquiringly at the bearded R.N.R. man, who wore a brand-new uniform under his sea-stained greatcoat.
"Yes, to Scapa, too," he replied. "I've got a shore berth there. Goodness knows how. Someone put their oar in for me—must have done. Anyhow, it's good money and a chance to get afloat occasionally, so I jumped at it. 'Fraid it's only for the duration though."
And he sighed deeply. Like many another man whose heart and soul are wrapped up in his work, he both longed for and dreaded the time when "Fritz chucked his hand in."
Meredith helped him off with his coat.
"Jolly strange," remarked Morpeth, "being one-armed; but I'm getting used to it. Often I can feel my missing fingers—absolute fact."
He sat down on an upturned suit-case and proceeded to fill his well-blackened pipe with a dexterity that surprised his companions. "That's a thing I've no use for now," he added, indicating a razor that Wakefield was removing from a handbag. "Being single-handed, in a manner of speaking, gives me an excuse for not shaving."
Just then a short, thick-set man in the rig of a commander R.N.R. thrust his head through the doorway.
"Sorry," he exclaimed apologetically. "Thought there might be a vacant berth. Why, dash my wigs, it's 'Tough Geordie'!"
"Anderson, my lad, delighted! Squeeze in. We'll find a tot of something. I've a flask in my bag. Wakefield, an old chum of mine. And this is a young chum—Meredith by name."
"Let me see," remarked the commander. "Weren't you in a Q-boat? Yes, I thought so. Had many exciting stunts?"
"A few," replied Morpeth modestly. "One of the rummiest was when Wakefield tried to knock paint off my old hooker with his six-pounders, and I sank his little M.L."
"Accidents will happen," quoted Commander Anderson. "I nearly sank one of our own submarines once.... But your missing arm.... and the D.S.O. ribbon—what about that?"
"A little scrap," explained Morpeth. "I don't know why they gave me the D.S.O., although they said I torpedoed a Hun destroyer. For details ask Wakefield; he's our torpedo expert."
Wakefield flushed hotly.
"I don't know what you mean," he expostulated.
The conversation flowed into other channels, continuing briskly until someone suggested turning in.
Anderson said good-night, and resumed his interrupted search for somewhere to lay his head. Morpeth was about to follow Meredith to the berth the latter had secured for him, when Wakefield called the R.N.R. man back.
"Say," he remarked, lapsing into one of his Canadian-acquired expressions, "what did you mean when you told the merchant I was a torpedo expert?"
"Tough Geordie's" face wrinkled more than usual, as he playfully prodded Wakefield in the ribs with the fingers of his remaining hand.
"You're a sly dog, Wakefield," he chuckled; "but you can't get to wind'ard of Geordie Morpeth. Happened to meet one of my ship's company at Waterloo this morning, and he told me something that's been puzzling me for months past. You were the blighter who slapped that torpedo into the Hun torpedo boat; and that's what got me this."
And he touched the bit of ribbon on his coat.
"Tut, tut!" expostulated Wakefield. "No; I can't deny it since you've taxed me with it. But let the thing drop, Morpeth. If you don't, I'm hanged if I'll take you for a joy-ride in my M.L. as long as I'm at Scapa Flow. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you dear old thing!"