II.
That night the staff-room was full to overflowing when Dixie brought in the brass tray covered with cocktails.
The staff-room at this time was a small narrow place, so narrow that when anybody sat down everybody else fell over his feet. It was just big enough to hold, with a little packing, the heads of departments who were permanently attached to the station, and it had become their room by an unwritten law. But now all hands were crowded in.
Everybody was standing, there was no room to do anything else, and a fine of half a crown fell on anybody who sat on the arm of a chair, a rule enforced to preserve the integrity of the furniture.
The noise was prodigious. All were talking, nobody listening. A lad from up North had just finished telling me a yarn.
"The Orks are the limit," he said. "A Fritz ran ashore at half tide on a small island just outside Kirkwall in the Orkneys. The crew got busy and took all their ammunition and heavy gear ashore to lighten her and got her off next tide. It's a desolate place, the butt-end of nowhere, but an Ork saw them. He was sent for by the S.N.O.
"'Did you know they were Germans?' he was asked.
"'I thought they werena talking English,' the Ork replied cautiously.
"'Why did you not warn the coastguard at the telephone?'
"'They might ha' shot at me.'
"'Did you know you would have got a big reward?'
"'Reward! Hoo much?'
"'A hundred pound.'
"'A hunder poonds! If I'd knawn that I'd have rin like h——!'
"I saw him the other day," concluded the pilot, "and he hasn't yet recovered from his loss."
Number One, who had just entered, was saying to Billiken: "Well, young Hobbs, I suppose you are proud of yourself...." Dickey was over in the corner telling Pat, Jumbo, and the Padre all the horrible details. Pat was interjecting at intervals: "And the gun did not jam." The Padre was saying under his breath: "Poor souls. Poor souls."
Leslie, Tiny, Spring-heel Jack and the rest were talking at a rate of knots, discussing whether Zepps would give us any further chances, or if they would now fly high. As a matter of fact they did fly high from that time on, airships which could not get above ten thousand feet being withdrawn from the operations in the North Sea.
Every few minutes a signalman would wedge himself into the room bringing a signal of congratulation.
Then the Chief Steward entered and announced to Number One: "Dinner is served, sir."
The mess was a long room running the full width of the building. The rafters and roof were painted a light grey, and the walls green, a shade of green which could only be conceived by a naval rating and mixed in a ship's paint-room. A long table ran the full length of the mess, crossed at each end by a short table, and the Chief Steward had contrived a specially fine display of flowers and decorated the table with large mats having navy-blue borders, the centres embroidered with gold eagles, the noble bird which is the emblem of the flying service.
Number One rapped on the table with a little mahogany mallet made from the wood of a flying-boat. A sharp silence. And then the padre said grace, "Thank God."
The dinner was good, our cook had been a chef at the Ritz before getting into uniform. Out on the verandah the ship's band played airs, ancient and modern. The members of the band were the only men in the ship's company that Number One did not begrudge letting off attendance at divisions.
The port and sherry decanters circulated. Two sharp raps on the table, and the King's health was drunk sitting, navy fashion.
A telegram of congratulations from Admiral Jellicoe was read, followed by a long list from friends of the station; and then somebody sang out, "At 'em, Tiny," and the portly one in another second was on his feet saying—
"Mr President, I beg to propose the health of Sub-Lieut. Hobbs and Sub-Lieut. Dickey...."
Immediately after the King's health six sad officers left the table and went to their cabins. They were the Duty Pilots who had to turn out an hour before daybreak next morning to go on patrol.
Spring-heel Jack told me during dinner that throughout the entire day the German wireless stations had been calling frantically to L 43.