V
THE KING'S PARDON
Ask the first thousand bluejackets you meet ashore, any afternoon the Fleet is giving leave, why they joined the navy. Nine hundred and ninety-nine will eye you suspiciously, awaiting the inevitable tract. If none is forthcoming they will give a short, grim laugh, shake their heads, and, as likely as not, expectorate. These portents may be taken to imply that they really do not know themselves, or are too shy to say so, if they do.
The thousandth does not laugh. He may shake his head; spit he certainly will. And then, scenting silent sympathy, he guides you to a quiet bar-parlour where you can pay for his beer while he talks.
This is the man with a past and a grievance.
* * * * *
Nosey Baines, Stoker Second-class, was a man with a past. He also owned a grievance when he presented himself for entry into His Majesty's Navy. They were about his only possessions.
"Nosey" was not, of course, his strict baptismal name. That was Orson—no less. Therein lay the past. "Nosey" was the result of facial peculiarities quite beyond his control. His nose was out of proportion to the remainder of his features. This system of nomenclature survives from the Stone Age, and, sailors being conservative folk, still finds favour on the lower-decks of H.M. Ships and Vessels.
The Writer in the Certificate Office at the Naval Depot, where Nosey Baines was entered for service as a Second-class Stoker under training, had had a busy morning. There had been a rush of new entries owing to the conclusion of the hop-picking season, the insolvency of a local ginger-beer bottling factory, and other mysterious influences. Nosey's parchment certificate (that document which accompanies a man from ship to ship, and, containing all particulars relating to him, is said to be a man's passport through life) was the nineteenth he had made out that morning.
"Name?"