It was something they were rather proud that the rest of the Fleet should see.
Moreover, the rest of the Fleet, leaning over the forecastle rails and smoking its evening pipe, did see, and was none the worse for it.
A man might have been excused if he betrayed some self-consciousness at finding himself thus suddenly the cynosure of a thousand-odd pair of eyes whose owners were doing their best to show him, after their fashion, that they thought him an uncommonly fine fellow. The atmosphere was electrical with this abrupt, boyish ebullition of feeling. Yet the Captain's face, as he took his seat, was as composed as if he were alone in the middle of his own wide moors. He lit a pipe and nodded to the Commander beside him to signify that as far as he was concerned the show could start as soon as they liked.
All happy ships own a sing-song party of some sort or another. It may be that the singers are content to sit pipe in mouth in the lee of a gunshield and croon in harmony as the dusk settles down on a day's work done. Other ships' companies are more ambitious; the canteen provides a property-box, and from a flag-decked stage the chosen performers declaim and clog-dance with all the circumstance of the drama.
In days of piping peace, the Operatic and Dramatic Company of this particular ship had known many vicissitudes. Under the guidance of a musically inclined Ship's Steward, it had faced audiences across impromptu footlights as "The Pale Pink Pierrots," and, as such, had achieved a meteoric distinction. But unhappily the Ship's Steward was partial to oysters, and bought a barrelful at an auction sale ashore. On the face of things, it appeared a bargain; but the Ship's Steward neglected to inquire too closely into the antecedents of its contents, and was duly wafted to other spheres of usefulness.
The Chaplain, an earnest man but tone-deaf, rallied the leaderless troupe of musicians. During the period of his directorship they were known to fame as "The Musical Coons." Musical in that each one wielded a musical instrument with which he made bold to claim acquaintance, Coons because they blacked their faces with burnt cork and had "corner-men." The corner-men were the weak spots in an otherwise well-planned organisation.
A sailor can be trusted with the integrity of a messmate's honour or the resources of the mint, conceivably with the key of a brewery cellar, and justify the confidence reposed in him. But he cannot be trusted to be a corner-man, "gagging" with a black face and a pair of bones. The Musical Coons dissolved after one performance, during which the Captain's brow grew black and the Chaplain turned faint, and an ecstatic ship's company shouted itself hoarse with delirious enjoyment.
Thereafter, for a period, the breath of rebuke and disrepute clung to the songsters; but a ship without a sing-song party is like a dog without a tail. A committee of Petty Officers waited upon the First Lieutenant, as men once proffered Cromwell the Protectorship of England, lest a worse thing befell them. The First Lieutenant, with a reluctance and a full sense of the responsibilities involved, that was also Cromwellian, finally consented to become the titular head of the sing-song party.
He it was, then, who rose from his chair, holding a slip of paper, and faced the great bank of faces with one hand raised to enjoin silence. The cheering redoubled.
For perhaps fifteen seconds he stood with raised hand, then he lowered it and the smile left his eyes. His brows lowered too. The cheering wavered, faltered, died away. They knew what Number One meant when he looked like that.