It was the supper hour on board the Cruiser, and the "watch below" were enjoying their leisure, after the fashion of the sailor-man, along the crowded batteries. The sailor's meal, especially in war time, is a satisfying affair; but he does not linger over it as one lingers over the tea-table ashore. For one thing, the surroundings are cramped and stuffy, and the time is short; there are other needs more pressing: there is a duck jumper to be scrubbed by to-morrow perhaps; or a few more inches to be added to the wonderful patchwork quilt destined some day to be the pride and ornament of somebody's home. Besides, on deck one can smoke a pipe.
The battery was thronged with men; many were sitting in pairs at a mess-kettle, up to their elbows in soap-suds; forward by the break of the forecastle the ship's barber was reaping a rich harvest of pennies—a "penny a shave and twopence hair-cut" is the recognised tariff. A sewing-machine whirred busily in the lee of a gun-shield; the crew "standing by" the gun exchanged lazy chaff with the bearded sempster. Their watch was nearly at an end, and with the prospect of a meal ahead the sailor brightens wonderfully. The ship's pet goat wandered from group to group, gravely accepting the attentions—cigarettes, banana-skins, and the like—that came his way during stand-easy.
Out of the wreaths of fog and tobacco-smoke forward drifted presently the strains of an accordion——
"It's a long, long way to Tipperary...." The voices of the men, singing under their breath as they worked, blended restfully with the throb of the engines and the swish of water past the ship's side. A little breeze sprang up, tearing rifts here and there in the surrounding fog; a few pale gleams of sunlight filtered through, and on the fore-bridge of the Cruiser the Yeoman of Signals raised his glass and steadied it against the topmost rail. Suddenly he stiffened like a pointer.
"Trawler right ahead, sir!" His lynx-like eye and almost lifelong training told before the others could see anything. The Captain stepped out of the tiny chart-house, where he had been busy with the chart and a pair of dividers.
"There, sir." The Officer of the Watch extended his arm and forefinger. The Navigating Lieutenant joined them, and together they peered through the shifting veil of vapour.
"Yes, I see...." The Captain adjusted his glasses the fraction of a degree. "She's flying our colours ... Can you see her number...?" The Officer of the Watch moved to the voice-pipe, as if to give an order to the helmsman.
"No; steady as you go!" said the Captain. "She's a mile away yet. I want to see her a bit closer—ah..." He broke off disgustedly as the fog closed down on them again, blotting out the pale sunlight. The distant trawler vanished as a picture vanishes from the screen when a hand withdraws the lantern slide. The Captain blinked as the tiny beads of moisture collected on his eyelashes, and rubbed his glasses impatiently. "Damn this fog! Put a look-out in the eyes of the ship." Going to the voice-pipe, he gave a curt order to the Quartermaster at the helm and came back again to the compass. "I didn't like the look of that fellow, for all his display of bunting. Too many men on deck for one of our trawlers." He looked up into the blindfold drifts overhead. "Oh, for one little minute...!"
The Officer of the Watch had stepped to the head of the ladder and beckoned to a messenger:
"Jump down and tell the Captain of the Forecastle to tell off a hand as look-out forward in the eyes of the ship. He's to get him there at once!"