Cook, a stout sentimentalist, afterwards bade the old woman draw a chair to the fire and together they brewed strong tea.
"I've buried two husbands," she said, "but never a bairn have I borne. I don't know but what you're to be envied, Mrs. Jones. Her ladyship, she gave her only son, same's what you did, and her heart is broken. But she holds her head the prouder 'There's worse things than dyin' for the right,' she sez." Cook dabbed at her eyes with a huge pocket-handkerchief.
Janet, the trim housemaid, was interested in the Navy for personal reasons in which a good-looking signalman "on Jellicoe's boat" played a considerable part. She it was, early the following morning, who took Maggie Ann in hand. "Did you ever see such hair wasted?" she said, contemplating Maggie Ann's honey-coloured tangled thatch. "Even if you are going to your brother's funeral..." and bade her comb it, and dressed it with such cunning that the pale slatternly girl stood silent, staring before the mirror. The generous enthusiasm of the woman who is fond of her sex seized Janet. "Here," she said. "Put this blouse on; it's one her ladyship gave me. I don't want it. And see if these boots will fit you.... Oh! what stockings—wait a minute." Drawers were rummaged, bits of lace and crape unearthed, the married sister's hat was pounced upon and underwent a swift metamorphosis in Janet's nimble fingers. "There!" she said at length. "Why, I believe you're pretty!" Maggie Ann turned from the glass with her hazel eyes aglow, and a faint colour creeping towards the cheek bones set wide apart in her pale face.
2
Towards dawn a British Destroyer limped into the little harbour embraced by one flank of the headland where the coastguard station stood.
One of the blades of the Destroyer's propeller was missing, and the "A" bracket, designed to support the shaft, threatened to decline any further responsibility in the matter.
The Destroyer had sighted an enemy submarine on the surface at close quarters during the night. The submarine had dived with commendable promptitude, but not quite fast enough to avoid the nimbly manœuvred Destroyer, who grated over her outer skin at thirty knots. The conning tower of the submarine, which bumped along the length of the Destroyer's side, was responsible for the disinclination of the "A" bracket for anything but a merely passive attitude towards the damaged propeller.
A couple of depth charges accelerated the submersion of the submarine considerably, and the Destroyer made for the nearest harbour with leaking stern-glands, and a ship's company uplifted beyond mere jubilation.
The Commanding Officer went ashore to telegraph his report of the incident, while the Chief Artificer Engineer and the Blacksmith put their heads together over the fractured "A" bracket.
Ashore, the Lieutenant-Commander encountered the Chief Officer of the Coastguard.