"Fine," he replied. "She's going as well as she did when I was an Engineer-Sub and tinkered that scrap-heap through a Commission in the Pacific. But don't you worry, sir," he said, with one of his bird-like sidelong glances, "we'll get the old hooker alongside that Mole if the bottom drops out of her."
In so saying, I think he somehow voiced the feeling that was predominant in all our hearts.
The Padre held a sort of informal service later, on the upper deck, which was attended by all who could be spared from their duties. The light was fading from the sky, and the violet shadows of evening were closing in on us. The men's faces, as they stood bareheaded and intent upon his words, were whitely visible from the bridge.
The attack was timed for midnight but it was half an hour before that when we saw the first gleam of star-shell that betrayed an apprehensive spirit amongst the Boches. Our Coastal Motor Boats and Motor Launches had been at work some time, and were weaving their curtains of artificial fog to and fro across the harbour mouth. We heard the occasional distant boom of a gun, but nothing that betokened a bombardment or that the enemy had any real inkling of what was afoot. One by one we picked up the mark buoys that had been laid since dark by the dauntless C.M.B.'s.
The moments passed, and the tension grew with every muffled throb of the engines. The batteries were crowded with silent men, and the starlight gleamed on their steel helmets and here and there a naked bayonet. Somewhere in front of those densely packed ranks were Milsom and his six Subalterns and Mouldy Jakes, his impassive features hidden by a gas mask. He had donned it some time previously, and persisted in wearing it "as a type of English beauty," he said, and shook hands in silence before he went to his post. Milsom and I had a few words outside the flame-thrower's hut a little while after that.
"I knew of this show before you did, Hornby," he said laughingly, as he broke open a packet of revolver ammunition. "D'you remember that night in the Dockyard when we said good night?"
"Yes," I said. "'Stonework and searchlights.'"
"That's it. It puzzled me at the time, but I'll know all about it in a little while. And the rest——"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell? It's written somewhere, I suppose?
"'Nor all thy piety and wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.'