"What price old Mouldy?" asked the listeners. "Utterly unmoved, I suppose! Lord, I'd love to have seen him!"
"Oh, bored stiff by the whole performance, of course. Still he did make one wild leap for the gun and got off a round at point-blank range. Hit her just below the conning tower. She must have been in diving trim, because she went down like a stone, bubbling like an empty soda-water bottle."
"What about the Huns in the water?" demanded the enthralled Clerk.
"We could only find one. The other must have got mixed up with the submarine's propeller. The one we picked up was nearly done and awfully surprised because we gave him dry clothes and hot drinks and a smoke, and didn't spit in his eye or anything of that sort. Said their officers always told them we illtreated our prisoners. Aren't they Nature's little Nobs?"
There was a little silence, each one busy with his own thoughts.
Finally one broke the silence, voicing the opinion of the rest:
"Well," he ejaculated, "some people have all the blinking luck. I've done about twenty night patrols since I've been up here and never seen anything 'cept a porpoise."
The Night Patroller lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke with the air of a man who had earned it. "You were at Suvla Bay and the landing from the River Clyde," he retorted. "You can't have every ruddy thing in life."
* * * * *
A fine day in Ultima Thule—they were rare—was an occasion for thankfulness and rejoicing. Directly after luncheon the members of Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy enjoyment peculiar to such exercise.
"It's make-and-mend this afternoon," said the Senior Midshipman, tilting his cap over his eyes and lazily watching the antics of a gull volplaning against the light wind. He sat on the deck with his back against the superstructure and his hands clasped round his knees.