“Father,” said the mate again, and shook him, as if trying to awaken someone from sleep. “Be ye hurted terrible bad?”
The grim old seadog raised his head, and his son saw that he was blind.
“Pitch the codes overboard,” he said. “I’m blind an’ stone deaf, an’ my guts are all abroad under me, but ye’ll fight the little gun while there’s a shell left aboard....”
The mate stood up and looked aft along the splintered, bloody deck, beyond the smoke and steam trailing to leeward.
“The gun’s wrecked,” he said slowly, as if speaking to himself. “The little smacks are clear o’ danger.... The destroyers are comin’ up.... Ye have fought a good fight, father.” The submarine had ceased fire, and as he spoke, she submerged and vanished sullenly, like a wild beast baulked of its prey.
. . . . .
An old woman sat knitting beside the fire in the heart of a Midland town next day. The door opened and a girl came in quickly, with a shawl over her head and a basket on her arm.
“There’s a surprise for supper,” she said.
The old woman looked inside the basket. “Herrin’!” she said. “What did they cost?”
“Tuppence apiece,” replied the girl lightly, as she hung up her shawl.