The Onlooker was touched. “Thank you,” he said. “If I may borrow it for the afternoon....”
. . . . .
The clatter of cups and saucers in the neighbouring pantry guided his footsteps to the wardroom in search of tea. That the warning had gone round was evident from the prevalent wakefulness (unusual at that hour) of all the occupants of the mess. Everyone was garbed for the fray according to his prospective rôle or individual taste. Costumes ranged between cricketing flannels and duffle overalls with Balaclava helmets and sea-boots.
It might reasonably have been expected that one topic and one only—“Der Tag”—would have been on everyone’s lips. The German Fleet was out: was even then being lured north by the battle cruisers, and the Fleet was rushing to meet it in battle-array. The hour for which the Fleet had waited twenty-two weary months was about to strike: and no one even mentioned it.
The affectation was somehow peculiarly British. Drake epitomised it for all time when he declared there was time to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too; but it is a question whether the self-conscious imperturbability of that game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe equalled that of the Fleet flagship’s wardroom as its members sat in noisy banter round the tea table, munching bread-and-jam with a furtive eye on the clock....
It was left to the commander-in-chief’s flag lieutenant to break the spell. He put down his cup with a clatter, picked up his telescope, and rose to his feet, fastening the toggles of his duffle coat.
“Well, boys ...?” he said, and walked towards the door as the bugles began to blare along mess-deck and battery.
. . . . .
Concealment of his emotions is not a marked characteristic of the British bluejacket or marine, whatever affectations may be cherished by his officers in that respect. The exultant speculations, prophecies, and thanksgiving of a thousand men, crowded in those confined spaces, met the ear with a noise like the sea. Commonplace sounds suddenly acquired a thrilling significance, and the clang of the securing chains of the guns as they were released, the tireless drone of the turbines far below, shrilling pipe and blare of bugle overhead, combined to set the pulses at a gallop. The Onlooker passed forward through that electrical tide of emotion and laughing men that surged towards the hatchways, and en route overtook a leading seaman. He was normally a staid, unemotional individual, known best (from the standpoint of censor) as an incorrigible letter-writer. He was capering, literally capering, along the battery. And as he capered he shouted:
“They’re out, lads! they’re out! Christ! They’re out this time!”