"Quite so," I observed politely. "And to revert to one big female creature, let us hear something of the Malplaquet."
"You at any rate are curious enough for a dozen. It would serve you right to keep you hopping a bit longer. But I have a kindly eye for human weakness, though you might not think it. I joined the ship on Thursday afternoon, slipping in as one of a detachment of fifty R.M.L.I. who had been wired for from Chatham. They were an emergency lot; we hadn't enough in the ship for the double sentry go that I wanted. All my plans were made with the Commander and Major Boyle, and they both did exactly what I told them. It isn't often that a private of Marines has the ordering about of two officers. But Dawson is Dawson; no common man. They did as I told them, and were glad to do it. I had extra light bulbs put on all over the lower decks and every dark corner lit up—except one. Just one. And this one was where the four gun-cables ran out of the switch-room and lay alongside one another before they branched off to the fore and after turrets and to the port and starboard side batteries. That was the most likely spot which any one wanting to cut the gun-wires would mark down, and I meant to watch it pretty closely myself. We had double sentries at the magazines. The Malplaquet is an oil-fired ship, so we hadn't any bothering coal bunkers to attract fancy bombs. I was pretty sure that after the Antinous and the Antigone we had mostly wire-cutting to fear. When a man has done one job successfully, and repeated it almost successfully, he is pretty certain to have a third shot. Besides, if one is out to delay a ship, cutting wires is as good a way as any. I had an idea that my man was not a bomber."
"I thought that you scorned theories," I put in dryly. "When they are wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are no help."
Dawson frowned. "Shut up, Copplestone," snapped Cary.
"We were in no danger from the lighting, heating, and telephone wires, for any defect would have been visible at once. It was the gun and gunnery control cables that were the weak spots. So I had L.T.O.'s posted in the spotting top, the conning tower, the transmission room, the four turrets, and at the side batteries. Every few minutes they put through tests which would have shown up at once any wires that had been tampered with. After the shore party had cleared out about nine o'clock on the Thursday, no officer or man was allowed to leave the ship without a special permit from the Commander. This was all dead against the sanitary regulations of the harbour, but I had the Admiral's authority to break any rules I pleased. By the way, you two ought never to have been allowed on board yesterday afternoon—I saw you, though you didn't see me; it was contrary to my orders. I spoke to the Admiral pretty sharp last night. 'Who is responsible for the ship?' says I. 'You or me?' 'You,' says he. 'I leave it at that,' says I."
"One moment, Dawson," I put in. "If the shore party had all gone, how was it that I saw Petty Officer Trehayne in the ship?"
"He had orders to stay and keep watch—though he didn't know I was on board myself. Two pairs of police eyes are better than one pair, and fifty times better than all the Navy eyes in the ship. Of all the simple-minded, unsuspicious beggars in the world, give me a pack of naval ratings! I wouldn't have one of them for sentries—that is why the fifty emergency Marines were sent for." Dawson's limitless pride in his old Service, and deep contempt for the mere sailor, had come back in full flood with the uniform of his Corps.
"I started my own sentry duty in the dark corner I told you of as soon as I had seen to the arrangements all over the Malplaquet, and I was there, with very few breaks of not more than five minutes each for a bite of food, for twenty-six hours. Two Marine sentries took my place whenever I was away. I had my rifle and bayonet, and stood back in a corner of a bulkhead where I couldn't be seen. The hours were awful long; I stood without hardly moving. All the pins and needles out of Redditch seemed to dance up and down me, but I stuck it out—and I had my reward, I had my reward. I did my duty, but it's a sick and sorry man that I am this day."
"There was nothing else to be done," I said. "What you feel now is a nervous reaction."
"That's about it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet—they were lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently, but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I heard six bells go in the first watch ('Eleven p.m.,' whispered Cary) on Friday evening, though there was a good bit of noise of getting ready to go out in the early morning, and I was beginning to think that all my trouble might go for naught, when a man in a Navy cap and overalls stopped just opposite my dark hole between two bulkheads. His face was turned from me, as he looked carefully up and down the lighted way. He stood there quite still for some seconds, and then stepped backwards towards me. I could see him plain against the light beyond. He listened for another minute or so, and, satisfied that no one was near, spun on his heels, whipped a tool from his dungaree overalls, and reached up to the wires which ran under the deck beams overhead. In spite of my aching joints and sore feet I was out in a flash and had my bayonet up against his chest. He didn't move till my point was through his clothes and into his flesh. I just shoved till he gave ground, and so, step by step, I pushed him with the point of my bayonet till he was under the lights. His arms had come down, he dropped the big shears with insulated handles which he had drawn from his pocket, but he didn't speak a word to me and I did not speak to him. I just held him there under the lights, and we looked at one another without a word spoken. There was no sign of surprise or fear in his face, just a queer little smile. Suddenly he moved, made a snatch at the front of his overalls, and put something into his mouth. I guessed what it was, but did not try to stop him; it was the best thing that he could do."