Chase laughed. 'It's all jolly well for you to talk,' he answered good-naturedly. 'You've the prospect of a night in your bunk. I may be dragged out at any time to get the anchor up if we go to sea. Besides, the sailors are at night defence stations, and it's my morning watch. Heigho! it's jolly nigh time I turned in.' He glanced up at the clock.
'Won't any one play bridge?' the fleet paymaster inquired plaintively, looking round. 'The night's still young.'
All the usual habitués of the game shook their heads in dissent.
'This isn't an evening for bridge at all,' chipped in the engineer-commander disapprovingly, looking up over the edge of his paper. 'We don't want to be like Nero, fiddling while Rome burnt.'
'What bunkum you talk, chief!' retorted Cashley. 'Because we're going to war is no reason why we shouldn't have a little innocent amusement. What about Drake and his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe?'
'That yarn's all rot!' said the engineer-commander. 'I know it's quoted in all the history books; but I don't believe it's true, all the same.'
'And I,' said Chase, knocking out his pipe, 'would most respectfully submit, my dear Pay, that the defeat of the Spanish Armada took place in Anno Domini 1588.'
'And what the deuce has that got to do with it?'
'Merely that such things as wireless telegraphy, submarines, and destroyers steaming thirty-five knots weren't invented when Sir Francis served in the Home Fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham.'
'Well,' Cashley observed with a sigh, seeing his efforts were quite futile, 'I'm sure bridge wasn't invented in Drake's time either, or he'd have taken to the game at once. It's an excellent stimulant for one's brain. However, since you're all so mouldy, I suppose I must hie me to the fastnesses of my apartment and turn in. Good-night, everybody.' He left the wardroom and closed the door behind him.