'And a jolly fine message, too,' Tickle muttered to himself. 'God bless him!'
Almost simultaneously came the official intimation that a state of war existed between Great Britain and Germany as from eleven P.M. on 4th August. The news spread like wildfire, and the 'Belligerents,' not to be outdone, left their hammocks en masse, crowded on the upper deck, and gave vent to their pent-up feelings and enthusiasm in volley after volley of cheers. They were quite irrepressible, and before very long the 'squeegee band,'[ [29] composed of two drums, a dozen fifes, many mouth-organs, and an unholy number of mess kettles and other noisy utensils, was marching round the deck making the night hideous. The noise did not cease till well after midnight.
War had come.
II.
The chaplain leant back in his chair with a yawn, knocked out and refilled his pipe, lit it, and then gazed wearily and with great distaste at the pile of letters and post-cards on the table in front of him. He, Peter Wooten, the senior watch-keeper, and Hannibal Chance, the captain of marines, were the three officers whose unenviable duty it was to censor all the outgoing private correspondence of the officers and men. As a rule they took the days in turn; but on Saturdays and Sundays, when the men had had more time to themselves and more opportunities for writing, the mail bound London-wards assumed colossal proportions, and all three censors had to buckle to to get the work done in time. To-day happened to be a Sunday, and his reverence had retired to his cabin after tea with a bag full of letters and post-cards to be read through before he took his evening service at six o'clock. Wooten and Chance were in their respective apartments doing the same.
It was a dismal job at the best of times, this prying into other people's private correspondence, and the padre, for one, hated it. But he realised it was necessary. The censorship had been enforced from the very outbreak of hostilities; and though letters could be written, provided they were presented unsealed, post-cards seemed more fashionable. They were examined, stamped 'Passed by Ship's Censor,' and then despatched in sealed bags to the G.P.O., London, whence they were forwarded to their destinations. Sealed letters, uncensored, could also be sent in the ordinary way; but these were subject to considerable delay in transmission, and were not very popular. They could, moreover, be examined at any time if considered at all suspicious. The movements of the fleet or of individual ships, and details of other vital matters which might be of use to the ever-inquisitive Hun, were rigidly taboo. The restrictions, sweeping as they were, did away at one fell swoop with practically all the subject-matter for an ordinary peace-time communication; but in spite of it officers and men found plenty to write about, and plenty of people to write to. Long-forgotten grandmothers, aunts, female cousins, and other people's sisters seemed to have come up to the scratch in a most extraordinary way, and those men who had few friends and relations, and whose correspondence was limited in ordinary times to perhaps one letter a month, now received and wrote three or four a week. Very nice for the men, no doubt, to be able to feel that those at home took an interest in their welfare, but rather trying for the censors in a ship with a company of eight to nine hundred souls.
Taking up his blue pencil, the padre selected a missive from the pile in front of him. It was from FitzJohnson, and was addressed to his outfitter:
'Dear Sir,—I shall be much obliged if you will kindly send me as soon as possible one pair of uniform trousers, one pair of patent leather evening pumps, and one uniform cap, size 6⅞. The last monkey-jacket I had from you a week ago I am returning for alteration. It is rather tight across the'——
Having got thus far, his reverence inserted the letter in its envelope, moistened the flap with a small sponge, and then dabbed at it with a large rubber stamp and pushed it aside. It was 'passed' all right; but he vaguely wondered what on earth the Dook proposed to do with dancing-pumps on board a battleship in time of war.
The next missive, a post-card, written by some one to his wife, was slightly more exciting: